Utö FM-DX-started Monday 22.6 >

Utö FM-DX-started! Two listeners are now in distant Finnish Utö-island for FM-DX and later four listeners will join them this Friday, including me! This pedititon is up from 22.6 till 5.7.2009.
You can read Utö-pedition highlights from http://www.uto-fmdx.blogspot.com/.
We listen in these two little red cottages visible in this photo below (direction South is ahead from the door; left). Click the photo for bigger view:

Mon 22.6.2009

On Monday morning after 07utc some weak Arabic, Turkish and Ukrainan stations noted in South Finland, but nothing here.

Sun 21.6.2009: Spain, Africa, France

Sunday morning brought us nice conditions to Spain, France and even North Africa! Unfortunately I had to be at work for the best opening time because of one quick illness! I had to run out local church service for our local station in Salo (Radio Melodia, Salo, 88.2).
In South Finland Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia was up among many Spanish stations. These are quite rare in Finland although Algeria I have heard many times. This needs douple-hop for sure (3000 km).
Spanish stations were from Andalucia, South Spain, having about 3300 km skip.
Nothing special heard by me but I losed the best moments.

LOG Sun 21.6.2009 (07.45utc >)
88.0 - Radio 5 Todo Noticias, Andalucia, South Spain. This was up for almost 10 minutes with douple-hop (3300 km) - 08.30-
88.3 - RCF, France. I this this was St.Etienne (42) transmitter-site. Heard many times. - 10.38-
88.4 - Radio Tele Algérienne, Chaine 2 in Tamazight-langauge. Transmitter location Nador (see 94.7 below). NICE SIGNAL: mp3 - 10.10-
89.3 - UNID in Arabic. Libya is heard on this frequency in Benelux! (Libya is never identified in Finland!!). Only female talk, no hints. - 10.14-
90.8 - Onda Cero, Andalucia-tx (Sierra de Mijas/Monte Viego - same tower as 88.0 above) mp3 - 08.44-
91.0 - Radio Bruno, Carpi (MO), Italy. - 08.50-
91.1 - Radio Tonic, Chagny (71), France. Only RDS visible with accordeon music . 08.20-
94.7 - UNID, possibly Radio Tlemcen, Nador, Algeria because this was the only signal up at the same time with 88.4 MHz (Nador-tx-site).

Thu 18.6.2009: Weak Turkey

I was very lucky to notice very weak signals from Turkey today after 13utc!!
During about 10 minutes I heard only one Turkish commercial station on 88.0 MHz (no other Es-signals)!!
With the help from Marko Weck from Finland it is tracked this to be a station from Biga-city, about 170 km south west from Istanbul.
It seems this is Radio Pegai (www) from Biga!!
Here is a clip from the station's commercial-break: mp3!! Tuned 18.6.2009 on 88.0 MHz at 13.08utc.
These kind of weak distant signals are the most interesting!!
Let's see if I get any reply from the station. How to explain I heard it on FM because tehy have live stream on their page...

Tue 16.6.2009: Opening to North Italy

On Tuesday evening, 16.6. (1745utc >), there were 20+ minutes long condition to North Italy. Signals were quite strong giving RDS but MUF was not higher than 97 MHz.
I heard mostly stations which I have identified many many times before:

LOG Tue 16.6.2009
87.5 - Radio Zeta, Caravaggio >> Rete Malvisi later (also on 87.6) - 18.01-
87.8 - Radio Radicale, Piacenza-tx. Once I tried to visit this station locally in Pescara (summer 1984) but they did not let me in (left-wing radical station)!!! I talked with two sucpicious guys in the street and finally gave up - 17.54-
88.0 - Radio TRM, Milano (MI). Dance music and RDS flashed on the screen just when I arrived... No talk unfortunately - 17.45-
88.0 - Radio Milano (MI). The other stn on this same frq. in Milano! 18.00-
88.4 - Radio Padova - 18.05-
88.8 - Radio DJ. They have very creative programme jingles-efects-production also in Italy (French stations are clear leaders in sound-production in Europe)!!
91.2 - Radio Radar, Porretta Terme (BO). This was new catch for me. 17.59-
91.2 - Modena Radio City, Modena (MO) pushed over Radar. - 18.02-
91.9 - UNID giving spots to Firenze. Must be R. Blu (Prato/Pisa). - 18.03-
92.2 - RCN, Cremona (PC). - 17.50-

Sun 14.6.2009: Benelux and Denmark on FM !

The beginning of summer 2009 has been very very poor. Only two brief 1-2 minutes long openings to south... One of the worst starts ever!
Finally on Sunday evening 14th of June we had something happening. There were stations mainly from Holland but also some from Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, mainly strong high-power stations. Unfortunately this was not good condition and it lasted 50 minutes.
The highlight of the day was Denmark ! It is very rare here in SW Finland because the skip is so short. I identified Skala FM (www) from Esbjerg, on 87.6 and 88.4 MHz playing Top 40-programme. Here is mp3 from 88.4 MHz, playing "Human" by Killers after ID. The other Danish was Nova FM tentatively on 89.3 MHz.
The length of the skip was only about 950 km which is short for Sporadic E.LOG Sunday 14.6.2009
Here some loggings from this day. Times UTC.
87.6 - DEN: Skala FM, Esbjerg (Viuf-tx, 500 W). - 17.01-
87.9 - HOL: Omproep Zeeland. - 16.50-
88.4 - DEN: Skala FM, Esbjerg (Vojens-tx, 300 W). - 17.09-
89.3 - DEN: Nova FM tentatively (5 kW). - 17.10-
90.1 - HOL: Slam FM. - 17.25-
90.2 - HOL: 100%NL. - 17.03-
92.2 - F: FUN. (Must be from dep. 59 near Belgium). - 17.23-
92.2 - HOL: Omroep Fryslan fighting with FUN. - 17.23-
93.2 - HOL: Waterstad FM, Sneek (20 kW!). - 17.34-
94.7 - F: France Bleu Freq. Nord with network programme. - 17.32-

Poor May conditions

May 2009 was very poor in Es-conditions. Weak openings to France and Italy (18.5 and 25.5). Es-clouds have been mostly lying over Switzerland and that is too far to give FM-signals to Finland!
On 25.5 I identified: BFM 87.9 / RMC 88.8. Both from very South France (dep. 83, 06). Radio Milano on 88.0 was only ided private from Italy... great...
I have now added Triax FM88108-amplifiers to my Triax 8-el. yagis (V and H). Luckily Sony XDR can handle more local power-signals with no overloading!! That was good news.
Now I am listening Skärgårds Radio 90.2 from Stockholm's coast with strong signal. More power than last summer???

FM-season 2009 starts

FM-season 2009 started to me on 18th of May with very weak opening to Lyon-area, France. The real job starts within next 1-2 week.
New feature for this season is "sensational" FM-receiver Sony XDR-F1HD (more). It is interesting to compare this device to elder receivers. I have two new Sonys side by side (Click the photo).

Later this summer I will go to Utö-island again for FM-DXing for 9 days with 5 other DX-ers.
First time this big group is joining in FM-pedition! Utö-FM-DX-blog will be updated during the pedition.

Visting FM-stations in Riga, Latvia

I visited Latvian capital Riga with my wife between 11-14 March 2009. Among the sightseeings in this very beautiful city I visited many FM-stations, too!!

Basic radio-info:
* Riga has 717 000 people (about 42% both Latvian and Russian). 2.3mill people in Latvia.
* There are 12 commercial FM-stations in Riga (half Russian/ half Latvian).
* 3 national commercial stations: Radio SWH, Star FM and European Hit Radio.
* There are not very tight and clear music-formats on radio (excl. rock). Reason must be small market.
* Most of the FM-transmitters are located in the big TV-tower. It is the 3rd tallest building in Europe (368,5 m). FM-signals have too high level in the Riga centrum. FM-receiver overloads very badly!!!

I did not make any appointments with the stations beforehand, I just walked in (which is not a good way) and therefore I did not try to take much time per visit. These days people are busy at the radio stations everywhere.
However, all stations were friendly and showed me kindly places around and answered the questions!

MixFM, Radio Baltkom, Fit FM, Jumor FM
The first visit was a group of 4 stations which are all located in the same floor: Mix FM (102.7 MHz), Baltkom (93.9), Fit FM (99.5) and Jumor FM (88.6). This group is quite new compination as Fit FM, Jumor FM and Baltkom are founded about 1-2 years ago. The owner is Russian based company.

Mix FM is the main product in Russian language on 102.7 MHz (elder pop-station). Baltkom is news-radio in Russian (with very interesting way of programme production) with stylish music. Fit FM is music channel in Latvian and Jumor has no presenters (music and tv-soundtracks).
Journalist/DJ 'Eleonora Rozevelt' (arist-name) kindly showed me all the stations. She also recorded a jingle from me in Finnish language for Mix FM! I hope it will be played... All these stations sounded very good!
The SWH Group
Radio SWH is the oldest commercial station in Latvia. It is founded in 1993 and is now nationwide with 4 regional studios. I was surprised when I heard this station first time around 1995 because it sounded very professional from the very beginning!! Jingles had very good production! Later the founder Zigmars Liepiņš, confirmed me that he used US based consulting to build up the station.
Zigmars sold SWH-stations to big Irish-based media company Communicorp in 2007, but he is still involved in the board of the company and visits the station every now and then. This was bad news for me because I thought it would have been a pleasure to meet him personally!!
Communicorp is also operating in Finland with stations Suomipop, Metro FM and Groove FM.
Click the photo for bigger view >>

SWH is operating three channels: Radio SWH (Riga 105.2 MHz), SWH Plus (105.7 MHz, Russian language) and SWH Rock (89.2). SWH Rock has only 2h live-DJ daily and the rest is non-stop. I suppose this is the only rock-channel in Baltia. It is mostly tuned by Russian speaking people.
SWH's revenues for 2008 was over 2mill Euros. Really big station with many safety-guards outside! Self-advertisment manager Laura Dukjana-Lice kindly gave station-tour!!

Radio Skonto 107.2 MHz
It was also a great pleasure to see Radio Skonto, good old local radio in Riga.
Today the trend is that FM-stations are grouped under big companies who run many channels at the same time, but Radio Skonto is positive exception. I thought first that this station is a small one and close to death, but it was a big surprise that it is still very well tuned and professional. They even have music-inquires which is very expensive to arrange.
Unfortunately Programme manager was not present at that time, but young sales-lady gave kind and professional information. It was also surprise that advertising agencies sell 75 % of the Skonto's revenues. This has always been a problem in local-radio market in Finland, ad-agencies sell almost nothing...
Elita Marga was on the air, but she was too 'shy' to be photographed - but she had time for my questions between hosting the listerners. The have about 200 000 weekly listeners. Click >>>
All stations had very modern equipment and facilities - looked and sounded out professional. I did not try to solve the price-level of radio-advertising, but it must be high in Latvia because there were more people working at the stations than I expected. I suppose the base for that is the high price-level of television advertising, but I am not sure.

Go to see Riga! It is beautiful and clean culture-city with hard history under Polish, Swedish and Russian control with German influence...

Radio Sanluchino, Bologna and Discoradio, Caravaggio, Italy

I e-mailed old recording to Radio San Luchino (www) Bologna, Italy. I heard that station in Finland in summer 1991 on 104.7 MHz. In the clip there was a woman giving sms-number to the station (mp3).
At that time I got no reply, but today, the same lady who was talking on that 17 years old clip, replied to me:
"...con emozione confermo che la voce è la mia..mi chiamo Bruna Zamboni e lavoro a Radio Sanluchino da 25 anni.... Complimenti per la tua bella famiglia - cordiali saluti da tutto lo staff di Radio Sanluchino"
So, Bruna Zamboni told she listened that old clip with great emotions because she was talking on it (and she has been working for the station now for 25 years!) !!

It is a great pleasure to mail old clips to the stations because they might bring memories to the staff! The oldest one I just sent was Radio Parma (102.0 MHz, www). They confirmed my recording from 1983 and identified that the speaker on the clip was Platinette (www), who is famous drag-queen today!!

Today, also Discoradio from Caravaggio, North Italy mailed verification. The reception was from summer 2001. Station manager M. Lagonegro tuned my clip.

Radio Potenza Centrale and Radio Globo, Rome

Two replies today from Italy!! Radio Potenza Centrale (www) from Potenza, sent quick confirmation to my mp3-clip. RPC is now big station with large tx-network in South Italy, founded 1973 as a mobile pirate radio broadcasting from a car!!
Potenza-province is quite difficult to hear in Finland.

Another reply came from Rome. Radio Globo (www) is great sounding dance-station with very profesional production. I heard this station on 99.6 MHz several years ago. Direttore artistico, Lucio Scarpa, sent me e-mail wondering my reception. This is very big station sounding excellent (my mp3-clip). Here is a team of The Morning Show: