Wed 25.5.2011 - Rhodos, Samos, Istanbul

Wednesday evening 25.5 gave again weak but interesting signals - now from Turkey and far away Greece, Samos and Rhodos (very rare here). += first time in Finland.

Log Wed 25.5.2011
87.900 -1629- I: Love FM, Bari (BA). This network is spreading.
88.000 -1635- + GRC: R Ena, Rhodos. Fading in and out for long period but luckly came up for id. Very nice surprise.
88.000 -1630- GRC: R 34, Istanbul. Big and dramatic Burasi-id.
89.400 -1607- TUR: R Damar, Istanbul. Ex-Yasam.
90.200 -1605- TUR: R Turkuvaz, Istanbul. The only one with RDS.91.700 -1625- + TUR: Aktif FM, Aliaga (Ege). Giving id as "Aktif Radyo" (2x). Distance to Izmir only 40 km. After two minutes ERA Net Samos-tx came up.
95.600 -1621- GRC: Tentative: Anemos FM, Samos. Supermarket-ad to Karlovasi in Samos.

Tuesday 24.5.2011 - Weak signals

Once again May-evening opening. Not strong signals but some new catches for me. This evenings's highlight was Marseille-opening, but unfortunately nothing new from there.

LOG Tue 24.5.2011 (rarely signals around Europe. mostly weak and mostly Italians)
87.900 -1702- F: R Maritima, Marseille (13). Long time with strong signal. but no sign of other Marseille-stations, only 90.0 Skyrock Sud (supposed) was audible well but with no local content.
88.400 -1730- F: LFM, Lausanne.
88.700 -1520- HRV: R Nasice, Nasice.
88.900 -1532- BIH: Ljubic R, Prnjavor.
89.400 -1546- I: R Centrale, Montorio al Vomano (TE). Up twice.
90.000 -1526- I: R Torino International, Torino (TO). Romanian language station in Torino!!! Big surprise to hear Romanian and Italian spots in a row. ID in Romanian and Italian.
90.200 -1537- HRV: R Vallis Aurea, Pozega. Rolling RDS-PS was corrubted for long period but finally audio-id released.
95.700 -1613- I: R Voghera (PV). Up 10 minutes. Also I identified old familiar stations: Radio Zeta 102.8, Gamma Pavia 89.6, Radio Milano 89.6, Radio Amica 88.4 , Radio Veronica 93.6, Radio Fantastica 89.3.

First opening 21.5.2011: France, Germany, Balkan

This season's first opening was very good, on Saturday, mainly to France. In the first place I hunt new stations for me, or never-heard-before-in Finland ( + = in the log). That makes this more interesting, to have challencies.
The interesting point of this day was that I idenfied 6 different French private stations on 88.8 !!! (Of course dozens of TDF-Radio France transmitters were audible around the band and I identified many Virgin, NRJ, Nostalgie etc. networks with no local content).

LOG 21.5.2011 (mainly France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Balkan)
87.800 -1110- I: R Voce nel Deserto, Rovigo (RO). Blind-recording.
87.800 -0926- F: R Star, Montbeliard (25). Blind-recording with rx n:o 5. First SWR Baden-W, then France Bleu Bourgogne and finally this as new station.
88.000 -1800- GRC: ERA NET 105,8, Thessaloniki. The only identified on Sunday 22.5. Popped up from noise for 1-2 minute skip. Only stn on the band.
88.100 -1140- D: R Galaxy. Kempten-tx. Network px.
88.100 -1141- D: Hitradio RT 1, Dillingen. Only words "RT Eins" heard over Galaxy!
88.100 -0738- SRB: R Dedal, Grocka. I visited this city (and X Radio, now closed) exactly 3 years ago.
88.200 -1140- D: RSA,Oberallgau. Only RDS, no talk.
88.300 -1137- CZE: R.Egrensis, Cheb. Kiss Hady from Czech in the morning on this frq.
88.300 -1025- + F: R Campus, Orléans (45).
88.400 -0752- BIH: R Slobomir, Bijeljina. Id: "Slobomir FM". I've heard this tx before under name Radio Step.

88.800 -1130- D: Rock Antenne, Ismaning. Slightly over noise for long time. Strange skip.
88.800 -1023- F: Magic FM, La Souterraine (23). GOOD OPENING TO FRANCE. I identified 6 stations on 88.8 MHz: Magic FM (23), Virgin R (51), Mega FM (45), MFM (44), Alouette (79) and finally Evasion FM (77) twice. All heard before...
89.200 -1043- F: R Plus, Etampes (91). Unreal moment: I turn receiver to 89.4 and I see "PLUS FM"-rds (Blois, 41, heard before). I turn immedeately to 89.2 MHZ where I can id another Plus, Radio Plus!
90.200 -1032- F: VAG FM, Artenay (45). No reply from this station before. 21.5.
91.300 0949- F: R Dreyeckland, Selestat (67).
91.600 -1047- + F: Chérie FM Centre-val de Loire, Saint Avertin (Tours). Long local-id. On 95.7:lla I saw Chérie FM Nancyn local rds: "RDS 95,7".
92.800 1008- F: R Bresse, Le Bourg (71). RDS-level. Replied with letter + CD etc last winter. Thanks!!
94.500 -0912- F: Triage FM, Migennes (89).
95.400 -1040- + F: EvryOne, Evry (91). RDS- ("EvryOne" small letters) + audio-id.
95.600 0925- SUI: Yes FM, Geneve. Ex-Lac FM.
95.800 1038- F: 77FM, Meaux (77).
97.700 -0915- F: R Nohain, Nevers (58).
106.000 -0937- F: Sud Radio, Toulouse. Bordeaux-tx (33).
107.600 -0936- + SUI: RTN, Marin. French lang station. Nice surprise from upper band which I checked only 2-3 times.

I collected 324 FM-QSLs during year 2010

Last year I took a project to maximize collecting QSL-verification replies from FM-stations during one year.
The goal was to pass ex-Finnish record 216 (from year 2009).
Summer 2010 gave good conds and brought a lot of new stations. Also I had many recordings from the past years. So, I mailed hundreds of reports with mp3's during the year 2010.

The final result was 324 replies! So, it is kind of Guinness-record. Almost all were e-mails (about 5 letters. German stations kindly post QSL-cards, 5-7). All replies are confirming my clip to be their station.
The biggest number of replies came from Italy, 47 stations, and from France 35. The rest are devided to almost all European countries + one from Israel and Algeria.
The poorest results came from Greece, Bulgaria, Russia and Turkey (only 10 -20 % replied). I think 65 % of stations replied, but I am not sure because I did not make any statistics.

I have now total almost 1 500 replies from FM-stations, all received in Finland. However, I am not the leader. Mr Jim Solatie (Espoo, Finland) has a bit more. Yes, Finnish DXers are QSL-hunters, since the 70's.
In mails I used their local languages with translations made by different persons in and out of DX-scene (Tnx Istvan and Marius). I used English only to Poland, Slovenia and Albania (and UK-Ireland naturally). I used also Google translator a lot, trying to avoid big mistakes and complicated sentencies.

Above and below you can see logo-collections of some stations which kindly replied to me.

Radio Noord-Holland 93.9 MHz via auroras

I found one old interesting recording from my archives.
This is from previous solar-maximum period over 10 years ago, from 30.12.1997.

I heard Radio Noord-Holland (RNH) from Wieringermeer-tx on 93.9 MHz (11.2 kW) via auroras in the Northern sky!
Aurora-reflection gives usually very distorted audio and it is difficult to copy the words.
However, this time audio is clear enough to understand station-id.

Listen my clip:
RNH 93.9 MHz 30.12.1997

Ron Versteeg, senior-reporter RTVNH confirmed my old clip:

It's a promotional jingle about the upcomming program on newyears-eve. Voice is probably of Ron Bakker, a technical engineer who lso is 'the voice' of Radio (and now also, television) Noord- Holland.

Next solar-maximum is coming within next 3-4 years.
Via auroras I have heard usually Scandinavian, Polish and German high-power transmitters.
Sometimes also BBC and Russian. Mostly signals are too distorted, because auroras are moving all the time, but sometimes surprisingly clear, mostly with the highest tx-powers.

My record with aurora-reflection are two Norwegian low-power stations from Oslo, Topp Radio 106.8 MHz and Radio Nova 107.7 MHz, from 1989-1990 period. Tx-powers on both is only 100 Watt (both also QSL'ed).

This propagation is not interesting anymore because completly free frequency is needed and mostly the same stations are up. RNH and Norwegians were nice exceptions.
(This year, 2010, I have collected 262 FM-QSL's, so far)

ERT Zakynthos 93.2 MHz QSL (nr 242)

Greek national radio ERT's regional station, ERT Zakynthos, replied today with photos and QSL ! Technical director is radioamateur, so he knows what is DXing and Sporadic E :
Αγαπητέ Φίλε
Η αναφορά σας επιβεβαιώνεται (=Your report is confirmed)
Ο Σταθμός μας Αγαπητέ Φίλε
εκπέμπει στους :
· 927 Khz με ισχύ 50 Kw
· 93.2 MHz FM με ισχύ 10 Kw
· 95.2 Μhz FM με ισχύ 2 Kw
O 93.2 εκπέμπει από την Κορυφή του Αίνου στην Κεφαλονιά

73s Technical director Rs Zakynthoy

He writes that this transmitter on 93.2 MHz, which I heard, is on the top of the Enos-mountain in the middle of the Kefalonia Island. Power 10 kW. I heard their local station-id last summer.

Reply from Radio Annaba, Algeria

Today I got surprise from Algeria.
The director of Radio Annaba replied with kind e-mail and verification of my listening.
Radio Annaba is a regional station of Radio Algérienne broadcasting on 88. /99.3 and 107.6. I received this station on 88.8 MHz (10 kW).
My reception / Mp3
This is Multihop Es, distance 2810 km. Annaba is a city in the northern coast of Algeria, 235 000 inhabitants. / Algeria is my 49th country verified on FM.

232 FM-QSLs this year!

This year I have collected 232 FM-QSLs so far - from all around Europe !! This is a new Finnish record (was 216) !! The goal is 250, which should be reached as there is two months left.

The best country this year has been France with 28 replies. The most difficult country so far seems to be Bulgaria and Turkey (dozens of stations but only a few replies).
I have had a lot of nice contacts and some of them goes even to the stations web-page, like with Radio Złote Przeboje (Warsaw, Poland): Story of my reception. Tnx Jakub!

Allmost all replies are naturally e-mails but there are still several letters coming (to my e-mails):
- German stations are very kind to reply, especially the big provincial network. You get real QSL-cards from Grmany (Bayersicher Rundfunk Ostbayern / SR3 Saarland, B5 Aktuell)!!
- Also I have letters with pens, stickers, badges, keychains, CDs etc. from
- Latte&Miele, Bologna, Italy / Radio Maria Espana / Radio Express, Prag, Czech (QSL!) /Radio Bresse, Branges, France / Radio Fribourg, Switzerland / Spin FM, Dublin, Ireland /

This Friday 29.10.2010 I got kind e-mail from Radio City from Maribor, Slovenia.
Programme director Bor Greiner (first at right of this morning crew-photo) wrote funny e-mail and verification.
This crew on this photo must be very funny!! Radio City is the highest market-learder I have ever known. They have about 50 % share of listening in their broadcasting area (1/3 of Slovenia), the other 16-17 station are all under 9 %..... amazing...

My FM-antennas

Here a few photos of my antennas in Naantali. There are two little towers, nothing special.

Tower 1 (rotator)
- 8-element Triax yagi, vertical
- Körner 15.11, horizontal
- 2 x Triax preamps and rotator

Tower 2 (manual direction)
- 8-element Triax yagi with Triax-preamp
- 72 mhz dipole for OIRT

Tower 1 is about 4-5 meter high. The highest 2 meters of it is plastic. That's because the vertical antenna is connected directly to the mast. In this way the distance between V and H can be minimal (or could be installed even to the same boom).
Everything in tower 1 is painted black, so it is more invisible for neighbors.

A few years ago I tried stacking two vertical Triax 8-el. yagis with Triax-combiner but never succeeded. All got weaken for some reason (similar antennas, similar coax-feeds). I am not clever enough to build combiner myself.

Click the photos for better views (different angels):

204 FM-QSL-replies this year !

I have now 204 QSL-replies this year! I broke 200-limit last week:

On Friday I got e-mail from Radio Diffusion Charentaise (RDC), 93.4 MHz from Angoulme (Midwest France). I mailed them C-casette with recording + Finnish music etc.
On Friday also nice reply from Aire Latino, 88.5 MHz from Valencia, Spain. Station director Alberto Valencia, basicly from Colombia, told he reformatted the station lately. Seems to be quite big station because station's internet-site looks very dynamic.

European pirate stations received on FM !

Last summer there were excellent conditions on FM to Europe. I identified hundreds of stations from all around. My distance-record last summer was Radio Darom from Beerseba, Israel on 95.8 MHz, 5 kW, 3380 km (I have QSL).

However, I heard also a few pirate stations on FM via ionosphere - from London, Holland and Serbia.

Here are some audio-clips of these pirate stations which I identified last summer on FM (Many of these stations are indentified or tracked from the given telephone-numbers or city-names on commercials):

FM-Pirates from London, UK
87.5 MHz - Platinum FM, London - 14.6.2010 at 15.05 utc // mp3
90.4 MHz - Whoa FM, London - 1.6.2010 at 20.38 utc // mp3
92.2 MHz - MetroLove, London - 1.6.2010 at 20.30 utc // mp3
94.6 MHz - Kool FM, London - 1.6.2010 at 19.43 utc // mp3
See Kool FM studio live-video from their web

FM-Pirates from Belgrade, Serbia
87.5 MHz - Narodni Radio, Beograd - 18.7.2010 at 12.51 utc / mp3
92.2 MHz - Radio Raka Esinger, Lazarevac-city - 15.6.2010 at 09.10 utc // mp3
99.5 MHz - Radio Balkan, Beograd - 18.7.2010 at 12.02 utc // mp3
104.2 MHz - Radio Krajina, Beograd - 7.6.2010 at 15.37 utc // mp3

FM-Pirate from Holland
87.5 MHz - Zender Starsky, Vroompshoop - 1.8.2010 at 12.30 utc // mp3

I tuned this Dutch pirate only about 1,5 minutes time on 87.5 with nonstop music, but I was in contact with this pirate and they confirmed my clip (you can hear vinyl-record slow-starting sound in my clip). They sent a few photos of their equipment, too. Power 2 kW + antenna gain to 4-element yagi.