THE HAMRADIO DOT COM

Lots of QSLs have arrived in the last weeks. Actually already 20 this year! So I have not had time to update my blog. Anyway I have got two interesting QSLs from Norway:
first NRK Nordland local programme on 675 kHz. This transmitter was closed on the 31st of December 2012. I sent my report for local programme heard earlier and got a replay from DX Listerners Club Norway’s Svein Olav Pedersen. I also recorded the final seconds of transmission via Haparanda Perseus over the web. You can listen them here.

LKB / LLE Bergen Kringkaster is temporary station which sends sometimes on old Kvitsoy frequency 1314 kHz. They send instrumental music, voice IDs in Norwegian and callsign with Morse. Output power is a bit over 100 watts. Check the website here. Svenn Martinsen, Broadcast Coordinator replied with an email in 2 weeks.

This season I have logged quite many MW stations from Puerto Rico. In the 1980s and 1990s I don’t remember hearing many of them in Pori. WNIK Arecibo was heard in the 5th of October 2012 with ID “Unica Radio 1230 AM” on 1230 kHz. WNIK is not the most common PTR-station – WCMN from same town on 1280 kHz is much more often heard here. V/s Jose G Garcia Gonzales replied to my email with very short answer: “saludos si es wnik 1230”. Well, it is clearly a QSL … and my first one from Puerto Rico!

WNIK has a live stream on USTREAM.

Radio Golestan from Iran was the first Iranian station replaying for my Farsi-language report directly from the station. Their Farsi-language email was translated in English with Google translate – same method I used for writing to them 🙂 In their short replay they were wondering how I could hear their station far away in Finland.

Vahon Hindustani Radio is a new (legal) Dutch MW station. They programme (short times what I have heard of) is quite funny: Hindi programme with Dutch “pirate style”. I tried to get QSL from their official email and then via Facebook without luck. Finally found email for QSLs and got nice replay from QSL Manager Koos Wijnants, who is a member of Benelux DX Club.

Romanian local stations are nice: local programmes are quite easy to hear and they seem to replay with QSL very well. I already got verifications from Radio Timisoara and Radio Tagru Mures earlier this year and now Radio Cluj sent their QSL. This is especially nice one because I visited in Cluj-Napoca few years ago. Verie-signer Florin Pruteanu verified my report with PDF-letter attached to email.

This blog has been silent for months and months. I have now decided to activate it, but not for ham radio like domain says. I will report here more about my BC listening results. I am currently quite active medium- and shortwave listener and it is very good combination with the ham radio activities. I am using nowadays Perseus SDR-radio and three longwire antennas 240 to 280 meters (50, 295 and 335 degrees).

I usually listen to mediumwaves in Viasvesi, Pori. Location is only some 5 miles from 600kW Pori (ex-YLE) MW transmitter, which sends China Radio International and some other programmes eg. between 0300-0700 UTC. As you can guess, it ruins much of my sunrise listening. So time to time I have possibility to use antenna farm of my friend Patrik PW/OH6GDX in Petalax, some 150 miles north of Pori.

In Petalax I was between the 19th and 21st October 2012. We had some interesting openings to Great Lakes area and to Iran (about that a bit later). One of the stations identified was WAAM from Ann Arbour, Michigan, on 1600 kHz.

News & Operations Director Dan Martin answered to my report quickly via email. Short replay confirmed that I have listening to their station.

I have received some email-confirmations from BC radio stations:

– Radio Grutte Pier (f.zuidema ät knid.nl), Holland
– Radio Zeewolf International (radiozeewolf ät hotmail.nl), Holland, operator is ham too
– Scandinavian Weekend Radio (info ät swradio.net), Finland, v/s Tapani Häkkinen, DX-listener
– Radio Black Bird (shortwaveblackbird ät gmail.com), Holland
– Irish Music Radio (imr6930 ät yahoo.com), Ireland
– Trans Europe Radio (radiotranseurope ät gmail.com), Holland
– Sluwe Vos Radio (rxreport ät live.nl), Holland
– Radio Shadow (sw.radioshadow ät gmail.com), Holland

Scandinavian Weekend Radio is a licensed radio station, others are “free radios”.

I also got Perseus-SDR from Italy on Monday. Hopefully I am able to test it this weekend with real antennas!