THE HAMRADIO DOT COM

Tuesday the 12th of December 2016

The morning opened to USA/Canada very nicely! Today propagation peaked to the East Coast which is maybe not so common up here. WKRS Waukegan IL 1220, WGY Schenectady NY 810, WHCU Ithaca NY 870 and KRCM Shenandoah TX 1380 were the good ones. Lots of stuff to listen to at home. The west path closed earlier than on Monday, around 1200z I think. At 1130z we again tried to hear Majuro on 1098 but Taiwan (?) was too strong, only BBC news were heard at 1100z. Asia sounded a bit more quiet than yesterday but on the other hand we didn’t do much of “live job” in the evening. 729 and 891 ABCs were noticed again and also QSLed by Mr. Graham Himmelhoch-Mutton.

During the day we fed our pets: various tits, 3 squirrels and 2 Eurasian magpies. They were happy as temperature dropped to -20C and energy is needed. The daily meal was potatoes with chicken sausage. The best beer was North Coast Old Stock Cellar Reserve (Bourbon Barrel).

Cabin and Skoda

Cabin and Patrik

Monday the 12th of December 2016

Propagation!! Finally!! After reasonably quiet morning band started to boil towards the West Coast. Around 11z signals started to pop up from Rocky Mountains to California. MW band held open to USA at least to 15z, so there are lots of gigabytes to investigate later. Stations like 1250 KIKC Forsyth MT has been found from the disks.

Then band opened to east and Japan. Nine NHK2’s with the callsign sign offs at 1540z were easy catches. It will be interesting to see what else we will find later. At 1730-1830 two ABC Aussies from Adelaide were strong: 729 5RN and 891 5AN with a good copy during the ABC news break.

We finally got all snow job done and now our car is next to our cabin. Good exercise too to two fat DXers.

The best beer of the day was RUIG / Rooie Dop Dark Storm and the meal spaghetti bolognese.

Timo is the king of birds (lapintiainen)

Sunday the 11th of December 2016
The weather here in Inari, Lapland is good. The wind has calmed down and the skies are almost clear. And on Saturday it was not so cold either, around -10C. Radio propagation to USA in the morning was not very good. Only few old friends like 560 KLZ and 910 KCJB Minot ND were heard. Station came up and down very quickly. We still have too many protons on the air but it will get better!

Very quickly up came also Hawaiji stations around 0930Z. They were audible about 15 minutes. We identified the following: 940 KKNE, 1240 KEWE, 1420 KKEA, 1460 KHRA and 1570 KUAU. Few hours after this, at 1130z Patrik heard on 1098 kHz some country music, fade out and hints of national anthem. We almost got Radio Majuro from Marshall Islands!

The evening files are mostly untouched yet but at least 891 5AN ABC Adelaide was strong some time. Hopefully we get more Aussies from the files.

No reindeers spotted in the premises yet. Some birds appeared just in minutes when I threw some old bread to the garden for them.

We drank one new beer country! Corsaire from Guadeloupe was beer country #155 to Timo and #171 to Patrik. The best beer was Avery Anniversary Twenty Three. Daily meal: macaroni casserole (courtesy of Pat’s mom).

Good morning!

Still some work to do!

Me and Patrik (PW) arrived to Aihkiniemi on late Friday evening around 11pm. AIH66 is our 3rd DX-pedition to Aihkiniemi. What was waiting for us was half meter of snow to get rid off. We decided to do only part of the job but it still took 1,5 hours to get into the house and get everything on.

Some disturbed condx were expected but by our suprise the first night provided some short openings to the Great Lakes. CHRN Montreal QC 1610 and WDTW Dearborn MI 1310 were the first ones for us. Solar disturbance made NA path very difficult and openings in the morning were very short – almost all old friends except KFXD Boise ID. In the morning around 06-07z band was hot to La Plata and Brasil. ZP5 Radio Encarnación, Encarnación 760 and ZYJ277 Rádio Difusora do Paraná, Marechal Cândido Rondon PR 970 were the nice ones. To Asia we had some technical problems at first but then band opened nicely to Taiwan and China. I believe that we have 891 aussie also in the files. Late night band was full of Koran stations – we will see what we will later find from the files.

The best beer was Funky Buddha’s Nikolai Vorlauf imperial stout. The meal for the day was the “perunarieskatortillas”.

PW

TIK

New MW season has started. So far not much to talk about except on the 30th of August, when I had quite good lowband opening to Ecuador. We have also booked Aihkiniemi for December (2 weeks) with PW.

Carillon Radio 1431 from PETA6-dxpedition (with PW in August), much more rare than on 1386
LBC Radio 1152 also PETA6
DYRD Tagbilaran City 1161
CRI Yuanhucun (Hutubi) 1521
KGTL Homer AK 620
KZNS Salt Lake City UT 1280
KWKY Des Moines IA 1150
KJRB Spokane WA 790
KXEL Waterloo IA 1540
KGA Spokane WA 1510
CMLM Radio Libertad, Puerto Padre 1350
XET Monterrey NL 990
XENL Monterrey NL 860
Radio Fe y Alegría, Maracaibo 850
CB76 Radio Cooperativa, Santiago 760
Radio Morena, Guayaquil 640
Radio Cardinal, Asunción 730 ** NEW COUNTRY, PARAGUAY! **
Studio B SRB 100.80
Radio Luna SRB 103.60
Europa FM ROU 105.80
Radio AS FM SRB 107.90
Radio AS Šabac SRB 101.20
SRo 2 Rádio Regina Banská Bystrica SVK 101.50
Gradski Radio Osijek HRV 99.10
SRo 3 Rádio Patria SVK 106.20
Hrvatski Radio Vukovar HRV 107.20
Hrvatski Katolički Radio HRV 103.90
Radio Somes ROU 103.40
Rádio Rocková republika SVK 106.30
MTVA MR3 Bartók Rádió HNG 107.30
MTVA Dankó Rádió HNG 101.20
Popolare Network via Radio Città I 97.80

FM season has brought some QSLs. I am still going through the 8th of June files so I have some “backlog” with my reception reports. MW-QSLing has been quiet even I’ve sent a couple of follow-ups.

AIR Dibrugarh 567 via Facebook
6ABN Busselton WA 1629 em 3d v/s Paul Kochanski, Radio Production Co-ordinator f/up
KIHH Eureka CA 1400 em 0d v/s James Tejada, Operations Technician
Radio Luz del Mundo 1560
San Marino Classics SRM 103.20
DASDING (SWR) D 90.80
AFN Kaiserslautern “The Eagle” D 100.20
Oui FM F 88.40
hr1 D 94.40
Ouï FM La Radio de la Mer F 88.40 (same tx but with the sub-programme, for the future use…)
Fusion FM F 94.30
BBC Radio Suffolk G 103.90
Radio SCOOP F 91.30
LFM (Lausanne FM) SUI 89.10
COB’FM F 92.70
Radio Focus (Bulgaria) BUL 89.00
Radio Caroline F 90.80
Radio Vaticana 105 Live CVA 105.00
Radio Company Campania I 88.40
Nostalgie Belgique BEL 92.30
SWR4 Baden-Württemberg D 91.10
Radio Megaton HRV 104.90
Radio Voce della Speranza Roma I 104.80
Radio Velkaton BIH 107.00
Radio Alta I 94.60
Val202 SVN 94.10
Radio Record I 93.70
Radio Campus Troyes, Troyes F 88.70
SRo 1 Rádio Slovensko SVK 91.20
Bluradio Veneto I 88.70
Play Radio SRB 92.50

In the beginning of 2016 has been a bit slow for QSLs but I’ve got a few to list:

Radio Studio X 1584 em 1d f/up
RNE5 Castilla y Leon, Burgos 1017 em 0d Roberto Santamaria Gómez, Informador
COPE Badajoz 1269 em 0d v/s Jose Enrique Pardo
Radio Inter, Madrid 918 em 0d v/s Jose Antonio Exposito, Dirección de comunicacion
VOA São Tomé e Príncipe 1530 em 5m v/s Helena de Menezes, Manager’s Secretary NEW COUNTRY, São Tomé e Príncipe!
JOQF HBC Muroran / JOHE HBC Ashikawa 864 ko 2m
JOQL HBC Kushiro 1404 ko 2m
KMON Great Falls MT 560 em 0d v/s Jim Sargent “Sarge”, Ag Director / Sports Director KMON Radio
KNBR San Francisco CA 680 em 0d v/s Lee Hammer, Operations Manager
KTRB San Francisco CA 860 em 0d v/s Michael Sher
KBYR Anchorage AK 700 em 0d v/s Bill Sigmar, COO/General Manager
WZFG Dilworth MN 1100 em 0d v/s Dustin Moore
WDFN Detroit MI 1130 em 0d v/s Liz Walterhouse, General Sales Manager
KXLY Spokane WA 920 em 0d v/s Bud Nameck, Program Director
KEYZ Williston ND 660 via Facebook
KFGO Fargo ND 790 em v/s Peter Tanz, Market Manager
KTOE Mankato MN 1420 em 1d v/s Jo Bailey
KIRO Seattle WA 710 em 18d v/s Tom Pierson, Director of Engineering
KWSU Pullman WA 1250 em 4d v/s Thomas Saylor, Engineering Manager K7TPS
KSRV Ontario OR 1380 em 0d v/s Aaron Archuleta
KEYF Dishman WA 1050 via Facebook
KTTO Spokane WA 970 em 5w v/s Pam Gunderson, Project Coordinator
KCEG Fountain CO 780 em 3m v/s Ron Lee, Volunteer Engineer
KLZ Denver CO 560 em 1d v/s Mike Triem, Station Manager
KLVZ Brighton CO 810 em 1d v/s Mike Triem, Station Manager
KLTT Commerce City CO 670 em 1d v/s Mike Triem, Station Manager
XEG Monterrey 1050 em 1d v/s Lic. Liliana González, Asistente Dirección General
CMKX Radio Bayamo, Entronque Bueycito 1150 em 0d v/s Armando Yero La O
CMKX Radio Bayamo, Bayamo, GR 1620 em 0d v/s Armando Yero La O
Radio Juventus Don Bosco, Santo Domingo 1640 via Facebook (Luis Rosario)
VON Radio, Charlestown 860 via Facebook v/s Marcellus Lee NEW COUNTRY, St. Kitts & Nevis!
LS11 Radio Provincia de Buenos Aires, La Plata 1270 em 1d v/s Omar Jose Somma, Jefe Del Departemento Tecnico

And the latest latest:

KGOW Bellaire TX 1560 em 0d v/s A.D. Rigmaiden, Engineering YSR/ESPN 97.5
WCED Du Bois PA 1420 em 8d v/s Joe Taylor
WRCR Ramapo NY 1700 em 0d v/s Alex Medakovich (KD2KI), President
LV8 Radio Libertador, Mendoza 780 via Facebook

Happy New Year 2016!

My DXing year was very good QSL-wise. Condx were really really bad all year and I had too much local noise on Mediumwaves for a good DX reception. But. AIH40 (2014) and AIH53 (2015) DXpeditions brought quite a lot of QSLs. And I also had a succesful remote FM ES season. Just a small part of AIH53 files have been listened so far, so it will bring more QSLs in 2016 despite of condx. Also follow up -round for all of these must be done sooner or later.

I got a total of 279 QSLs in 2015. It is my personal record (167 in 2014, 227 in 2013, 50 in 2012).
EU 3 BS 0 IB 10 AF 3 AS 21 OC 1 NA 118 CA 4 SA 16 FM 103

In 2015 I also broke 1000 points for DX rank and after it also got my 1000th confirmed station for the DX rank (actually I have more as in Finland all FM stations are not counted for the DX rank).

The latest arrivals:

Radio Craiova Oltenia 1314 em 0d v/s Daria Andriescu (after few f/ups)
AFN Okinawa 648 via Facebook, v/s MSgt Colleen Jones, Station Manager
JOIR TBC Tohoku Hoso, Sendai 1260 em to ltr v/s Yoshinori Konno
CRI Guangzhou 1341 em 2d v/s Ying Lian
CRI Beijing AM 846 846 em 0d v/s Ying Lian
BED34 BCC Zhōngguó Guǎngbō Gōngsī Xīnwén Wǎng, Tucheng 648 em 1d v/s Sharon Yang
DYVS Bacalod 1233 via Facebook 7 months!
JOOR MBS Osaka 1179 card, ltr 3w v/s Yuzuna Obuchi
KKOH Reno NV 780
WWL New Orleans LA 870
KVI Seattle WA 570
KFI Los Angeles CA 640
KEPN Lakewood CO 1600
KBND Bend OR 1110
KLIZ Brainerd MN 1380
CJSL Estevan SK 1280
CFYM Kindersley SK 1210
KAGO Klamath Falls OR 1150
KUTR Taylorsville UT 820
KAST Astoria OR 1370
KGNW Burien-Seattle WA 820
KUMA Pendleton OR 1290
KORT Grangeville ID 1230
KSJB Jamestown ND 600
KSLR San Antonio TX 630
KACH Preston ID 1340
KMED Medford OR 1440
KHAT Laramie WY 1210
KBNO Denver CO 1280
KTTH Seattle WA 770
KRND Fox Farm WY 1630
KTFI Twin Falls ID 1270
WRIG Schofield WI 1390
KCOW Alliance NE 1400
KFBX Fairbanks AK 970
KKBJ Bemidji MN 1360
KRWB Roseau MN 1410
XEAW Monterrey NL 1280 em 2d v/s Pablo Guerrero Salazar, Gerente Comercial (f/up)

AIH53 long gone and it has been a while when I posted my arrived QSLs. This time we started to send reception reports to stations already during the expedition, so quite a lot of verifications from AIH53 is already in this list.

Radio Craiova Oltenia 1314 em 0d v/s Daria Andriescu
CRI Anning, Yunnan 1188 em 0d v/s Ying Lian
Myanma Radio, Yangon 576 em 0d
KBBI Homer AK 890 0d v/s Terry Rensel, Program Director
KNR Qeqertarsuaq 650 0d v/s Leif P. Hendriksen, AV-assistent
KNR Nuuk 570 0d v/s Leif P. Hendriksen, AV-assistent f/up
KGLO Mason City IA 1300 0d v/s Bob Fischer, News Director
CJLI Calgary AB 700 0d v/s Mountain Mike
WNAM Neenah-Menasha WI 1280 16d v/s Kevin Backstrom
KGFX Pierre SD 1060 1d v/s Mark Swendsen
WISN Milwaukee WI 1130 0d v/s Terry Kegley
WIOU Kokomo IN 1350 1d v/s Rob Rupe, Program Director
KCJJ Iowa City IA 1630 1d v/s Tom Suter, General Manager
KZQZ St. Louis MO 1430 0d v/s Ray Diamond, Production Manager
KSOO Sioux Falls SD 1149 0d v/s Don Jacobs, MM/VP
WSBT South Bend IN 960 0d v/s Bill Gamble, Operations Manager
KLIN Lincoln NE 1400 0d v/s Kevin Thomas, Program Director
KCIM Carroll IA 1380 0d v/s John Ryan, Operations Manager
KJR Seattle WA 950 0d v/s Rich Moore
WIZM La Crosse WI 1410 1d v/s Scott Robert Shaw, Program Director
WCGO Evanston IL 1590 0d v/s Chuck Duncan, General Manager
WVNE Leicester MA 760 em v/s Randolph F. Berkson, Operations Manager
KENI Anchorage AK 550 em v/s Andy Lohman, Regional Market President
KTZN Anchorage AK 650 em v/s Andy Lohman, Regional Market President
KOWB Laramie WY  900 em v/s Matt Schilz, CE
KAIR Atchinson KS 1470 em v/s Neil Weiland, Radio Program Director
KVNS Brownesville TX 1700 em v/s Billy Santiago, SVP of Programming
KCBF Fairbanks AK 820 em v/s Jeff McCoy, Program Director f/up
KRWZ Parker CO 950 em v/s Chuck St. John, PD/Mornings
KBUL Billings MT 970 em v/s Michael Sutton, Market Manager
CKJH Melfort SK 750 em v/s Bayne Opseth, Chief Engineer, VE5BKO
KFKA Greeley CO 1310 em v/s Damon Sasso
KGFK East Grand Forks MN 1590 em v/s Jarrod Thomas, Operations Manager
WPNW Zeeland MI 1260 em v/s Brad Lanser, GM
KHAS Hastings NE 1230 em v/s Graig Eckert, GM
CFAR Flin Flon MB 590 em v/s Tara Thurstan
WBEN Buffalo NY 930 em 0d v/s Tom Puckett
CKLQ Brandon MB 880 em 0d v/s Cam Clark, General Manager
KMIA Auburn-Federal Way WA 1210 em 0d v/s Amador S. Bustos, President, BUSTOS MEDIA HOLDINGS
KFYR Bismarck ND 550 em 1d v/s Neil C. Cary, Market President
KITI Centralia-Chehalis WA 1420 em v/s Andy West, Afternoon Host
CHAB Moose Jaw SK 800 em 0d v/s Ken Fischer, Eng.
KZDG San Francisco CA 1550 em 1d v/s Praveen
CHSM Steinbach MB 1250 em 0d v/s Matt Heinrichs
CKJS Winnipeg MB 810 em 0d v/s Gido Gigliotti
CBK Regina SK 540 em 0d v/s Paul Dornstauder, Executive Producer, Radio Current Affairs
CBKF-2 Saskatoon SK 860 em 0d v/s Shannon Lacroix
KKOV Vancouver WA 1550 em 0d v/s Matthew Hunt
KGAL Lebanon OR 1580 em 0d v/s Richard C. Eads, VP/General Manager
KCJB Minot ND 910 em 1d v/s Dave Lehner
CKDM Dauphin MB 730 em 0d v/s David Opinko
WCPT Willow Springs IL 820 em 0d v/s Mike McCarthy (N9EAO), Director of Engineering
Caribbean Radio Lighthouse 1160 em 1d v/s Nathan Owens f/up
YVRL Radio Ideal, Maiquetia 1130 via Facebook f/up
YVQX Radio Nueva Esparta, Porlamar 920 em 0d
HJLJ Sonora 1500 AM, Cali 1500 em 3d via Deporte Total FM

Total now: 133 countries and 974 stations.

The last full day. We were mostly fooling around and checking antennas and equipment and files. At night there was condx from East Coast America to Argentina. At 04z Brasilians peaked. Like every morning, in the morning condx to USA/VE opened. This time after 0830z to West Coast. We need to check the files for catches. From Asia Japan was early with some powerhouse on already after 0945z. But .. we have not listened those files yet. Indexes are better than anytime before this week, so we expect some goodies tomorrow morning. Our plan is to leave around midday.

Other activities today were birdwatching. I spotted “lapintiainen” and “närhi” for new one in Aihki for me. Also 2 reindeers (last yer total 0 all week) visited our yard. We ate pork, cream sauce and spaghetti.

The beer of the day: Ægir / Beavertown Bæver Double White IPA