Mount Evelyn DX Report

RADIO SWEDEN AND THE LOG BOOK January 30, 2015 RADIO SWEDEN'S TRANSMITTERS   In our last Station News blog post, I gave you a link to the Wertachtal transmitter demolition, and may readers found this quite interesting. A few days ago, I discovered another very interesting documentary video that provides a look at the Radio Sweden shortwave transmitters at Hörby, and the Sölvesborg AM transmitter.  Håkan Widenstedt, was the Chief Engineer for Radio Sweden when this film was shot in 2006. What is interesting about this video is the detailed view of the inside of the shortwave and mediumwave  transmitters. And it offers some insight into the day-to-day work of an engineer for a large international broadcaster. In its day, Radio Sweden was a much loved and popular station, and even today is sadly missed. This film is in memory of Håkan, who passed away in 2011. It is 30 minutes long and was produced by Kelly Lindman. The conversation is in Swed...

The new Yaesu FTDX3000 tuned to KSDA-AWR for English at 2200 UTC (see below) STATION NEWS AND THE LOG BOOK January 23, 2015 STATION NEWS WERTACHTAL NO MORE! The once mighty German sender at Wertachtal has finally come tumbling down. For many years, this transmitting site's powerful signal enabled Deutsche Welle to reach most parts of the world with relative ease. To celebrate (or commiserate, depending upon your view) this dismantling event, a video has surfaced. Of interest to shortwave enthusiasts will be some of the early photographs and video of the station during its operating heyday. There are also interviews with some of the engineers and technicians who manned and maintained Wertachtal - but you'll need to speak German! So……for those of you who enjoy seeing explosions and large metal objects hitting Mother Earth with great impact, you can check out this video from the German news site, Augsberger Allgemeine. RADIO AUSTRALIA FADING AWAY Anot...

WTWW FROM THE AIR  Quadcopter Style! Hi Folks! Those interested in radio station transmitter sites, quadcopters, sickeningly dizzying heights, etc will find this new YouTube video of interest. It's a bird's eye view of WTWW, Lebanon TN. Looks quite interesting - nothing especially unusual about the setup. It also backs onto a hill running along one side of the antennas - amazing how well it gets out! Hope you enjoy it! 73, Rob Wagner VK3BVW   Subscribe!! Follow @robvk3bvw If you have a widescreen monitor, go for the full screen HD option when viewing this video!

STATION NEWS AND THE LOG BOOK January 16, 2015 VATICAN RADIO 21710   VATICAN. Vatican R. - SM Galeria. S/on 0945 with a special transmission for India in English on the occasion of the papal visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, 250 kW at 86˚. This is a live broadcast of his tour through Sri Lanka with local music performances and descriptions of the event. Fair but variable reception here on Jan 14. Also noted at the same time with // live broadcasts on 21570 in French and 21560 in Portuguese, both with fair to poor signals, no doubt because those frequencies are beamed to SAf and WAf. Then again on Jan 16 for the live broadcast from the Philippines at 0950 with a fabulously strong signal, although the other services on 21570 and 21560 were still quite poor signals. There is also a service between approx 0200 and 0500 UTC on 11935 but that's too early here for us during our mid-summer, and CNR 5 fades in around 0430, dominating the frequency.  Not...

CHANGES FOR SOLOMON ISLANDS BROADCASTING I wrote the following article for the December 2014 issue of The Spectrum Monitor magazine. Check out their website for details on how to subscribe to this great publication! A New Transmitter for Honiara Towards the end of July, the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) introduced a new transmitter to its existing shortwave services on 5020 and 9545 kHz. Not only have these two frequencies been heard well in Australia, but also regularly monitored in many other countries with good clear signals. Although the service is primarily intended for their domestic audience across the Solomons, international listeners are also enjoying the programming from “the happy isles”. The islands are prone to natural disasters and often in the path of cyclones, tsunamis, floods, tidal waves, and earthquakes. The importance of maintaining communications during these times is of paramount importance to island communities. Transmitting early wa...

THE CODE! Here's just a quick note to alert you to something that you may find stimulating reading! Being a musician, a shortwave radio listener and an amateur radio operator, I've often mulled over the relationship between music and Morse code. The code is LIKE music to many old time radio operators, who talk about "the rhythm of the code" .   I've just read a really interesting article about how Morse code has been used to communicate to prisoners in the jungles of Colombia just a few years ago. It's a fascinating story! Obviously, for copyright reasons I cannot reproduce the long-form article here, but I encourage you to check out The Verge website. The article by Jeff Maysh is called: The Code: A declassified and unbelievable rescue hostage story - How the Colombian army sent a hidden message to hostages...using a pop song. Here's the link below: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/7/7483235/the-code-colombian-army-morsecode-hostages Happy...

EARLY MORNING DX AND HAM NEWS A 4am rise this morning (January 6) allowed me to hear some stations right across the entire shortwave spectrum. Reception was noisy as the Australian continent is currently experiencing a mixture of heat waves, tropical storms and some rather unpredictable weather conditions. Still, I managed to find a few interesting transmissions in amongst the static crashes: 3250   DPRK. Pyongyang BS - Pyongyang. Revolutionary songs at 1805, poor signal in the atmospheric noise. 3255   SOUTH AFRICA. BBC - Meyerton. World service SAf with current affairs show at 1810, fair. 3912   KOREA REP. Voice of the People - Gyeonggi-do. Easily making it through heavy jamming at 1815 with lots of political preaching. 3965   FRANCE. R. Taiwan Int'l - Issoudun. English to WEu at 1820 with a chat show, fair. 4765   TAJIKISTAN. R. Tajikistan - Yangi Yul. Tajik music program with anncts 1825, fair signal. 4780   DJIBOUTI. RTV Djibout...

WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T HEAR DX IN SUMMER….? ENHANCED RECEPTION ON 21 mHz On New Year's Day, there were some signals coming through on the 13 mb between 0930 and 1130 UTC. Note the Vatican's New Year's Day masses on multiple frequencies and Kuwait suffering from a NYE hangover! 21510   IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. English to SAs at 1033 with a news program, noted the s/off as 1130 with good reception. 21520   IRAN. VOIRI - Sirjan. S/on 1120 for the Hausa service to WAf, ID at 1123 and anthem, fair to poor signal. 21550   VATICAN. Vatican R. - SM Galeria. New Year's Day service at 1025, Latin translated into English for EAf, weak signal. 21560   VATICAN. Vatican R. - SM Galeria. New Year's Day service at 1020, Latin translated into Portuguese for EAf, an even weaker signal than 21570. Then noted later at 1103 with Italian programming and a much stronger signal (possibly a different beam heading?). 21570  ...

From Me to You: My very best wishes for the New Year. May you and you family have a safe, healthy and peaceful year ahead. May you continue to enjoy this fabulous radio hobby. Thank you for your support of the Mount Evelyn DX Report throughout 2013. Without your "views", "likes", "shares" and "retweets", I doubt that I would have continued to write this blog. I appreciate your generous words of encouragement and friendship. It is most appreciated. 2014 - The Year in Review It has been an interesting year, hasn't it? WYFR signed off and WRMI took over Okeechobee FL. Many broadcasters are taking advantage of the WRMI facilities and providing programs for transmission via the Florida site. Radio Exterior España signed off and appeared again, in a much reduced schedule, a few weeks later! And isn't it strange that we thought the Voice of Greece was gone for good, but it just still keeps on going in a new format as ERT Open....