The Angostura Bridge featured in the Radio Bolívar station logo

OPENING THE LOGBOOK - APRIL 1972

Each month, I open the old records to see what I (and others) heard decades ago. It has been fun looking back at old issues of the Australian DX News (ADXN - the newsletter of the Australian Radio DX Club), bringing back lots of memories. Here are some memories from April 1972—54 years ago! 

All frequencies in kHz; all times are UTC (or GMT, as we used to say in those days!).

Shortwave News

There were some fine catches noted by ARDXC members during April 1972, including the following:

6160   CKZN - St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. David Foster captured this extremely rare low-powered (300 watts) signal at 2205 UTC with news and a station ID as "CBC Radio Network", eventually fading out around 2230. What's remarkable about this reception, aside from its low power, is that the signal would have travelled via the long path, an almost all-darkness path (see the red dotted LP path below), a distance of approximately 21800 km (13548 mi). Additionally, this was at 8:05 am (well after sunrise, which was 6:45 am) at David's home in Melbourne, and just before sunset at St. John's. Remarkable reception!

This map has been calculated to illustrate the path travelled by CKZN, Newfoundland, Canada, as it would have been at 8:05 am, Melbourne time, on  April 14, 1972. An impressive reception, indeed!

Exceptional reception of Latin stations in the 25 mb on April 24, 25 and 26 including 11720 R. Nacional (Brasilia), 11735 R. Oriental (Montevideo), 11765 Radiodifusão de São Paulo, 11805 R. Globo (Rio de Janerio), 11835 R. Eel Espectador (Montevideo), 4VEJ Cap Haitienne, 11855 R. America (São Paulo), 11880 R. Splendid (Buenos Aires), 11885 R. Mauá (Rio de Janerio), 11935 R. Clube Paranease (Curutiba), and 11950 R. Ministério da Educação (Rio de Janerio).

First reports by three Australian DXers of the recently launched (in 1971) International Service from Abu Dhabi on 9695 kHz between 1230 and 1845 UTC featuring a mix of Arabic chants, news and live broadcasts of political rallies. 

Early test transmissions of the new Wertachtal transmitters of Deutsche Welle on many frequencies, including 6170, 7285, 9545, 9765, 11850, 11865 and 21705 kHz, with mostly excellent reception into Australia.

Excellent autumn reception of 60 and 90 mb stations from both Latin America and Africa, including 3240 R. America (Lima), 3300 La Voix del la Revolution,  Bujumburra, Burundi, 3360 La Voz de Nahualá (Guatemala), 3380 R. Chortis, Chiquimala (Guatemala), 4832 R. Capital, San José (Costa Rica), and many others.

International ARDXC members Victor Goonetilleke (Sri Lanka) and Bob Bundy (Truk Island) also contributed some important observations from their locations. Victor monitored 3223 AIR-Simla, 3235 AIR-Gauhati, 3265 Lorenco Marques, 3330 Peshawar, 3407 Azad Kashmir,  4719 RRI-Makassar, 4764 RRI-Medan, 4780 Djibouti, 4815 Quetta, 4790 Kota Kinabalu and many others. Bob had his eye on North Korea with 3015, 6580 and 635 kHz  Pyongyang in Japanese, 4401 4274, 6599, 2850 and MW outlets for  Pyongyang's Home Service, and 4920 ABC-Port Moresby with an extended schedule for cyclone news.

(Click on images to enlarge.)
Radio Bolívar is one of my favourite QSLs. My Spanish reception report was for August 18, 1971, and the airmail reply arrived on April 18, 1972. So, where had my report been for seven of those eight months before it was answered on April 3? Surely my Spanish wasn't that bad! 🤣🤣

Spotlight on Radio Bolívar, Venezuela

My QSL letter above is from Radio Bolívar, a small station operating from the city of Bolívar. Situated about 450 km south-east of Caracas, Ciudad Bolívar is the historic capital of Venezuela’s Bolívar State, on the south bank of the Orinoco River. Founded in 1764 as Angostura, it is known for its well-preserved colonial centre, its role as a commercial hub for the surrounding region, and as a base for exploring Angel Falls. The city also boasts the Angostura Bridge, the first bridge to span the Orinoco River. That bridge features in Radio Bolívar's station logo (a nice local touch!) and is about five km west of the studios.

Initially a private commercial station, Radio Bolívar also operated under the names of Radio Mundial Bolívar (under the Radio Cadena Mundial Network), and Radio Venezuela (as Ciudad Bolívar under the Circuito Radio Venezuela Network).

The shortwave outlet was assigned the callsign YVNW. It was a tough station to hear at my old home in those days. It was certainly not strong enough to be a nightly visitor! Operating on 4770 kHz with only 1 kW, the signal travelled 15,640 km to Melbourne. Quite a distance! There was also the mediumwave outlet on 1010 kHz with 10 kW. 

In the 60s and 70s, Venezuela was a very active country on shortwave, especially on the 60- and 90-metre bands. But, during the 1980s, most stations turned off their shortwave transmitters, concentrating on AM and FM outlets. By 1988, R. Bolívar's 4770 kHz shortwave signal had become irregular, and by 1990, had disappeared for good.

Radio TV Gaucha (Porto Alegre), Brazil on 6135 kHz.

This Radio Tanzania QSL is one of my two remaining mediumwave African QSLs (the other QSLs from four African countries have "flown the coop"!) This one arrived at the end of April, taking just four weeks. Distance travelled by this mediumwave signal: 10,950 km (6,804 ml)

A Crush of Radio Signals

It is important to understand that the ionosphere (the atmospheric layer responsible for the refraction of radio signals) is always in a constant state of flux. It changes diurnally (throughout the day), across seasons, with the solar cycle, with the location of ionospheric refraction points, and with daily variances in solar activity. 

In the 70s and 80s, regular mini-surveys were conducted and reported in the ADXN. During April, 1972, a few of us (David Foster, Bob Padula, Russell James and I) gathered information for a 31mb daytime survey. Down here in southeastern Australia, whenever we head towards winter, 9 MHz is open 24 hours a day! In the 2.5-hour survey period of 0130 to 0400 UTC (local, thirty minutes past noon to 2pm), there was plenty to hear from a variety of countries around the world. Actual propagation paths on this band were difficult to determine and consisted of short, long, dual-path, as well as multi-hop modes. 

Reading back over the results, it was surprising to see just how many "collisions" there were between the international broadcasters, operating at exactly the same time! Here are some glaring examples!

9520    Madrid, R. Liberty and occasionally ABC-Port Moresby.

9530    VoA-Greenville, R. Moscow, and HCJB.

9540    R. Prague and R. Moscow Home Service.

9545    Beirut and Deutsche Welle-Jülich.

9565    VOA-Greenville and Deutsche Welle-Kigali, Rwanda.

9570    Bucharest and Madrid, along with R. Porrtales, Santiago on 9573!

9590    R. Moscow, R. Nederland and R. Presidente Balmaceda, Santiago!

9600    BBC-Ascension and R. Berlin Int.

9610    ABC-Perth, plus R. Norway and R. Moscow, both beaming to the Americas!

....and on and on it goes! 

The rest of the band was exactly the same. Collisions all over the place. Now, some of these clashes would work OK into the target zones, as long as it's not the SAME target zone (as in the last example above!). But if a listener was not in one of the clashing target zones, it was very common to hear all stations on a particular frequency at the same time. Remember: this was well before the advent of the High Frequency Coordination Committee (HFCC).

Interesting times, indeed!

QSLs in the Mailbox

The Wagner family mailbox saw some nice QSLs from: R. Bandeirantes (São Paulo) 6185, R. Bolívar 4774, R. TV Gaucha (Porto Alegre) 6135, R. Guarani (Belo Horizonte) 6175, R. Sutatenza 6075, Dacca 15520, Rangoon 5040 and some international broadcasters.

Radio Bandeirantes (São Paulo), Brazil on 6185 kHz

I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane. Next month, we will open the logbook in May 1972.

73 and good DX,

Rob Wagner VK3BVW

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