Third Sporadic E opening noticed this year here in Uurainen. Also this time pretty weak signals from both sides of English Channel. Mostly high power transmitters with MUF 98. Janne had common BBC stations in Jyväskylä with same MUF, no France at all. Full log can be found here.
Couple of recent pirate QSL’s:
#201 Radio Astronaut, Wierden (Ov.), the Netherlands
#202 Rock ’N Roll Radio, Central Italy
7.5.2016
Preparing for ES season, but this has been totally silent season. Some OIRT conditions from Swedish Lapland. Lot’s of meteor reflections on Es monitoring frequency 88.7 MHz. The goal is to catch NRK Oslo before it will leave FM.
6290 CZE: Radio Caroline
6305 G: Radio Merlin
6325 HOL: Radio Montferland 2100. New-for-me.
4 element Yagi on the 2nd floor balcony
10.5.2016
Today’s maximum was +22.2 degrees Celsius. Same than Las Palmas, Amsterdam or Warsaw. Yesterday’s maximum was +20.8 (same than Las Palmas, Warsaw, Vienna and Zürich). Both days were warmer than in Bucharest, Istanbul, Lisbon, Madrid, Malaga, Nice, Paris, Prague, Varna or Venice. Just to break the prejudice of ”cold north”
6280 HOL: Radio Witte Reus 2030
6290 CZE: Radio Goofy 1940
6300 HOL: Radio Mazda 1930
11.5.2016
Getting colder (+14.4’c) but still warmer than Lisbon (+12), same than Madrid or Tallinn. Checked SER break around 2055 UTC, only few frequencies open with dominant stations.
12.5.2016
No SW conditions to Latin America this morning… Today’s maximum temperature was +16.9’c. Warmer day than in Lisbon, Madrid, Moscow, Prague, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Tallinn, Vienna or Zürich.
1044 E: SER Radio Valladolid, Valladolid. Finally San Sebastián gave space for this. 2155
1224 E: COPE Lugo, Lugo. ”88.9, 101.2, 96.6, 100.1 fm, 1224 onda media, Cope Lugo” 2227
1287 E: SER Radio Lleida. Lleida. Commercials for Burgos at 2233 without ID. 2054
1620 HOL: Radio Poema, Veluwe. 2015
150 m Afro backlope feed to 2nd floor window
13.5.2016
Today +17.7c in Central Finland. In Malaga and Nice was measured +18, Lisbon, London, Palma de Mallorca, Venice and Vienna +17 degrees Celsius. Madrid (13), Moscow (16), Oslo (10), Stockholm (16), Zürich (10) were clearly colder today. That’s for today’s weather logs, couple of listening logs will follow:
6205 IRL: Coast FM (Tenerife) 2125
6320 G: Little Feat Radio. s9+10dB. 2040
6920 I: Key Channel Radio. 2105
No new catches from Spain on MW.
14.5.2016
Today +17.5 degrees Celsius in Central Finland were comparable with the temperature in Madrid, Moscow or Rome (+18) and clearly warmer than in Oslo or Zürich (10), London (11), Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen or Paris (12), Frankfurt (13), Berlin or Tallinn (14), Lisbon, Prague or Warsaw (16). ES season was officially opened today in Central Finland with weak and fading conditions to France (later to Benelux). MUF was 108 but most of the stations were high power stations or the most common catches. Visual log: http://www.fmlist.org/fm_logmap.php?datum=2016-05-14&omid=1183 OIRT trying in the evening, more to come tomorrow?
1143 E: COPE Jaén, Jaén. 2230
1224 E: COPE Lugo, Lugo 2155
15.5.2016
Rainy, cold and teasing day. Only +11.3 degrees Celsius measured, similar than in Frankfurt or Oslo (11). Colder in Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Prague, Stockholm or Zürich. No local breaks noted on SER or COPE for Sunday late evening.
6390 D: Radio Orion 2000 0916
70.43 RUS: Radio Rossii, Volgograd-tx 1015
88.7 BUL: tent. Radio Varna, Dobrich. Talk about classical music compositors in Bulgarian. JJH got a PI code. 1232
88.7 G: BBC Radio 2. Meteor scatter. 1245
88.7 RUS(?): UNID under Radio Varna. ”Slushate vesti radija”. Promoting coming radio news? 1254
6850 I: Radio Bandido, Lago di Varese. Country music and horses! A new-for-me Italian. 1815
6210 HOL(?): Music Wave, probably via Sluwe Vos Radio. ”musicwave.ru” 1905
6280 HOL: Quadzilla Radio. A new-for-me station again on the 48 mb. Nice evening! 1915
6195 HOL: Radio Python – the shortwave snake. S9+20 dB. 1950
6040 UNID: Eighties Radio. 80’s music with jingles. Must be a pirate project. 2000
16.5.2016
Since today I work again in the Petäjävesi radio museum – an excellent touristical attracion ;). Warm day (+19.4 degrees Celsius), similar than Nice (+19). Especially compared to Prague, Warsaw or Zürich: +9, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt: +12, Copenhagen, Moscow, Oslo, St. Petersburg, Vienna: +13, Berlin, Tallinn: +14, Beograd +15, London, Paris, Venice +16, Bucharest +18. Choose your next summer holiday destination and come to Central Finland 🙂
Spain totally gone on MW, but good conditions to Middle East. Instead of COPE, Radio Kuwait 1134 kHz was very strong for more than half an hour, s9+20-40dB. FM-QSL collecting has started and new QSLs can be found here.
#198 free radio QSL: Radio Bandido, Lago di Varese (VA) 6850 kHz
17.5.2016
+15.2 degrees Celsius measured in Uurainen, like in Frankfurt – beating again half Europe. Prague +10, Warsaw +11, Berlin, Stockholm, Tallinn +12, Copenhagen and Zürich +13, Moscow, Oslo and Vienna +14. MUF map was promising but CCIR didn’t open. Spanish stations were strong on MW. 2055 UTC SER on 1287 kHz gave ID as Radio Lleida, 2155 UTC instead SER Catalunya as usually in this last local window. Also Burgos was audible but not enough clear ID for a report. Next time better luck. Also pirate conditions were good tonight!
88.7 G: BBC Radio 2. Meteor scatter. 1435
6040 UNID: 80th Radio, audible continuously tonight.
6310 HOL: Radio 102, Groningen (Gr.) 6 watts. 2115
1625 HOL: Zender Napoleon. 2258
18.5.2016
Today’s maximal temperature +15.2 degrees Celsius was warmer than +12 in London, +13 in Copenhagen and Tallinn or +14 in Warsaw or Moscow. No Sporadic E, so there is plenty of time for house maintaining and other garden work. Couple of pirate logs for tonight, COPE and SER were concentrated on match between Liverpool and Sevilla.
6318 CZE: Radio Green Frog. Studio in Calau, tx via Goofy, RPT via Doc. 2105
6210 I: tent. Radio Barraquda, Milano. Later on 5896 USB. Only nonstop music. 2118
19.5.2016
Noisy conditions on 48 mb, but still couple of new-for-me stations were audible on the waves! Today’s +17.8 C were warmer than +11 in Zürich, +14 in Paris, St. Petersburg or Venice +15 in Brussels or +16 in Amsterdam Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London, Moscow or Oslo. In Warsaw +18 C.
6230 AUS: VMW, Wiluna WA. USB-mode. Marine weather forecasts. Covering Panda Radio surprisingly. 1800
6300 HOL: Mike Radio. S9+10dB. 1820
6307 CZE: Radio Caroline. 1855
6210 HOL: Panda Radio. 14 watts. Not very good signal, because of the conditions were not so perfect. 1900
6318 CZE: Radio Bílá Díra (via Goofy). Announced e-mail address not working!? 1935
20.5.2016
Noisy conditions on 48 mb. Today’s +19.1 were more than in Benelux, Germany, London, Paris or Zürich for example.
6265 20.5. 2132- I: Rock’n’roll Radio. New station? At least new name.
6307 20.5. 2045-2131 CZE: Radio Green Frog (Grüne Frosch). Relay via Goofy.
21.5.2016
Pretty ok conditions on 48 mb, not so much noise. I took part to the biggest annual radio flea market organized in Finland: see the pictures here.
6308 CZE: Radio Goofy. S9+5dB. 1905
6290 HOL: Radio Astronaut, Twente. Max S7 with 10 watts. 1945-2001
6424 HOL: Radio Ramona. Long time no hear. 2030
6320 HOL: Radio Powerwave, (via SkyWave). 2110
6381 HOL: Radio Etherfreak (Dr.) 2235
22.5.2016
Warm day with Mediterranean temperatures (+20.1 degrees Celsius, same than Athens or Lisbon)! Warmer than for example in Amsterdam, Brussels, Istanbul, London, Nice or Paris. Weak but long Sporadic E opening to Balkan. Heard Macedonia here for the first time, but no luck with ID. The sound of national radio made me avoid these frequencies most of the time, even the combination 92.3/94.5 was strange.. Just couple of logs from 48mb.
91.8 SRB: TDI Radio. ID: TDI 1456
89.5 SRB: Radio Vladimirci, Vladimirci 1506
88.7 ROU: Itsy Bitsy, Satu Mare. 1555
88.9 KOS: Radio Kosova, Zatric 1600
88.5 ROU: Digi FM, Resita-tx. 1616
91.7 SRB: Radio Beograd 1, Besna Kobila -tx. 1628
89.0 BUL: Radio Focus. Not listed. 1632
6295 HOL: Black Bandit Radio. 2215
6319 HOL: Radio Caroline International 2230
23.5.2016
Warm day +23.8 C, as warm as in Berlin, Malaga, Rodos or Tel Aviv. Warmer than in Benelux (13-14), Frankfurt (15), Copenhagen, Istanbul or London (18), France (12-23). Madrid or Moscow (19). Lisbon (21), Mallorca, Prague or Varna (22), Italy (20) or Zürich (8). No logs for today.
24.5.2016
No logs for today, but 25.5 degrees Celsius have beaten the most of Europe:
Summer is here.
Dacha is open to the guests.
Uurainen is signing on.
Today was as warm as in Athens, Paris or Tel Aviv (+24), beating the temperatures in such Mediterranean localities like Madrid, Malaga, Rome, Venezia, Nice, Lisboa, Istanbul etc.
The Sporadic E season has been opened already in Finland with marginal conditions in April and May. Finally today, May 8th, the monitoring station of Uurainen is activated. Everything is working well, when meteor reflections come throughout the noise. Janne has been suntanning in Turkey, so no logs so far from Central Finland for this season.
AM antennas are still up. During last 10 years I have been spending too many summer nights waiting for a single sign of ES.. It’s time to go back to the habit in the early 2000 when I used to enjoy African short wave stations. Also MW band might offer surprising signals as it’s way clearer compared to the situation still in 2001-2005. If the conditions will be favorable, Spanish AM stations will remain on catch list.
Latest QSL from Saturday evening, #195 verified free radio, #109 from the Netherlands
Small guest house seen from the 2nd floor balcony is ready for the guests
July 7th was a good day for FMDXers, all day long. I was not at home, but here are some loggings by Janne in Jyväskylä (30 km SE from me). Jim from Bromarv (South-West Finland) reports:
0930 utc aloitettiin puolen tunnin Ranskakelillä, mukana myös Galician kulma. 1120-1200 utc oli vuorossa lisää Ranskaa, muf 108. Ranska rysähti kunnon menoon taas 1410-1450 utc, muf koko ajan 108. 1715-1735 tykitti vuorostaan Venäjän Balakovo muffin 108:aan. Ja lopuksi 1900 utc vielä vartti Romaniaa ja Bulgariaa, muffi noin 97 megaa.
July 8th was even better, at least what comes to the amount of loggings. Janne’s results can be seen here. My personal log is here. We both got around 10 new stations.
I was not at home 0839-1207 UTC, so I missed the ROU/MDA/TUR opening. We were visiting the old church of Petäjävesi that belongs to the UNESCO world heritage list. This year is the 250th anniversary.
On the way we stopped on Radio and Telephone Museum which is always an interesting pit stop. Petäjävesi is located 37 km from Uurainen.
July 9th we visited Aviation Museum in Tikkakoski (15 km from here).
It has also a small exhibition of military receivers and transmitters.
What we enjoyed (in Central Finland)
-lots of meteor reflections in June, more than usually
-one of the best openings, at least for me, to Germany (26/6) and Russia (17/6)
-Juha got nice Spanish double hop from Galicia
What we missed (in Central Finland)
-no opening for Romania or Ukraine
-no proper opening for France, just from the corner
-as often, best openings reached only coastal area but not inner country. Seasons 13-14 were nice exceptions!
One method to rank summers could be the number of audio clips. Usually I create a mp3 only when I hear a new-for-me station, so it doesn’t tell the whole truth. Another way could be a summary of all loggings (years 2010-11 not yet logged in FM-List…)
Season / number of clips (new ES stations) / number of logs (all stations)
2008 / 46 / 73
2009 / 9 / 18
2010 / 225 / NA
2011 / 78 / NA
2012 / 95 / 121 (NB: the best day 14/7 was spent on work)
2013 / 315 / 364
2014 / 225 / 565
till 6/2015 / 116 / 204
Could be much worse, eh!?
All day long ES was trying on low band, and lots of UNID stations were noted at various times. Around 11 UTC I heard 88.9 RTL Luxemburg, 88.7 Chérie FM and 89.7 France Musiques. Juha heard Spain around 12 UTC. A bit later Radio Dallas Loisirs from France showed the RDS on 89.1 MHz, unfortunately only music was audible. Around 1515 UTC I heard that someone was talking loudly upstairs in German. Obviously Sony XDR had caught a foreign signal on an empty frequency. Also RDS was seen on the screen (MDR_SACH). During a quick bandscan the highest log was 106 MHz. That was the beginning of the best conditions this summer, which were favorable to Germany and France with some Czech stations. This opening lasted for more than 2 hours, with Maximal Useful Frequency (MUF) 108 MHz most of the time. After a 30-minute-long break the conditions started again, this time to the British Isles. Exceptionally Ireland was heard too. MUF was up to 100 MHz but only few stations on the band. Later 1924-1945 UTC we had Benelux on low band. Waiting for more to come tomorrow!!!
Janne’s visual log for today (Jyväskylä)
J-M’s visual log for today (Uurainen)
Today’s conditions were considered as the best opening of season 2015. At least it was the strongest which was not positive in the beginning. The FM band was full of signals from Croatia to the Netherlands, practically from every European country, with 3 to 5 stations on every frequency causing horrible noise. Maybe a whip would have given better results (band less full…). Most of the stations were big powerhouse networks, and small private stations couldn’t pass througout the noise. Quickly BeNeLux dropped and Es was favorable for Balkan and Hungary (MUF still over 100 MHz). Then it turned again to Italy. In two hours the conditions seemed to be already over, but surprisingly two frequencies faded in (89.2 & 91.2) and gave id’s in Greek. New heard FM country for me (2402 km!) Further log might be published here in the near future!
Late evening conditions to British Isles. Mostly BBC 2 and 3 transmitters, tentatively also RTÉ. Highest noted 92.7. Earlier Janne received BBC, HR3 and some French too. I slept the morning conditions on 22 Jun. Janne was working but found delta radio from Germany 96.5 on his recording. Maybe it was kinda good opening, eh! This June seems to be ”usual” after pair of good Junes. The best openings go to Southern/South-Western Finland and the skip doesn’t reach Central Finland properly. 2013-2014 seasons anyway treated us a way better.
Few pics of received QSL’s will follow.
Europa Plus Kurganinsk QSL. Google Translate says: ”Hi! how is it possible? we just 100W overall depth of 24 m. the way to record the voice of my wife. The antenna is on the outskirts of our town we’re in the middle can not catch, and you are in Finland ”
QSL TRT Nağme, transmitted from Zonguldak, North Coast of Turkey on 87.8 FM. Distance 2386 km. Thank you Demet for translation: ”They say its difficult to hear or to listen it but they are sure the records are from TRT Nagme. Best wishes/Greetings”
Today we had very weak low band Italy in Central Finland. Guys in South Western Finland enjoyed of good opening to Italy (MUF 107) but also to France and double hop to Spain and Algeria! Here nothing like that. Extraordinarily 90.3 was audible for almost an hour with M2O and Radio Capital fading on it. Rest of the band was practically empty! Earlier I identified at least Radio Lodi 89.0 and Fantastica 89.5.
