FM season 2017 is going to end little by little. Right now meteor shower might bring still something new. Looking for tropospheric ducting – the sure sign of autumn which is already in the air. May was not very good, but June brought many nice openings. July and August have been pretty much ”boring”, there has been few small openings. Most of them I have spent in work. The only highlight of July was a nice GIRL opening 22072017.
After few days spent in work, with moderate conditions mostly on OIRT, it was time to have a better opening to British Isles which lasted more than one hour. After that there were stations on OIRT practically all day long, but conditions never really started again to that direction. At least Radio City Liverpool 96.7, Compass FM Grimsby 96.4 and BBC Radio Merseyside 95.8 were new-for-me stations. Irish South East Radio showed RDS on 95.6 MHz with news. The highest note was 105.3 Capital with network jingle.
July 4th was a silent day till the evening. Ireland in some parts of Finland, later very short POL in Central Finland. A new-for-me station Radio Gra from Torun was heard on 88.8 MHz, 1123 km. Radio Gra has bought several local stations, but whole Radio Gra was later bought by RMF group. The local branches became a part of RMF Maxxx network, luckily this Torun-based main station remains ”independent”. Yesterday July 3rd offered only OIRT stations, weakly all day long (which I noticed just in the morning before leaving to work). On Sunday July 2nd we had a Balkan opening here in Inner Finland – I was again not in home, but enjoying the summer weekend in the biggest inland city of Northern Europe (if you don’t ask Danish people). It seems that we are going towards a better time, also the beginning of June offered this kind of poor openings which never really started but it led soon to some fantastic days. Hopefully the best moments will come again around half month (which would be the 28 day period).
A perfect example of a good verification for a FM reception report, in DACH countries they know how to do it:
And a new butterfly for this season: papilio machaon
Weak morning opening to TS and BA for one hour, the highest was 106.9 MHz, but signals sounded like during Aurora condx + quick fade. Nothing much to enjoy. Some notes: 90.6 Mil. Volna gave weather at 0727 UTC mentioning local sponsor Avtosalon Avangard in Nab. Chelny. Probably Shermodan transmitter (70.52 MHz) is still active on OIRT. Marked as ex-Yunost, programme was different than Rossii (ID to check). 66.23 listed as Brezhnev FM in Nab. Chelny ided as Radio Rossii. It looks like some stations marked inactive in FMList are still operating – and there may be changes. Several Radio Rossii regionals are marked to be moved to CCIR, but in reality they still continue on OIRT too. Let’s keep an eye on it!
End of June has been pretty much silent, except 4 hours on June 27 (I was not in QTH). I missed also another good day (16062017). Nevertheless the total number of logs is 402 at the moment (still some recordings to check). It looks like this is going to be the best season of 2010’s, based on number of logs by one receiver. The goal for the season is to have 100 new FM QSLs.
Again a relatively good opening, best moments were for Czechia and Hungary, when some stations beated local transmitters! So far this season has been extremely good, till today total number of my logs is 377. Compared to full seasons 2016 (417) and 2014 (566) it can be that this will be the best ever, at least if July won’t be totally silent. 2013 (364) and 2015 (324) are not totally comparable, because I was off in August. Visual log here.
A small OIRT opening in the morning (I was not at home). In the evening almost perfect timing, just arrived from work when band opened, right after I parked the car in garden (1615 UTC). Once again the conditions surprised totally, MUF map promised almost nothing, when I left work around 1520 UTC. The last log for today was Lattemiele on 95.9 MHz at 2118 UTC, after local midnight! For the first three hours MUF was even too high, so the lower band was unusable because of white noise, which happens easily during ”too good” conditions. Luckily there were plenty of reabadle signals between 100 and 108 MHz. Sometimes late night conditions promise good for next day.. let’s see how it goes!
Even many of our blog readers must know how much I love Italy, unfortunately it is not very interesting FMDX target. Small local stations have become a part of big national or seminational networks, so the number of interesting stations is continuously decreasing. Anyway 5 new-for-me stations made my day: Radio Bresciasette 94.8, Radio Azzurra 107.6, Modena 90 107.4, Radio Center Music 99.1 and Radio Adige 101.3. The most interesting moment was a short peak to Naples (2536 km!) when Kiss Kiss Italia came with RDS KKITALIA on 95.9 MHz. Kiss Kiss Italia belongs to Radio Kiss Kiss family, but it has only regional coverage. Unfortunately it disappeared soon, without ID from Naples. This summer has brought an extraordinary number of double hops and extralong one skip!
My personal log for today can be found here: http://www.fmlist.org/fm_logmap.php?datum=2017-06-18&omid=1183
Not really condx today in inner Finland, but South coast got a good evening opening to Albania/Bulgaria/Italy. Radio Mater was audible enough for an ID, Radio Focus from Bulgaria almost for a minute. Again late night ROU under 91 MHz.
Yesterday 16 June was described as one of the best FM-opening during decades in South Finland. The best part of it was RDS-level signals from Middle East like Saudi Arabia, Jordania, State of Palestine (PSE) and Armenia from about 4500 km distance (3 skips?). (http://uto-fmdx.blogspot.fi/) After listening the blind recording, it must have been pretty good also here. Mostly basic Romanian stations, but an interesting arab double hop around local noon. Unfortunately no IDs.
From the bed to the band. Morning opening was already going on at 0550 UTC on lower band, bringing Bosnian, Czechia, Poland, Germany and Austria. Mostly basic stations. I had to leave QTH for 40 minutes, between 0640-0720 UTC, and when driving, I enjoyed the selection of songs CRo 1 on 89.7, including ”I wasn’t expecting it now”. Fits perfectly to the feeling 🙂 The band closed a bit after I came back, afterwards it was annoying to notice an arab on blind recording which I roughly changed to the other frequency, because the signal was ”too weak”.. Next time then!
An hour later the strongest BBCs appeared and soon band was open to BeNeLux. Next 30 minutes of DNK MUF 108 were definitely the best half an hour of my DX history! It is pretty rare to have a widely open band for such a short distance (1100-1200 km!)
Guys in Utö pedition described today as ”second best day ever in Utö” which is not hard to believe!
My personal visual log is here: http://www.fmlist.org/fm_logmap.php?datum=2017-06-08&omid=1183
An afterwork opening totally surprised and the first ID ”..19 sat, slusate Radio Postaju Vinkovci” never ended up to the recording. Luckily the news tune after ID, together with written ID, could lead to a reception report 🙂 Soon conditions turned to Italy. Very quick fading and weird conditions also today. Most of the band was empty, but on few frequencies was continuous ”pile up” full of stations fighting of airspace, 10-15 seconds each.. In the same time French and English stations were aubidle. Like yesterday, neither today none of the directions really opened. So far the first week of June has been pretty good with 86 logs.
