Thursday, September 16, 2010

Cancellation of RSD 2010

We at Radio St. Helena are also VERY SAD to have to announce the cancellation of RSD 2010. The problems with the tower holding the 3-element Yagi antenna are such that we simply had no choice. There is no chance to fix the tower in the next six weeks, but RSH is quite confident that we will be able to broadcast a RSD 2011 program next year. At the moment, I am investigating the possibility of setting up a wire antenna as a temporary measure, but I am not at all sure whether we will be able to do that. The technical resources on the VERY REMOTE island of St. Helena are not so good. If anything needs to be ordered from England, then it takes a lot of time and effort. (Robert Kipp via Yimber Gaviria via playdx2003 ml via Roberto Scaglione, Sept 11, shortwave yg via DXLD)

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

FM Dxing

During the 3rd week of June 2010, I had an opportunity of experiencing sporadic e condition in FM band. Earlier, Noticing various distant FM logs, I tried several times from my hometown Kolkata with available receivers. But strong local FM channels & their image frequencies all over the FM band, prevented me to log any distant FM channels. Then dismantling newly home brewed Quad Loop antenna, shifted to another 100 km north of Kolkata, a place called Taherpur (Coordinates 23.18°N 88.58°E) under Nadia district of West Bengal state. Erected a 20 mtr. longwire targeting southeast & northwest. The very first day Quad miserably failed & later on detected that there was no continuity. Then the magic started with the longwire which later on found performing excellent. I used a tiny Tecsun PL 757A portable receiver. Many of the distant FM stations coming like our local FM channels, specially from Pakistan. As if, I am sitting in a city of Pakistan. Most of the pvt. FM channels of Bangladesh like Radio Foorti, Dhaka, Radio Amar, Radio Today Dhaka, were coming very clear. Most surprisingly received BBC Bengali programme via FM at Comilla, Bangladesh. Many of the stations carrying programme in CIS language, could not be identified. Indeed, it is not so easy to perfectly identify a distant FM channel just crosschecking their frequency in the available gadgets. Because various programme run in the same channel in various city of the same country. Although Indian pvt FM channels could not disturb the band much but some channels from central to northwestern India were available. Many of the Thai & Vietnamese channels remained unidentified. 
 
Below you can listen to some of the audio files recorded with my mobile phone recorder.   

Unidentified Chinese 92.4 MHz @ 0519 21.6.2010
 
102.6 MHz 0741UTC 21.6.10 AIR DELHI
 
FM 93 Pakisatn 93.0 MHz 0417 UTC 21.6.10
 
FM Sunrise Sahiwal Pakistan 96.0 MHz 0701 UTC 21.6.2010
 
Local pirate in Bengali
 
Local Pirate 95.6 MHz 1605 UTC 20.6.10
 
Local Pirate 96.4 MHz 1558 UTC 20.6.10
 
Mast FM Lahore Pakistan 103.0 MHz 0352 UTC 21.6.10
 
Power FM Islamabad 99.0 MHz 0728 UTC 21.6.2010
 
Punjab University FM Lahore 0.1 kW 104.6 MHz 0824 UTC 21.6.10
 
Pyinsawadi FM Burma 88.0 MHz 0501 UTC
 
R News Network Pakistan 99.0 MHz 0300 UTC 21.6.10
 
Radio Today Bangladesh 89.6 MHz 0537 UTC 21.6.2010
 
Sichuan R China 91.3 MHz 0400 UTC 21.6.10
 
Unidentified 90.1 MHz
 
Unidentified stn 97.8 MHz 0430 UTC 21.6.2010
 
Unidentified 101.3 MHz Presumably Tibetan
 
Unidentified Bengali 100 MHz  0323UTC 21.6.10
 
Unidentified Chinese stn 21.6.2010
 
Unidentified Chinese stn 92.4 MHz @ 0519 21.6.2010
 
Unidentified Chinese stn 96.0 MHz  0539 UTC
 
Unidentified Indian station
 
Unidentified Kazakh or Uighur language 92.2 MHz 0800 21.6.10
 
Unidentified Turkish language on 93.2 MHz 0418 UTC 20.6.2010
 
Unidentified Uighur language programme
 
But coming back in Kolkata tried several times but nothing fruitful so far. Quad Loop antenna was also erected perfectly. Definitely this was the first experience of sporadic e. Next one will must be a planned FM dxpedition.   
 
(Swopan Chakroborty)