Westcoast Finland log; 15-17 May

[Jan II]

Hello everybody!
This weekend I had many hours to spend on the radio, but I am not satisfied with the result. No signals! Weak, weak fragments of music fading up 5 seconds after hours of listening.
Highlights were the Friday evening show from Sonnet and the unexpected appearance of Likedeeler. Pity I missed Fantasy Radio this weekend again, the eveningshow on Saturday.

Friday 15 May

3900,2 1842 Skyline International Radio playing music some hours. "Black is black" this tima. 35333
6220 1906 Mystery Radio "Nonstop music around the globe on Mystery Radio". 45444
6309,2 1948 Sonnet Radio with oldies and old rock. Morse-interference. 22432. Heard again around 2120 with 35433 and a swedish DJ. Great!
6400,6 2057 Radio Shadow playing Police, CCR... 12332 and also here problems with morse.
6870 2053 unid with an american programme about Frank Sinatra. Is probably PBI or Pirate Music. 45444

Saturday 16 May (over 10 hours listening and 4 stations heard... )

6220 1700 Mystery Radio with nonstop music. 35433
6280,1 1804 Radio Merlin "Pretty Belinda" ended, followed by "Puppet on a string". Pop-oldies...32332
6310 0659 Grensstad Radio Nonstop Bob Marley classics until 0738, after that announcements and other music. 15232
6379,4 1218 Radio Marconi with pop from the 80's. 1242*. 15322
6380,6 1558 Radio Marconi on the air again. This time with disco, schlager and some oldies. 1642*. At the end down on 6380,5. 22322 and very much echo on the talking.

Sunday 17 May

4024,6 1947 Laser Hot Hits playing old pop. "Let your love flow". 35222
5805 1956 Radio Telstar South seems to stick to this fq now. Oldies as usual. Cliff Richard. 25232
6201 0921 Radio Likedeeler on the air again after a long time. A lot of german talking mixed with a little music. 15322
6220 0733 Mystery Radio with nonstop music and IDs. 25322
6265 0940 Antonio Radio playing old pop such as "Jambalaya". 1008*. 25322
6553,2 1137 Radio Galaxy testing new equipment. Soft songs until 1156*. On the air again around 1315. 15311
6870 1700 unid but PlayBack International or Pirate Music. Nonstop 80's music. Listened until 1745, still no IDs but this american "Broadcasting processor" -commercial was heard a couple of times. 35333
6925 2017 Spider Radio in USB. Played Bonnie Tyler. 25333
12257,3 0605 WR International early on the air. Blondie 0658, then news followed by "Daddy Cool" 0702. Seems to be drifting a little, down on usual 12257,1 at 0747. 15322

unids Sunday (too long list again, Borderhunter & co should not be here )

6205 0758 weak music (Radio Suzuki heard by ukdxer, Iann, Marco...)
6210 0933 weak music (Radio Borderhunter heard by everybody but me)
6210 1626 UK-english show with much talking and playing oldies, reminded of some old offshoretape. Off 1637. On again when I checked 1643 and off 1651. Not heard later. Interesting! 25322
6214,8 0808 weak music (King Shortwave heard by Marco in Germany)
6240,4 0955 weak music (Misti Radio heard by ukdxer, Marco...)
6304,2 1000 weak music (Radio Moonlight heard by many)
6279,4 0706 dutch station. Heard only "Bed of roses" and a short announcement mentioning Studio 52 before sign off 0709. 25333 (Radio Lowland heard by Marco and Iann)
6415,5 0941 weak music (Radio Dutchwing heard by many)
6523,8 0944 weak music (Radio Ramona on the air according to the announcement here on Alfa Lima. Also heard by many.)

Radio: NRD 525G
Antenna: Outdoor cupperwire, 20 metres long.

Thank you all stations for the nice shows!



Jan

[Dave Jones]

Hi Jan,
Many thanks for the log of WR International for 17-05-2009. I was not aware that our frequency drifts a little. Also you say that we were early on air, Our transmitter switches on automatically at midnight UK time on the Saturday night/Sunday morning and music is played from a PC until we go live at 08:00 UK time which is 07:00 UTC. The transmitter is on through the night to allow night time DXers a chance to log it if they want to or indeed are able to. But I must be honest, we have never had a report for the hours of darkness. Perhaps no one was aware that the transmitter ran through the night (although it has since we moved to SW some 15 years ago).

Again thanks for the log

73's
Dave

[RadioRamona]

Thanks Jan for your report.

[Jan II]

Aha!

Good information there Dave! I didn´t know about this nightservice. I usually stay up late on Saturday evenings, I will check the fq from now on.

About this drifting. Usually I hear WRI on 12257,1, but I have seen other listeners sometimes mentioning 12257,2. This was the first time I have heard WRI on 12257,3.
I thought the transmitter just had been swiched on and was drifting down when it warmed up. (my old tuberadios did so a long time ago...heh...) But there must be some other explanation now as you had been on the air for many hours already when I heard you... Of course this small variation in frequency doesn´t matter when you sit by the radio and listen, but if I put the receiver on ,1 and have a very narrow filter, I then tell the old cassetterecorder to record this frequqncy (with a timer) some hours later, and the frequency then has changed to ,3, I maybe don´t have the best recordiing when I listen to the cassette(?) This is just a theory...

And Ramona, nice to hear you again even if the signal was almost zero this time. As you see all dutch stations had a bad day at my place on Sunday. Only Antonio heard with a positive ID, seven unidentified... I expect better luck next time you are on the air!

Jan