Westcoast Finland log; 13-15 March

[Jan II]

Again a great weekend with good music.
A quiet band. Not much noice on 48 mb (good), but unfortunately this "filter" also took the signals of the radiostations. Especially on Saturday when 1 (one) station made it up here in the morning/afternoon. Pity I am too lazy to build a better antenna...

Friday 13 March

3900 2021 Antonio Radio playing dutch music and sending greetings to Radio Tina and Fox 48. 35333
3905 2035 R.O.Z. with popmusic. 25322
4024,6 2040 Laser Hot Hits Dancemusic. 25333

Saturday 14 March

3931,7 1928 Bogusman Not so strong signal this time. Hard to follow his talking about working. 25322
4024,6 1936 Laser Hot Hits also this time with dancemusic. 25322
6210,2 1207 Misti Radio with Animals, Queen, Janis Joplin played for Mike in Norway etc. Nice musicshow and the only station heard before evening. Superpower Misti! 25322
6323,8 1838 Radio Ramona Good rock until 1857, later a wider selection with "Bring me Edelweiss", Duran Duran... 25333
6850 1905 PlayBack International and the 11-90 KLIF Dallas -tape with Weird Beard on the air. 45444

Sunday 15 March

3910,2 0752 Skyline International Radio playing Queen. 25322. Still a tiny signal at 0830 but disappeared after that in the morningnoice.
4024,6 0618 Laser Hot Hits with good reception this early. Disappeared two hours later, raturned around 1600 and heard all evening. 35433
5815 0815 Orion Radio playing Blondie and other nice music. 35333
6210,2 1032 Misti Radio weak this time. Played Abba. 15322
6265 0922 Antonio Radio gave an ID, SMS-number, mailaddress and over to Dire Straits. 25333
6290 1017 Radio Saturnus with rock and pop. "Summertime blues" at this hour. 25322
6300 1607 PlayBack International with technical problems. On/offs and finally off around 1618. Same programme on 6870 but 40 seconds delay on 6300. Strong! 45444
6310 1210 PlayBack International live // 6850. Difficult to hear The Island of Nowhere this hour in the afternoon up here in the north. 25322
6520,4 0832 Radio Delta Lima again on air this weekend with nice rock and pop. Queen "Bicycle", "Goog golly miss Molly", "Radar love", "We could be heroes" with David Bowie etc. Murphy´s law working here, good signal when music and always fading down during the announcements. Prerecorded announcements with both female and male voices, didn´t hear those ones last weekend when the programme was live. Thanks to Radio Ramona for help with ID! 25322
6523,8 1040 Radio Ramona and "Johnny B. Goode". Faded away some minutes later, pity... 15311
6850 0630 PlayBack International Nonstop music this early. 45544
6870 1607 PlayBack International and the 14-30 WIL St Louis -tape. Rock'n'roll. 45544
12257,1 0919 WR International with popmusic and talking. Rolling Stones at 1021. Still on the air after 1100. 25322

Radio: NRD 525G.
Antenna: outdoor wire, 20 metres long. I could see the end of it last weekend when the snow had melted a little. Now the end is under the new snow again...




Jan

[Dave Jones]

Hi Jan,
Thanks for the mention of WR International in your logs for Sunday 15th March 2009. It is nice to know that we still get out on this frequency even though the weather is not the best for it. Thanks for checking up at 12Mhz not every one does for what ever reason.

Many thanks
Dave Jones

73's

[RadioRamona]

Thanks Jan for your report.
it was kind of a long skip weekend.

[saturnus]

Hello Jan!
Thanks for the reports

[Jan II]

Hello all!

Yes, some kind of long skip it was I guess. Especially Ramona Saturday evening and Delta Lima on Sunday seem to have skipped the closest listeners for some reason. You never know where the signals go...

Nice to hear from you Dave. I have logged WR International four Sundays in a row now but not before that. I must admit that I had checked the wrong frequency for almost two years. I was wondering why I never heard you...
Thank you also for the QSL-letter that I received from WR International 1993. I looked at it today and the letter was signed by "Station Co-ordinator David Jones".


Jan

[Ray Lalleu]

Hello Jan II,

Always reading your reports, good mix of accurate frequencies and programme details, go on!

About your antenna :
| outdoor wire, 20 metres long

| the end is under the new snow again...

Not a problem with insulated wire, I think.

| I am too lazy to build a better antenna...

Try to make your 20m wire antenna better :

- Next summer, try to hang it higher, so it will give better long distance reception (as now, it is more a "NVIS" short distance antenna)

- If not already done, try an indoor transformer (nicknamed "balun"). Don't spend your money, make it yourself with a ferrite core, straight or ring. Pick up a ferrite core from a 10.7 MHz IF transformer in a discarded small radio, or a ferrite ring from a discarded VGA monitor. Then try about 5 turns on the receiver side and about 15 to 20 turns on the antenna side (add about 1m wire extension as the second antenna connection). Trying different numbers of turn is very easy with a straight core and thin copper wire from a small DC motor (DC motor from audio equipment). Of course, you will need a small plastic box for this transformer and a few connectors.

Ray

[Jan II]

Thanks for the tips Ray!

When the snow is gone, the birds are singing and the temperature is acceptable, I will do something with the old wire.

Maybe I make an inverted V-dipole. Many years ago I had one for 60 mb when I was listening to Indonesia and Africa (I turned the "legs" of the antenna every spring and autumn 90 degrees as the target area changed with the time of the year). Later when my radiointerest changed to pirates, I shortened the dipole to 48 mb. It worked well but nothing beats the beaverage-antennas that we used to run out on lakes and even the sea during weekend DX-expeditions wintertime. We could have five antennas 1000 metres long each in directions SW, W, ,WNW, NW and N. These were of course made for MW-listening, but they also worked excellent on shortwave as they cached very weak signals.

A must for me now is a coax. It is irritating to know the signal is there but drowning in local noice from all kind of electric machines. My biggest enemy at the moment is our washingmachine. In the radio I hear 10 seconds radiostation , then 30 seconds washingmachine , then 10 seconds radiostation and so on. Not funny.
I have now put up written rules saying no weekendwashing before sunday evening, but my lady doesn´t always "remember" my rules. The second enemy is the computer , the third the TV etc.
When I still had the dipole with a coax, I used to listen with a car battery here at home and then there were no problems except a weak noice from the TV.

Also a dipole for 40 mb directed North America would be nice. Looking at Marcos logs from Germany now, I feel that my antenna sucks. I have been listening the same time on the same frequency hearing nothing when Marco is listening to WEAK, Kaos etc on 6925. A thing like this can make lazy me do something...

We'll see.

Jan

[JoJo]

Hello Jan, thanks for the log, much appreciated