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Thursday, April 19, 2018

Long distance reception of a Spanish station on Medium Wave during daylight hours

Since I did a previous scan of the Medium Wave band in March, I have found several other very weak signals buried in the noise. One of these however is just about audible and can be heard in the middle of the day. I built a very basic loop aerial with some wire would around a cardboard box (30 x 45 cms) and tuned it with a variable capacitor. The result was that I can now ID two of the signals.


The signal on 855 kHz was Radio Nacional 50kw transmitter near Santander on the north coast of Spain, a distance of 992 kms or 616 miles. As can be seen from the map above, the path is almost completely over the ocean.

The aerial mast in Spain is just 300m or so from the water while I am 10 kms from the south coast of Ireland.

Radio mast near Santander
The other signal heard was from the test DRM transmitter of France Blue (8kw) on 1071 kHz near Brest, a distance of 500 kms or 310 miles.

I was wondering if the signals were possibly sky wave but I don't think so. They are there in the middle of the day every day and they are really steady like you might expect from a ground wave signal.

The radio used was a very basic Sony radio which was indoors. The loop aerial was just sitting on top of it.


992 kms seems like a remarkable distance for a ground wave signal on the medium band. There are plenty of much closer transmitters in the UK that I can't hear but the sea path to Spain seems to be making all the difference.
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2 comments:

  1. TSF36April 19, 2018 at 8:44 AM

    Hello EI7GL,

    The station in Santander is one that can be heard at high noon at my QTH in Central France (JN06UT) although it travels mostly over land. So I guess you receive it better than me, in spite of a longer distance, because of the sea path which is far more conductive at this frequency.
    MW daytime DXing is interesting but there are very few reports. In the summer, I have been very surprised to hear far away stations with strong and stable signal in the middle of the day while the rest of the band was dead. A very sporadic phenomenon for which I found no explanation.
    Most MW DXers prefer night reception which allows very distant stations to be copied, but it is worthwhile having a look at the band in the daytime. You can be surprised !
    73, Jean-Luc

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  2. John, EI7GLApril 19, 2018 at 11:06 AM

    Merci Jean-Luc. I checked and your location (JN06UT) is about 570kms from Santander (IN83BL). The path is about 300kms over land and 270kms over the water so it is probably making the signal stronger in your location as well.

    I must check to see if it changes over the next few months from Spring to Summer to Winter.

    73's de John

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