As outlined in a previous post, Larry Horlick VO1FOG in Newfoundland heard a trans-Atlantic Spanish radio station on 88.8 MHz on the 21st of June 2021. Thanks to recordings that Larry has sent on to me, another Spanish radio station has now been identified.
This one was RNE Radio 3 on 95.8 MHz from the 100 kW transmitter at Navacerrada near Madrid.
The distance to Newfoundland is in the region of 3940 kms and it was very likely to have been due to double hop Sporadic-E as outlined in the previous post.
As well as the distance being 200 kms or so longer, it's interesting to note that the maximum usable frequency (MUF) for this double hop trans-Atlantic path was 7 MHz higher and well into the Band 2 broadcast band.
This is a recording of the signal on 95.8 MHz as it was heard in Newfoundland...
This matches the podcast for the RNE Radio 3 programme on the day. Link HERE
Credit: Thanks to FM DXer Paul Logan in the north of Ireland who helped identify this station and who also heard a FM radio station in Quebec during the same opening.
Sporadic-E footprint: It's interesting to see how the path from Madrid to Newfoundland is almost exactly in line with the other reception of the RNE R5 station on 88.8 MHz near Zamora.
Sporadic-E openings on the 88-108 MHz band are often like this with the stations heard stretched out in a straight line.
In Conclusion: I have covered the likely propagation mode in the earlier post which is HERE. As well as the distance and frequency of this second report, I am also struck by it's symbolism.
If a FM transmitter on 95.8 MHz serving Madrid, the capital of Spain can be heard across the North Atlantic in Newfoundland then what can FM Dxers and other radio enthusiasts in the Iberian Peninsula hear from North America?
And on a final note. Larry observes that there were MANY other radio stations in Spanish during this opening. We were able to identify just two from the audio recordings.
Mystery Station: There is a third and final recording but it's just a song.
It is the song 'Black Velvet' from Alannah Myles and it was heard from 11:55 UTC to 11:59 UTC on 89.9 MHz. Station? Location?
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Update - 27th June 2021: The mystery third station has now been identified as Los 40 Classic. A visitor to the blog (FinnDX) saw the comment above about the mystery station and then used this website to check back through the playlist of stations for the last week... https://onlineradiobox.com/
This is a composite of a screen capture that I took before it disappeared. The website seems to be showing what the time was in my location which is an hour ahead of UTC during the Summer months.
Fantastic reception. Regarding 89.9 MHz, if you take Navacerrada for 95.8 MHz in consideration, a possible candidate and very near station with classic hits is Los 40 Classic in Segovia. Try contact the station, as they might have a list of songs they played at that particular time. Just my two cents.
ReplyDeleteJune 21 was quite the day. Summer solstice; 93 stations worked on 6M; my XYL's birthday and now..TWO Spanish stations ID'ed. Congrats to Larry VO1FOG and also John and his team for the positive ID!
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Frank VO1HP
c/o VO1FN TransAtlantic Signals Project.
Congrats, this broadcast antenna is situated at 2265 m asl, near Madrid, power 300.000W
ReplyDelete73´s Luis EC4TR
Congrats - this is absolutely fantastic! Well done! It was already suggested Los 40 Classic for the 89.9 MHz mystery station. Yes, I can confirm that Los 40 Classic played this song in this particular time frame. Just checked it with Onlineradiobox playlists.
ReplyDeletehttps://onlineradiobox.com/es/m80/playlist/
Onlineradiobox is a great tool for DXers. It shows playing times as to your own local time. You can browse played songs back for one week so Monday 21st of June is still there. (When writing this comment, Monday playlists can be accessed directly by https://onlineradiobox.com/es/m80/playlist/6 - you can substitute the last number with 7 and 8 during the next two days when Monday 21st playlists cannot be accessed from the main link anymore). Onlineradiobox doesn't show playlists for longer unfortunately. So if there's some more superb catches to be solved, you're in a hurry.
Excellent! Thanks to FinnDX and the other commenter for identifying the station. It looks like the 2kW transmitter in Segovia.
ReplyDeleteGlad to have contribnuted to the solution :-)
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