Reception of the World Music Radio station on the 11m Short Wave Band - June 2021

16th June 2021: I noticed a post on my Facebook feed yesterday about a Danish station transmitting on 25800 kHz on the 11m broadcast band. I really don't have much interest in short wave stations but this one caught my attention as it is reasonably close to the 28 MHz band.

The post from the 14th of June 2021 read... "WMR (World Music Radio) is now on the air on 25800 kHz - locally audible in Aarhus, Denmark -  and sometimes by eskip og F2 propagation."

Today, I noticed I was hearing OZ7IT in Denmark on WSPR on 28 MHz via Sporadic-E propagation with a good 0dB signal. I then checked for the OZ7IGY beacon on 28.271 MHz and sure enough, it was there.

When I checked 25.800 MHz, the World Music Radio station was there on AM with a signal strength of about S '5' to '8' with a lot of fading. The distance was in the region of 1300 kms to my location.

In response to a question, they said that they were running 100-watts into a vertical antenna on top of a tall tower. Photo at the end of this post.

100w sounds like a lot but in terms of short wave broadcasting, it's very low power.

Sporadic-E propagation: If anyone wants to have a listen during the Summer Sporadic-E season (May to July), I have put together a map showing the likely range.

The signal is likely to be heard in the range of 500 kms to 2000 kms. Anything under 500 kms is in the skip zone. anything over 2000 kms is likely to be too weak.

The best spot is roughly between the two, say 900 to 1600 kms.

In conclusion: Putting a short wave transmitter on 25800 kHz near the bottom of the sunspot cycle seems like a strange choice. It will probably be a few years before there will be consistent F2 propagation at that frequency and even then, 100-watts on AM will only go so far.

The 11-metre broadcast band is an unusual band with very few stations on it and many of the typical small portable radios don't cover it.

I checked my own TecSun PL-380 and it tops out around 22 MHz.

Yet for all that, it's interesting to see if it can be heard. I'm thinking already if that nice 100-watt carrier could be used for meteor scatter tests! 😂

If you hear Danish stations on 28 MHz then have a listen and you should be able to hear it.

Links...

1) World Music Radio website

2) Their Facebook page

Numbers stations on the short wave bands

My first encounter with a numbers station was many moons ago while I was tuning across the short wave bands on a very old radio. I came across an unidentified station where a woman was reading out a string of numbers in German. Needless to say, I had no idea at the time what it meant or what its purpose was.

This video written, researched and presented by Paul Shillito on his Curious Droid YouTube channel explains what numbers stations were and what they were used for.



Link...
1) Additional info on current numbers stations... http://priyom.org/

Short Wave Listener QSL cards...

Having recently gone through a backlog of incoming QSL cards, I had the usual few SWL (Short Wave Listener) cards in there as well. I came accross one for which I could find no match in the log so I left it to the end.
Got to the end, re-checked VQLog and my paper log....no sign of the station mentioned.

This is the QSL card...


........and here is the back.


Now, the card is a bit unusal. SWL's don't usually send cards for having heard 'cw' contacts. If they have spent that much time listening to and learning morse, most have gone one to get a licence and get on the air themselves.
I knew I had worked PA1SIX before but just not on that particular day.

I was curious....so I used the 'search' function on the DX-cluster.


PA1SIX 50105.0 EI7GL 559 E 1426 29 Dec


So, PA1SIX had spotted me but did not call me. Note the time, 14:26, the exact same time as what was on the qsl card. So, was this SWL just picking callsigns off the cluster and sending them qsl cards???


So I dug a bit more.......


I found this on an AMSAT forum...
Hi all , this is JH3DJX/Yuki . I received SWL card from DO2OTH . The report was the QSO via SO-50 worked with JH5DAH over Japan .How could he hear our QSO at Germany ?I send e-mail to DO2OTH , but no reply . Can anyone explain this mystery ?


Now, SO-50 is in low Earth orbit so it is impossible to hear it (70cms) in Germany when it is over Japan. Again, a quick check on the cluster suggests an answer...


JH3DJX-@ 436800.0 JH5DAH VIA SO-50 SAT (Saudisat-1C) 1211 21 Jan (2003)


There seems to be little doubt this time, DO2OTH (now DL6BT) just picked a contact off the DX-cluster and sent them a qsl card hoping that they would reply.


Q. What is the point in a SWL sending someone a QSL card for a contact they did not hear???