Space


SOLAR FLARE, TSUNAMI, AND RADIATION STORM: A strong flare on the sun this morning kicked off a remarkable sequence of events: a solar tsunami, a solar radio burst, a solar proton storm, a terrestrial radio blackout and a polar cap absorption event. The explosion also (almost certainly) hurled a CME toward Earth. Developing story @ Spaceweather.com.

Ydun Ritz (2022-03-28)

United Kingdom

Radio Seerah in Leicester on 1575 seems to have technical problems and audio modulation is getting punctuated by random silent gaps up to a couple of seconds long. Sounds almost like an aggressive squelch.

Steve Whitt to Medium Wave Circle FB group (2022-03-27)

Luxembourg

I sent an email to RTL expressing disappointment that their LW 234 kHz transmitter was now closing overnight (so I was missing some of Georges Lang’s programmes).
In reply, their audience relations apologised for the inconvenience and said:
“En effet la diffusion des Grandes Ondes est temporairement suspendue entre 01h et 5h.”
 translated: “Indeed, the broadcast of the Long Waves is temporarily suspended between 01 a.m. and 5 a.m.”

Checking last night, 234 kHz does now go off air at 0100 French time (midnight in the UK) so it stays on air 1 hour longer than a week or so ago.
So it now is currently off air for just 4 hours it seems (not 5): 01-05 CEST (= 0000-0400 BST or 2300-0300 UTC).

Alan Pennington, Caversham, UK to Longwaveradiolistening iog (2022-03-27)

Space

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G1-CLASS): A CME is heading for Earth. Minor G1-class storms are possible when the storm cloud arrives on March 27-28. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) made this movie as the CME left the sun on March 25th:
https://spaceweather.com/images2022/26mar22/cme_c3_anim.gif

The CME is faint, but it is moving fast (959 km/s) squarely inside the Earth strike zone. It could deliver a sharp blow to our planet’s magnetic field despite its low luminosity in the coronagraph movie.
NASA analysts have modeled the CME’s trajectory. Note the yellow dot in the animation below. That’s Earth.
https://spaceweather.com/

Ydun Ritz (2022-03-27)

Romania

153 Antena Satelor was observed relaying R.România Actualit. instead of its normal programming. (Cf. 25MAR obs. in the respective file). The reception of Ant. Satelor is usually fair… providing the Algerian tx is not in use, even if it is putting an extrem. low audio level as it’s being the case since it was reactivated once more.

Carlos Gonçalves (2022-03-26)

United Kingdom

From Radio Today
25 March 2022
Overnight shows at BBC Radio 5 Live [909 and 693 kHz] have been temporarily suspended due to a shortage of staff at the station’s MediaCity HQ.
BBC World Service will be rebroadcast instead until at least April 4th 2022.
Weekday overnight presenter Dotun Adebayo tweeted yesterday saying there will be no shows through the night until further notice, with a reply coming from weekend overnight host Hayley Hassall confirming the news.
An increase in COVID cases at the station means more staff are off work than usual.
A BBC spokesperson told RadioToday: “Due to increased COVID cases, we have temporarily suspended our overnight programming and will broadcast BBC World Service instead.”
The overnight show usually runs from 1am till 5am.
In other 5 Live news, the station’s new logo has now been uploaded to social media channels, and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra has been renamed to BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra.
https://radiotoday.co.uk/2022/03/bbc-radio-5-live-suspends-overnight-programmes/

Mike Terry to WOR iog (2022-03-26)

United States

Townsquare Media has submitted its $18.75 million acquisition of Cherry Creek Media to the FCC revealing which stations it will divest in Missoula MT and Kennewick/Richland/Pasco WA.
Anderson Radio Broadcasting will acquire the licenses of CHR “Now 106.7” KXDR Pinesdale and Sports 1340 KYLT Missoula from Cherry Creek and CHR “107.5 Zoo-FM” KENR Superior and News/Talk 1240 KLYQ Hamilton MT from Townsquare. Anderson will add those stations to their AC “99.3 The River” KQEZ St. Regis.
More on the story here
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/221973/townsquare-sets-missoula-and-tri-cities-spinoffs/

Lance Venta, RadioInsight (2022-03-25)

Australia

As part of the process of changing from AM to FM, 2GN Goulburn 1368 has changed callsign to 2GBN, which also currently applies to the AM licence. This will be the case for 107.7 MHz Goulburn and 106.1 Crookwell (not sure if they have started yet, Will could probably advise). 1368 still appears on, at least I can hear something there at carrier level.

Richard Jary to ICDX-AM@groups.io (2022-03-25)

Canberra KiwiSDR heard it ID as 2GN. Acc. to Wikipedia 106.1 MHz is on.

Mauno Ritola to ICDX-AM@groups.io (2022-03-25)

Well that is the official callsign change according to the ACMA database, they may still ID different. 1368 is very noisy here for some reason, it’s about 170km from home. But yes just heard a 2GN ID on air. Where 666 Canberra somewhat further away is much cleaner, and 1494 Albury at about 460km is very clean from a similar direction and a lot further.
The FM outlets when they come on air will be blocked by semi locals.

Richard Jary to ICDX-AM@groups.io (2022-03-25)