Month: March 2022

Iceland

mw

Spring bandscan 2022.
I forgot to do the scan last night so went outside around 2130Z.

Tonight’s weather was overcast but calm and dry.
I did not notice any significant changes to the LW band.
On the MW band, the Brits came in quite clear. R. Kossuth was good on 540 kHz. Absolute Radio relays on 1197, 1233 and 1242 kHz were more or less audible. There were stations on, I believe, both 1548 and 1550 kHz. I hazard that one was Gold Radio, but the rest I can not put a finger on.

Reynir Heidberg Stefansson (2022-03-22)

Ukraine

mw

Two AP journalists who escaped from Mariupol, reported the following:
“In the meantime, in Mariupol, we were inundated with people asking us for the latest news from the war. So many people came to me and said, please film me so my family outside the city will know I’m alive. By this time, no Ukrainian radio or TV signal was working in Mariupol. The only radio you could catch broadcast twisted Russian lies — that Ukrainians were holding Mariupol hostage, shooting at buildings, developing chemical weapons. The propaganda was so strong that some people we talked to believed it despite the evidence of their own eyes.”
The whole article here: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-edf7240a9d990e7e3e32f82ca351dede

It seems that the countries who abandoned medium wave and shortwave broadcasts never thought about the possibility of an information blackout in times of war. And once you switch everything to digital and internet, people will throw away their analog radios. Reopening MW and SW broadcasts afterwards will be useless, because people won’t be able to listen.

Tudor Vedeanu to WOR iog (2022-03-21)

Ukraine

mw

Ukrainian MW channels.
I was able to hear 4 MW channels tonight at 03:25 UTC  21 March 2022 via a Polish Perseus SDR:
657  fair/good but with a 1373 Hz tone
873:  poor to fair
1278:  good to very good
1404:  fair/good
Nothing on 549, nor 810 Armiya FM.

Walt Salmaniw to WOR iog (2022-03-21)

United Kingdom

mw

Radio Caroline.
As it’s already been posted about the station going out on low power on 648khz, well a other message was posted on they website before the one that is on they now.
It reads:
Our AM 648 transmitter shutdown due to an “air” fault, which could be due to cooling or a fan fault. A reset has brought it back to life, but we are not sure if this was just a one-off error or if it does have a fault. It may well shut down again. We will continue to monitor. So this way they have switch to lower. As i’m shore they will not want to keep restarting the transmitter.

David Ayling, East Kent (2022-03-20)

Ukraine

mw

Jamming 657.
in Dorohoi http://kiwisdr-dorohoi.ddns.net:8073/?f=657.00samz9 is the same signal audible as some days ago.
It is still symmetric to the carrier of 657.
SDRs in Belarus and Tambov don’t show it. UR1 isn’t audible there at this time (10:19 UTC).
[There might be some problems listening via the Dorohoi/ROU SDR; this msg is sometimes displayed: “Sorry, this Kiwi has been locked for special use”. / Ydun]

Marco (2022-03-20)

Hi Marco,
what kind of jamming?
if you mean the strong side carries causing het whistle, I think they are a fault with the Chernivtsy transmitter. It comes and goes.

Mauno Ritola (2022-03-20)

I also think that these signals come from the transmitter itself.
The term jamming was used because some days ago there was the rumor that 657 is being jammed.

Marco (2022-03-20)


Right. Now I have a strange carrier with some breaks on 1278.66 kHz and only on the upper side. Kurisove carrier doesn’t have the breaks.
http://kareliamwdx.ddns.net:8073/?f=1278.00amz14

Mauno Ritola (2022-03-20)

United Kingdom

mw

“Radio Caroline – Service Message: Saturday 2pm – We have a fault with our 648AM service, and are currently working on approx half power. This is likely to continue through the weekend.
https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html“

Radio Caroline Service Message: service is down 50% (- 3 dB). I compared e few SDR’s, it’s even -6 dB so the power is 1 kW ERP again as before the “new” transmitter.

Bart de Lange to Medium Wave Circle FB group (2022-03-20)

United States

mw

1520 oregon city (50 kW D 15 kW N DA-1) has turned off its licensed site and the transmitters and antenna feed system have been salvaged for use elsewhere. It has an application for 5 kW D and low power nite non-DA pending at a different site.
Another AM in the Portland market is about to lose its DA site as well with no pending application or STA to replace it. That will make the fourth station in this market to seriously downsize or simply disappear.

Ben Dawson to WOR iog (2022-03-20)

1520 is KQRR, for Russian Religion. IIRC it was originally KGON, just a dream for OR here in OK with another 50 kW. What`s the other one?

Glenn Hauser to WOR iog (2022-03-20)


The other one is another station in this, Portland, market. I’ll advise you which when the time is appropriate.   Nothing to do with KKXA, which is many km distant.  Class A in Ok City has also filed an application to downgrade, but only to a less efficient antenna.

Ben Dawson to WOR iog (2022-03-20)

Ukraine

mw

1278 kHz Petrivka transmitter is back on the air since 1530 UTC today. Very good signal is audible via remote SDR receiver in Tambov, Russia, as well as solid reception in my home in Czechia near Slovak border.

Vaclav Dosoudil (2022-03-18)

Romania

mw

The Brasov-transmitter [153 kHz] in Romania includes a strange fenced circle with a concrete block inside. There is no mast on it and on pictures from 2005 (Google Earth) there is also no mast visible.
Does anybody know what the purpose of that is/was?
45.754466719645386, 25.604889212299398
You can use Streetview to view the fence and the block in the middle. It is also shown in better quality in a drone video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DMCEDi9Y9E

Marco (2022-03-18)