Thirty new solar panels were delivered to our Orfordness Transmitter site in Suffolk last Friday. When installed this week they should boost our power generation by another 16 KW at peak times, further reducing our electricity bill. Transmitter engineer Alan Beech is on site this week working on the installation, along with his helpers Dave and Paul, and presenter Rob Ashard. Martin Spencer, who runs our London DAB, will also lend a hand, bringing kit to improve the audio on our 648 AM frequency. In the next day or two Radio Structures will arrive at the transmitter site to overhaul our towering 648 mast. This is essential maintenance and 648 AM may go off air for short periods during the work. Please bear with us!
Kiss AM from Ireland will conduct a DX test on Saturday August 15th starting at 2100 utc. The transmission will consist of music along with voice and morse ID’s. The power will be 40 watts providing a good DX challenge on 1593 khz, a frequency is relatively clear in Europe. All correct reports will be verified by an eQSL. Reports can be sent to kissam@gmx.com
News from Cairo: The legendary station Voice of Arabs is available now on 558 kHz , replacing the Education Radio on the same frequency. Sound is good with no distortion.
Radio Caroline – Service Message Tuesday 11th August – Following on from the fantastic fundraiser weekend we will be undertaking major works on our main 648 antenna system at Orfordness over the next few days. Our contractors will be replacing and upgrading the staywire tensioners and other items which will require us to use the standby antenna on low power and other service interruptions during the daytime. We will also have a team on site installing extra solar panels and undertaking general maintenance to our equipment. Keep an eye on the webpage and our feeds for further updates and photographs as the work progresses. As always, thank you for your generous support which allows Caroline to continue and expand. https://radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html
This shows the climb of the ШАРРТ antenna in Krasny Bor (near Saint Petersburg) in 2025, so it still existed at that point. At least this antenna has been secured with barbed wire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwSW2p81W_Q
Midday Medium Wave Magic Medium wave reception during daylight hours is normally considered a difficult challenge. During the day, the ionospheric D-layer absorbs most skywave signals, leaving groundwave propagation as the main way for medium wave signals to travel beyond local distances. For that reason, I was quite surprised on August 7, 2026, between 09:00 and 09:30 UTC, when I used my small Amnvolt receiver (version 2.33) outdoors in the dunes at Rindby Strand on the Danish island of Fanø. The island is located in the Wadden Sea, close to the North Sea. Using only a tiny, affordable handheld receiver and its telescopic antenna under an open sky, I scanned the medium wave band to see what could be heard in these unusually quiet surroundings. What made it interesting was not only the number of stations received, but the strength and stability of many of the signals. Some of the transmitters were located several hundred kilometres away, with the longest paths approaching 1000 km, yet they arrived as surprisingly powerful signals despite the fact that the reception took place in the middle of the day. My listening position at Rindby Strand is located in the outer dune belt of Fanø, directly exposed towards the North Sea. The paths from many British transmitters cross mainly open sea rather than dry land. At medium wave frequencies, the sea can be an efficient conductor for groundwave propagation. Instead of the signal being weakened by poor-conducting terrain, the North Sea provides a very favourable path for radio waves travelling along the surface. Maybe the sea itself became part of the receiving system. Another factor is the low level of local radio noise. Modern environments are filled with sources of electromagnetic interference from electronic equipment, LED lighting, switching power supplies and many other devices. Moving the receiver outdoors and away from these sources can make a big difference, especially on the medium wave band where noise can be the greatest limitation. I noted which stations could be received during this short period and wanted to explore how much difference a quiet location, an open sky and a favourable geographical position can make. It became a reminder that successful radio reception is not only about antennas and receiver sensitivity. Sometimes an important part of the receiving system is the landscape around you. From a small island in the North Sea, with nothing more than a tiny, affordable handheld receiver and a telescopic antenna, the surrounding sea provided a surprisingly effective pathway for medium wave signals. The information about the stations’ locations and transmitter powers was taken from www.mwlist.org. Since several of the stations broadcast on the same frequencies, I could not always be certain of the exact transmitter locations. Where different transmitter powers were listed, I consistently used the highest power given for each station.
1395 kHz Happy AM 24 h, Middelburg, Holland 0,1 kW – 550 km 1098 kHz Radio Seebreeze 24 h, Laren, Holland – 0,1 kW – 410 km 1089 kHz TalkSport 24 h, Moorside Edge, UK – 200 kW – 690 km 1071 kHz TalkSport 24 h, Wrekenton, UK – 1 kW – 630 km 1053 kHz TalkSport 24 h, Droidwich, UK – 150 kW – 770 km 909 kHz BBC Radio 5 Live 24 h, Westerglen, UK 50 kW – 760 km 810 kHz BBC Radio Scotland, Burghead, UK – 25 kW – 775 km 693 kHz BBC Radio 5 Live 24 h, Start Point, UK – 80 kW – 1000 km 648 kHz Radio Caroline, Orfordness, UK – 25 kW – 580 km
KPAN Broadcasters LLC has shut down operations of their Full Service Country 860 KPAN/106.3 KPAN-FM Hereford TX.The sign-off of the stations came on the AM’s 78th anniversary as it signed on August 4, 1948. The stations have been owned by the Formby family for four generations since their launch. In a brief statement they said, “The Formby family thanks the Hereford community for 78 wonderful years of hometown radio as we say goodbye to the station’s operations.” KPAN and KPAN-FM serve areas southwest of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. https://radioinsight.com/headlines/369144/kpan-signs-off/
Radio Caroline North‘s three day broadcast is between Friday 7th and Sunday 9th August live from our radio ship Ross Revenge.During this year’s Fundraiser you’ll hear some great music from the 60s to 90s.
Listen on 648 AM across England, The Netherlands, Belgium and beyond, on 1368 AM in the North/North-West courtesy of our friends at Manx Radio, worldwide online here via our Caroline North Player, on smart speakers and the Radio Caroline app.
The Main program of Egyptian radio on 819 kHz is off air for about a week. Probably it happens for maintenance due to very bad modulation, for a long period of time.
