Utö-report Tue 30.6.2009: Greece 2-3 minutes

On Tuesday we had 2-3 minutes opening to Athens!! It gave 3 stations and
also one from Spain just before Greece.

87.7 MHz - Cadena Dial, Santander-tx, Spain - 18.27-
88.9 MHz - Freedom, Athens. Was strong for 2 minutes with RDS. Unfortunately no talk. - 18.30-
89.5 MHz - Radio Ekklisia tis Ellados, Athens. - 18.32-
90.4 MHz - Kanali Ena, Piraeus (Athens) with nice ID "Eneninta koma tessera, Piraeus" - 18.30-

Tropo is qiving all the time stations from all around Baltic Sea. Almost all Stockholm community radios are received, only stations MRS 90.5, Sigtuna 88.2 and Viking 101.4 were out today.
From Gävle Radio City 102.7 had RDS-level and on 89.9 MHz Radio Sandviken was clear.

Also Latvian private radios from Riga and some others were identified easily.
Tropo-scattering is giving Polish stations up and down - also Kaliningrad 96.3. (Click the photo below)

Utö-report Mon 29.6.2009 PART 2: Whole Europe!

Two guys left the camp (MB,OSY) and one (JUS) joined us on Monday after midday.
We were lucky to have another Es-opening on Monday evening. Condition was not good but interesting giving short skips to all over Europe from Serbia to Spain. (Underlined stations are received first time in Finland. Times UTC):

87.5 - R Piter Pan, Conversano (LE, Italy). - 15.30-
87.8 - Radio Dalmacija, Croatia tentatively acc. to spots. - 16.57-
87.9 - Radio S, Serbia (Jastrebac-tx) with RDS and spots. - 16.23-
88.1 - Ride FM, Budapest, Hungary. Ex-Pont FM. - 16.45-
88.4 - Radio Company, Benevento-tx up alone (BN, Italy). - 17.46-
88.7 - Puls Radio, Grocka, Serbia. -16.40-
88.9 - R Index, Beograd, Serbia. Only RDS flash. - 16.40-
88.9 - Dash Extra Radio, Bijeljina, Bosnia&H. - 16.50-
89.2 - RFM, Paris. Marseilles (13)-tx. - 17.08-
89.3 - R Soleil FM, Montélimar (26), France. - 17.18-
89.4 - COPE Girona, Rocacorba-tx, Spain. - 17.16-
89.5 - Mix la radio étudiante, Orange (84), France. Location a bit north from Marseille. Only RDS-flash "Mix". - 17.22-
89.6 - UNID Hungary giving tel. Possibly Radio 35. - 16.53-
90.2 - Radio Puglia, Bari (BA), Italy. - 16.28-
90.2 - Radio Pozarevac, Serbia "RADIO PO"-rds. - 16.37-
90.2 - France Bleu Gard Lozère, Nimes. -17.00-
90.4 - Onda Cero Cataluna, Rocacorba-tx Spain. Regional px. - 17.12-
90.4 - R Farfalla, Mottola (TA). - 16.30-
90.6 - Szent Istvan Radio, Eger, Hungary. - 16.34-

90.8 - R Ketchup, Pescara (PE), Italy. - 15.35-
91.7 - Radio Kosice, Slovakia. Quite short skip for this day. -16.33-
92.2 - R Frequence Nimes, France. RDS and sport-news. Nice surprise! - 17.02-
94.7 - Max Radio, Vrsac (Vojvodina). - 16.35-

Utö-report Mon 29.6.2009: France-opening!!!

First better Es-condition today for 30 minutes!! FM-band was open to Bretagne, NW France - from Benelux to France northern coast. Fairly good signals and some time even over 100 MHz.
A lot of networks were up. Here some better stations we identified (underlined stations are received first time in Finland):

87.7 MHz - R Nostalgie Clermont-Ferrand, Clermont-Ferrand (63). Local ID. - 17.40-
87.8 MHz - RCB, Radio Cité Bretagne, Dinan (22). - 08.26-
88.4 MHz - Rire & Chanson, Nantes-transmitter (44). - 07.56-
88.8 MHz - Alouette FM, Les Herbiers (85). Thouars-tx (79) - 08.00-
88.8 MHz - Fidélité, Laval (53). Religious station. RDS id. - 08.06-
89.2 MHz - Cocktail FM, Deauville (14) acc. to spots. - 08.13-
89.5 MHz - RF Bleu, Haute Normandie, France - 08.03-
90.0 MHz - 100%NL, Holland - 07.58-
90.1 MHz - VFM, Vire (14). Nice jingle.- 08.20-
90.1 MHz - Virgin Radio. Ex-Europe 2-network. - 08.13-
90.6 MHz - Joe FM. ex-4FM, Holland. /95.5. 08.02-
90.8 MHz - Radio Caroline, Rennes (35). Jingle. - 08.23-
90.9 MHz - UNID in Portuguese. Possibly R Comercial, Portugal, 44 kW. Most obvious solution is Radio Antenne Portugaise, Touers (37), France! Thanks Ole Forr!! - 08.10-
91.6 MHz - Alouette FM tentatively (acc. spots). - 08.18-
91.9 MHz - Zenith FM,Vitre (35). Child choir-jingle. - 08.17-
92.2 MHz - Coctail FM, Lisieux (14). Possibly split-commercials to Lisieux!! - 08.14-
92.3 MHz - RTBF Vivacite, Belgium. - 07.59-
92.8 MHz - Musicbox, Guerville (78) near Paris. Only RDS. - 08.04-
93.9 MHz - Vivre FM, Paris (75). - 08.05-
94.5 MHz - Océane FM, Questembert (44). - 08.22-
95.3 MHz - Radio Soleil 35, Rennes (35) tentatively - 08.01-
96.4 MHz - BFM, Paris (75). Paris-transmitter - 08.03-
97.7 MHz - TSF Jazz. Laval-transmitter (53). - 08.14-

Utö-report Sun 28.6.2009

Fairly good tropo to Stockholm giving community radios around and after midday: V97 Vallentuna, Sydväst 88.9, Tyresö 91.4, Taby 98.3 etc.
This condition is completly different to last summer!! We barely heard Swedish stations. No Denmark. Kaliningrad Russkoje Radio 96.3 noticed during the day a few times with hard monitoring!
All the time Gdansk-stations are fading up and down + basic stations from Latvia, like Star FM 105.0 Pure-tx, Radio Skonto Liepaja-local 97.5, EHR Talsi-local 100.8 MHz, Capital 101.0 etc. Lithuania gave only national radio frequencies 102.8 / 105.3 (Klaipeda) .

Late Sunday evening we had enormous tropo to North, which was a disappoinment because the band is blocked of Finnish stations from 250 km radius. No chance to DX stations from South direction...

Utö-report Sat 27.6.2009

Weak conditions in Utö during Saturday. However, we can hear all the time interesting peaks mainly from Sweden, Estonia, Poland and Finland mainly within 300 km range, not so much from more Southern Baltia (although Kurzemers 106.4 is audible almost all the time and Lithuania 105.3 etc.).
Sometimes stations come up with surprisingly strong peaks for even several minutes like Rix Norrköping 92.8 MHz (Ringarum, 130 W).

We had very short Es-skip at 17.34utc lasting about 2 minutes. A few Turkish stations were audible in the lower band and also Radio K4 from Kosovo with RDS for one minute!!

Antennas up! Saturday morning 27.6.2009

Nine FM-yagis are up and five listeners are waiting for Sporadic E.
We have nice tropo-scattering (Poland, Denmark etc.) and a lot of meteors hitting all the time during the afternoon. Also BBC R2 was up for a short moment on 97.9 MHz.

Europa Plus Kaliningrad 104.5 MHz is already identified with tropo-scattering. Radio Wix, Valdemarsvik gave nice ID on 97.9 MHz etc.
Very lively band although we have no conditions! (Click photos)

Visual Log from Wednesday 24.6

Here is a visual log (made automatically by RDSDX PC-software) of the stations received on Wednesday (made by OSY): tropo to Stockholm area and Sporadic E to Spain and Italy (Note the spots in Sardinia and Mallorca, rare to hear).

Utö-report Thu 25.6.2009

Nothing special reported from Utö on Thursday.
Radio Volvo Ocean Race replied today. Martin Loogna sent e-mail. He is also behind Skärgårdsradio 90.2 and is wellknown radio-personality in Sweden. Martin reported that their transmitter-power on 91.9 MHz is 50 Watts! Signal is good in Utö with some tropo.
Station closes on Saturday when race-ships leave Stockholm heading St.Petersburg, Russia. That is the end of this race.
On late Friday evening three listeners will join the camp!

Utö-report Wed 24.6.2009

Better day in Utö today:
Temporary station from Stockholm was heard today on 91.9 MHz, Radio Volvo Ocean Race (www). This station closes on Saturday 25.6.2009 (on air from 14.6.) so it was quite close to miss this one. Power unknown.
Signal was quite good beating YLE Espoo on this same frequency! Nice!

Community Radios from Stockholm were almost all audible which was surprise because tropo-forecast gives zero-propagation!! Skärgårdsradion on 90.2 MHz was up with 100% full RDS!

Spain was up for some time around 15utc, but only on a few frequencies, mostly RNE. Nice surprise anyway!! The best catch on this opening was Onda Cero, Santander on 91.9 MHz with local programme. Distance 2485 km.

Later in the evening some Italy and France was up. It is possible that the stations were from Sardinia and Corsica but this is not checked and confirmed yet. Nice to have some Es.

Utö-report Tue 23.6.2009

On Tuesday morning TRT from Turkey on three frequencies for some time.
The band is empty from tropo and Es...
No real DXing on Tuesday!! Internet-connection is also working sporadic....

Utö-report Mon 22.6.2009

Hello from Utö!
We arrived here on the island Monday afternoon in a magnificent weather. The following hours we spent by setting up two six metre masts in in the front of our nice cottage. Both were equipped with two 8 element Triax FM8 antennas: the upper one in vertical and the lower one in horizontal orientation.

Stations we heard during our first bandscan were typical for a low-level Baltic Sea tropo, from Sweden (90.2 Skärgårdsradion with a nice signal), Poland (95.7 & 98.4), Lithuania (Russkoye R and tent. Ziniu R) and others.

The band feels generally "empty" in comparison to what it is today in Southern Finland. On an Es opening this would certainly be interesting.
A slight source of interference was loacated to be the WLAN base station in the cottage. We will see if something can be done to it on Tuesday. Sending this report was delayed until Tuesday morning because of connectivity problems with the very base station.
OSY - Otso Ylönen
MB - Marko Brask

Mon 22.6.2009

On Monday morning after 07utc some weak Arabic, Turkish and Ukrainan stations noted in South Finland, but Utö was not ready yet.
Nothing special expected in the coming days in tropospheric scene in S-Finland according to forecasts! However, something might be audible in Utö without exceptional conditions.

Utö FM-DX-starts

This Monday 22.6 Utö FM-DX-2009 starts with two listeners.
Marko Brask (MB) and Otso Ylönen (OSY) are tuning from 22.6 -29.6.2009.
You can read the results with a few lines daily from this blog.
Next group will arrive 26.6. (till 5.7.2009).
We listen in these two red cottages on the photo below (click):