Utö 6 is over! Excellent pedition!

Utö6 FM-pedition is over. Nine full days of FM-DXing finally gave good results. We had good conditions to many directions and several interesting peaks.

Hundreds of new stations were identified, many first time in Finland - and even one new country: Libya!
Loggings will follow later in Finnish DXers site, OnLineLog.

NEW PEDITION NEXT YEAR FOR SURE!


Here is one beautiful photo of Otso's (In Utö mostly pronounced like Spanish number 8, Ocho) collection. Please click the photo.

LIBYA and excellent Greek opening! Italy at night!!

Part of the crew left the island but the rest four had excellent opening to Greece, Albania and Balkans, starting around 14.00 till 19.30 utc !!
The band was full open to 108 MHz for long periods.

At night around 01 -03 local times band was full open 108 MHz to south Italy!!! Unique!!!

After midday Finnish local time Libya was received in Finland first time!! The station is called Ashababiya and it seems to be a private station!! It luckily pushed up at 10.00 utc announcement on 88.8 MHz during weak Italy-conds.


THIS IS THE BEST CATCH IN FINLAND SO FAR THIS SEASON!!

Greeks and Arabic-flash on Friday midday

Weak Athens and Thessaloniki were up after midday our local time. A few stations pushed up several times:

88.0 MHz - Oasis, Athens. RDS
90.8 MHz - Zoo FM, Thessaloniki
89.4 MHz - DeeJay, Thessaloniki
92.3 MHz - Lampsi FM, Athens

Also three weak arabic signals were noted on 88.0 / 89.3 / 89.5 MHz around Friday midday local time.
Possibly Iran.
Last night Stockholm närradios were audible and some Latvian stations in the morning. No more expectations on tropo. Tropo has been on very low level almost all the time.

Two days left of Utö6. Part of the crew is leaving already on Saturday morning and the rest on Sunday afternoon.

Beside here is a photo of some old empty military tower in the southern part of Utö-island. No activity in and around. That could be ideal place for DXing?

Look Bambuser-video of Utö6 !!!

Here is a video-clip of our listening environment, short view of the listenener's eqipment and faces (I forgot to include myself). It is Bambuser-live video-clip, made with mobile-phone and not so good quality.

LINK TO MOBILE-PHONE VIDEO

On Wednesday we had nothing special, as expected. Now we are waiting to get several short-time E-skips to south. If there will be more, it is all extra+. The crew is monitoring tropo-band all the time for Kaliningrad-scattering etc.
Two new Latviesuradio-stations are picked up (tropo) with local programme: Saldus 89.2 and Cesvaine/Madona 90.9 MHz.

A lot of METEOR-reflections
Meteor-activity has been very high during this pedition. We wonder how strong it could be during higher meteor-showers, like with Perseids in August!

We have identified around 20 stations via meteors:
Euroherz 88.0 MHz (Germany) // Radio Sport 93.2 Mhz (Moscow) // NRK P1 (Norway) 90.9 MHz // B92 (Serbia) 104.8 MHz // Polskie R P1 88,3 MHz // Radio MV (Germany 90.5 Mhz // Frevence 1 (Czech) on 104.5 and 102.5 MHz // VRT Klara (Belgium) 89.5 MHz // Kiss FM (Romania) 88.0 MHz //Radio Zet (Poland) 89.4 MHz // Doroznoye Radio, St P:burg (very short skip!!!) // RPR (Germany) 100.6 MHz // PSR, Leipzig (Germany) 102. 4 MHz // + BBC, Bayern 1, Ö3 etc. + UNID: "MIX/X RADIO"-RDS on 89.4 MHz.


A lot of snakes around here. You really have to be careful - and frogs can bee seen at nights.
Naturally many species of birds, but the small owl has not been seen this year so far.

Silence on Wednesday - after Scotland...

Once again we are facing the fact that after Scotland(UK)-opening next days are empty (or perhaps sometimes weak Russia) ! This has happened dozens of times during the decades:

Conditions starts from east and then moving to west within 1-4 days -and after having UK/Scotland-conds the FM-band goes dead for 1,5 - 7 days!! This now seems to be proved again to be true, even in this exceptional good summer.

Now the team has time to check the recordings... hours and hours of discs and tapes.
READ ALSO MORE OF THIS PEDITION: http://www.fmdx.tk/

Here is a map-view of some receptions made by OSY on 15.6.2010 (made by MyFM/FMLIST). Click the photo for better view:

REAL CONDITIONS TODAY!

Finally we had real conditions today! There is nothing to complain of the conds in the past days - but today we had even better signals. Band was open to Balkan and Scotland-Ireland!! (We are very surprised that Italy has been almost silent so far).

* 08.00 utc >> Conds started from Greece and Hungary and placed over Balkan 1,5 hour!! // faded out 10.00 utc
A little break nicely at lunchtime.
* 11.35 utc >> Scotland - Northern Ireland - Ireland // f out 14.00 utc

Greece
88.0 MHz - Oasis, Athens
90.6 MHz - Asteras FM, Veria
91.4 MHz - Palace 91.4, Larissa
93.2 MHz - ERA Zakynthos regional px

Hungary
Many Hungarian stations received, like Radio Dabis, 93.4 MHz etc.

Balkan
Dozens of stations from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia

Romania
Stations mainly from Sibiu

Scotland - Northern Ireland - Ireland
A lot of stations from Northern parts of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
MUF was up to 108 MHz but there are not so much stations over 107 MHz in this area.
Dublin was audible and even the farest SW parts of Scotland (Cuillin FM 102.7 MHz).

Very good openings! Perhaps even over 100 stations identified today by this crew.

Monday evening Greece, Spain and France

Peaking conditions are continuing!! Quite intense fading up and down during the whole Monday evening. We had very interesting skip to north Greece and later over Aigeian Sea, Greece. At least three stations from three different island: Radio Moudros from Limnos island, Rythmos 91.6 (tent., Mitilini) from Lesbos island and Galaxias (tent., Mykonos) from Cyclades island very far south!!
Then we had Spain shortly for 10 min and later in the evening Bretagne (etc.) , France again.
Very interesting - but we are still waiting for the big openings!!

Loggings:

Spain (10 min in te evening)
87.7 MHz - Kiss FM. Tx Jerez de la Frontera
90.3 MHz - RNE5 Madrid. Madrid tx
91.0 MHz - Europa FM. Madrid-tx

France (Over 30 min late evening)
88.3 MHz - Radio M, Montelimar (26)
88.4 MHz - La Radio de la Mer. Granville-tx (50)
88.8 MHz - Phare FM, Concarneau-tx.€ (29)
89.5 MHz - Radio Dio, St. Etienne (42)
89.9 MHz - Flash FM, Limoges (87)
90.1 MHz - R Bonheur, Guinkamp (22)
90.4 MHz - Contact FM, Paris. Boulogne-sur-Mer tx (62)
90.5 MHz - Tendence Ouvest. Dep 50-tx
90.6 Mhz - R Flam, Flamanville (50)
90.8 Mhz - R Caroline, Rennes (35)
92.0 MHz - R 6, Calais (62)

Greece (Up twice in the evening)
87.8 MHz - Radio Mahitis, Kilkis
88.3 MHz - tent. Heat FM, Aleksandroupolis
90.1 MHz - R Moudros, Moudros (41)
91.6 MHz - tent. Rythmos 91.6, Mitilini (44)
92.2 MHz - Velika R, Larissa (10)
93.0 MHz - tent. Galaxias FM, Mykonos (44)

Monday afternoon 14.6: Greece, UK

We are lucky to have Es-signals everyday!!!
Greece was open for 15 minutes with several stations around northern Greece, even one from Athens!

Loggings Greece, 15 min, starting 14.30 utc >>:
87.8 MHz- tent. Radio Mahitis, Kilkis
88.0 MHZ - ERA on many frequencies
88.3 MHz - tent. Energy 883, Veria
92.2 MHz - Radio Velika, Larissa
92.9 MHz - Kiss FM, Athens with local id.


Loggings UK, 10 minutes, starting 14.55 utc >>:
87.5 MHz - Platinum FM, London. Pirate!!
88.8 MHz - BBC R Jersey with local px
96.1 MHz - BC Radio Solent
96.4 MHz - The Eagle, Guildford, SW from London

Sunday eve 13.6 - Monday morning 14.6

MONDAY MORNING 14.6, fading 1 h. starting 06.11 utc >>
Nice opening to Bretagne-area France in the morning. Mostly weak signals and rapid fading.

88.0 MHz - R Classique, also 90.4 MHz
89.4 MHz - RFM Normandie (14)
90.2 MHz - RCF Vannes, Radio Sainte-Anne (56)
90. 8 MHz - Radio Caroline, Rennes (35)
90.5 MHz - R L K, Montfort sur Meu (35)
91.2 MHz - Jet FM, Nantes (44)
91.6 MHz - Alouette (85) on many frq's

SUNDAY EVENING 13.6, 30 min, starting 17.24 utc >>

We were surprised by 30 minutes Spanish opening on Sunday evening starting 17.24 utc. The band was full of high-power Spanish stations up to 100 MHz. Signals were mostly up with rapid fading.
Unfortunately most of the stations had football. No smaller locals ided.
Most of the stations were from Euskadi - Bilbao / Rioja area, something also to Andalucia.

88.8 MHz - RNE R4 Cataluna-tx
91.1 MHz - COPE, Rioja-tx
91.5 MHz - tent. Radio Maria
92.1 MHz - RNE
92.3 MHz - tent. Radio Maria
92.9 MHz - Europa FM
93.6 MHz - tent. Arrate Irratia, Eibar
95.9 MHz - Onda Cero

Utö-crew

Crew-photo after first satisfying opening (Photos by OSY).
CLICK PHOTOS FOR BETTER VIEW:

Fun with Sporadic E !!!!

Today we finally had interesting opening here in Utö!! First some weaker signals from Spain, Greece and Bulgaria and then very nice conditions to Central-France around Limoges (87, 24, 16 etc.).

Some examples (bolded first time in Finland):

Spain
88.0 MHz - RNE
+ some interesting flashes from Spain

Bulgaria
87.6 MHz - Radio Romantika
88.4 MHz - Radio Ultra
88.4 MHz - Alpha Radio
89.7 MHz - Darik Radio
89.5 MHz - NRJ, Sofia
89.9 MHz - Radio Fokus
90.2 MHz - Radio Bella
90.6 MHz - Radio ZU

Greece
89.2 / 91.2 - ERA Kavala
89.3 MHz - Radio DeeJay, Thessaloniki
90.8 MHz - Zoo, Thessaloniki
92.8 MHz - Radio Aris, Thessaloniki

France
87.6 MHz - R Star, Avignon-local spots (84)
88.0 MHz - Radio Esperance, Limoges-tx (87)
88.0 MHz - Chérie FM. Network-px. Avignon (84)
88.4 MHz - Kaolin FM, Saint Yrieux la Perche (87)
88.8 MHz - Magic FM, La Souterraine (23)
89.2 MHz - Radio Peltre Loisirs,
90.1 MHz - RMJ - La Radio de Meilleurs Jours , Magnac Laval (87)
90.5 MHz - Radyonne, Auxerre (89)
90.9 MHz - Radio Nohain, Cosne-sur-Loire (58)
91.0 MHz - Radio Orient, Limoges-tx (87)
91.6 MHz - RCF en Berry
93.4 MHz - RDC, Angouleme (19)
95.6 MHz - Brèniges FM, Brive-la-Gaillarde (19)
99.0 MHz - France Bleu, Perigord
100.0 MHz - RMB, Montlucon (03)
100.1 MHz - Sud Nivernais Radio, Nevers (58)
104.1 MHz - RCF Accords, Cognac (16)

Utö FM-DX 6 started Sat 12.6!

Utö FM-DX 6 started with 7 listeners. Antennas are bilt up on Saturday morning 12.6. under VERY heavy wind (peaking 20 m/s).
We are using 4 FM-yagis devided with 4 Triax-preamps.

Yesterday the group missed fairly good opening to UK/Ireland while traveling to Utö.... and today
we have no sign of Sporadic E.

On Saturday no special conditions but a lot of troposcatter in the air all the way from Bornholm, Gothenburg, Kaliningrad (DFM 100.6, E+ 104.5, RR 96.3), Klaipeda and of course Gdansk. 101.7 R Plus Gdansk reaches RDS levels from time to time.

One interesting UNID was heard from Latvia on 99.5 MHz and will be solved later for sure.


Photos taken by OSY and JTK.

Next Utö FM-pedition will be 11-20.6.2010

Next FM-listening pedition to Utö will be from Friday 11.6.2010 till Sunday 20.6.2010. Almost 10 days intense FM-DXing with the largest group of listeners (7) ever in the same QTH.

The participants are HKU (Harri Kujala, Naantali), JUS (Jussi Suokas, Joensuu), JJS (Jukka Soini, Kurikka), JTK (Jukka Kotovirta, Helsinki), MB (Marko Brask, Espoo), OSY (Otso Ylönen, Salo) and JJK (Jari Korhonen, Kitee).
All listeners use 2 x Sony XDR-F1HD. We will have 4 antennas (2 x 8-el. hor and 2 x 8-el vert.), two for each house.

Let's hope to have great openings with Es. 14 receivers scanning the skip-crowded band should give huge logs! Not so much expected with tropo.

Perhaps we build up forum (FB?,Mese?) for realtime-comments and Bambuser-camera for some periodical streams of the living conditions there. Let's see.