Sunday 17.6.2012: Utö11 is over

Utö 180 degrees panorama, direction south from Utö Logi cottages  ( Photo: Otso Ylönen)

Utö11-pedition is over! The antennas are down.
This pedition was succesful, especially comparing to one year before. Within 10 days we heard almost all European countries plus Morocco (which was one of the first logged station).

We hoped to have openings to Spain and Portugal and got them!! Also Turkey and Greece - and even Iceland!! Very unique period -finally! Also nice openings to South France and Bretagne.

What was missing: No Balkan, no Serbia (only briefly) and also UK was almost totally missing this time. Only a few STL-links around 50 MHz + BBC on lower band.


The price of the longest-skip-competition goes to Marko Brask (MB). He id'ed first MFM Oriental 89.2, Béni-Mellal-site, Morocco, although everybody heard it. So, he got the Utö FM-DX-2012 T-shirt and baseball-cap! Congrats!

Here below is the country-list with number of stations which was heard first time in Finland during this pedition.

The number of FIRST TIME logged stations (in Finland) by Utö11,  by country-listing:
ALBANIA: 1 - / - BELGIUM: 4 - / - BULGARIA: 3 - / - SPAIN: 10 - / -
FRANCE: 12 - / - GREAT BRITAIN: 1 - / - GREECE: 13 - / - ITALY: 2
LITHUANIA: 1 - / - LATVIA: 3 - / - MOROCCO: 3 - / - PORTUGAL: 4
SERBIA: 2 - / - TURKEY: 1.

Total number of first time logged stations (in Finland) is 60 (Last year only a few).

Next pedition will be on the same period next summer, 6-16.6.2013.
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Saturday 16.6.2012: Es-Silence

Just before rain a few new tropo-stations were picked up by MB in he morning. Latvian stations Riga Radio 94.5, Spin FM 90.0, Hity Rossii Jelgava 95.5 were new - and from Lihuania RadijoGama 99.0 from Klaidepa. All these started this year.
OIRT was open quite well in the afternoon. Distant Russians were audible, like Radio Ashkadar (Burajevo-tx) and Radio Rossii Nizhniy Novgorod-local were id'ed.

The camp will be dismounted starting this evening - last two H-antennas will be left to take down on Sunday morning.

Friday 15.6.2012: Empty band

No conds today. Only tape rewindings and perfect sauna in nice warm sunshine in the late afternoon. Three guys swimmed in 14 degrees sea-water!!
Two guys left the camp in the early morning (05.45 local time). Tomorrow a few antennas will be dismount and only 2x horizontal will be left left till Sunday morning. The Utö11-pedition is over on Sunday 11th around midday.

Next pedition for same time-period for summer 2013 will be booked very soon.

Thursday 14.6.2012: No conds

Thursdy is the first day with no conds. Well, here were very brief Italians at 11.19 utc, lasting 2 minutes.

Playing cards first time on this pedition today (no time for frisbee): Jukka Kotovirta (JTK) won Utö 2012- championship in  traditional Oh Hell!- cardgame. The price was "Utö-FM-DXing 2012" T-shirt. Congrats Jukka!!

Before the cardgame one new British STL-link was heard: Bangor Community Radio, Bangor 48.310 MHz.

Wednesday 13.6.2012: Spain, weak France

Morning: Again interesting opening to Spain before local midday!! We got stations from Madrid and above. That lasted 10 minutes - after one hour briefly France, again 10 minutes (mid France).

Never before had this kind of interesting conditions all around, almost all countries from Europe are now identified + Morocco. This is how it should be on every pedition.

Tuesday 12.6.2012: Russia, Ukraine - France, Spain!

From the Finnish point of view, conditions always end to UK, Scotland or Iceland - starting from the east and going through Europe to NW during several days.
However, now in the Tue morning gave the conds go back to east giving OIRT + 87,5 Humor FM 87.5  (Salsk) - and later we got more signals from the SW - no sign to Es go down. Great!

So, in the evening interesting opening again to France (Bretagne) and double-hop to Spain and Portugal. Two DXers of the group finally heard Portugal (and Iceland yesterday) after 30 years of trying!!!  In Spain the condition-point was targetted to Torrelavega-city wherefrom 4 different local station were picked up!! Conds starting 18.00 till 19.30 utc.

After local midnight weak Greeks were up with deep fading on several frequencies up to 98 MUF. Strange cond for 20 minutes. This is how the conditions should go - giving openings all around Europe even
with double-hops!!

Click for better view.

Mon 11.7.2012: Big opening to France, Belgium

Excellent start for the week!
In the morning BBC and 50 MHz-links were teasing us for over one hour. Therefore it was a big surprise that a big opening moved to NE France (Paris and NE of Paris) giving big signals - also from Belgium.
A few low power Belgium were catched, perhaps some even from Holland. Start 08.30 - end 11.25.
The band was mostly so full of French signals that no RDS were visible.
Dozens of identified stations, or hundreds, but not many "never heard before".

Portugal came up for 2-3 minutes in the early evening. This is very specail to pick up stations from so many countries.

Late evening we got Iceland on several frequencies, RUV and Bylgjan!!  Incredible variaty of identified countries on this pedition  - and -no Russians at all!!

Sunday 10.6.2012: Turkey, Greece etc. - MUF 108

This summer we seem to be lucky with conditions.
In the morning a aood opening to Turkey (mostly Istanbul), Greece, Bulgaria and some Italy. MUF up to 108 MHz! Time: 6.40 - 09.15 utc.

A few nice Greek catches and Istanbul-stations flashed RDS all around the band!!

The coming collective log of this day will be huge - as we have 4 x Perseus running (+ one Dientronik) + altogehter 25 Sony XDR-receivers online (3 of them offline)!!

In the afternoon after lunch in local restaurant we had conditions to Piemonte (around Torino) and Marseille-Toulon-area. Also a few Swiss-stations for the end. Starting 1240 - ending 1350utc.
Surprsingly stable condition over Marseille. Many stations were up for 30 minutes.

Late evening we had one hour to Italy around Modena etc. but luckily two rare sardinians came up:
Radio Macomer Centrale (95.8 MHz, NU) and Radio Del Golfo (93.9 MHz, SS). Strong signals gave usual Italian stations from the earthquake area.

Saturday 9.6.2012: Nice opening in the evening !

Nothing in the morning except hard meteors hitting ionosphere. A lot of signals around Europe, like Radio Gamma Savignano (Italy) 91.1 - Horizont (Bulgaria) 88.1 -  Berlin 88.8 - RTL 88.9 etc.

In the afternoon we were very close to big opening. Ion-clouds were 200-300 km too south below Slovakia!!
To Utö-location we need ion-clouds over Ukraina, Poland, mid-Germany or Denmark to get something.

In the evening we got interesting opening starting slowly at1630utc. At first very short but strong skips to Greece, Bulgaria and Romania on lower band. Especially it was very interesting to hunt Greek-ones because tropo was at low level and frequencies were open.
At 1800utc the band was full of South Italians, Bari, Foggia, Lecce etc. It seems no new stations were digged out from Italy altough many local stations were id'ed.

First day (8.6.2012): Morocco on FM in Utö!!

Results from the first day were excellent!! The whole crew heard Morocco. The station was MFM Oriental, Béni Mellal-transmitter on 89.2 MHz (16 kW) airing adverts and audio-ID. This skip is 3685 km. Great start for the pedition! The other id'ed station was SNRT Al Idaâ Al-Watania (national radio channel in Morocco) on 88.8 MHz. Most likely tx-Meknes 10 kW.
Also some France (Oui FM R. de la Mer) and Spain (Kiss FM, COPE, RNE). One surprise was Lightning FM 90.8, a pirate station from London, UK (brief skip)!! 

We have a competition goin on: Who catches the most distant signal during this pedition gets Utö DXing-baseball-cap. At the moment this price is heading to MB (Marko). He digged the audio-id first and identified this Moroccon station. Also tentatively from the same tx-tower was heard Radio Mars 91.6 MHz. Unfortunately no id. Heard by JTK.
It is very hard to beat this record during this pedition anymore. The price for competition is  a baseball-cap (photo below) signed to Utö pedition 2012!

Antennas up again, Utö11-pedition 2012

We have almost smilar setup this summer for FM: 2 x  Körner 15.19 V, 1 x Triax 8-el H, and bigger Körner 19.3 H (homemade by Juha). All equipped with Triax and Ulna-amps.

For 50 MHz + OIRT we have one 5-element H (for 50 MHz-links and OIRT).
Another 50 MHz-antenna (4-element yagi made by Zaba, OH1ZAA) is for ham operation for Harri (HKU, OH1GQB) with Icom 736-transceiver. First QSO ever is about to come!!!

Travelling to Utö-island June 7th 2012

One year ago Utö FM-DX-crew suffered heavily on the ferry while travelling to pedition (takes the whole day, 5 h on the ferry + driving). On that very day we had the best FM-opening on the season and this 8 DXer crew was out of fun.
Due to this experience, Otso Ylönen equipped himself by making unique mobile FM-DX-set. It is made of telescopic-whips and plastic boom. This 3-element yagi can be adjusted from 88 to 108 MHz by changing lengths of elements and boom! Worked well on the ferry by 12 V battery. Click the photos.

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Utö11-pediton starts Thu 7.6.2012

Once again 8 FM-DX-listenrs go to Utö-island to hunt FM-stations! Same crew as year before. 10 days there -  Thu 7.6 - Sun 17.6.2012. A DX-crew from Mid-Finland was there as Utö10-pedition just before us.

Just now we have several silent days behind so it is expected that we will have big and fantastic openings during the coming days...:) Let's see.

One DXer (HKU) will also be on air as ham on 6 m this time. Callsign is OH1GQB. Those will be his first QSO's ever (Icom-736 transceiver).
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