Saturday 14 November 2009

Listening Around



Last night I was away from home, visiting the YL's family, so no radio operating! In common with most of the UK the weather here has been awful with high winds and torrential rain, so when I arrived back home I was pleased to see that my antennas had all survived.A quick PSK contact with an RA1 on 30 metres confirmed all was OK.
Tonight I am hoping to have time to do a little bit of shortwave broadcast listening, listening for a very special station.

Radio St Helena transmits once a year only from the tiny island of St Helena. Tonight at 2200 they will be beaming towards Europe on 11092 USB. Since I am not normally in the shack this late I think I will set up my digital  sound recorder and leave the rig on frequency.
Given the location of St Helena (See the picture above) and the current conditions I am not too hopeful of getting anything but I will give it a try. I have picked the station up in years past and have a tape recording of it somewhere.
Radio St Helena I believe uses an Amateur HF transceiver and around 1000W, that may seem a lot but its flea power for a broadcast station!!

2 comments:

  1. Good luck with Radio St Helena and be sure to let us know how you got on. Adam

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  2. Hi, I was listing for Radio St Helena, but I didn't hear anything. Just like you S8 QRM. Besides that, It's strange that they transmit at night while the MUF is below 11 MHz, so here is practical no propagation. On 30 meter is after 21.00 UTC nothing to hear. If they want to broadcast to Europe, why not at daytime? 73, Paul

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