Tag Archives: Mika Makelainen

Video: BBC Global News Podcast features Aihkiniemi DXing cabin in Lapland, northern Finland

Absolutely brilliant to see Mika Mäkeläinen giving a tour of the Aihkiniemi DXing cabin in Lapland this morning via the BBC World Service website:

(Source: BBC World Service)

The radio man listening to the world from the Arctic

Mika Mäkeläinen is a radio enthusiast who listens to stations from around the world in a remote corner of Lapland, 400km north of the Arctic Circle.

He and a group of fellow hobbyists have set up 14 wire antennas in the forest to capture weak signals from low-power stations, thousands of kilometres away. Mika explains why Lapland is a perfect place for listening to distant radio stations and how his hobby continues to inspire him 40 years after first discovering it as a child.

Video by Erika Benke

Click here to view on the BBC website.

If you’d like to see a proper detailed tour of the cabin (with DXers in mind), check out this video Mika made a couple years ago.

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Video: A virtual tour of the Aihkiniemi DXing base in Lapland, northern Finland

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Many thanks to SWLing Post Contributor, Christoph Ratzer, who recently shared the following video tour by Mika Mäkeläinen. Mika desxribes this video on YouTube:

Join me on a virtual tour of the Aihkiniemi DXing base in Lapland, in northern Finland. This is a nonscripted five-cent tour looking at what the Aihkiniemi cabin can offer for visiting AM DXers. The video was shot in November 2020 during DXpedition AIH124 – meaning that during the first decade of its existence, Aihkiniemi has already hosted 124 successful expeditions. The antennas (a total of 14 Beverage-type wire antennas) are permanent, but participants bring their own receivers and laptops. There’s one essential activity missing from this video though: checking the antennas, which is a major job. Every DXer is expected to check – and if necessary, clean and repair – all the antennas, which run in the forests around the cabin. So there might be a part 2 in the future.

Wow! This little DXing cabin is on my bucket list. I will, someday, make my way to north Finland and spend time DXing from this unique reception spot. The quality of the equipment and antennas is truly amazing.

Thanks for the tip, Christoph!

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Arctic DXing covered in the Chinese press

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Photo of Saariselkä courtesy of DXing.info

A few years ago we mentioned Mika Makelainen and Jim Solatie, who make a DXing pilgrimage each year to the most northern region of Finland for two weeks of DXing bliss.

The small cabin is very remote, but connected to 14 wire antennas and contains all of the necessities one needs for serious, long-haul DXing. Indeed, they even rent their cabin to other DXers.

I was happy to see Mika and Jim’s annual DX trip recently mentioned in the Xinhua News. Check out Hunting for radio signals near Arctic Ocean, an article by reporters Li Jizhi and Zhang Xuan.

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