Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Stephen Cooper, who shares the following news about the new DigiDX broadcast:
DigiDX is a 30 minute MFSK32 broadcast covering shortwave and DX news, radio related reviews, schedule information and listeners letters and after a success test broadcast to Europe, a broadcast for North America is planned for 0200 UTC Sunday.
Broadcasting from Channel 292 in Germany on 6070 kHz the time has been chosen to maximise chance of reception on the East Coast of North America and beyond.
The programme features the majority of the broadcast in MFSK32 but around 10 minutes of the broadcast is in the slower Olivia 64-2000 mode to test for resilience against bad propagation to North America and interference on 6070.
The tests to Europe on Channel 292 earlier this week showed good reception and near perfect decodes despite Radio China International and Vatican Radio being on the same frequency during some of the test.
To decode use FlDigi, MultiPSK or the Tivar Android app, just putting your radio next to the PC microphone or phone/tablet is enough to decode the broadcast. If you have decoded the VOA Radiogram before, DigiDX uses the same digital modes.
Please send reception reports and decodes of the text/images in the broadcast to [email protected], an e-QSL will be sent by email and on the next broadcast an e-QSL card will be broadcast over the air in MFSK32 mode as well.
For European listeners the second edition of DigiDX with an include e-QSL card from the last episode will be broadcast on 6070Khz at 1100 UTC. For information on further broadcast times like DigiDX on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/digidx/) or follow on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Digi_Dx)
This is brilliant, Stephen! I’ll attempt to log DigiDX this weekend if conditions are fair!
Typical German regulation maniacs. You can modulate your carrier in Klingon language but you cannot send beeps and boops, while band intruders from all over the world just don’t give a damn on German regulations and happily transmit beeps and boops and woodpeckers and stuff, and the ionosphere has obviously not read the Bundesdeppenagentur papers . Ridiculous.
Important News
“DigiDX transmissions via Channel 292 (6070kHz) and suspended until further notice. This is due to action by the German regulator Bundesnetzagentur against digital mode transmissions and is beyond our control. Broadcasts via WRMI will continue and we hope to find another outlet to use for transmissions to Europe.”
[later:]·
“Good news – Thanks to Jeff White we have another frequency for this Sunday’s broadcast which should be better for Europe. 15770kHz at 2130. Please can anyone in Europe, North America and elsewhere please send reception reports to [email protected] for this extra broadcast.”
Sources: DigiDX website & FB
Amazingly, I actually got some reception, albeit poor to fair, here in New Brunswick just using a Tecsun PL-880 and its whip antenna indoors! This from a 10 kW transmitter in Europe. I was even able to capture a recognizable version (albeit pretty noisy) of the image they transmitted. Much of the MFSK32 text was accurately decoded and all of the Olivia 64-2000 text was perfectly decoded. Luckily, CFRX was not audible at this time.
Why are folks still talking about trying? The time was 0200 Sunday, correct? That’s Saturday evening in the States.
Forgot something, if you go to the sigidwiki site, you can get an idea of what MFSK and Olivia sound like: http://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Category:Amateur_Radio
Thank you Stephen for the information, this is a very non-traditional and interesting method of getting a shortwave broadcast. Will give it a shot if they can be heard at this QTH,
No trace of them in Tucson AZ.
I don’t think they’re going to be heard in North America on 6070khz with only 10kw, mainly because of CFRX