Channel 292 propagation map (Source: Southgate ARC)
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Harald Kuhl (DL1ABJ) for sharing this article from the Southgate ARC:
“When the ‘Deutsche Welle’ decided to close down one of their 500 KW short wave broadcast transmitters near Munich at the end of 2012, a group containing some German radio amateurs applied for and were allocated the then available short wave frequency of 6070 KHz in 2013.
This group now have an operational 10KW station on the frequency, using the driver stages from the old Deutsche Welle transmitter. The rest of the transmitter was built by and is run by Rainer DB8QC . The [license] allow transmission 24/7 but at present most transmissions are on a weekend during daylight hours.
Content is mainly provided by existing Internet Radio stations wanting to get their material “on-the-air” this includes several soceities that remember the days of the Pirate Radio pop music stations in the North sea between England and Holland and a lot of their music content is from the 60’s and 70’s.
Additional content is being sought and at only 15 Euros an hour, this is not a corporate big business rather a facility where smaller groups can afford to buy time to transmit their content. One such group is the Deutsche Amateur Radio Club, the National Amateur Radio Society in Germany, who hope to have a weekly 2 hour slot on the station from mid-March to send a DX orientated program, probably from 6pm local time on Sundays.
The DARC DX magazine will be in the German language and targeted towards German speaking listeners. Amateur radio is an international medium however so there are thoughts of also producing an international / English hour in addition, to reach out across Europe not only to radio amateurs but also to short wave listeners and the general public.”
Thanks again, Harald! Even though Channel 292 isn’t a blow-torch station, at 15 Euros per hour, nearly any group could afford to broadcast on shortwave. Now to put Channel 292 in the logs!
For more information, click here to view the Channel 242 website.