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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, who shares the following announcement from Radio Northern Europe International:
Hello everyone,
The show is finished, transmitter time booked and pre-processing done so it’s time to announce RNEI #3 & TIAEMS April 2020 to all of you!
Before we continue, we need to announce something pretty special and unique about this and future RNEI broadcasts:
RNEI is now broadcasting in Comb Stereo. It’s a standard we made and it’s a really nice addition to having a mono only broadcast. It’s easy to decode and it doesn’t degrade the mono signal!
RNEI #3 features 30 minutes of our favourite music from all over Northern Europe; Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland this show. I’ve really enjoyed choosing the music and putting it all together, I really hope you enjoy listening to it.
We will also have the playlist sent in MFSK32 embedded into the final song, very similar to show #1 (we’ve worked extra hard to make it as hidden as possible which was a massive challenge this time, it’s in 2 parts during the final song with an RxID at the start of the final song).
Just like last month, TIAMS has been kind enough to join forces and make us a 30 minute express version of his show which I have loved listening to and I’m sure you will love it too![…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, who shares the following announcement posted on her blog [with apologies for the late plug!]:
Radio Northern Europe International has worked with This is a Music Show to make a broadcast consisting of 30 minutes of RNEI and 30 minutes of TIAMS, that’s 1 hour of great music!
We really love what TIAMS has made for us and we can’t wait to share it with you!!
Radio Northern Europe International show #2 will have music from Iceland, Norway, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Finland this month, I really love the music we are playing and we hope to introduce you to some new music this month!
Songs 4,5 and 6 are my favourites this show!
Broadcast Times:
We have good news to those of you not in Europe and those of you nearer the transmitter, multiple times throughout the month! RNEI #2 will broadcast 5 times on 6070 kHz at the following times:
Saturday the 7th of March 2020, 10-11UTC
Saturday the 7th of March 2020, 19-20UTC
Friday the 13th of March 2020, 11-12UTC
Saturday the 21st of March 2020, 19-20UTC
Sunday the 29th of March 2020, 01-02UTC (this time is very experimental!)
Digital modes:
In RNEI Show #2 the final song will have the MFSK32 embedded into it. This time: text, Emoji and some Icelandic art! (Note, an app like TIVAR shows the emoji!)
TIAMS’ contribution will contain some MFSK64 text and an MFSK64 image!
Many thanks to one of our listeners for suggesting our final MFSK song!
Audio Processing:
This show Daz has been working hard making an audio processor to try and expand the audio range of RNEI! We have decided on trying to broadcast a flat signal to combat the noise floor. This means that the highs might come across a bit too bright and the bass might feel bit lacking.
Don’t worry, a little bit of EQ on the receiver should reverse it ending up with a better frequency range than before! Most standalone radios should already apply a high frequency reduction however SDRs can omit this!
You can send your reception reports, feedback and suggestions for RNEI to [email protected]!
Wishing you good reception conditions and all the best,
-Roseanna
I would like to share something very exciting that I’ve been working on since May 2019:
Radio Northern Europe International
RNEI will be the station for pop and dance music from Northern Europe on shortwave playing music from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, the UK and Ireland!
I aim to play music you haven’t heard before and the first show features a very exciting experiment: Embedded MFSK64! This means, hidden in the final song, there will be the song list sent in MFSK64 in such a way it won’t be off-putting for those of you not decoding!
My shows will mainly consist of lesser known music with a small amount of speaking and jingles. Without spoiling too much of the show I can hint that you’ll hear some Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, English and Icelandic language music if you tune in!
The first pilot show will go out on 6070 kHz Channel292 from Germany (decent reception all over Europe) at the following times: February Saturdays 19:00-19:30 UTC (Starting Saturday 15th)
I’m also in talks with shortwaveradio.de so there is a possibility of using 3975KHz & 6160KHz as well (increased reception in the Benelux/UK/Ireland regions!)
After the broadcast, shows will be published on Mixcloud and my reception on YouTube in case you’ve missed the show!
I will respond to all reception reports sent in and, if I get enough, I’ll try and get postcards made to send out (I’ve designed one I want to get printed!)
I would like to take this space to thank RPC Audio (Jono) for the cheap jingles and Daz from HFZone for helping me with making my mic sound good!
I really hope you all get a chance to listen in and that you get decent reception!
until next time,
tgwtr
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, who shares the following guest post originally published on her blog, The Girl with the Radio:
Unexpected FM madness!
I would like tho share with you a once in a lifetime Sporadic-E event that happened to me today along with videos of the catches I received during it.
It was about 12:00 UTC (1PM local time) and I was listening to NRJ on my personal FM transmitter (106.3MHz) when all of a sudden my pop music fuzzed and turned into classical music. It was then that I knew something was happening and I didn’t want to miss it!
I jumped up, got out my phone camera and started scanning around trying to find distant FM stations and my goodness did I get some amazing catches!
There was no tropo forecast for my area nor some of the places I heard and I wasn’t prepared in the slightest so I ask for your forgiveness on the shaky unprofessional footage and I hope you enjoy watching the following catches that I received!
For those interested my setup is a Sony ST-SE570 with a “bunny ear” telescopic aerial with the ground positioned vertically and the feed positioned horizontally. I put the feed to be facing at 90 degrees East to West.
Disclaimer: the order in which these stations were received has been altered to make this blog post more fun, the times in UTC are in the video titles for those of you interested in the chronological order in which I received these stations!
And this catch …. I have no words to describe my sheer amazement, surprise, shock and excitement hearing a station from Romania (Over 1800km / 1100 miles away) that is broadcasting at only 2kW. It is on the same frequency as France Musique broadcasting at 160kW which is much much closer; I still can’t believe I heard this at all!
After all that excitement we now stop over in Slovakia!
This is a much less insane catch compared to the last few but it is still awesome! Disclaimer: I skipped a load of fading in the recording where it fades.
And here is SRo 1 again, however this time a much lower powered transmitter compared to the last one and yet the signal is still really good and most of the RDS data was decode-able!
This is Retro Rádió a 50kW station in Hungary. It was broadcasting over BBC Radio Wiltshire and I even got RDS!
I hope you all enjoyed going on this radio tour of Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia with me, I certainly did!
Thank you ever so much for reading and watching and I hope to see you around for my next adventure!
And thank you, Roseanna, for taking us on your FM travels! Isn’t RDS an amazing tool for grabbing station IDs during these FM DX openings–? Well played! Again, many thanks as I enjoyed your FM tour of eastern Europe.
