Yes, a few short-range things here currently.

Someone is still relaying Kool FM on 89.4. It seems to be a weekend thing.

Can anyone confirm whether or not Wavre is back yet on 101.1? There's a bit of a lift to Belgium here tonight with Anderlues 99.1 and Tournai 101.8/102.6 at fair levels but no sign of anything on 101.1. In these conditions it should be easily audible.

Also hearing a London pirate on 87.5 called UK Raw which is a new one to me and not listed on Martin Payne's London pirate web page.

Yes, a bit of a lift last night with my usual BBCs/Classic FMs and Lille.

Kool still there on 89.4...

Some very patchy Es to the NE here recently. It amounted to just a handful of signals from Finland although I could have sworn I heard a RAS 2 ID on 87.7 (suggesting Iceland) when I switched on. However, as the CD recorder was set to the digital input I failed to record it

A couple of signals I did ID:

87.6 Radio City Tampere

87.7 YLE 1 Eurajoki the most likely site

All patchy and gone after about 15 minutes.

There was also some tropo enhancement on Friday and Saturday during the humid thundery spell to SE England and NE France. Nothing very exciting although unusual things from Boulogne were heard such as Fun Radio 88.9 and Virgin Radio 91.5. The Hastings area was very enhanced on Saturday afternoon with Heart Sussex 2 bars on the Denon blocking the usual weak Breeze from Alton. At the same time KMFM 107.6 from Ashford replaced Breeze Basingstoke.

Near Bournville in Birmingham earlier and I heard a very heavily fading station playing modern instrumental jazz on 107.1. I can't imagine it would be a local pirate as it was getting battered by signal 107 from kidderminster. Any idea what it could be?

Just looked at frequency finder. Probably Rugby FM

Quite a bit of overseas stuff coming in now here.

Some patchy Es here over the last 45 minutes or so with the following stations IDed:

87.7 YLE 1, probably from Eurajoki
87.8 Top Radio, Kakenieki, Lithuania with dance music
87.9 SR P1, several sites listed
89.4 Radio Pori, Pori, Finland in parallel with web stream

Lots of strong signals from around the UK last night but nothing from the continent.

I eventually heard some French and Belgians yesterday evening.

Did no-one else get anything?

Not a lot here Catherine. I was waiting and waiting for Es yesterday morning as there was a huge Es cloud over the Baltic which was producing signals into NW Europe for DXers in Finland. Alas only one station was logged, with a weak UNID classical station on 88.0. It might have been YLE 1 from Joutseno but it didn't sound the same as the web stream.

There hasn't really been much tropo to speak of recently either, just slight enhancements towards London/Wrotham and Essex. As I type this I can see an Es cloud possibly about to trigger an opening to Italy though...

And yes, some Es to Italy now but patchy and highest frequency heard so far 94.3.

Well it lasted all of 10 minutes from around 8.06-8.16 pm. Stations IDed include m2o on 87.8 and Radio Potenza Centrale on 88.9. Some good peaks on some signals but they were widely spaced e.g. 87.8, 88.3, 88.9, 89.4, 91.1, 93.3, 94.3.

I think that's our lot for tonight.

Yesterday evening was quite a decent opening, starting very patchily at about 5.45 pm, and didn't get going properly until around 7 pm. I decided to go 'old-skool' and use the Yamaha T-2 for this opening: analogue tuning and no RDS. Countries heard included Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Italy (who were a pest at times). There were other unidentified Balkan signals received during this lift such as folk music on 91.5, a 'Rock FM'? on 87.8 and more folk on 88.9.

A few stations IDed, either from announcements or web parallels:

87.6 PR 2 (Poland)
87.6 Kossuth Radio (Hungary)
87.6 Radio Shumen (Bulgaria)
87.7 HRT HR1 (Croatia)
88.3 HRT HR 1 (Croatia)
89.8 Radio Romania Actualitati (Romania)

plus lots of Italians.

All gone by about 8.20 pm.

The station I've been hearing on 89.4 is in fact not a London pirate relay but 'Style Radio UK.net' broadcasting to Norwich.

I'm still getting some weak French stations and BBC nationals.

what equipment are you lot using to pick up these stations, anything special?

I assumed it was Kool Fm although I noticed an advertisement for style radio driving into St Stephens on 89.4 . Anyway Lille is up nothing else of note.

Some second-hand tuners mainly (Denon TU-800L, Yamaha T-2 and Sony XDR-F1HD which was bought new a few years ago) plus a 5-element roof-mounted Yagi. So yes I suppose a bit more than your average punter.

You can find good tuners on eBay easily enough though. The Sony ST-SB920 is a popular choice as it can be had relatively cheaply and has quick RDS decoding as well as a rotary tuning knob. There's one on eBay now:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-ST-SB...item3ce4816384

One of the aerial sockets is broken but it should be OK as a starter.

Even with simple aerials you will get results in the summer during Sporadic E openings as signals can be very strong.

I hope this helps.

I'm using an Elad FDM S2sdr connected to a dipole. It gives me very good sensitivity and excellent selectivity. The best tuner out there is the Kenwood KT 6040 although it lacks RDS. I'm selling a modified version on ebay now. It has better sensitivity than the Xdr F1 and equal selectivity. There is also a modified portable Degen 1103 which when modified with the correct filter brew performs almost as well as the Kenwood. I am also selling one of these on ebay.

Is that the SDR which also has HF?? I've been looking between that and the Perseus, I've heard the Elad is better in sound quality and reception though!

Yes the Elad s2 goes from low frequency up to six meters direct sampling and then band two and two meters undersampling. I use it with a pre amp on band two. It's great and is regarded more highly than the Perseus and is about £250 cheaper. It really is worth the money and is a good long term investment. Since I have had the Elad I have no need for anything else. The only down point is that it doesn't cover 70cm.

I have one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/28130...13=80&ff14=108 fm mw and lw

and an arial in the loft, (cant roof mount) but I'll connect it up and see what I get ..also i have a amstrad http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Am...-/201097491045
that I may take up to the moors with me one night if star watching

Ah yes some of those Marantz tuners have excellent ergonomics with the thumb-wheel tuning. You should do well with a loft-mounted aerial, particularly if it is a Yagi although you might have to find a 'sweet spot' for the best reception as it will be affected by reflections from metal objects such as water pipes. What sort of aerial is it?

The Amstrad portable looks interesting. I see that the FM band only covers less than half the dial. Does it carry on receiving up above 108 MHz? Edit: I've just noticed it has air band as well.

Lastly, where is your location?

plymouth is the location...

Unsure what's in the loft in terms of aerials.. i know there is a long one... but ill have a look.


I love the easy tuning on that marrantz and the led display

amstrad here are some better pictures, to see the dial http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/amstrad_6010.html
I only bought that as a mess around thing was only a couple of £ from a charity shop, only ever picked up one thing on marine band last week...which was not interesting..was thinking about going up to dart moor if on a clear night

Plymouth should be an excellent location for FM DX, particularly if you have a good take-off to the south. Certainly you will hear the big high-powered outlets from Brittany there. The easiest one to get will be the Brest/Roc du Tredudon transmitter:

89.4 France Musique
93.0 France bleu Breiz Izel
95.4 France Inter
97.8 France Culture (you would need a lift for this to sneak through the side of Radio 1 from North Hessary Tor, but if conditions are right it should be do-able)

These frequencies can be heard on the car radio driving around the south coasts of Devon and Cornwall.

In particularly good tropo conditions you might hear stations from the north coast of Spain as well.

I guess the talk of Sony tuners set off something, there are two on ebay right now with low starting prices!

Not much to report dx wise, MW is full of plasma noise and FM is pretty dead, no tropo or sporadic e to report of