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Here is my first reception of an RTTY signal transmitting weather forecast.

TX station: Marine Weather Service - Hamburg, Germany
Frequency: 10100.8 kHz
Way of transmission: RTTY, speed 50 baud, shift 450 Hz
RX location: Oulu, Finland
Receiver: Degen DE1103
Antenna: Shortwave active loop antenna placed indoor close to a window towards SW
SINPO: 43443
Decoder: SeaTTY software, line-out of the receiver connected to mic-in of a laptop

Despite the interference coming from the laptop (the LCD screen creates really bad interference through the audio cable), the reception was really good.

I’m quite sure if I get this cable connected…

… I can make the radio work!!!

 

 SR51 receiver working at 14.207 MHz [0:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

And if you can’t get it, the voice says: “Hello, this is EA3JE [it actually says: 'echo apple three juliet echo'], ehm, good evening and thank you for getting back to my call, you are five and eight, your signal report here in Barcelona, Spain, you’re five and eight”.

By ordering a radio for shortwave listening, I’ve officially (re)started my activity as a DXer.

The radio I chose is a small-size portable Degen DE1103. It’s a Chinese brand and it has got a lot of good reviews by SWL listeners (and an own discussion group as well), so I’m starting with something small and cheap but working well.

I decided at the same time to join the Finnish DX Association, while I’m still waiting to get the Finnish radio amateur call sign. It’ll take some time, since I’ve done the amateur radio exam in Italy, and it’s a kind of not-so-short bureaucratic process to get the exam recognised in Finland. Thanks to the EU and the HAREC recommendation, at least it should be possible.

While waiting for the radio to arrive (it should take around ten days, it is shipped directly from China), I decided to start (re)collecting basic information on SWLing, for example the common codes used in broadcast and amateur transmissions in the SW bands. Little by little I’ll put them here on the blog hoping they might be useful also for someone else in this planet:

Raffa’s way to DXing »