QSL: Český Rozhlas Dvojka 954

Hearing Czech Radio – Český Rozhlas – on mediumwave can may be not considered to be DX. They can be easily heard on both 270 kHz longwave and on 639, 954 and 1332 kHz mediumwave. I sent a reception report by e-mail on their “Dvojka” programme some weeks ago. Czech Radio is a good verifier and replied with a real QSL card and a post it notebook within a couple of weeks.

I heard the station on 954 kHz, a frequency where the programme is broadcast on 3 different transmitters. The strongest one, Dobrochov near Brno, has a power of no less than 200 kilowatts making it an easy catch here in Norway.

 

QSL: Radio Dechovka 1233

Updates to this blog has been very scarce lately. Very few reception reports have understandably resulted in even fewer QSLs. The first QSL since April arrived some weeks ago when Jana Pusova of Czech Radio Dechovka replied with a full detail verification card attrached as a PDF file.

This was for a reception report from Lista in January 2014 when I had excellent reception of the station on 1233 kHz. Radio Dechovka broadcast with a power of 6 kilowatts when I heard them, but has since risen the power to 10 kilowatts. This should cover the entire country and also many of the neighbouring countries. The main AM transmitter is located in Libeznice just north of Prague.

Radio Dechovka has been on the air on 1233 kHz since May 2013, but started broadcasting on the Internet already in July 2009. The station describes itself as “the first brass music radio station in the Czech Republic”. When asked if Radio Dechovka is also the first brass music radio station in the world, Jana replies that there are also some brass music stations in Slovakia, but these are only Internet radio stations wihout on air announcers. Czech brass music is certainly not my favourite music, but nice still to see that there is also a market for such niche radio stations! 🙂

QSL: Český rozhlas Topolná 270

I recorded the entire longwave band for about 1 hour at Lista back in January. I have several gaps in my QSL collection from longwave stations. One of the stations I have never bothered reporting was the Czech longwave station at Topolná.

Motivated by rumours of the station closing down at the end of February (it is hard to obtain QSLs from stations which have closed down!) , I sent along a CD and a letter directly to the transmitter station at Topolná. Some weeks later I received a nice full data QSL card (depicted above) and a postcard of Topolná village.

The longwave transmitter wasn’t turned out on February 28, 2014 though, as originally annnounced. The power of the transmitter, however, was reduced to just 50 kilowatts. Compared to the 650 kilowatts used when I heard them in January, this means that the signal is now considerably weaker than it was. The transmitter still transmits the “Radiožurnál” programme of Czech national radio (“Český rozhlas”).