BBC calling Antarctica! Midwinter broadcast on Qodosen DX-286, XHDATA D-109 and six other radios
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- Опубликовано: 16 июл 2024
- Once a year the BBC has a very special broadcast to Antarctica, the Midwinter Broadcast. It happens on the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. This video is the 21 June 2024 broadcast, the full 30 minutes.
Three frequencies were used this year, namely 9585 kHz and 11685 kHz from Woofferton, and 9870 kHz from Ascension Island. Here in Johannesburg, South Africa, I only heard the 9585 kHz signal, with some weak traces on 11685 kHz.
In this video I show you my reception on eight different radios. The great thing about shortwave listening is that you can sometimes catch very interesting transmissions with really basic and cheap radios. Two of the radios in this video cost only $10, the XHDATA D-219 and the Clooblut RD218. They both captured this signal very well!
The radios you can see here are the Qodosen DX-286, Qodosen SR-286, XHDATA D-808, D-109, D-219, the Tecsun R-909, the Eton Elite Traveler III and the Clooblut RD218. I use a 10 metre external long wire on all the radios. I planned to include the Tecsun PL-360, but the PL-360 sound, for some reason, did not record well. So I left it out in the end.
The sound was recorded digitally in all cases, so speaker quality is not at play here. What you hear in my video is what you would hear on headphones. Bandwidth settings (on radios with bandwidth settings) vary between 3 kHz and 4 kHz.
This special broadcast is aimed at people who are stationed at three British Antarctic Survey research stations in Antarctica. The Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast is a special programme that contains messages from family members to researchers who are completely isolated because of the severe Antarctic winter. The programme also contains music requests.
00:00 BBC Midwinter Broadcast to Antarctica 9585 kHz
01:06 Qodosen DX-286
03:38 XHDATA D-808
05:38 Back to Qodosen DX-286
06:33 Qodosen SR-286
08:30 XHDATA D-109
10:40 Back to Qodosen SR-286
12:13 Eton Elite Traveler III
13:33 XHDATA D-219
15:02 Clooblut RD218 ($10 radio on Ali Express!)
16:06 Qodosen DX-286 again
18:47 Tecsun R-909
20:32 Qodosen SR-286 again
21:28 Back to the XHDATA D-109
22:28 Ending with the Qodosen DX-286
25:00 Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast sign-off 
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I caught it only on an xhdata d-219 with 100ft wire antenna in northwest Missouri, USA. I couldn't make out all of the words .
Great catch on the D-219! It's a really nice little radio.
Good reception. Thank you so much.
Sure John, glad you enjoyed it!
I fell asleep also 😆 I was busy listening to other stuff though.
Next year :-) It's available on the BBC Sounds app if you want to hear it, really nice programme.
I received this transmission on my home brew regen receiver, the signal was around 9500 MHZ but not really clear.
Located in central Queensland Australia
Hi Keith, that's a really great catch, all the way over in Queensland!
I tried to stay up past 2 a.m. but dozed off, since 5:30 am was hours away. I _did_ wake up around 5:45 a.m and switched on my ATS-25 AMP, shuttling between 9585 kHz and 11685 kHz. The cyclic fading was bad and I could barely understand what was spoken....but I noted back-and-forth conversations between a male and a female, like two people exchanging greetings to one another.
Your reception is much better due to your strategic QTH and elevation. 📻☺👍
Great that you actually did hear something! I think it's a really nice catch in Malaysia, as you are quite far away from both the transmitters and the target area. Worth waking up for it, I think :-) People in Europe had even better reception than I had, many say they had almost FM-like reception.
@@swlistening I've read your responses to their comments too, Andre.
My best guess is that their tuned their antennas at the Woofferton transmission facilities for the best and clearest sounding broadcast. This site has a plethora of transmitters:
- a triple Riz 250 kW,
- a dual vintage Marconi 250kW,
- a quad Marconi 300 kW and,
- a single 500 kW HF antenna
For the 2022 mid winter broadcast, BBC chose 12065 kHz and listeners in a direct path from Woofferton to Antarctica enjoyed the cleanest and clearest reception!
Just like the other night's broadcast, the programme content was quite similar, with the British Antarctica Survey team's family and friends wishing them good luck on their expeditions. 🚩❄🇦🇶
HF signals begin to fade at pre-sunrise. By 0530 hours local time, ionospheric changes, solar radiation effects and atmospheric noise begin to disrupt pre-dawn SW reception.
The ionosphere consists of several layers (D, E, and F layers) that vary in their ionization levels depending on the time of day. Before sunrise, the ionosphere begins to change as the sun approaches the horizon, causing the D layer to start forming. The D layer absorbs low-frequency radio waves, which leads to signal degradation.
As the sun starts to rise, even before it is visible, it emits UV and X-ray radiation that begins to ionise the upper layers of the atmosphere. This ionisation process causes the ionospheric layers to become more absorptive, affecting especially the lower frequencies used in shortwave broadcasting.
The period before sunrise is a transition from nighttime to daytime ionospheric conditions. During the night, the ionosphere is more stable and better at reflecting shortwave signals over long distances. As dawn approaches, this stability is disrupted, causing a temporary period of poor reception until the ionosphere stabilises again after sunrise.
The pre-dawn period can also experience increased atmospheric noise, which further contributes to the degradation of shortwave signal reception.
This phenomenon isn't unusual to me, as I've often noticed that Radio Ifrikya FM's signal becomes very poor by 0500 hours local time.
You were fortunate as it was only 2330 hours your local time when the BBC Antarctica broadcast program started! 🌍
@@StratmanII Thanks for your detailed explanation 😀 I kind of thought I was more or less in the direct path. Or, well, just a bit to the east of the path from Woofferton to Antarctica. But, clearly, I was not getting the best signal, so I am probably much further east of the path than I thought. It was much better this year than last year though, last year I could barely make out anything. At least this year I could follow the entire programme, even though it wasn't perfectly clear.
Just an interesting observation from my side about sunset listening to shortwave. Lately I have noticed that reception at sunset is really excellent here, I get some of my clearest catches at sunset. It's interesting to me, because I also thought that the later at night, the better the reception, as the ionosphere stabilised.
Both 9585 and 11685 kHz were good for me. I settled for 11685 kHz, the signal was good S9+20 on my RSPdx. I managed to record it all, except for a short transmitter glitch after about 20 minutes. Luckily that didn't last too long. I could also receive the program on 9870 kHz from Ascension Island with the Qodosen using its own antenna.
Good catches on your side! For me, Ascension Island was impossible to catch. Kind of strange, as I always pick up Ascension Island signals. But 9585 was fairly good here. A number of people reported that programming glitch on 11685, I wonder what happened there.
@@swlistening I could see on the waterfall of the SDR that the signal was gone, so for some reason the transmitter was down at that moment.
I was there and I caught the 3 signals from home. 11685 and 9585 were *extremely* strong. Stronger than I can recall catching signals from Woofferton. DId they put the final stage amplifier up a bit for the occasion? It would explain the ~30s time 11685 was off the air during the transmission. Maybe someone had to push the breaker back in 😁
Both signals from Wooferton were at S9++ on my "silver" TEF6686 connected to my balcony MLA-30+
Ascension on 9870 was pretty strong too, S7-S8, little noise and a bit of QSB.
It was a great moment and thanks so much André for letting me know about this.
The personal messages from relatives and kids where really cute.
A fantastic moment of radio.
Next year, you really need to make a live stream, André. I attended another one here on RUclips, it was quite nice especially the chat messages from all over the world, but I would rather have watched yours!
Yes, I also listened to the transmission, while watching the stream and the chat at the OfficialSWLchannel. We even exchanged some messages. 🙂
Hi Alain, you are very lucky to have heard all three, in such good quality. For me, it was only the one, 9585, that came through nicely. The glitch on 11685 was reported by quite a number of listeners, I wonder what happened there.
Thanks for the suggestion about the live stream, I think I will do it next year. Sounds like it was a lot of fun, with all the messages flying around.
I agree with you, the BBC Antarctic broadcast is really a lot of fun. It is something different, with all the personal messages, and very special in the sense that you have only one chance a year to hear this on shortwave. I am looking forward to the next one, next year!
Yep. I got all 3 frequencies. 9585 was the best for me. Then 11685 followed by 9870. 9585 was so good it was almost FM clarity. My 9870 was like your 9585, my 11685 was very poor but intelligible. I used a Tecsun PL-330 with my own homemade 10m random wire (2x5m soldered together and alligator). BBC Sounds app has the show archived for streaming. 73!
Almost FM clarity, that's great reception! It's nice that the show is available on BBC Sounds, for those who could not hear it.
I could receive the broadcast on all three frequencies with good quality. Of course Wooferton is always very strong here in north-western germany, but Ascension was also very good during this transmission. I have received it with a Qodosen SR-286 with telescopic whip outside in a low noise environment.
Thank you for your comment! It seems to me that all three frequencies were very strong in Europe. Lucky you :-)
11685khz came in well in the Washington DC area. 9585khz came up in strength half way through the transmission to where it was marginally listenable. All radios received 11685khz, but the older PLL radios seemed to handle the transmission better. Favoring Grundig S450DLX and Sony ICF 2002 both indoors using stock whip antenna.
Thanks for your comment! So for me it was the other way round, 9585 was quite good all the time, and towards the end 11685 got a bit better, but still weak. I did not hear 9870 from Ascension at all. Interesting that your reception on the PLL radios was the best. I have a Tecsun PL-680 on my to-buy list, it is one of the radios that I still miss in my radio collection. You have two really nice radios there, the Sony ICF 2002 or the Grundig S450DLX!
I missed it ;-;
There is always next year :-)
Andre I tried all 3 frequencies in Tucson ,Az using my Belka All mode (2022) model attached to my Pixel Pro 1B magnetic loop antenna and had No Joy. However, I was viewing the Official Shortwave site on RUclips run by Gilles LT. in Montreal, Canada and he was able to pickup all three frequencies with 11685KHZ the best. Most of the North American listeners only heard 11685KHZ with the east coast listeners hearing it best.
Glad to see you were able to hear it well on one frequency.
73! Have a great day!
Thanks for your comment and report! I also had a look at the recorded stream by Gilles, I saw that he picked up all three. But, as you say, from all the other reports I saw it seems to me that 11685 was by far the best one in North America. Not everyone heard it though, you were one of the unlucky ones, it seems. Hopefully next year you will have better luck!
Only able to hear a decent audio in the last 15 min. with my radioshack dx392
That's a nice catch though, even if you only got the last 15 minutes.
@@swlistening yes indeed. The old DX392 is far from being the best but still is good radio. I have it since 1993.
I fell asleep. Oh well, I am still watching the comparison.
Like someone else posted here, it is also on BBC Sounds if you want to hear it in digital quality :-) It was a nice show!
@@swlisteningIt won’t be the same, but oh well. Maybe next year, who knows.
I managed to catch it pretty well in australia on the sihuadon d-808. 11685 was the best for me and 9585 was hardly weaker. I heard nothing at all on 9870.
Thanks for your comment! Great to hear that this was also heard in Australia, so the signals really reached all corners of the world. Comments on my channels showed it was heard in Europe, Canada and the US, Brazil, Malaysia, the Middle East and now Australia also! Like you, I did not hear Ascension at all.
@@swlistening It seems like anywhere in the world you could hear this broadcast with a good radio! I wonder which countries heard the 9870 broadcast best?
@@AustraliaRadioChannel 9870 was heard very clearly in Europe, so far that's all that I have heard about this one.
Interesting comparison! These receivers seem to perform similarly, although there are big differences between their prices. How is it possible?
In my experience, many portable radios that use similar DSP chips often seem to perform very similarly. I think one DSP chip is basically the same as another DSP chip, most of them see to be able to process similar signals. The difference comes in with filtering, sound quality, noise reduction, selectivity. The better DSP chips, like the TEF6686, are more sensitive and that is where you see the real difference.
I tried recording a few stations to be tested before the main Antarctica broadcast but I fell asleep, as I have said before. I remember listening back to the audio from FM radio on the PL368, everything was low and unintelligible. I see you had a similar problem with the PL360, maybe it doesn’t supply enough power for the main speakers, probably enough for its small one and even a pair of wired earphones.
Thanks Deniz, this actually sounds like a very plausible explanation! I recorded the PL-360, but the sound was low and unintelligible, just like what you had on the PL-368. You might be right, not enough power.
@@swlistening I edited the comment, sorry I am sounding like a broken record. I wouldn’t want to be listening to some nice music then hearing the same section repeating again and again.
as strong as a good radio china transmission here in germany. almost FM like. iirc 9585 was the freq i listend to. 11685 was good too though
That's really strong reception! For me, as I said before, it was good, but not as good as in Europe. Mine was much better than last year though, last year I had really weak reception.
@@swlistening you video shows how lucky i was with the reception.
i was able to use a d219 and r9012 with their tiny telescopic antennas right in the center of my house and was still getting almost perfect reception. but yeah i am probably like 1000km closer to the transmitter ;)
was also a great moment to see how different the radios really sound on SW (i think the d219 sound pretty weak, too narrow)
That’s not what Antarctica looks like. You don’t live on a spinning ball
Thanks for your comment, but I think it does look like that :-)
@@swlistening try to prove that the earth curves or spins . You will see the spinning ball earth is a fantasy
I caught it only on an xhdata d-219 with 100ft wire antenna in northwest Missouri, USA. I couldn't make out all of the words .