Late evening February 24 and all night February 25, 2015 have proved to be may be the best opening towards Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay I have ever experienced in Lemmenjoki. On 1560 I noted a bunch of stations emerging around 23 UTC on February 24. Argentinian LT11 R General Francisco Ramírez and Uruguayian CW51 R Maldonado, two stations typically dominating this frequency during La Plata openings, were equally strong. Some fade in and outs was provided by Brazilian R Povo Pombal. The interesing thing was that simultaneously a strong interfering howl was noted, indicating a strong carrier nearby. It took me some time to realize, after extending the frequency range of the Perseus, that there actually was a very strong peak but no audio on the split 1560.792, i.e., severely off! I followed this frequency between 23 and 2330 UTC and was lucky to observe the emergence of an SS audio that culminated in a real surprise. The station’s locutor kindly announced at 2327 UTC: “En la frequencia 1560 kilohertz, desde Vichadero, Rivera, Uruguay, transmíte CV156 R Vichadero”!
After a lot of Googling I got in touch with Mario Raúl Coitiño who confirmed my submitted mp3 audio and who has been working at the station since 1978 and is presently in charge of the program “Actualidades” aired several days a week 2130 to 2300 local time. Raúl is 58 and kindly sent me a lot of chats and a nice photo of his family. He also noted, that the station is obligated to carry their legal ID every 15 minutes because of air traffic regulations for traffic in and out of the local airport nearby! Radio Vichaderos owner and director is José Enrique Mariño. This is one of the more surprising logings I have made during the last years! If the station remains this far off 1560 it should be a fairly easy catch for the Nordic DXers during the next season.
Thanks HK and JPR for listening to my mp3!
This surprise was noted in Lemmenjoki during LEM354 in late evenings on February 24 and 26, 2015. The station appeared as the first one on 960 on February 24 with an ID “CW96 La Radio de la Família, para todo la regíón centro del país”. Some ten minutes later the dominant La Plata station Argentinian R Nacional, Mendoza occupied the frequency for several hours together with R Sao Paulo and R Difusora de Alagoas, Maceió, the Brazilians being relatively weak with heavy fadings. R Yí was probably noted for the first time in Finland this date but also logged by Jari Ruohomäki in the same QTH on March 4, 2015 (which happened to be on my 65th birthday!!). A short FB message confirmed by reception of Radio Yí yesterday.
This station was heard e.g. during LEM333 in the beginning of November 2013. I heard R Patria for the first time already in the beginning of the 90’s but I never managed to get a verification. Last November the station was heard back and forth for almost two hours, sometimes disturbed by another Spanish speaking station (presumably R Mon) and a Brazilian carrying R Aparecida-programming. Patria announced , e.g., a spot for “Farmacia Gadecort” anchored by the station’s technician Gian Carlo Fallini who also confirmed my report. Gracias Gian Carlo! And thanks to HK for listening to my clip and to JPR for his help with v/s information.
CW54 Emisora del Este in Minas is a quite rare catch here on 1580, a frequency that seldom gives any other SA-stations than the ones from Colombia and Venezuela. CW158 R San Salvador has been logged a couple of times in Scandinavia but also this station is a rare one, not to mention the many listed stations in Argentina. Emisora del Este was heard both during LEM 290 in 2010 and during LEM 319 in 2012. Thanks to Jari Ruohomäki I got a fresh v/s that rapidly confirmed my reception report. Thanks JPR!
CX118 Radio La Voz de Artigas was heard in Lemmenjoki on January 28, 2008. Simultaneously, neighboring Radiomundo in Montevideo came in with a superb signal. Even though I did not get a legal ID local commercials made the identification rather simple, especially with the help of Henrik Klemets. Thanks HK. I have tried several times to send reports and f/up of this reception with no results. Surprisingly, I some days ago received a much wanted email from the Gerencia of Radio La Voz de Artigas confirming my reception. The station became my URG-verification # 50!
CX146 Radio Carmelo transmitting on 1460 is a very rare Uruguay-station to be heard in Finland and Scandinavia. The station was first logged in Finland in Lemmenjoki during the LEM85-pedition (Håkan Sundman and Mika Mäkeläinen) on October 26, 1995 and a couple of weeks later by LEM87 (Jarmo Havukunnas and Jan-Erik Österholm). It would the take more than 10 years before the station was logged again in Finland by LEM239 (Jari Ruohomäki and Mika Mäkeläinen) and more recently by LEM290 Pertti Äyräs and Jan-Erik Österholm) in early February 2010. The only common station on 1460 from South America (excluding Brazil) that can be said to be regularly heard is Nuevo Continente in Bogotá.
It was therefore very nice to receive a message via Facebook from Radio Carmelo recently confirming my reception of the station on January 29, 2010. The bridge seen on the picture above, the Puente Giratorio de Carmelo celebrated it’s 100th Anniversary this spring and is also pictured on the City Seal of Carmelo.
This is the last story about pennants from Latin American radio stations from my collection. Hope you have enjoyed it although the quality of the pictures could have been more professional. Nostalgia after all – as Ole Forr so kindly commented.
The stations presented below are; R Oriental 770; R Carve 850; R Paysandú 1240; R Maldonado 1560; R San Carlos 1510; R Charitas 6110; R Chaco Boreal 1330; R Concepción 1380v; R Arequipa 5948; R Huancayo 1470; R Quillabamba 5025; R Tacna 9404; R Frequencia Lider 4418; R Frontera 4760; Ecos del Torbes 4980;
americadx 