Tis The Radio Season To Be Jolly

Short-wave radio is split into broadcasting seasons. Traditionally, these have been from September to April for the Winter Season and April to September for the Summer Season. All the stations try to get frequency allocations in all the bands so they can move to lower frequencies in Winter in a desperate attempt to be heard in the target country.

Conditions during my time at AOR have been so unreliable as to warrant mid-season changes. Like those for Belper Athletic, they have had limited success. This push for higher powers on the lower frequencies set the design criteria for the AOR 7030. A front-end to take the signal levels and a range of self-aligning filters to keep your signal from the power-house next door. Try for the latest from Croatian Radio on 9.830 at 0700GMT and hear that just because it no longer reckons in your local station's news agenda, the problem has not gone away. The news is repeated at 1400GMT.

A station getting a reputation for reliable reporting is Monitor Radio. Try 13.770 in the very interesting 22 metre band for the Evening Broadcast backed up on 15.665.

41 metres is good to the USA in the mornings, try 7.535 and a raft of evangelical stations 200kHz on either side.

Test your ECSS skills and the AOR filter menu as you go for Radio Australia on 7.330 in the evenings. Daytime is easier on 15.530.

No real DXer would log The Voice of America as a find, but now they no longer officially broadcast to Europe, we have to find transmissions that leak from other areas. Late afternoon listening on 10.424, a lower-sideband feeder will test both sensitivity and stability. AOR's are such that you can listen to music on sideband.

More conventional listening can be done on 15.455 in the evenings. This is the African service providing vital news to a continent that the rest of the world really doesn't want to hear from right now.

The drive for efficiency at the BBC means that even World Service is a DX catch in Western Europe. The European Stream will test anyone's sync detector, the best of the bunch being 9.410 and 12.095. The BBC themselves recommend 15.575 for daytime listening. The African Stream is clear in Europe on 21.660 daytime, and 15.400 evenings.

Whoever you end up listening to, let them know. Your favourite station is just dying to hear from you. If you let them know you are out there hanging on their every word, they will put you on the mailing list for programme information and the latest frequency releases.

If a station can't prove to its government that it has an audience by analysis of its listener correspondence then that station can be threatened. Audience power works; look at Radio Canada's reprieve. Listen for them on 5.995 in the evenings.

In a very informal review of all the stations heard during this month's writing session, only about 18% are in English at any one time. Or is that the island mentality striking again.