December 2022 Reception Reports

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December 2022 Reports

Unlike in previous years, December was sadly lacking in reception successes, with not even a hint of Sporadic-E activity around the festive season. Simon Hockenhull (Bristol) comments that even any meteor-shower pings on the lower FM band during the Geminids were disappointing, to say the least.

Stephen Michie (Bristol) wished that Boxing Day conditions were like those experienced in 1992 when Dutch and German signals were almost noise-free with great reception in colour. Those were the days!

Tropospheric reception occurred during the late evening on the 17th with Belgian and Dutch FM stations received by Chris Howles in Lichfield. The following morning, various French outlets joined the influx. The best catch of the day was at 0811 on 87.90MHz with ‘France Culture’ from Parthenay arriving at a distance of 666km which Chris identified by the Internet web stream.

In Europe, Niels van der Linden (Épinal, France) reports that between the 20th and 27th, Italian Band III digital TV channels were received thanks to a tropospheric lift. On the 28th, Austrian multiplexes were observed on channels D21, D22 and D41 from Bregenz 1/Pfänder.

On the 31^st, more Italian channels were identified including D26 (RAI A) from Mt. Penice and D40 (RAI B) from Torino in the north of the country.

RAI still operates a conventional teletext service known as ‘RAI Televideo’. The BBC scrapped theirs when analogue was switched off in 2012, but the conventional text on their satellite channels disappeared around 2001!

Reception in Australia

In the southern hemisphere, Sporadic-E DX-ing was in full swing. On December 10^th, a double-skip Sporadic-E opening to the Philippines produced FM and TV signals for Tony Mann (Perth, Australia) who identified 525-line System ‘M’ analogue TV signals on channels A2 (55.25MHz) and A5 (77.25MHz).

On the 27th at around 1130 local time, Todd Emslie (Sydney, Australia) detected three or four channel A2 video carriers centred on 55.250MHz, with no sign of anything on 55.260MHz. The signals originated from Central America.

Now some late news! During November, Hugh Cocks (Algarve, Portugal) received two Brazilian FM stations via evening TEP (Transequatorial Propagation) at around 2200UTC from São Paulo in their new EFM band which extends from 76 to 88MHz. Hugh has submitted two audio clips from ‘Radio Cultura 77.9’, with long periods of music and talking. There is another station on 77.5MHz in the São Paulo area which was not as strong. Some Band I TV activity was still around from South America, but it is becoming less.

ITVX

After a series of technical issues, ITVX (a much expanded ITV Hub replacement) finally made its debut on December 8^th. However, it has not gone without criticism as many older TV sets cannot handle the new services, and some receivers are only three years old. ‘Compatibility’ seems to be a forgotten word these days!

Christmas Graphics

Kevin Hewitt (Gibraltar) has submitted several of GBC’s Christmas logos, all new ideas, unlike the BBC-2 re-runs we had to endure.

Stephen Michie (Bristol) also felt that the UK’s main channel offerings were uninspiring with BBC-2 repeating the same old festive sequences which were first shown in 2018 and repeated in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022! Meanwhile, Kevin tells us that the Gibraltar Government cancelled all official New Year celebrations to save money. No countdown or ‘live’ music, and no fireworks display…

Stay Tuned!

Our thanks to all our readers and DX colleagues who have submitted information and reception reports for this month’s column.

Please send DX-TV and FM reception reports, or any reminisces from the old analogue days, as soon as possible via the E-mail addresses shown at the top of this column.

CAPTIONS TO PHOTOGRAPHS

Fig. 1: Italian news opening sequence from RAI (Photo: Niels van der Linden, Epinal, France).

Fig. 2: Conventional Teletext, radiated by RAI (Photo: Niels van der Linden, Epinal, France).

Fig. 3: Festive greetings from GBC Gibraltar in 2022 (Photo: Kevin Hewitt, Gibraltar).

Fig. 4: Santa with the new ITV logo in 2022!

Fig. 5: It’s that cat’s tail again on BBC-2!

Fig. 6: Band III reception from Denmark with the PM5534 test card, 30 years ago ...