Wednesday, August 11, 2021

QSL from RNZ Pacific

Once upon a time 30 something years ago when I first discovered shortwave radio the broadcast bands were filled with stations, a lot of them in english from various countries and interesting to listen to. These days it's hard to find any that are a) in english, and b) not religious.

Once in a while I'll tune around the short wave broadcast bands and see what's around. I got a nice surprise when I found Radio New Zealand Pacific on 13840 kHz (schedule here) a few days ago late in the afternoon. By evening it was quite strong at S9 +20dB with some QSB at my location near Seattle Washington all the way from New Zealand. Sure enough every day I checked I'd find it.

The target audience for RNZ Pacific are the Pacific Islands, but shortwave being shortwave it can go much further, especially with a good receiver and antenna, in my case the off center fed dipole at 55 ft.

I sent them an email, I got a reply and a link to request an eQSL card, which I received today.

RNZ Pacific QSL card

Screen capture from the Icom IC-7300

RNZ Pacific IC-7300 13.840

Again when they switch to 11725 kHz at 0500 UTC

RNZ Pacific IC-7300 11.725