Three times a year in Australia, we are permitted to replace the VK prefix with AX. One of those is Australia Day on 26th January.

I waited for midnight and had a listen on the 20m band and heard some very strong signals from the Middle East. They appeared to be having a private QSO so I tuned across the band and found Kamal S79KW mobile in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. Kamal was a strong 5/8 and gave me 5/9.

I then decided to call CQ DX and soon had a pile up from Europe. I ended up logging about 60 stations from the following parts of the world:-

• Austria
• Belgium
• Denmark
• England
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• India
• Italy
• Kuwait
• Netherlands
• Northern Ireland
• Poland
• Russia
• Spain
• Switzerland
• Ukraine

This year a new contest was announced…..the Australia Day Contest. The aim of the contest is for amateurs in VK, ZL and P2 to contact other amateurs in VK, ZL and P2.

The contest started at 2200 hrs UTC, but I had a sleep in and did not get started until just before 0100 UTC.

The 10m band was absolutely humming with lots of activity. I worked a total of 56 stations on 10m. You can see below from the waterfall on the VK2OB kiwisdr that 10m was busy.

Unfortunately by the evening, the static crashes had become strength 9 and plus at times due to all of the storms around Australia. It made it extremely difficult to hear the lower down stations on 40m. The map below shows all of the lightning activity and explains why it was so noisy. The 80m band was unusable due to the noise.

The contest wrapped up at 1000 UTC. I ended up with a total of 242 QSOs in the log on 10, 20, & 40m SSB.

The map below shows my contacts on Australia Day, including the DX and the QSOs I made during the contest.

At about 1640 UTC on 25th January 2022, I tuned in to the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation broadcasting on 5915 kHz.

The overall reception of Zambia NBC was fair. China Radio International was on the same frequency causing interference.

Below is a video showing my reception of Zambia NBC.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 25th January 2022.
2. Short Wave Schedule, 2022, <https://shortwaveschedule.com/>, viewed 25th January 2022.

At about 1602 UTC on 25th January 2022, I tuned in to the Voice of the Broad Masses, ERITREA, broadcasting on 7.140 kHz.

Eritrea officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa.

The overall reception was good. As this was in the middle of the 40m amateur radio band, there was some occasional interference from amateur radio operators. There were some static crashes on the band. From about 1613 UTC, there was severe interference from a very strong Over the Horizon Radar signal.

Below is a video showing my reception of the Voice of the Broad Masses.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 25th January 2022.
2. Wikipedia, 2022, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea>, viewed 25th January 2022.

At about 1533 UTC I tuned in to the Voice of Hope Africa, ZAMBIA, broadcasting on 9680 kHz in the English language.

The broadcast was coming from the Lusaka 100kW transmitter. The program consisted of various music.

The overall reception of the Voice of Hope was good.

Below is a video showing my reception of the Voice of Hope.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 25th January 2022.
2. Short Wave Schedule, 2022, <https://shortwaveschedule.com/>, viewed 25th January 2022.
3. Voice of Hope, 2022, <https://www.voiceofhope.com/station_africa.html>, viewed 25th January 2022.

At about 1312 UTC on 25th January 2022, I tuned in to Reach Beyond Australia, broadcasting on 11875 kHz, in the Kurux and then Telugu languages.

The broadcast was coming from the Kununurra 100kW transmitter.

The overall reception of Reach Beyond Australia was excellent.

Below is a video showing my reception of Reach Beyond Australia.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 25th January 2022.
2. Short Wave Schedule, 2022, <https://shortwaveschedule.com/>, viewed 25th January 2022.

At about 1258 UTC on 25th January 2022, I tuned in to KTWR GUAM, broadcasting on 11590 kHz.

The overall reception of KTWR was good

Below is a video showing my reception of KNLS.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 25th January 2022.
2. Short Wave Schedule, 2022, <https://shortwaveschedule.com/>, viewed 25th January 2022.

At about 1119 UTC on Tuesday 25th January 2022, I tuned in to KNLS ALASKA, broadcasting in the Russian language on 9570 kHz.

The signal was coming from the KNLS Anchor Point 100kW transmitter.

The overall reception of KNLS was good. The signal strength was good and there was only slight fading on the signal. There was no interference from other stations.

Below is a short video of my reception of KNLS.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 25th January 2022.
2. Short Wave Schedule, 2022, <https://shortwaveschedule.com/>, viewed 25th January 2022.

At about 1241 UTC on Monday the 23rd January 2022, I tuned in to Radio Afghanistan International broadcasting in the Pashto language on 7600 kHz.

The broadcast was coming from the Tashkent 100kW transmitter in Uzbekistan.

The overall reception of Radio Afghanistan was initially poor. This was due to a strong digital signal which was on the frequency. Once the digital signal disappeared, the overall reception was good.

Below is a video showing my reception of Radio Afghanistan International.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 23rd January 2022.
2. Short Wave Schedule, 2022, <https://shortwaveschedule.com/>, viewed 23rd January 2022.

At about 0949 UTC on Sunday the 23rd day of January 2022, I tuned in to Voz Andes, ECUADOR, broadcasting in the Quechua language on 6050 kHz.

The overall reception of Voz Andes was fair. The static crashes from local storms in Australia affected listening pleasure. There was also some interference from Radio Nikkei on 6055 kHz.

Below is a short video of my reception of Voz Andes.

References.

1. Short Wave Info, 2022, <https://www.short-wave.info/>, viewed 23rd January 2022.
2. Short Wave Schedule, 2022, <https://shortwaveschedule.com/>, viewed 23rdJanuary 2022.

This afternoon on 20m SSB, I spoke with Carol AA4CS aeronautical mobile. Carol was in a Boeing 767, about 100 miles south of the Cayman Islands, heading to Ecuador.