
A few square metres of space, an area as free from local noise as possible – that’s all the AziLoop system needs.

A few square metres of space, an area as free from local noise as possible – that’s all the AziLoop system needs.

ABC Newsradio from Busselton on the Australian west coast, 13,547 km away – about 220 kilometres south of Perth – could be heard again yesterday evening at around 22:00 UT on medium wave 1152 kHz in Salzburg. Caution is advised when receiving the signal, as a small station from Taipei, Taiwan, can usually be heard on exactly the same frequency (1151.994) from 20:00 UT onwards.

The annual TOP 10 DX OF THE YEAR contest has now been evaluated for 2025. István Biliczky writes to me on behalf of the organiser: Congratulations to Christoph Ratzer (Austria) who not only won the contest, but also set a new record in the “Total score” and the “Best DX” category. Thank you very much, the contest is always a good excursion into the shortwave bands, and despite the smaller number of stations, it is a challenge to receive the most distant stations with low transmission power. Thanks also to all participants in the event. And as always: “see you in the next contest”.

The new Shortwave Bulletin is available for free download.
Thomas Nilsson writes:
“With this issue, we have produced a total of 2,100 issues since we began in 1961. In the 1960s, there were many rare stations to hunt, especially in the tropical bands.”
Congratulations on this achievement. It is special to still have such a good magazine in 2026, a great and always high-quality summary of shortwave activity!



Today, I was finally able to replace the Spiderbeam mast that broke during the ice storm on 24 December. Now, another Spiderbeam mast is back in use, again 7.5 metres high, but with even more solid elements and now double guying. Furthermore, I am dispensing with the outriggers; the loops are tensioned to the ground, so the loops of the AziLoop system are even better at 2x 26 metres.



I have been using my “SWL BOX” for 10 years now. It is an antenna distributor/filter/preamplifier combination that was custom-built for me, can be remotely controlled via the network and also uses protection filters. A perfect product from Jan Šustr’s Hamparts_shop. Good quality simply pays off! Thank you, Jan Šustr, for this important control unit for my station.

Yesterday evening, February 19, 2026, I was able to receive 45 stations from Japan on the 160-meter amateurradio band, i.e. on 1.8 MHz in FT8 mode here in Salzburg. I used my AziLoop antenna, direction 60°, and a fully automatic Web-888 SDR from Hamparts_shop as the receiver, which forwards the logs directly to PSK Reporter.