FRSHolland - Summer Splash

 

Dear Bruno,

thank you very much for writing in for our first activity in 2026: Sunday May 31st with a repeat one week later on Sunday June 7.

The response didn’t disappoint us and that’s also because of your e-mail/snail mail to PO Box 2702 in Herten, the Netherlands.

Our May 31 broadcast followed the traditional festive December 2025 broadcast.

For our presenting team a welcome ‘Hello again’ on our beloved shortwave bands.

Frequencies this time were 7700//9300, 7400, 5842 and 3985 kHz. Band conditions weren’t excellent. It happened to be a rather unusual evening, mainly due to the funny band conditions. Result was large so-called “dead zones” (areas with no reception at all), as well as major differences in signal strength between the frequencies we were using.

Sometimes a signal would come booming in at a location where nothing had been heard earlier that evening. And there was also quite some static that evening.

Because we were active on several frequencies, there was usually at least one frequency that could be received well at most locations. Fortunately so.

The broadcast on 5842 kHz also caused some confusion. It turned out that the last two  shows transmitted on that frequency were not the new May programmes, but recordings from a year earlier! Therefore, on Sunday June 7 the complete broadcast was repeated on a 5880 kHz during the same times as the week before:

16:52–20:50 UTC / 18:52–22:50 CEST. No doubt reception was very stable (& good!) on June 7.

Thanks for your well written reception report dear Bruno. You are one of our faithful Italian listeners, thank you!

I hope you will be tuning our way when we will be on air next July/ August when the Free Radio Service Holland will return with its annual 3 week Summer Splash:

three weeks in a row themed programmes between 19:00- 21:00 UTC/ 21:00- 23:00 CEST.

Dates: Sunday July 26, August 2 & August 9 

Watch our e-mail (sent late July) and message on our website https://frsholland.nl/

73s, Peter Verbruggen on behalf of the FRS team