Locations: 37° 03' 30.54" N 127° 03' 51.80" E (188 ft) | 37° 04' 12.51" N 127° 04' 40.51" E (494 ft)
29 mi. s of Seoul / 150 mi. sse of Pyongyang / 54 mi. sse of North Korea border (Demilitarized Zone)
These lists were last updated July 2013  |  Station list and all recordings by Chris Kadlec



  Back to Chinese FM Tropo: Shandong & Jiangsu from Korea [Homepage]

Log background

    I first stumbled upon Chinese radio while making my local bandscan of Korean-based stations atop the hill across the street from my apartment. I knew China was always a possibility, but I had never been in the right place to hear it until the Korean Memorial Day weekend of 2011 when the band exploded. That explosion lasted for nearly a week in what is still to-date the most massive opening I've ever observed, both in Asia and back at home in the U.S. It was completed by the reception of a sole 2,000+ mile E-skip catch from Thailand.
    This is my complete log of Chinese radio as I've received it since 2011. At first, it took weeks and months to even achieve a vague idea of what stations I had been hearing or even how far away they were. Information online was extremely unorganized, incomplete, and reposted on numerous outdated blogs, all in Chinese. Technical data, as well as tower locations, were nearly impossible to come by. Slowly, piece by piece I found the information I was seeking, but the project remained incomplete, bogged down with unknown stations and a massive language barrier.

  You can listen too!  Listen to the Best of China audio compilation (40 min.)

Thank you for your help

    In the spring of 2012, with 14 hours of unresolved audio and about a hundred unorganized Chinese radio blog postings floating about on my computer, I found a Taipei-based DXer who goes by the English name Jeff, by running into his blog. Jeff has many interesting over-water Japanese tropo catches in excess of 1,000 miles, my main radio interest. Simply put, without Jeff, this log and website would not exist, many of these stations would not be identified, records of tower locations would not exist, valuable identifying phone numbers would have gone unheard, and some of my most distant catches would be nothing more than mysterious audio files on my computer. Jeff spent countless hours of his own time listening to six hours of my toughest audio clips in the summer of 2012 and the spring of 2013. He gave me detailed information I could not have obtained anywhere else, which not only identified many of the stations I had heard from afar, but also gave me insight into the discussions, ads, and content of the Chinese stations I so often hear today.
    In addition to Jeff's help, the owner of the 力之声Power FM blog, a Shandong-based radio blog, was absolutely essential in providing technical details of the majority of Shandong stations in this log. It's quite possible he knows more about the happenings of radio in Shandong as a whole than almost anyone else, and continues to help with alerts of station frequency and format changes that affect my reception to this day.
    While I now know Shandong like the back of my hand, can easily recognize the Chinese characters for radio terms, cities, and station names, have learned my numbers in Mandarin and can, with little effort, identify stations myself these days, I cannot ignore the helpful efforts of these two fellow Chinese radio geeks who helped me so much!

How do you hear these signals?

    As any radio hobbyist knows, trying to explain the scientific and meteorological science of radio reception and its various modes of propagation is like lecturing a five-year old on the world of physics. It's easier to not explain. However, for those already privy to the science of radio reception, a few words on my tuner and antenna. In short, it's minimal. Very minimal. I use a Samsung Yepp Q2 MP3 player, released in 2009, as my tuner. No modifications, just the device itself. My Samsung EP-380 earphones serve as my antenna, allowing me to reach station nulls that no rooftop antenna could ever find simply by manipulating and manually moving the earphone wires. Holding the wire in front of me while perpendicular to my body allows for directional reception. The tuner itself, when compared side-by-side to other radios, both handheld and higher-end radios connected to external antennas, performed fantastically and is exceptionally sensitive. Many of my Chinese stations are heard in the null of strong nearby local stations. While it's hardly perfect, it gets the job done! Hearing 600 and 700 mile solid local-like catches on your MP3 player? Who could ask for more? Click here to take a look at this awesome little device.

** Click the dates below to view Hepburn Tropo Index forecast maps for each opening.