Kenya Airways Ops LDOC Frequency 13330khz Nairobi

I was beginning to think that the only aircraft ops I could hear these days on short wave was via Stockholm Radio (oh and my latest exciting catch of Saudi Airways on 8968khz)

But on the latest arrival in my shack, the XHDATA D808 from Australia, I was tuning around its extremely user-friendly memories when I came across some South African sounding voices on 13330khz. Turned out to be Kenya Airways Ops control in Nairobi selcalling KQ250 en-route to Seychelles and KQ 211 inbound from Mumbai with METARS/weather reports.

So this was on 17th June 2019 at 1755UTC on the XHDATA D808 indoors on its telescopic whip.

The XHDATA is simply superb for a quick check on each memory channel and then a quick tune up and down a few khz of each channel and all without the need to switch between VFO and memory mode which is what I have to do on the Tecsun PL660.

I am going to do a review on this latest radio to come out of China later on, but I have had my eye on it for about a year, since reading about its very well implemented VHF airband, and FM RDS which are both features I knew I would use a lot.

I've also had some great catches the last few evenings on 8879khz with Mumbai radio working lots of aircraft travelling from the Gulf to India. Qatari Airways, Express India, Singapore Airlines..... it's been superb.

Small, passive HF Loop made down under

A while ago a radio listener from Australia contacted me with photos of his passive HF loop whose creation my blog had helped inspire. I thought I'd posted photos on my original page Inductive vs Transformer coupling but I'm forgetful and scatty and had forgotten. It's a far more attractive loop than my own and shows you what a professional finish can be gotten from homebuilt antennas.

I really like this concertined plumbing pipe for small loops. It looks well professional and much better than the thinsulate grey plastic pipe lagging I've tried before. I shall have a scratch around the plumbing suppliers to check it out.