I sit near the window, have no external antenna (the Belka receiver, as you may know, is completely great with its short telescopic), but a great coffee, and off I go.
What works unexpectedly good here right at home are the amateur radio bands. There is almost no man-made noise - I couldn´t believe it. Close to impeccable.
But what do i hear?
Indonesia is a big country, so I hear many (MANY) YCs, YDs etc talking with each other, longer ragchews, but also inner-country-pile-ups.with unusually pronounced shouting and yelling
. The radio amateurs are of course all very disciplined as expected so I have no problems understanding their callsigns. Naturally they rarely use English, while in Europe almost all hams have always adapted to using English. Big country here, easy explanation.What is very striking to me are the MANY freebanders. The atmosphere reminds me of the Dutch or Greek pirates, combined with Italian and SE European CB´ers, with friendly chatting, sometimes the wife gets the mike, echo talking. I find this incredibly relaxing to listen to. They are obvious freebanders, using LSB in 10 MHz and sometimes it sounds like home-made equipment (like e.g. many Dutch pirates). There are often on the aforementioned 10 MHz area, also inside the ham bands, as everyone who reads the Intruder Bandwatch will remember.
I might be too much in the dead zone to get many on 14 MHz, I wonder.
I have never heard amateurs doing CW here though, or not yet. This is much different still in Central Europe where I come from and normally listen and have watched the developments. Digimode is common here also (and in PHL, MLA, JPN, CHN, Korea, AUS, NZL, PAK etc) - no surprise.
I do not hear many, if at all any, ENGLISH amateur radio chats, I must say. While via JT65 I have heard (and deciphered) all neighboring countries and, surprisingly easily, also most European countries by now, the phone modes seem to be almost all Indonesian and few in English.
Maybe I should just stay up one full night DXing and not just 30-minutes-segments every now and then throughout the day, like I do at home, or wait for a contest or at least next weekend.
AM radio seems to have gone in Surakarta, sadly. I remember one local RRI and one local religios AM station back in 2017 with the "laptop Sony" and the Degen loop. Now I get one relatively well at 1314 khz from nearby Banten and that´s it.
There is slightly more QRM noise on AM than on all SW bands (from 3 MHz on up). RRI on 4775 is easy, 3325 RRI Palangkarayan is fair but with low modulation and does not seem to be on every day, I could not even ID it by ear.
RRI on 4775 has a "classic" external service "like it used to be" or like Radio Romania in Europe.
The international shortwave bands are dominated by Radio Mosc...errr, Chinese local and international broadcasters, whose music and programmes I like, same "amount" as in Europe, but not more. I also get the neighboring countries fine and well, India has nice Indian music throughout its Indonesian language service. But I am having a hard time locating the BBC - no luck yet.
My main interest is pirate stations and amateur radio anyway, and decoding JT65 (and RTTY) by smartphone while sitting outside or at least at the window.
Bottom line, I am surprised by the low man-made noise here. This is a bigger problem at home than here despite the (quiet) factory in the neighbourhood and despite all the Chinese gadgetsand all the LED illumination lights inside and outside. Solar power electricity is on no roof, so no related noise; the powerlines are all over the streets on high poles but seem to make little QRM either. Worst offender in this house is the DVBT-2 box (which I brought along when analog TV was about to be phased out in Nov 2023).
Indonesia has more radio amateurs than I knew before this week, but the nearest 2 meter relays are only in Yokjakarta and Semarang, some 40 resp 50 miles away. Quite low repeater density for an in fave very densely populated area on the very populated island of Java in general, IMO...I have just checked RepeaterBook again and these are the same and only 2 nearby FM repeaterd as Oct 2023.
What matters more to me, "collecting" many countries on amateur digi shortwave modes is as easy as in Europe, but phone seems to be quite rare now, whenever I hear phone, it is almost always Indonesian ragchewers
I could be wrong but I thing I received Port Vila on 3925 khz IIRC the other morning. This would by my only "new" country that I could not already receive on SW from Europe before.
I missed the past Sunday though due to a trip, and when there is a contest the image will change I´m sure. I miss CW I must say, and the emptiness on 48 meters and on medium wave is sad - either is (still) better (= more action to be heard) in Europe, thanks also to the low power private stations like ShortwaveService et al. I am very grateful that we have them.
On a night stopover in Jakarta I also heard no regular stations on AM (being in a high-rise airport hotel, there was heavy QRM) - but three freebanders were loud on the AM mediumwave band.
This seems pretty typical. It reminds me of the comparative variety of "modern" unlicensed (and licensed) stations in Europe, almost always low-power, and concentrating oon the local language, for a (semi-) local and inner-continent audience as far as 3.9 and 6 MHz are concerend IMO).
To sum it up: Like at home, where I tend to SWL during short hikes with a portable in hand, I start with the well-known JT65 frequencies, then scroll over the local stations (like AM, 75 meters, 48 meters) and then anywhere. 75 meters is quiet here, but 40 meters is full with amateur ragchewers day and night, as is 10 MHZ, but here, freebanders dominate.
I miss the local AM radio, I cannot receive any neighboring country on AM here. The Belka works well on AM, at home I have no problems with BBC and Algeria on longwave and all surrounding Europe and MENA on AM. Here AM is quiet...as are 75 meters and 60 meters (except 4775).
I find it great to be able to check the conditions with the combination JT65+smartphone decoding on the go. This was not possible for me in 2017 during my first visit, so shortwave and amateur radio adapt and improve with time.
Sorry for the rambling style and the typos but I just wanted to share my first impressions on the good DX possibilities here, which I had not thought would be this good.
Best 73!