Saturday, 17 July 2010
My First QSL
I can't show you a picture of it. It was an e-mail.
I was in Bangkok in December 2009 when I picked up the Burmese Broadcasting Service, or to give it its correct name, Myanmar Radio National Service. As far as I could make out it was a broadcast of a ladies' soccer game between Myanmar and Laos. So I wrote my report and posted it to them, giving my contact details.
On Christmas Morning I picked up my BlackBerry to find an e-mail from U Win Aung "Director of Radio Dept, Nay Pyi Taw Myanma, Radio" confirming my reception report. Thank U!
While I'm rambling on about Myanmar, let me recommend Sublime Frequencies, a particularly splendid record label that collects interesting music from around the world. My introduction to them was their Music of Nat Pwe: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar Vol. 3 which I can say is quite unlike any other music I've heard. Sublime Frequencies has a website here; there is a Wikipedia article about the Nats here and images of them here.
I was in Bangkok in December 2009 when I picked up the Burmese Broadcasting Service, or to give it its correct name, Myanmar Radio National Service. As far as I could make out it was a broadcast of a ladies' soccer game between Myanmar and Laos. So I wrote my report and posted it to them, giving my contact details.
On Christmas Morning I picked up my BlackBerry to find an e-mail from U Win Aung "Director of Radio Dept, Nay Pyi Taw Myanma, Radio" confirming my reception report. Thank U!
While I'm rambling on about Myanmar, let me recommend Sublime Frequencies, a particularly splendid record label that collects interesting music from around the world. My introduction to them was their Music of Nat Pwe: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar Vol. 3 which I can say is quite unlike any other music I've heard. Sublime Frequencies has a website here; there is a Wikipedia article about the Nats here and images of them here.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Radio Pyongyang / Voice of Korea
Received 13 May 2010
What better way to start than with the DPRK?
I haven't kept a record of when I sent my QSL report to Pyongyang, but it must be well over three months back. I'd taken the advice to mark my envelope "via Beijing, People's Republic of China".
Yesterday I received this:
The first thing that struck me - apart from the fact that it is made of very poor quality paper - was that it had been typewritten. I can't remember the last time I saw a typewriter in an office: 10 years ago, maybe? I'm mildly surprised that it got to me, par avion or otherwise.
Opening it up to look at the treasures inside, I found these:
I'm not quite sure how you can see the performance of a farm. By the height of its crops, maybe? Note KJI's dynamic stance: has he been posing for a new statue recently?
I rather like the pennant.
I'd love to know what goes on at a Kimilsungia festival: I imagine it's like the old Soviet May Day parades, but with added Kim Il Sung. Could you hold a Kimilsungia festival anywhere but in Pyongyang?
UK readers will probably want to know that page 3 of the Pyongyang Times does not resemble page 3 of the UK's "Sun" in any way. It is given over to details of Vinalon production in the DPRK (see the Wikipedia article), and there is a rather moving photograph of Korean workers "overjoyed" at the production of Vinalon cotton. Well, who wouldn't be?
The back page has an article about soccer (another win by the Ministry of Light Industry's team, starring their "very sensitive" goalie Choe Kum Il) and a rather informative piece about tourism in the DPRK. We learn, for example, that "it abounds in mineral water".
There was no acknowledgement of the QSL report and no schedules of their broadcasts, but I don't mind over much. I'm just pleased to have got what I did!
What better way to start than with the DPRK?
I haven't kept a record of when I sent my QSL report to Pyongyang, but it must be well over three months back. I'd taken the advice to mark my envelope "via Beijing, People's Republic of China".
Yesterday I received this:
The first thing that struck me - apart from the fact that it is made of very poor quality paper - was that it had been typewritten. I can't remember the last time I saw a typewriter in an office: 10 years ago, maybe? I'm mildly surprised that it got to me, par avion or otherwise.
Opening it up to look at the treasures inside, I found these:
Look at the size of those radishes!
I'm not quite sure how you can see the performance of a farm. By the height of its crops, maybe? Note KJI's dynamic stance: has he been posing for a new statue recently?
I rather like the pennant.
I'd love to know what goes on at a Kimilsungia festival: I imagine it's like the old Soviet May Day parades, but with added Kim Il Sung. Could you hold a Kimilsungia festival anywhere but in Pyongyang?
UK readers will probably want to know that page 3 of the Pyongyang Times does not resemble page 3 of the UK's "Sun" in any way. It is given over to details of Vinalon production in the DPRK (see the Wikipedia article), and there is a rather moving photograph of Korean workers "overjoyed" at the production of Vinalon cotton. Well, who wouldn't be?
The back page has an article about soccer (another win by the Ministry of Light Industry's team, starring their "very sensitive" goalie Choe Kum Il) and a rather informative piece about tourism in the DPRK. We learn, for example, that "it abounds in mineral water".
There was no acknowledgement of the QSL report and no schedules of their broadcasts, but I don't mind over much. I'm just pleased to have got what I did!
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