Mid Downs Radio gets email from Swedish listener – 995 miles away

Åh herre gud! Vad är det här? (Oh my goodness, what’s this?)

Det verkar vara en radio station i Haywards Heath… vart det än är ….? (It seems to be a radio station in Haywards Heath ..wherever that is?)

Yes, Mid Downs Radio the Princess Royal’s very own radio station, on 1350AM has received an email from a Swedish listener 995 miles away.

The station does get occasional contact from overseas listeners, but it’s always exciting when it happens.

As Paul Barnett, the station’s chairman says: “He has a powerful receiver – it has to be as our transmitter only has an output of one watt!”

We do get these messages from radio hams all round Europe from time to time.

But it’s good to know that in these days of internet streaming they’re still out there.

The email was sent to one of the station’s veteran presenters, Kevin Payne, whose weekly programme Motown Magic is transmitted on Monday nights.

Kevin told him: “Greetings from sunny but windy Mid Sussex in the heart of south-east England.

“I was thrilled to receive your lovely e-mail with a clip of a radio show, which I present regularly on a Monday evening.

“Mid Downs Radio has been broadcasting to the patients and staff of the Princess Royal Hospital and the wider community since 1976.

“I have been involved with MDR since 1984.”

The Swedish listener, Göte Lindström, 67, from Tenhult, near Jönköping, in Southern Sweden – a radio enthusiast since 1969, call sign SM7XUF – said: “Here it is raining and cold, only five degrees.

“Tomorrow maybe snow in the morning.”

He said he had managed to pick up a signal from 1,700 stations in 158 countries, using ‘directional antennae beamed to different parts of the world’.

He added: “I also use a remote-controlled Kiwi-SDR receiver in the Nordic countries.”

Göte, a media teacher with his wife Karin, also runs a sheep farm.

Visit www.mdr.org.uk.