by Mika Mäkeläinen

Borrowing a couple of receivers from friends, we had a total of four JRC NRD-535s and one JRC NRD-545 DSP. Additional equipment included amplifiers, antenna tuners and antenna switchboards. Both had a switchboard designed by Roland Sandberg to select the antennae and, if necessary, to split a particular antenna between two receivers. An "active splitter" was used to divide all the essential antennae between the listeners.

Mika's NRD-545 DSP

This season the Lemmenjoki cabin was equipped with 12 beverage (terminated) or longwire (not terminated) antennae. Most of the antennae needed to be split between both users when conditions focused on a particular region of interest. For example, there was only one good antenna for the U.S. East Coast, one for the Iberian Peninsula, one for both the Southern and Northern parts of South America and so on. Since our antenna splitters were able to handle a maximum of nine antennae, that was the amount we used. Occasionally, some of the regular antennae were replaced by additional antennae towards North America, when conditions to that area were exceptionally good.

Jim's NRD-535 with a switchboard and an amplifier

Each antenna was 0.8 - 1.1 kilometers (0.5 - 0.7 miles) in length. Because of the reindeer, antennae needed to be 3-4 meters above the ground. Wherever trees are not available, poles have been erected. This time antennae were pointed at the following areas:

- Iberian Peninsula (230 degrees)
- Southern part of South America (Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile) and the United Kingdom (245 degrees)
- Northern part of South America (Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador) and the Caribbean (275 degrees)
- Eastern Coast of North America and Central America (290 degrees)
- Midwest (297 and 312 degrees)
- Rocky Mountains (320 degrees)
- West Coast of North America (342 degrees)
- north towards Alaska and Hawaii (0 degrees)
- Far East (Japan, Koreas) at direction 55 degrees
- East Asia (China, Taiwan, the Philippines) at 70 degrees

Not much new on the recording front; Mika relied mostly on minidiscs (Sony MDS-JE520 deck and a portable Sony MZ-R35), but had also a Pioneer CT-S330 cassette deck. Jim used portable cassette decks.