Mark Jones, owner of WVBG 1490 AM and V105.5 FM, was surprised when an email arrived this month from Finland, where a radio enthusiast had managed to tune in to his small-town station from 4,700 miles away.
The message came from Jim Solatie, a 50-year-old media professional and father of two in Finland, who managed to pick up WVBG’s signal while on a hiking trip in Lapland. Using a 3,000-foot copper wire antenna aimed at the U.S. East Coast, Solatie captured the Vicksburg station’s news broadcast on Sept. 14 at 10 p.m. CDT.
“It was fantastic to hear your signal so far away,” Solatie wrote in his message to Jones, enclosing an audio clip of the broadcast.
The clip was able to catch the local station identification and lead-in going into the 10 o’clock news.
Solatie, a longtime radio hobbyist, is part of the Finnish DX Association, a club of about 50 enthusiasts who specialize in long-distance listening. Members gather for trips around Finland, publish a magazine called Radiomaailma (“Radio World”) and trade stories of rare catches like WVBG.