OJ9X QRV FROM DEC 6th THRU DEC 31st, 2017

Santa Radio, along with their head figure Santa Claus, are celebrating this December 6th and upcoming Christmas as a very special period for the Republic of Finland, OH-land. We invite you to join the party for the next 25 days. The OJ9X special call sign was released by the Finnish Regulatory Authority for this country-wide operation, which will see several radio clubs participating across all bands and modes. The first 100 scoring the highest number of bands/modes, with the top 10 from each continent, will qualify for the prestigious “Finland 100 Years -Award” signed by Santa himself along with the prime minister of Finland. At the same time the Finnish prime minister, Mr. Juha Sipilä, is a patron of this special event.

Hello from the Offices of Santa Radio — featuring the 2016 Activity

You may recall the great activity of OF9X back during Christmas 2016 when Santa and his twelve elves were penetrating the Christmas scene, and gave you and your children a chance say hello to Santa and find their way into the logbook of Santa’s elves. In fact, you took it so seriously that Santa is hereby presenting you his prestigious award(s).

In total the Santa-team made 33.681 contacts to 17,319 different households in 156 countries.Totally more than 1800 awards were released. It was a success by all accounts, especially since the radio propagation was not good. Almost all North American contacts (2400) were made remotely from the huge OH8X station just a stone’s throw from the Arctic Circle – using the mysterious Polar path. Santa was supported by Veijo, OH6KN; Juha, OH8NC and Kim, OH6KZP.

Overall the number of visitors to Finnish Lapland has risen by 15% by a recent season and in December alone more than 550 flights from outside of Finland arrived at the various Santa Claus airports. The Chinese in particular were arriving in huge numbers, and next season (2017-2018) it is expected that 50.000 Chinese tourists will travel here to experience this Christmas wonderland.

Santa Radio project was organized by a vibrant small team of Santa enthusiasts from the Radio Club of Pusula, OH9W, and technological support was provided by the Radio Arcala labs.