Facing West: Facebook Live, 29 April 2017

REPORTING From The Fox Tower is pleased to bring you the Facebook Live video broadcast from Facing West, which was carried live on Facebook, Saturday 29 April.

Caitlin and Sidney have featured on this blog previously, when the first post they featured in was 'Now Playing: Facing West', which you can view HERE. Two further posts followed, one of which was New Year's Day 2017, which featured the 'Auld Lang Syne' video. You will find that post by clicking HERE - Scroll down the post (from the Carlisle United Football Club feature) to see the video.

The most recent post was January 8, 2017, titled 'Introducing Facing West', which you can view HERE.

The beauty of Facebook Live is that anything could happen - And usually does!

Enjoy the video.

🎶

What's Going On? Summer 2017

THERE is a lot going on this Summer! Let us hope the sun will shine, so that Summer is what it perennially promises to be. Reporting From The Fox Tower brings you a list of events, large and small, taking place over the next few months, for you to enjoy.

APRIL
Saturday 29th: Coffee Morning, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Orton Market Hall.
Sunday 30th: All Day Breakfast, Penruddock Village Hall.

MAY
Monday 1st: Penrith Lions May Fair.
Saturday 13th: Table Top Sale, Warcop Parish Hall.
Wednesday 17th: Mungrisedale Sheep Show.

Saturday 20th: Langwathby May Fair.

Saturday 20th: Shap Playgroup Dominoes.

Friday 26th: Appleby Golf Day, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Appleby Golf Club.

Sunday 28th: Plant and Produce Sale, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Bampton.

JUNE

Saturday 3rd: 20 Challenge, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, starting from Braithwaite Institute.

Saturday 3rd: Stainmore Sheep Show.

Saturday 3rd + Sunday 4th: Country Fest 2017, County Showground, Crooklands, Kendal.

Sunday 4th: The Yomp, Kirkby Stephen.

Thursday 8th - Wednesday 14th: Appleby Horse Fair.

Sunday 11th: Brough Hound + Terrier Show.

Friday 16th: Fashion Show, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Austin Friars, Carlisle.

Saturday 17th: Alston Sheep Dog Trials.

Saturday 17th: Cumberland Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), East Park, Brisco, Carlisle.

Saturday 24th: Alston Gala.

JULY

Saturday 1st: Skelton Agricultural Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), Hutton-In-The-Forest.

Friday 7th - Sunday 9th: Appleby Carnival.

Friday 7th - Sunday 9th: C2C Cycle Challenge, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Whitehaven - Tynemouth.

Friday 14th: Carlisle Flag Day, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Carlisle City Centre.

Saturday 15th: Penrith On A Plate.

Saturday 15th: Summer Serenade, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Newby End Farm, Newby.

Friday 21st + Saturday 22nd: Alston Live.

Saturday 22nd: Penrith Agricultural Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), Brougham.

Thursday 27th - Sunday 30th: Kendal Calling, Lowther Park.

Friday 28th - Sunday 30th: Potfest In The Park, Hutton-In-The-Forest.

AUGUST

Friday 4th - Sunday 6th: Potfest In The Pens, Penrith Auction Mart.

Saturday 5th + Sunday 6th: Total Warrior, Shap Abbey.

Sunday 6th: Gilsland Agricultural Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), Gilsland.

Thursday 10th: Appleby Agricultural Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), Appleby In Westmorland.

Saturday 12th + Sunday 13th: The Lowther Show, Lowther Estate.

Thursday 17th: Brough Agricultural Show, Poppin Lane, Kaber.

Thursday 17th: 114th Vale of Rydal Sheepdog Trials and Hound Show, Rydal Park, Ambleside.

Friday 18th: Penrith Flag Day, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Penrith Town Centre.

Friday 25th - Sunday 27th: Wannasee Festival, Hutton-In-The-Forest.

Saturday 26th: Dufton Agricultural Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), Dufton.

Saturday 26th: Patterdale Dog Day, King George V Playing Field, Patterdale.

Saturday 26th: Chilli Festival, New Squares, Penrith.

Monday 28th: Keswick Agricultural Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), Pump Field, Braithwaite.

Thursday 31st: Crosby Ravensworth Show and Vintage Rally, Maulds Meaburn.

SEPTEMBER

Saturday 2nd: Alston Agricultural Show.

Saturday 2nd: Hesket Newmarket Agricultural Show (including the Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland Awareness Stand), Hesket Newmarket.

Thursday 14th: Westmorland County Show, County Showground, Crooklands, Kendal.

Saturday 16th: Penrith Midnight Walk, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Penrith Town Centre.

Saturday 30th: Coffee Morning, in aid of Hospice at Home Carlisle + North Lakeland, Evergreen Hall, Penrith.

That concludes the list of events over the course of the Summer. Until the next time . . .

#Maria30Love

Happy Birthday Miss Sharapova!

💘

Hannah's London Marathon Challenge - Update

FIRST of all, may I welcome you to the four hundred and tenth post here on Reporting From The Fox Tower, posted on Easter Sunday (16 April 2017). I hope that you are enjoying the weekend.

★

Hannah's London Marathon Challenge

Reporting From The Fox Tower introduced Hannah Langton in the 'Hannah's London Marathon Challenge' post, dated Monday, March 27, 2017. This post today comes one week prior to the Marathon and, sadly, due to injury, Hannah is unable to take part this year, as confirmed on Instagram, Thursday, April 13:

It's with a very, very heavy heart that I have had to make the decision to drop out of the London Marathon due to an injury I picked up during training. It has not been an easy decision to make, however I'm currently unable to walk so running 26 miles in 10 days is an impossible task. I just wanted to firstly thank and apologise to everyone that has donated so far - i will still hit my target of £2,000 and it's all going to a fantastic cause. You will be in fact getting 2 for the price of one though, as I have already signed up for the Dublin marathon in October, and deferred my entry to London next year. Good luck to everyone that is taking part, I'll be cheering you on with a gin and tonic at the side lines - make the most of every minute, I'm very jealous! #londonmarathon #maybenextyear

A post shared by Hannah Langton (@hllangton) on Apr 13, 2017 at 1:52am PDT

Hannah's statement on Instagram was as follows:
"It's with a very, very heavy heart that I have had to make the decision to drop out of the London Marathon due to an injury I picked up during training. It has not been an easy decision to make, however I'm currently unable to walk so running 26 miles in 10 days is an impossible task. I just wanted to firstly thank and apologise to everyone that has donated so far - i will still hit my target of £2,000 and it's all going to a fantastic cause. You will be in fact getting 2 for the price of one though, as I have already signed up for the Dublin marathon in October, and deferred my entry to London next year. Good luck to everyone that is taking part, I'll be cheering you on with a gin and tonic at the side lines - make the most of every minute, I'm very jealous! #londonmarathon #maybenextyear"

You can, however, continue to donate to Hannah's chosen charity, The Heads Together for The Mix Campaign, by clicking HERE. Help Hannah to reach her £2000 target.

As Hannah has stated, she has signed up for the Dublin Marathon in October, and deferred entry to London next year, so it is best wishes to Hannah for Dublin in October!

And finally... If you want to see Hannah's appearance on The Chase, you will have to be quick - The episode, broadcast Tuesday, March 21, only has four days remaining (from today - Sunday, April 16) on the ITV Hub. Click HERE to see the show.

Until the next time... Happy Easter!

Short Wave: April 2017

BEGINNING this post with a QSL received recently from Laser Hot Hits [above], verifying a report I submitted following reception on 9 October 2016.

Moving on to Short Wave logs for April - Stations logged today, Saturday 8 April 2017.

Housekeeping notes: Times in UTC (GMT), frequencies in kiloHertz (kHz) and transmission powers in kiloWatts (kW).

April 2017: Short Wave

• 8 April: 0949 UTC: 15490 kHz: Radio Saudi [BSKSA], Saudi Arabia. Moderate to poor reception, 500 kW via Riyadh. Music with vocals, Arabic language speech from 10:00 UTC, male speech (news headlines?) with an audio 'stab' between spoken items. Short music clip, followed by female speech with music in the background. Music and sounds include a doorbell! To 1010 UTC.
• 8 April: 1031 UTC: 17490 kHz: China Radio International, China. Moderate to poor reception, 500 kW to Europe, Asia and Australasia via Kashi, China. Female speech, English, speaking about a fire. Very faint reception, due to QRM - Man-made interference, including a very strange 'clicking' noise... The interference is the kind produced by 'plasma'-type televisions. Reception improves slightly - To 1038 UTC.
• 8 April: 1051 UTC: 17710 kHz: Deutsche Welle, Germany. Poor reception, 250 kW to Africa via Meyerton, South Africa. Very faint speech, male and female speech in the Swahili language. The 'clicking', as reported on 17490 kHz, continues across the band. Slight uplift of signal at 1055 UTC - Off air at 1100 UTC.

• 8 April: 1128 UTC: 17805 kHz: Radio Saudi [BSKSA], Saudi Arabia. Moderate to poor reception, 500 kW via Riyadh. Male speech, accompanied by music, peaks very briefly above the noise floor. Male Arabic speech, telephone callers on the air. To 1140 UTC.
• 8 April: 1201 UTC: 21505 kHz: Radio Saudi [BSKSA], Saudi Arabia. Moderate to poor reception, 500 kW via Riyadh. An upbeat programme, battling the noise. Male and possibly female speech, music, speech, fade out... Fade in. Male speech, Arabic, with background audio. To 1210 UTC.

That completes the log of broadcasts received from the 19-meter to the 13-meter bands. Until the next time, enjoy.

📻

Last Chance: The Olympian and 5 Gold Rings

ON Tuesday, March 28, Reporting From The Fox Tower invited you to Meet The Olympian! with nothing more than an Instagram post. The Olympian, featured in the Instagram post, is Katy Sealy, Team Belize Olympic and Commonwealth athlete. Katy is the three time Central American heptathlon Champion and Central American record holder. More about how Katy became an athlete, her achievements and targets, is planned for a future post here on RFTFT.

So where, apart from the obvious Olympic link, does '5 Gold Rings' fit into Katy's story?
On Sunday 5 March, Katy and her mother, Wendy, appeared on the ITV game show '5 Gold Rings'. If you want to see how Katy and Wendy progressed on the show, click HERE. Though please note - This blog post is titled 'Last Chance' for a reason - You only have TWO DAYS left to watch the episode on the 'ITV Hub' (That's two days from Sunday 2 April). This image from the show is the moment the Olympian was doing her hair on television: 😊

If you want to find out more about Katy, visit her website. If you would like to make a donation to assist Katy in reaching her targets, visit her GoFundMe page. Keep up to date with Katy via her social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Enjoy the show!