Monthly Archives: April 2013

Troy found the perfect gear bag

vespa-ebagTroy writes:

Hi Thomas,

I know, beyond SW Radios, your secondary passion is which ‘bag’ will you use to pack your radios for a trip. I have admired your photos of your Eagle Creek Pack w/ Tecsun PL-380 & Sony AN-LP1. I searched high and low for something like your Eagle Creek pack and I stumbled across this $19.99 gem: the Vespa Mini-Backpack.

It’s sold by eBags on their web site, via Amazon and also via eBay. Despite all three sites being the same vendor, eBay is the least expensive as they offer Free Shipping through that site [though looks like the price just nudged up a bit]. At $19.99 I’m amazed at what I can get into it: A 1st GEN iPad cloaked in a thick leather case with bluetooth keyboard, a PL-390 (I love the ETM for travel) and what I think is the most underrated Grundig of them all – the G6 Aviator (I have the BA Edition). Plus I still have room for my TG34 Antenna, my iSound 4 USB Wall Charger, (2) USB Cables, some spare rechargeable AA Batteries and a dual USB Car Adapter that can recharge my iPad and iPhone.

Oh yeah, the Vespa has a cell phone pouch on one of the pack’s shoulder straps. All for $19.99 delivered from eBay. I have to admit, I haven’t had it long enough to testify to its durability but it seems to be built fairly well despite its price point.

Here are the first two links – you can easily find the eBay links (it comes in a variety of colors though it appears white is out of stock):

http://www.ebags.com/product/vespa/basic-backpack/208461?productid=10120760

http://www.amazon.com/Vespa-Mens-Nylon-Backpack-Black/dp/B004LFX9IA

At twenty bucks I may buy a spare.

Thanks, Troy! You know me well; I love backpacks and travel gear. You probably know eBags have a pretty strong following and good reputation amongst one baggers. I’ll have to check out this little bag. Thanks for sharing!

Spread the radio love

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Rádio Nacional da Amazônia

Rio_de_JaneiroLast night, Rádio Nacional da Amazônia had a booming signal into North America on 11,780 kHz. Rádio Nacional’s AM signal was very wide; I actually opened up the filter on my SDR to 16 kHz to record this broadcast. In truth, that’s probably too wide, but it certainly made for great audio fidelity.

So, if you’re in the mood for some Brazilian music and commentary today, this 168 minute recording of Rádio Nacional da Amazônia should satisfy.

This was recorded on Sunday, April 28–starting around 22:15 UTC–on 11.78 MHz. Click here to download the full recording as an MP3 file, or listen in the embedded player below:

Want more Rádio Nacional? Click here for other recordings.

Spread the radio love

Boards Of Canada puzzle: shortwave numbers?

SWLing Post readers: I received the following email request today. Sounds fun and intriguing.  Perhaps you can help solve this mystery…

Boards+of+Canada

Boards of Canada (Source: Last.fm)

Hello, readers of The SWLing Post, and please forgive the intrusion. I admittedly know very little about shortwave radio, but there has been a bit of a puzzle going on for fans of the band “Boards of Canada” recently, and there is the distinct possibility that its solution could involve shortwave radio. A message I posted over on Reddit was forwarded to Thomas, who very graciously offered to post the plea here.

Some background — Boards of Canada is an instrumental electronic music duo from Scotland who are, to put it mildly, somewhat private and aloof, in all the right ways. Their references tend to be very math-heavy and their music has some innovative and fascinating-sounding tape loops, synths, etc. This puzzle has been going on for the better part of a week, and we fans been very impressed with the complexity of it, though we are not even certain of the meaning of it — though we hope and suspect it is a lead-up to a new release by the band.

Someone (presumably the band) has been currently leaving these (for lack of a better word) “clues” in several key places in the media. First, a single album was sold to one person on National Record Store Day in the US — an album containing a “numbers station” style reading of a series of 6 numbers. Then a cryptic YouTube video with another series of 6 numbers also being read like a voice on a numbers station. 6 additional numbers were played (unannounced and without explanation) over a commercial radio station in England. Then on April 25, the band stealthily released 6 more numbers by encoding a link hidden in a gif — a link to two soundfiles that had to be played simultaneously in order to cancel out the phase and reveal — you guessed it — another numbers station-style broadcast.

We have reason to believe that there are 1 or 2 more series of numbers out there — and given the nature of the broadcasts, plus the picture of a radio tower on the band’s Facebook page and the different media by which the band has released some clues, there is at least some reason to believe that perhaps there is another series of numbers being broadcast somehow over shortwave radio.

Here is where I’m hoping the expertise of your readership might come in — as I say, I apologetically have no idea how the world of shortwave radio works. But I’m wondering: in your journeys across the frequencies recently, have any of you stumbled across anything that sounds like this:

http://youtu.be/Qe4UCjjyr8U — specifically something with that same chime pattern at the beginning and then the 6 numbers? (This is obviously not a “real” numbers station broadcast, but something made to sound like it). I would not put it past Boards of Canada to transmit a signal somehow and expect their listeners to find it.

And/or does this series of numbers mean anything to you in the shortwave world:

xxxxxx/628315/717228/936557/xxxxxx/519225

The Xs are gaps where we’re waiting to fill in the numbers, but we have yet to discover them — though one of the series might likely be 699742.

If you’re curious, here is a summary of most of the events that have happened so far: http://2020k.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/boards-of-canada-distribute-new-vinyl-releases-out-for-national-records-day/

Thanks so much, and apologies if this is a waste of your time — this may end up having nothing to do with shortwave transmissions — I just figured it might be worth a shot, and also an opportunity to learn more about this particular passion.

Spread the radio love

Numbers station HM01…and Ana Montes

Downloads-001Wednesday morning, I suppose I had number stations on the brain.  It was no surprise, as I had just watched The Numbers Station the previous night.  Nonetheless, I experienced a rather strange coincidence:  I was reading an intriguing article about Ana Montes, “one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history,” when my shortwave radio–parked on 5,855 kHz–suddenly began to fire out an eerie series of numbers and data bursts from the Cuban numbers station, HM01.  It was, unquestionably, the perfect accompaniment to the words I was reading.

A reader sent Montes’ story–written by Jim Popkin for The Washington Post Magazine–which made for fascinating reading. And as I read the account of Ana Montes’ rise in the ranks of the DIA, while simultaneously becoming one of Cuba’s most important spies, I remembered that it was actually Montes’ case that reader Dirk Rijmenants’ referred to in his paper, and that we posted earlier this year.

A "cheat sheet" provided by Cuban intelligence that Ana Montes used to help her encrypt and decrypt messages to and from her handlers. (Source: FBI)

A “cheat sheet” provided by Cuban intelligence that
Ana Montes used to help her encrypt and decrypt
messages to and from her handlers. (Source: FBI)

Popkin’s account of Ana Montes’ life, character, promotions within the Defense and Intelligence Agency, and the sequence of events that led to her FBI investigation and imprisonment, are the stuff of spy novels. And of course, he  mentions numbers stations:

[Montes’] tradecraft was classic. In Havana, agents with the Cuban intelligence service taught Montes how to slip packages to agents innocuously, how to communicate safely in code and how to disappear if needed.[…]

Montes got most of her orders the same way spies have since the Cold War: through numeric messages transmitted anonymously over shortwave radio. She would tune a Sony radio to AM frequency 7887 kHz, then wait for the “numbers station” broadcast to begin. A female voice would cut through the otherworldly static, declaring, “Atención! Atención!” then spew out 150 numbers into the night. “Tres-cero-uno-cero-siete, dos-cuatro-seis-dos-cuatro,” the voice would drone. Montes would key the digits into her computer, and a Cuban-installed decryption program would convert the numbers into Spanish-language text.[…]

On a side note, as Rijmenants points out, using a computer to decipher a numbers station was both unnecessary and risky.

The story continues:

Ana Montes

Ana Montes

[…]On May 25, 2001, [an FBI team] slipped inside Apartment 20. Montes was out of town with Corneretto [her boyfriend], and the FBI searched her closets and laundry bins, paged through shelves of neatly stacked books and photographed personal papers. They spotted a cardboard box in the bedroom and carefully opened it. Inside was a Sony shortwave radio. Good start, Lapp thought. Next, techs found a Toshiba laptop. They copied the hard drive, shut down the computer and were gone.[…]The documents, which Montes had tried to delete, included instructions on how to translate numbers-station broadcasts and other Spy 101 tips.[…][…]Later that day, an FBI evidence team scoured Montes’s apartment for hours. Hidden in the lining of a notebook they found the handwritten cipher Montes used to encrypt and decrypt messages, scribbled shortwave radio frequencies and the address of a museum in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where she was meant to run in an emergency. The crib sheets were written on water-soluble disappearing paper.[…]

The story Popkin recounts, though, paints the picture of a very complex operative. One who, until discovered, was very successful at her craft.  She pulled the wool over the eyes of the DIA and spied for the Cuban government for many years.

The story is complex, and Popkins’ account somehow maneuvers through the twists and turns.

If you want to experience what I did–if a little less coincidentally–click here to read Popkin’s full article, and meanwhile play this recording I made of the Cuban numbers station HM01, below:

Note that the year Montes listened to the Cuban numbers station on 7,887 kHz, it only contained numbers–unlike the recording here of HM01 (Hybrid Mode 01) which contains both voice and RDFT data bursts (which you can also decode, but not necessarily decipher).

This recording of the Cuban numbers station HM01 was recorded on April 24, 2013, at 10:00 UTC on 5,855 kHz in AM. Click here to download the recording as an MP3.

Again, click here to read Jim Popkin’s full story of Ana Montes on The Washington Post Magazine website.

Spread the radio love

VOA Radiogram for April 27/28 includes Thor50x2, PSK63F, and Flamp

VOARadiogram(Source: VOA Radiogram)

Apologies for not updating this website since the April 20/21 VOA Radiogram. I have been diverted by deadlines connected to my other full-time job, audience research analyst for the International Broadcasting Bureau.

Thanks to all who sent reception reports, screenshots, audio samples, and other materials from the past weekend’s program. MFSK held off a challenge from the Thor modes and remains the most successful of the modes we have tested.

However, because your producer omitted the Thor 50×2 mode — a mode that might prove to be robust — from that program, VOA Radiogram on April 27/28 will include a “make good” transmission of Thor 50×2. And a transmission of Thor 50×1 for comparison.

There will also be a transmission of the PSK63F mode. This rather slow mode performed well during VOA Radiogram 1, but we only gave it a minute. There will be a longer transmission of PSK63F this weekend to allow a better evaluation.

The last text transmission this weekend will be in the Flamp format. If you don’t already have it, please download Flamp from www.w1hkj.com. Flamp divides a text file into several blocks, each with a specific number of characters. If any block is received without the correct number of characters, that block is rejected. The missing block can be picked up during the repeat transmission. Flamp might be useful for those text transmissions that are received at about 90% copy, when occasional deep fades prevent 100% copy. In Flamp, under Configure, check both of the Auto sync boxes.

Here is the lineup for the April 27/28 VOA Radiogram:

MFSK16 (58 wpm) program preview
PSK63F (55 wpm), 2:50
MFSK32 text (120 wpm) and image, 4:28
Thor50x1 (180wpm), 1:48
Thor50x2 (180wpm), 1:46
MFSK64 (240 wpm), 2:16
MFSK128* in Flamp X2 format, 3:46
MFSK32 image

*Probably a good idea to set the MFSK128 mode manually rather than depend on the RSID

All modes will be centered on 1500 Hz.

Each mode will be introduced by a brief MFSK16 transmission, same as last weekend.

Please send reception reports to [email protected]

Twitter: @VOARadiogram

VOA Radiogram transmission schedule
(all days and times UTC)
Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz
All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.

Kim

Spread the radio love

New large portable shortwave radio in the works?

(Source: bbs.tecsun.com.cn)

(Source: bbs.tecsun.com.cn)

Gary writes:

It looks like a new, large portable radio — along the lines of the Redsun RP2100 — is on the way. At least this one includes a direct-entry keypad and SSB, like the RP3100 is supposed to.

http://herculodge.typepad.com/herculodge/2013/04/another-large-portable-all-band-radio-to-be-released.html

I hope they can do good QC, and keep the sample to sample variation low.

Thanks, Gary. It does look like a variation of the of the RP3100. Sounds like it’s not a Redsun product, but may have been ported from one of their engineers for JiDian. It certainly has the trademark look. If this is true, there’s a possibility that C.Crane could bring this to North America. Perhaps it’s the next radio in line to succeed the CCRadio SW?  Though a great radio, the CCRadio-SW is getting a little long in the tooth.

Spread the radio love

Epoch Times: Radio Taiwan International dismantling two transmission sites?

RadioTaiwanInternationalLogoUpdate: This article, from the Epoch Times, is somewhat misleading: it appears that RTI is not actually being silenced; rather, they’re merely removing sites that are retired and redundant. See post comments for more info.

(Source: Epoch Times)

Media freedom in Taiwan is again under attack by political forces from mainland China, resulting in a sudden decision by Radio Taiwan International (RTI) to dismantle two of its substations. Among RTI’s customers who will lose their contracts are Sound of Hope Radio and Radio Free Asia, which have played an important role in broadcasting uncensored news to the mainland.

Earlier this month, RTI’s largest customer, Sound of Hope Radio (SOH), received a notice that the Huwei substation in Yunlin County will be dismantled beginning June 1. The eight radio antennas pointing towards China will be removed ahead of schedule, and the broadcasting business will also stop at the end of May.

Tainan, another RTI substation in Tianma, will also be dismantled in a few months’ time, according to an insider.

[…]According to insider information, RTI high-level executives visited mainland China at the end of February. Soon after, RTI announced its intention to take down the two substations.

Following the removal of the substations, RTI will terminate all its rebroadcasting customers and also stop its own shortwave broadcasting, and develop a mobile platform and Internet broadcasting instead, the insider said.

Zeng (Allen) Yong, President of SOH, told The Epoch Times he had rushed to Taiwan as he was very concerned about RTI’s move to terminate its main customers in the name of consolidating substations and eventually ending shortwave broadcasting into China–a matter of great concern to the Communist Party, which censors media in the mainland.[…]

Read the full article at The Epoch Times.

Spread the radio love