Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Troy Riedel, who notes that Eton has now placed a splash page image of the new Elite Satellit (above) on their home page.
There is no further information yet and the splash page simply links to their current production shortwave models. It does, however, show that Eton is committed to produce the Elite Satellit this year.
Of course, we’ll post any Elite Satellit updates as they become available! Stay tuned!
Guest Post by Troy Riedel
Every radio enthusiast or ham operator knows this definition – something we all dread. Electromagnetic interference – also known as radio-frequency interference when in the radio frequency spectrum – is a disturbance generated by an external source that affects an electrical circuit by electromagnetic induction, electrostatic coupling, or conduction (Source: Wikipedia).
I’ve been “off the shortwaves” (in fact, off ALL bands!) for a few weeks (a reminder to those who do not remember – I’m an SWL’er, I’m not a ham operator so I’m a listener only). Here’s my story:
My house was built in 2004 thus the home’s electrical is “modern era”. I’ve never, ever had a significant problem with RFI … except when the dishwasher is running (if it’s running, I have ZERO reception).
I didn’t want this (I acquiesced only in an attempt to become grandfather of the year), but an in-ground (vinyl liner) pool has been installed in my backyard (yeah, I’ve probably lost everyone’s sympathy with this statement). If it’s any consolation, construction started long before the summer and won’t be fully completed until [hopefully] next Spring (and what’s left of my yard is a disaster zone and something that will cost a fortune to mitigate – maybe I’ve gained back just a little bit of sympathy?).
Pools are required to be bonded (the process by which the electrical and metallic components of the pool are joined together with a wire to form a non-resistive path between the components. The goal of bonding is to connect, contain and prevent the transmission of any harmful electrical voltage to pool equipment, people and pets).
I’m not an electrician, but essentially the pool is grounded by a copper wire … and a copper wire “ring” encircles the pool (now covered by the concrete pool deck). The copper wire runs underground and resurfaces where the pump & filter are installed. That copper bonding/grounding connects to the remote master switch at the pump & filter (pictured here – note where the copper line connects to and grounds the unit):
Electrical power line(s) run underground from the pump/filter area until resurfacing just outside the garage wall where they enter my home’s main breaker box inside the garage.
There is an unfinished electrical component. A conduit was installed to add a pool light when the project is completed next Spring (see below), but at this point there’s nothing connected thus a “pool light” is not yet present.
Throughout the dig, installation of the steel walls, pouring the concrete bottom & steps, liner installation, the bonding, and covering the bonding “ring” with the concrete pool deck – all of this had zero negative effects on my SWLing.
Once the pool electrician connected power (connected the pump/filter) to the house, ALL radio bands were knocked out due to very extreme RFI. All bands – the complete spectrum (choose your letters … AM/MW, FM, SW, VHF, UHF – all bands).
I’ve easily spent double-digit hours trying to isolate the EMI. This is what I’ve done & discovered:
(1) Disconnected the pool grounding: no effect.
(2) [Only] Powered-off the two main breakers for the pool pump & filter: no effect (the pool equipment was tested, then the pool was winterized so nothing has been running).
(3) We used a handheld EMI detector over every inch of the interior and exterior of the house. Yes, there are sources but nothing to the level that should cause a radio blackout.
(4) Turned off the main breaker, all power to the house: this is the only thing that eliminated the EMI/RFI.
(5) Multiple times, I’ve painstakingly turned-on one breaker at a time (isolating each circuit, on/off then proceeding to the next breaker). I’ve found that for whatever reason, extreme RFI returns (and is present) on these three circuits: (upstairs) Master Bedroom (my Listening Post), the other upstairs bedrooms (combined on another circuit), and the (downstairs) Family Room circuit. Note: Even if everything is unplugged on one of these circuits, just turning on the breaker introduces the extreme RFI (thus it must be coming from the breaker & not introduced from a device plugged-in). Ferrite chokes have been installed on nearly everything plugged-in to outlets on the three “trouble” circuits. I’m not saying the house was an RFI-free zone before the pool – but these three circuits only produced light-to-manageable RFI prior to the pool equipment being connected to the house’s main breaker box. After 6000+ days of living in this house with no significant RFI issues, I’ve been in a complete radio blackout with very extreme RFI since the moment the live electrical line was connected between my pool pump/filter and my main breaker box.
And before you ask: No, there have not been any new electronics, no new devices, no new appliances, no LED lights, and all big screen TVs and other notorious RFI unfriendly devices are unplugged – nothing new has been plugged-in or added to the household except for the pool equipment. There have been no new utilities in my area that could have caused a coincidental problem (no DSL, no fiber optic – nothing). I cannot see how this situ could be caused by a neighbor, because the problem ceases when my power is off. And “no”, I can’t move my Listening Post because even though the majority of the RFI is introduced over those three circuits, the entire house is impacted and it’s a complete radio blackout.
To reiterate, I had no radio-related problems during the entire construction (I listened to my radios as I pleased) and the problem did not start until the pool’s electrical line was connected to the main breaker.
Could the new wiring – at/inside the breaker box – be improperly shielded? Could something be touching(?) that shouldn’t be? Could something be loose inside the breaker box? The three circuit breakers that are introducing the extreme RFI are in close proximity to each other in the breaker box and in close proximity to the two new pool breakers – could there be contamination from one to another?
I don’t make it a habit to play with electricity. The pool company could frankly care less about my radio woes (it’s my problem, not theirs). My power company supposedly checked their utility line coming into my house (I didn’t see them here, but they said the problem is not on their end). And local electricians all essentially say, “[from their prospective] EMI sources are hard – if not impossible – to find”.
I have an electrician lined-up but we both thought it might be best to “put this out there” because someone may have an idea that he hasn’t thought of. Thus far, I’ve done almost everything myself that they stated they would do (minus opening-up the breaker box). I’m hoping to solicit ideas from the SWLing Post Nation before I put the electrician on the clock. And on the clock = $$$.
Thanks in advance for your input. If I can’t get this mitigated, a liquidation event may be in my future.
Guest Post by Troy Riedel
Click to enlarge the photo
I decided to compose a post that ‘kills two birds with one stone’.
Almost every time a post appears here that states something like “Amazon its selling WXYZ Shortwave Portable for the lowest price I’ve ever seen”, I typically post a comment “doesn’t everyone use Keepa”?
Okay, lets kill the two birds:
Bird #1: Amazon (3rd party seller fulfilled by Amazon) started bundling the Eton Elite Field BT Radio, a carry satchel & the Eton Elite Mini 30-days ago (how do I know, I’ll explain that below with bird #2). The bundle was introduced at a price of $179.95. Frankly, given the street prices of the Elite Field with satchel & the under $25 street price of the Elite Mini, $179.95 wasn’t a great price. But at the time I start writing this post, 3-hours ago the price dropped to $139.00. That’s a pretty good price IF you’re looking to buy all 3 in this bundle (or even if you want the Field with satchel but choose to gift the Mini as a Christmas gift).
But this opportunity brings me to:
Bird #2: Keepa.
Click to enlarge the photo
Keepa is a great extension (pictured above loaded on my Safari browser). I have Keepa loaded into multiple browser applications. With Keepa loaded, I have a complete history of Amazon pricing. All-time Amazon pricing! Take a close look at the graphic (click to enlarge).
Keepa tells me this item has been listed on Amazon for 30-days. It tells me the starting price was $179.95. It gives me a day-by-day graph of the Amazon price. It shows me that the price dropped to $149.00 on October 26th at 16:56 EDT. And it tells me that, 3-hours ago, the price dropped to $139.00.
Want the average Amazon price over the last 90-days? Easy. What about the average Amazon price for the past 180-days? Easy – I get that, too (note: this item has only been listed for 30-days, so the 90-day & 180-day average pricing is the same).
Some of what I am telling you – re: the exact time of the price drop – is only visible when you’re [live] on the product page and you move your cursor over the graph (that info pops into view).
And here’s the best part: you can Manage Price Watches. What does that mean? I can set a target price and Keepa notifies me if/when the product’s price meets or goes below my target price (what I want to pay for it). I cannot tell you how many times I have had items with price watches set … and a few days … or a few weeks go by and <Ding>, I get an email notification that tells me my desired item has dropped below my target price. I set price watches for radios, tools, tents – even my contact lens solution! I Manage Price Watches for anything that can wait days, or weeks or even months to buy (I let the price dictate when I buy the item). Keepa even gives you 24-hours advance notice of an Amazon Lightning Deal.
In summary, this bundle is a pretty good deal as it includes two SW portables & a carrying satchel for the Field. But this also gave me an opportunity to show everyone how I use Keepa. I use Keepa for every item I view on Amazon. And if you look closely, there is an eBay link in Keepa … with a click of my mouse/track pad, I can compare eBay pricing to Amazon. If this item had ever been listed as “Used”, I could graphically track used pricing. Keepa also tracks Warehouse Deals & even the date, time & price of past Lightning Deals. Why would anyone not use this handy little extension? It’s like tracking a stock’s price history except I’m tracking a specific product’s price on Amazon.
But then again, if everyone did use Keepa … there’d be no point in readers sending Amazon deals to Thomas!
Guest post by Troy Riedel
I have badgered people I know – mainly this site’s owner, our friend Thomas. Question: does Eton still plan to bring the Elite Satellit to market?
Image Credit: Eton Corp
I’ve posted here before (in the Comments section of more than one post) stating “I’ll believe it when I see it”.
Last week I emailed Eton Corp and I flat-out asked them if they could provide a “status update” regarding the production of this radio and “do you still plan to bring [this model] to the marketplace”.
Moments ago, I received this email reply:
Hi Troy,
Thank you for your interest in the Elite Satellit radio. Due to the global shortage of chips and the backlog of delivery of materials to our manufacturer, it is taking much longer to bring this radio to market.
Thank you for your understanding and patience,
Esther
This isn’t very definitive … it offers very little detail, and no expected release date – but – it appears this project (proposed new model) has not been tabled, has not been canceled. Seeing as how it’s November 1st … Christmas is less than 8-weeks away – well, this would be a good time to ask the question because surely I would think an imminent release date would be best for business.
As such, I guess I’ll stand-by my comments over the past 18-months … “I’ll believe it when I see it”. The optimist in me is happy the reply wasn’t an outright cancellation of this gorgeous radio!
If there is anyone out there with more information, definitive information, I’m sure the SWLing Post Blog Nation would love to hear it. For now, I guess those of us interested will continue to wait. And those among us who still have doubts, this group “will believe it when we see it”!
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Radio facsimile technology never fully caught on, but what if it had?
In the beginning, there were newspapers.
And then radio arrived, challenging the newspapers’ journalistic monopoly.
At first, many newspapers fought the new competitor, refusing to print radio news or program schedules. But some went in the opposite direction, deciding to operate their own radio stations to augment their businesses. And finally, a few brave pioneering publications went even farther: They tried to deliver their newspapers via radio facsimile.
In the early 1930s, radio facsimile looked like the dream application for newspapers. They could use their own local radio stations to deliver newspapers directly to consumers during overnight hours. It would eliminate the cost of printing and distribution and shift those costs onto consumers, who would provide their own printers and paper.
This led several radio stations and newspapers to experiment with facsimile transmission during the late 1930s.
THE FINCH SYSTEM
The person most responsible for this technology was William G. H. Finch. He worked for the International News Service and set up their first teletype circuits between New York, Chicago and Havana. He became interested in facsimile machines and eventually amassed hundreds of patents. [Continue reading the full article…]
Why Chicago Public Media and the Chicago Sun-Times are exploring a merger
The Chicago Sun-Times needs help. After being bought and sold several times over the last decade, the 73-year-old paper is looking for a more stable home to continue its award-winning reporting — and it may have finally found it in an unexpected place: a radio station.
Chicago Public Media, which owns the radio station WBEZ, is currently in talks with the Sun-Times to merge. A final deal would combine their newsrooms and audiences in hopes of creating a financially stable enterprise for both teams. Similar mergers and acquisitions have become a common way to bolster the struggling print industry, but if radio were to take on a major newspaper, that would be a first.
“Audio is a growth business,” says Jim Friedlich, chief executive of The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, who advised CPM on the potential merger. “Now Chicago Public Media and other media with audio roots have both the wherewithal and the self-confidence to take a bold step like this.”
Since 2004, US newspapers have shut down at a rate of 100 per year, a pace that’s only accelerated since the start of the pandemic. To stay afloat, some smaller newsrooms have given up independence, being bought by news conglomerates or becoming joint entities with other local outlets — and public radio and TV stations have increasingly offered themselves up as partners. New York Public Radio acquiring the website Gothamist was one of nine similar deals in recent years, triggering researchers to document the trend by creating the Public Media Mergers Project. Public radio has been a particularly strong force, holding its ground amid digitization and the podcasting craze (partially because it’s participated in it), and it might be strong enough to help print do the same thing. [Continue reading…]
In the 125 years since Marconi made his first radio transmissions, the spectrum has been divvied up into ranges and bands, most of which are reserved for governments and large telecom companies. Amidst all of the corporate greed, the ‘little guys managed to carve out their own small corner of the spectrum, with the help of organizations like the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
Since 1914, the ARRL has represented the interests of us amateur radio enthusiasts and helped to protect the bands set aside for amateur use. To actually take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to transmit on these bands, you need a license, issued by the FCC. The licenses really aren’t hard to get, and you should get one, but what if you don’t feel like taking a test? Or if you’re just too impatient?
Well, fear not because there’s some space on the radio spectrum for you, too.
Welcome to the wonderful world of (legal!) unlicensed radio experimentation, where anything goes. Okay, not anything but the possibilities are wide open. There are a few experimental radio bands, known as LowFER, MedFER, and HiFER where anyone is welcome to play around. And of the three, LowFER seems the most promising.
LowFER, as the name would suggest, contains the lowest frequency range of the three, falling between 160 kHz and 190 kHz, with a whopping wavelength of around one mile. Also known as the 1750-meter band, this frequency range is well-suited for long transmission paths through ground wave propagation, a mode in which the radio signals move across the surface of the earth. This can easily carry even low-power signals hundreds of miles, and occasionally through some atmospheric black magic, signals have been known to travel thousands of miles. These ground wave signals also travel well across bodies of water, especially salt water.
Read the full Hackaday item at:
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/19/the-low-down-on-long-wave-unlicensed-experimental-radio/
We regret to inform our listeners that our colleague Juan Antonio “Tony” Middleton passed away in Buenos Aires due to health complications, at the age of 82. His distinctive British accent is part of the history of RAE, where he hosted the English-language program for almost three decades. English-speaking listeners around the world remember his warmth and clarity on the air, not to mention his classic opening line: “This is the international service of the Argentine Radio”.
Born in Argentina and son of British immigrants, he ventured into acting in the English language with the group “Suburban Players”, while he was engaged in various commercial activities with his family. In 1981 he had the opportunity to join RAE as a substitute, thanks to his impeccable English and his pleasant voice. In 1983 he joined as a regular and went on to become head of the English-language department at the station, until his retirement in 2008. [Continue reading…]
Mlburn Garland “Gil” Butler was born December 1, 1935 in Bradenton, Florida. He attended local schools, where his mother was a teacher. He grew up in a community where electrification was still being developed, where the Saturday morning movies were an all-day entertainment for kids, and where families would gather in the town square on Sundays for band music and ice cream. After a brief stint in the Army (serving as a quartermaster at a base near Washington, D.C.), Gil Butler went to college in Colorado, returning to Florida where he graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in radio engineering. Along the way, he met and after a whirlwind courtship married Judith Bunten, who would become his lifelong companion. Gil Butler began working as a DJ at a small radio station in Bradenton, Florida in the early 1950s, spinning disks from the very beginning of Rock and Roll. His love of music of all sorts, from Jazz to Rock to Classical, his collection evolved through several formats (LP, cassette, CD, and MPs), and his special chair was always surrounded by the music he would enjoy while reading in the evening. Professionally, Gil moved up to larger stations and more challenging positions in radio and television; working for radio stations around the Tampa Bay area. His first TV gig was as a general reporter for WTVT in Tampa. From there, he moved to WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan, before moving to Silver Spring in the Washington D.C. where he worked as a White House Correspondent for local CBS affiliate, WTOP, covering Washington politics under presidents Nixon and Ford. During this period, Gil appears briefly in Timothy Crouse’s The Boys on the Bus (a recounting of the White House Press Corps during the Nixon Era). He was one of the six “Knights of the Green Ottoman,” named for an item of furniture in the 1972 White House press complex, where the newsmen would gather and share notes. In one passage, he is described: “Gil Butler… the reporter for TV station WTOP, who was chuckling over a volume of Mencken…” This description will surprise no one who knew him, as Gil was a voracious reader. He was always in the middle of a massive nonfiction volume about politics, military history or the Space Race. After WTOP, in 1978, Gil began his ultimate career at the Voice of America, the United States Information Agency’s international radio network. Over a nearly three decade career with Voice of America, he covered 68 countries, working abroad in Cairo, Egypt, Beiruit Lebanon, Beijing, China, London, England, as well as covering the State Department and Pentagon during his time at home between foreign assignments. At the Voice of America’s 40th Anniversary Celebration, Gil received the Meritorious Honor Award for his work in Cairo covering the assassination and funeral of Egyptian President Sadat and its aftermath. Twenty-seven years later, Voice of America News ran a story looking back at that work and the restraint and integrity he exercised in waiting for confirmation before reporting that Sadat had been killed. [Continue reading…]
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Your support makes articles like this one possible. Thank you!
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Troy Riedel, Dan Robinson, and the Southgate ARC for the following tips:
IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jul. 26, 2021– Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: SWKS), an innovator of high-performance analog semiconductors connecting people, places and things, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of the Infrastructure & Automotive business of Silicon Laboratories Inc. (Nasdaq: SLAB) in an all-cash asset transaction valued at $2.75 billion.
“On behalf of the entire Skyworks organization, I want to welcome the Infrastructure & Automotive team,” said Liam K. Griffin, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Skyworks. “In addition to a strong legacy of innovation and execution, the I&A business brings a highly diversified customer base that will enable our continued expansion into strategic end markets. Together, we will accelerate profitable growth in key industry segments, including electric and hybrid vehicles, industrial and motor control, power supply, 5G wireless infrastructure, optical data communications and data center.” Continue reading
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Dennis Dura, Troy Riedel, Dan Van Hoy, and the Southgate ARC for the following tips:
Had the pandemic not upended many of this summer’s fun and games, many of my friends would have made a trip to the MCH hacker camp in the Netherlands earlier this month. I had an idea for a game for the event, a friend and I were going to secrete a set of those low-power FM transmitters as numbers stations around the camp for players to find and solve the numerical puzzles they would transmit. I even bought a few cheap FM transmitter modules from China for evaluation, and had some fun sending a chiptune Rick Astley across a housing estate in Northamptonshire.
To me as someone who grew up with FM radio and whose teen years played out to the sounds of BBC Radio 1 FM it made absolute sense to do a puzzle in this way, but it was my personal reminder of advancing years to find that some of my friends differed on the matter. Sure, they thought it was a great idea, but they gently reminded me that the kids don’t listen to any sort of conventional broadcast radio these days, instead they stream their music, so very few of them would have the means for listening to my numbers stations. Even for me it’s something I only use for BBC Radio 4 in the car, and to traverse the remainder of the FM dial is to hear a selection of easy listening, oldies, and classical music. It’s becoming an older person’s medium, and it’s inevitable that like AM before it, it will eventually wane.
There are two angles to this that might detain the casual hacker; first what it will mean from a broadcasting and radio spectrum perspective, and then how it is already influencing some of our projects. [Continue reading…]
Strange behavior caught by two radio observatories may send theorists back to the drawing board.
Fourteen years ago, the first fast radio burst (FRB) was discovered. By now, many hundreds of these energetic, millisecond-duration bursts from deep space have been detected (most of them by the CHIME radio observatory in British Columbia, Canada), but astronomers still struggle to explain their enigmatic properties. A new publication in this week’s Nature “adds a new piece to the puzzle,” says Victoria Kaspi (McGill University, Canada). “In this field of research, surprising twists are almost as common as new results.”
Most astronomers agree that FRBs are probably explosions on the surfaces of highly magnetized neutron stars (so-called magnetars). But it’s unclear why most FRBs appear to be one-off events, while others flare repeatedly. In some cases, these repeating bursts show signs of periodicity, and scientists had come up with an attractive model to explain this behavior, involving stellar winds in binary systems.
However, new observations by European radio telescopes may rule out this model.
Astronomers knew that FRB 20180916B, located in a galaxy some 475 million light-years away, produces multiple bursts about every 16 days, during a ‘window’ that lasts for a few days. “The idea was that the magnetar is part of a binary system with a 16.29-day period,” says Inés Pastor-Marazuela (University of Amsterdam), the first author of the new paper. If the companion star had a thick stellar wind that absorbs radio waves, the bursts would only be visible when the magnetar was on ‘our’ side of the orbit, she explains. [Continue reading…]
Iceland’s IRA reports on August 24 Karl Georg Karlsson TF3CZ connected a new receiver over the internet covering 24-1800 MHz
A translation of the IRA post reads:
QTH is Perlan in Öskjuhlíð in Reykjavík. These are Airspy R2 SDR receivers for 24-1800 MHz (on VHF and UHF). The antenna is a Diamond D-190.
Karl Georg stated the following on FB:
The extension is not just for 2m, it can only be on one band at a time. So if one user switches, others who are connected also move between bands. (However, you can listen to each frequency within the same band). The receiver automatically tunes to APRS QRG 144.800 MHz, see the APRS website: http://SDR.ekkert.org/map
URL of the receiver
http://perlan.utvarp.com/#freq=24890000,mod=usb,sql=-150
Thanks to Karl Georg for his valuable contribution. This is an important addition for radio amateurs who experiment in these frequency ranges, as well as listeners and anyone interested in the spread of radio waves.
IRA Board
Source Iceland’s national amateur radio society, the IRA
https://tinyurl.com/IcelandIRA
The nearly 2000 foot tower utilized by Cumulus Media Alternative “Alt 92.3” WZRH LaPlace and iHeartMedia Variety Hits “104.1 The Spot” KVDU Houma LA was toppled by the winds of Hurricane Ida.
The 1999 foot structure was constructed in 1988 to host both signals. Only the bottom 150 to 200 feet remain standing. Both stations are licensed to operate with 100kW/591m, but have low powered auxiliary sites in downtown New Orleans. WZRH is located on the roof of Place St. Charles with 630w/200m. KVDU is on the Hancock Whitney Center with 1.2kW/220m.
In addition to KVDU, iHeartMedia Gospel 940 WYLD is silent at its cluster. The company reports that the remainder of its signals are now operational after all but 93.3 KQUE and 98.5 WYLD-FM were off the air on Monday.
Cumulus Media states that its entire cluster of WZRH, Adult R&B 102.9 KMEZ Belle Chasse, Country “106.1 Nash-FM” WRKN Picayune MS, and Hot AC “106.7 The Krewe” KKND Port Sulphur LA are off the air. [Continue reading…]
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