Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent BBC broadcast.
Carlos notes:
BBC Emergency Radio Service:
By Brian D. Smith, W9IND
The long wait is over for W9IMS paper chasers! As racing teams spend the coming week tuning up their speed machines, radio enthusiasts can tune in for their first chance at earning Indianapolis Motor Speedway QSL cards and the 2026 certificate.
The first of three special events commemorating major auto races at the legendary 2-and-a-half-mile oval begins Sunday, May 3, and continues till 11:59 p.m. Indy time on Saturday, May 9 (0359 UTC Sunday, May 10) – Race Day for the 13th running of the IndyCar Grand Prix.
To qualify for the certificate, known as Checkered Flag Award, hams and shortwave listeners must work/tune in all three of this year’s special events, which also include the Indianapolis 500 from May 18-24 and the NASCAR Brickyard 400 from July 20-26. But even if you fall short in attempting to bag the trio, you can still claim a colorful, collectible QSL card for each of the events you connect with.
Prime time for W9IMS is 6 to 10 p.m. Eastern Time (2200-0200 UTC) on weekdays, sometimes extending to midnight (0400 GMT Sunday) and beyond, and the bands of choice are 40 and 20 meters – generally on or around 7.245 and 14.245 MHz. But QRM and other issues can prompt changes in frequencies. The best bet is to check for W9IMS spots on DX Summit (www.dxsummit.fi) and eHam (www.eHam.net).
Also, while W9IMS can take to the airwaves at any time between now and the final Saturday signoff, you’ll have a better chance of finding active stations by going to the W9IMS QRZ page (www.w9ims.com) and clicking the Grand Prix link under “2026 Operating Schedule” – which displays the time slots that operators have signed up for. The same page contains additional information about W9IMS QSL cards and the certificate.
For radio amateurs who still haven’t worked W9IMS by Saturday afternoon, note that toward the end of the event, operators often start limiting calls to stations that haven’t yet worked the current special event. Another tip is to drop in for happy hour, the last hour of the last day – in this case, 11 p.m. Saturday (0300 UTC Sunday). That’s when W9IMS ops traditionally switch to contest-style QSOs, exchanging only signal reports so they can log as many stations as possible. But remember, too, that W9IMS special events can end prematurely if they encounter sparse QSOs or unfavorable solar or weather conditions.
And a final tip for hams: If you can hear W9IMS but can’t complete a QSO in the waning minutes of the special event, don’t give up. You can still create an SWL report by jotting down the details of other W9IMS contacts – including frequency, UTC, a signal report and the callsigns of several stations that you heard W9IMS contact. A valid report satisfies the requirements for a Grand Prix QSL card and the first of three credits for a certificate. SWL certificates feature operators’ names instead of callsigns but are otherwise indistinguishable from awards issued to amateur radio operators.
Remember to stay on your toes once the Grand Prix operation is over – the Indy 500 special event begins only nine days later!
By Robert Gulley K4PKM
Power supplies have come a long way since I started in amateur radio, and the behemoths of old are quickly being replaced with smaller, more efficient, switching power supplies.
I know, I know – those of us who have been around long before these little units became what they are today, cursed them with not-so-very-kind epithets because of the noise (read “dang blasted, infernal interference!”) generated by leaky components and poor design. Things have changed, and, as a rare example of something changing for the better, many modern power supplies are not only quiet both literally and electronically, they are easily portable and space-saving.
Enter the Radioddity PS30 Switching power supply. I asked Radioddity for the opportunity to test out this unit for review, mainly because I have had several friends get similar power supplies and they have been enjoying much success operating in various modes and bands without issue. None. Okay, that made me curious indeed. As always, I list pros and cons at the end of the review.
The unit is solid and the controls are responsive without any play. The unit sports a very nice LCD screen, allowing one to see at a glance how power is being used in volts and amps. There is a noise offset control to move a birdie should one appear on a desired frequency. That is, if you experience noise on your connected gear that you suspect is originating from the switching power supply, use the Noise-offset control to reduce it to a minimum.
There is also the ability to vary the voltage. With an adjustable 8–15V DC output (a fixed option at 13.8V for most radios) and up to 30A peak / 20A continuous current, it easily supports ham radios, CB radios, HF transceivers, and other DC-powered devices. Short-circuit and overload protection is built in via a fuse on the backside.
The unit sports two sets of Anderson Power Pole™ connectors on the front, and a set of terminals on the back that also allow 4mm banana-plugs to be inserted. Personally I like the multiple power connection options as I use all three options depending on the radio I am connecting at the time.
Reliability
For those who have been around a while you know reliability in power supplies is measured in years rather than months or days, so I cannot speak to the expected lifetime of the supply. However, in the months I have had the unit I have seen no issues with fluctuating power, noise (physical or electrical), or the controls. The unit seems well made, heavy enough to give it a sense of solid design, but not so heavy it would be an issue taking it portable, depending on your specific needs, of course.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Cons:
Conclusion
I am impressed with the power supply and see no reason not to recommend it. With the cost of linear power supplies having skyrocketed over the last few years, modern switching supplies have much to offer, and the price makes them very appealing. Frankly, even if you had to replace one after a few years, you still would not come close to the cost of a linear supply (especially as there seems no end in sight to their cost increases!). Radioddity definitely has a nice offering here in the PS30. 73, Robert K4PKM
By Don Moore
More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.
I’m spending April and May wandering around northern Spain and northern Portugal. My goal is to visit places I haven’t been to before, but I also have to return to Salamanca. I had been there twice before, but Salamanca is the kind of place that draws a person back. I love to wander the back streets of the old city. I also wanted to find some things I hadn’t done before, and that’s how I came across the Museo del Comercio (Commerce Museum) in a modern neighborhood east of downtown. That may not sound very interesting, but I knew immediately that I would have to go. One of the two main permanent exhibits is a collection of old radios.
Most of the items on display came from the collection of Agustín De Castro. Agustín was born in Salamanca in 1928 and began building radios when he was eight years old. Here’s one of his early radios.
As a young man, he went into electronics and eventually operated his own radio store and radio repair business in Salamanca. He donated his vast collection to the city in 2002, and in 2006, it became part of the new Museo del Comercio, which was opened in Salamanca’s old underground brick water cistern.
I might only DX on modern SDRs these days, but I still love looking at old radios. Everything here is in excellent condition and is kept in glass display cases to keep it that way. Unfortunately, that does make it harder to get good photos without getting glare or reflections. But I think these came out pretty well.
Let’s start with a closer look at a few of the more usual pieces.
The Gram Model 157 was built in Spain in 1947. I liked this one for the fancy logo on the dial. Note that while the medium wave band at the top is marked in kilocycles, the shortwave band at the bottom still used meters.
The Fono model 140 was also made in Spain in 1945. Again, the dial used kilocycles for medium wave and meters for shortwave.
This 1940 RCA radio/phonograph is one of the few items that didn’t belong to Agustín De Castro. What caught my eye was the original station list inside.
The LAK Radio was a small set made in Spain in 1950. It’s also medium wave and shortwave, but now the shortwave dial has frequencies instead of wavelengths. Likewise, the 1960 Vanguard Atlas from Spain uses only kilocycles.
The next two sets will show that there were some rather unusual designs coming out of France. This first set is a Philips A-48-U made in France in 1942. The dial is on a panel that folds down when the radio is being used and then snaps back up when it’s not in use. I think the idea is to give the user a way to put the radio away without having to move it. Notice that the knobs are also mostly hidden. The tuning knob just barely sticks out from the front of the fold-down panel. Two other knobs are at the bottom of the speaker grill on either side.
I wish I could have gotten a better picture of the dial markings on this, but there was too much glare at other angles. The A-48-U was only produced in 1941-42 in Paris, which would have been under Nazi occupation at the time. Nevertheless, the dial still lists Daventry, London, and Droitwich, although it would have been illegal to listen to those British stations in occupied France. The dial also shows New York, Boston, and Moscow, but it’s possible the plates were made before the USA and USSR were part of the war. Continue reading
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Greenall, who writes:
Hi Thomas,
Judging by the 60 dB over S9 signal strength on a Kiwi SDR receiver in South Korea, I would say the Voice of America is getting into its target area very well.
They have a Korean language broadcast on 9310 kHz beginning at 1530 hours UTC using their Tinang transmitter in the Philippines. I made a couple of recordings, which are as follows:
April 29, 2026, leading up to 1600 hours UTC (programming in progress), presumed news about King Charles’ visit, “VOA” heard a few times around 3:04 and 3:10:
April 30, 2026, starting at 1527 UTC, open carrier with tone, carrier off after 40 seconds. carrier back on around the 1:44 mark with English ID and Yankee Doodle briefly, then off, Yankee Doodle resumes at the 2:03 mark, then programming in Korean:
Since my original post on March 9, I’ve noticed the Voice of America is no longer using 7500 kHz for its 2200 UTC broadcast in Mandarin Chinese. According to short-wave.info, they are now using 9625 and 11590 kHz from 2200 to 2230 UTC. Shortwave.live has them here as well, but in recent checks using remote SDRs, I have been coming up empty on 9625, and a bit of a mess on 11590. Other listed times and frequencies checked for the Mandarin service have not been heard either.
73
Dan Greenall. Ontario, Canada
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent BBC ERS broadcast.
Carlos notes:
BBC’s Emergency Radio Service:
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent BBC ERS broadcast.
Carlos notes:
BBC’s Emergency Radio Service: