Monthly Archives: August 2013

Pirate Radio Recordings: Radio Free Whatever

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1924VintageTorontoLast night, I caught pirate radio station Radio Free Whatever; a new one for me.

Pirate radio listening has been difficult this summer between travels and thunderstorms, so I was happy to hear a carrier on 6,945 kHz AM, starting around 01:55 UTC.

Though a tad weak, with AM sync detection enabled, the signal to noise ratio tilted in my favor and made for pleasant listening through the turbulent summer ether.

Click here to download the entire broadcast of Radio Free Whatever, or simply listen via the embedded player below:


Standard Pirate Radio Disclaimer: This is a recording of a real pirate radio broadcast, and as such, may include colorful language. In general, if you are easily offended by the words, ideas, music lyrics, or music herein, you should slowly…back… away…

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Radio Free Sarawak is back on the air!

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RadioFreeSarawakThanks to Rob Wagner’s blog, The Mount Evelyn DX Report, I just learned that the clandestine station, Radio Free Sarawak, is back on the air after declaring a break on May 8, 2013 (see our previous post).

Radio Free Sarawak will broadcast daily from 11:00-12:30 UTC on 15,420 kHz.

The following is the press release from Radio Free Sarawak‘s website (via their Facebook page):

AUGUST 11, 2013: Press release, Radio Free Sarawak back on air from Monday

Sarawak’s independent radio station Radio Free Sarawak is back on air Monday 12th August following its holiday recess.

The rural radio station, which broadcasts mainly in Iban, but also in Malay has received numerous enquiries from listeners eager for information about pressing issues in the state, including the on-going plans to dam key rivers and evict thousands of native people from their lands.

“The state government has moved swiftly to try and take advantage of its dubious election wins by tripling Ministers’ own salaries (back-dating the increase by a whole year and a half) and pushing through further land grabs in native territories, including the proposed Baram Dam region” points out the UK based station head, Clare Rewcastle Brown. “Ordinary folk want to be heard on these issues and it seems their opinions may often be different from the propaganda put out on the state controlled licensed media, which only promotes the narrow interests of the super-wealthy and politically powerful”.

Radio Free Sarawak is the 2013 winner of the prestigious Pioneer of Free Media Award by the International Press Institute, which applauded the station’s efforts to bring freedom of information and freedom of speech to the isolated communities in Malaysia’s Borneo rainforest state.

The station’s call-in facility also provides an opportunity for longhouse dwellers to express their own views and concerns about the effects of deforestation, oil palm plantation, rural poverty and endemic political corruption. The radio station is linked to the online portal, Sarawak Report, which shares the same agenda to shine light on these and related issues.

Radio Free Sarawak is transmitted from London and its familiar team of DJs will be broadcasting from Monday on Short Wave 15420kHz from 7pm-8.30pm local time Monday-Saturday.

It is also available via podcast online www.radiofreesarawak.org , from where it can be downloaded via smart phone for mobile listeners or onto UBS sticks for car radio.

The local call-in line is 082-237191 and listeners are invited to get in touch with their comments and issues.

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HackRF: open source SDR on Kickstarter

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HackRF prototype (Source: ossmann.blogspot.com)

HackRF prototype (Source: ossmann.blogspot.com)

Michael Ossmann is making a business out of developing and producing open-source hardware.

His latest creation is called HackRF, and in less than a day, it has been fully backed on Kickstarter raising over $290,000 US with 25 days left to go in the campaign (at time of posting). Backers can contribute to this campaign with some confidence as Ossmann has successfully delivered products from Kickstarter in the past.

What makes HackRF unique is the fact that the stand alone unit can operate between 30 MHz and 6 GHz; a frequency range substantially wider than any SDR currently on the market. Indeed, when combined with the Ham It Up converter, the HackRF will also cover HF bands and lower.

Additionally, HackRF is a fully open-source transceiver; applications are limited only to a developer’s imagination. You could potentially use HackRF for ham radio, radio astronomy, scanning, shortwave radio listening, remote control applications, wide band monitoring, and commercial/industrial applications. If you use two HackRFs in tandem, they’ll even work in full-duplex applications.

Though the project is fully-backed, you can still support HackRF in the Kickstarter phase and save a bit on the eventual retail cost of the unit. Production units are expected to ship early 2014. Check out the HackRF Kickstarter video below:


Additional information:

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VOA Radiogram, 10-11 August 2013, includes MFSK 16, 22, 32

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VOARadioGram(Source: VOA Radiogram)

In this weekend’s VOA Radiogram, one VOA News item will be in the MFSK22 mode (80 words per minute), a mode we have generally not used for complete VOA News stories.

Another “feature” in this weekend’s program will be five seconds of silence whenever modes are changed. This might improve the performance of the RSID.

The Flmsg-formatted VOA News story in this weekend’s program is 9 minutes, 6 seconds long. That might seem unusually long, but it includes 4 minutes, 20 seconds for a VOA logo in SVG format as part of the html. This was created for us by Mark Hirst in the UK.

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, 10-11 August 2013:

2:30  MFSK16: Program preview

3:26  MFSK22: VOA News re import of Apple products

3:12  MFSK32: Greetings to l’Associazione Italiana Radioascolto

2:10  MFSK32 image: AIR logo

9:06  MFSK32/Flmsg*: VOA News re one year of Curiosity on Mars

2:26  MFSK32 image: Curiosity tire tracks

1:10  MFSK16: Closing announcements

2:20  Surprise image, text, image of the week

*To make Flmsg work with Fldigi (both can be downloaded from w1hkj.com), in Flmsg: Configure > Misc > NBEMS — Under Reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your Flmsg.exe file is located.
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.

Please send your reception reports, audio samples, screenshots, comments, ideas, suggestions to[email protected] .

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The new Tecsun PL-880 sounds promising

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The Tecsun PL-880 (Photo: bbs.tecsun.com.cn/)

The Tecsun PL-880 (Photo: bbs.tecsun.com.cn/)

Last night, I discovered news of the new Tecsun PL-880 on Jeff’s excellent blog, the Herculodge.

Out of all of the current shortwave radio manufacturers, Tecsun seems to be one of the only companies making new models for the radio hobbyist–models with important features like SSB, bandwidth control, fine tuning steps, capable AGC, etc.

According to a comment Owl left on this post, it sounds like the PL-880 could be a performer:

Two photos of Tecsun’s new model PL880 appeared yesterday. It uses an analog+DSP architecture similar to ATS909X but has made some significant improvements (4 AM bandwidth + 5 SSB bandwidth) and better audio compared to previous Tecsun portables.

http://herculodge.typepad.com/herculodge/2013/08/new-tecsun-pl-880-on-its-way.html

I will plan on reviewing the PL-880, once it hits the market. If it’s no larger than my Sony ICF-SW7600GR, it might make for a great travel radio.

TecsunPL-880Box

(Photo source: bbs.tecsun.com.cn)

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Retirement Sale: Grove Enterprises liquidating inventory

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grovewebheaderIt appears that Monitoring Times is not the only division of Grove Enterprises that will close shop when owners, Bob and Judy Grove, retire.

Indeed, Grove Enterprises is liquidating their entire inventory in a retirement sale. There are deals to be found in their shortwave radio selection and entire catalog of products.

Still, sad to see this reputable radio retailer close shop. I’m grateful that Universal Radio and C.Crane are still in business. I’m a strong believer in purchasing from radio retailers rather than online sources like Amazon.com. No doubt, Amazon has competitive pricing and good customer service, but frankly they could care less about the radio hobby in general.  To Amazon, shortwave radios are simply a few dozen consumer electronics products out of the tens of thousands they offer.

Universal Radio and C.Crane both support radio clubs, events and hobby-related activities–Amazon does not. Plus, pricing is often very close or even lower than that of Amazon. This is why I always purchase from them if they have what I seek.

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Victor Ashe joins CUSIB after leaving the Broadcasting Board of Governors

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Victor Ashe

Victor Ashe

Without a doubt, Victor Ashe has championed US international broadcasting on the Broadcasting Board of Governors and has voiced his support for continued funding of the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station. He will now join The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting Advisory Board:

(Source: CUSIB Press Release)

The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – cusig.org) announced that departing Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member Victor Ashe has joined CUSIB Advisory Board.

CUSIB is a nonpartisan, independent NGO supporting U.S. international broadcasting. CUSIB has worked with individual BBG members, heads of BBG entities, members of the U.S. Congress, and media to identify and correct management problems that hamper effectiveness of U.S. international broadcasting. CUSIB members were active in successfully opposing proposed cuts to Voice of America (VOA) radio and satellite television programs to China and VOA radio programs to Tibet. CUSIB also defended dozens of Radio Liberty journalists in Russia who were fired by the previous Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) management. Some of the journalists were rehired after the BBG hired Kevin Klose and acting RFE/RL president. Klose initiated management reforms at RFE/RL.

At the BBG, Victor Ashe was a champion of accountability and transparency. He won respect of rank and file employees for his willingness to communicate with them and address serious management issues. Ashe insisted that top agency executives not ignore the problem of record low employee morale under the management of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), as measured by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS).

Ashe said in a statement: “I am honored to serve on this [CUSIB] Board and appreciate their dedication to transparency and fairness. There is still much work to do for international broadcasting by the United States due to serious management issues which still exist.” “I am hopeful the new BBG Board with the leadership of Jeff Shell will make the decisions necessary to move BBG forward,” Ashe added.

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