Monthly Archives: May 2016

eBay Sighting: Kurzwellen Empfänger Siemens

Once again, the intrepid Dan Robinson has discovered an eBay gem. Dan notes:

From eBay Germany comes this rarely seen and apparently in beautiful condition relic:

Wow–Dan–what a beautiful receiver! It has a dial blind like my BC-348-Q, but a dial design like my Hammarlund SP-600. The best of both worlds, in my opinion.

And the green indicator lamps? Classy!

I assume, by the design, that this is a Cold War era receiver? I’m afraid I’m not at all familiar with Siemens receivers of the era.

Post readers: If you can shed light on this particular Siemens receiver, please comment!

Click here to view on eBay Germany.

Spread the radio love

Dan notes a unique modification on this Hammarlund HQ-180A

5 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares a link to this eBay listing of a Hammarlund HQ-180A and notes:

Whoever owned this Hammarlund HQ-180A installed a DC meter where the clock or crystal unit usually is.

And the screws on the top of the hatch seem to indicate installation of a DC supply perhaps?

Click here to view on eBay.

Like you, I’ve never seen this particular mod to the HQ-180A, Dan.

I’m curious if the owner installed the DC meter to replace a broken or missing clock? Though I’ve never searched for one, I suspect those Hammarlund clocks are getting more difficult to find on the used market.

Spread the radio love

CountyComm: A note of caution about the high-gain ferrite bar antenna

12 Replies

After our post this morning regarding the high-gain ferrite bar antenna (available via eBay), I received a message from Nick at CountyComm.

Nick notes:

“[The high-gain antenna is] very cool however we wanted to let you know that we found out it [can] actually destroy the antenna input to the GP5/SSB or GP5/DSP because of its heavy weight. [W]e had at least five radios come back [after] customers had purchased the large ferrite antenna from an eBay seller.”

Many thanks, Nick, for the feedback. It is important to note that the high-gain bar antenna is not an OEM product, so CountyComm isn’t responsible if it harms the radio’s antenna jack.

While still relatively lightweight, the high-gain bar antenna is substantially heavier and longer than the GP5’s supplied MW antenna.

I’ve been concerned about dropping the GP5/SSB with the larger bar antenna inserted–fearing the jack could break off–so I’ve been very careful using it. I’ll probably continue using the larger ferrite bar, understanding that I’ll have to handle it with care.

If you’re concerned about damaging your radio, I would suggest using an inductively coupled AN200 loop antenna instead.

Again, Nick, thanks for the heads-up!

Spread the radio love

Steven is impressed with the CountyComm GP5/SSB and high-gain bar antenna

Leave a reply

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Steven Crawford, who sent the following message to me (several weeks ago) and has kindly allowed me to share it here. Steven writes:

I hope this finds you and yours well. I just wanted to take a few moments and express my sincere thanks to you for your posts of 12/20/2014 and 1/6/2016, and for sharing Larry Thompson’s post of 2/28/2016, and Ron’s post of 1/16/2016. If you are in regular contact with the other individuals please feel free to pass along my thanks as each of you and the respective post convinced me to purchase a CountyComm GP5/SSB and Ebay seller playloudfm’s high-gain ferrite bar antenna. I am so glad I did, so a hearty Thank You to each of you.

The afternoon of March 19th local was the first chance I had to use my GP-5/SSB. After popping in three fresh AA’s on AM using the internal ferrite bar antenna Beaumont, Texas’ own powerhouse 5,000 watt KLVI 560 was there as was 1,000 watt Orange’s KOGT 1600, 23 miles away and my AM daytime benchmark 50 kW KTRH 740 Houston 70 or so miles away on the back side of their pattern. KTRH surprisingly can be a little difficult during the day due to noise. The surprise was 50 kW WWL New Orleans 240 miles away was intelligible above the background noise. Extending the whip a quickie SW test showed WWV Fort Collins time signal was present at 15 MHz.

On the AM side the real money lay after dark once the sun had set in Beaumont and San Antonio. Using only the internal ferrite bar antenna all of the aforementioned AM stations were present. Continuing the internal antenna’s test 50 kW WBAP 820 Dallas 244 miles away and 50kW WOAI 1200 San Antonio 266 miles away were present. I started grinning when 50 kW WLAC 1510 Nashville 598 miles away and 50kW KMOX 1120 St. Louis 632 miles away were just intelligible above the background noise. Keep in mind these stations were received using only the internal antenna.

I popped the CountyComm included factory external ferrite bar on and used it 9 -10 PM Saturday local, 0200 – 0300 March 20 UTC. Using the external antenna rotated for best reception WLAC and KMOX improved to the point they were easily listenable. 50 kW WSB 750 Atlanta 625 miles away was listenable above the noise and most surprising 50kW WBBM 780 Chicago 892 miles away(!!!) was just intelligible above the background noise. Another quickie SW test was performed at 10 PM local, 0300 March 20 Sunday UTC by extending the built in whip and the WWV Fort Collins time signals were present at 5 and 10 MHz with 10MHz being particularly well received.

Photo source: eBay

A real treat lay in store after receiving Ebay seller playloudfm’s aftermarket high-gain ferrite bar antenna, the subject of your 1/6/2016 and Ron’s 1/16/2016 post, yesterday. I am not experienced enough to judge what the space weather or propagation conditions were like from 0300 to 0400 March 27th UTC but I was extremely surprised and pleased with the reception results the new antenna afforded.

As I sat relaxing in my easy chair before bed I decided to try the combo out using the included earphones so as to not wake my wife. With the lights off and my iPad open to www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/ccs.htm to help identify clear channel stations I took the handheld combo for a spin. All of the stations found with the factory supplied external ferrite bar antenna were present. There was just so much more signal present using the aftermarket antenna each became easily listenable. For WOAI, WWL, WLAC and KMOX the effect was as if I was located within their local night coverage area. 50 kW WHAS Louisville Kentucky 740 miles away was newly found present. Chicago’s WBBM was there as before and I was surprised to find 50 kW WGN 720 Chicago as well. The reception quality was such that one could enjoy listening to a Cub’s game or breaking local news story should one be so inclined on WBBM or WGN. The listening experience was similar for newly found 50 kW XEROK 800 Ciudad Juarez 738 miles away.

The most surprising and gratifying, to me anyway, find of the night using playloudfm’s antenna was receiving 5,000 watt (nights!) KCMO 710 Kansas City Missouri 624 miles away. The ability to rotate the antenna to take advantage of it’s directional and nulling ability really aided in this reception. It really is a great benefit to be able to rotate the GP-5/SSB’s external AM antennas for peak signal strength while nulling interfering signals and noise. Indeed KCMO was missing in one antenna orientation but rotating the antenna 90 degrees and the station popped in. I really should have jotted signal strength to noise ratios down but I was just enjoying tuning through the spectrum too much. I have not fully tested SSB Exalted Carrier tuning on the GP5/SSB of difficult stations but have tried it 3 or 4 times and it does appear to work as does tuning 1 kHZ either side of the nominal frequency. The later technique did help clean up some signals by further reducing background noise without greatly affecting listenability.

As best I can tell I ordered and received either the last or next to last of playloudfm’s current batch of high-gain ferrite bar antennas as the Ebay add showed two available when I ordered and the ad was almost immediately replaced with an “accepting pre-orders” ad. Currently there are no ads by seller playloudfm.[Note: it appears more inventory has been added to eBay.] My transaction and shipping was quick and smooth. The bulk of the two week wait occurred after the package was received at the Athens airport where tracking stopped. It should be noted by buyers should more antennas become available the tracking number supplied does not work on the USPS tracking service but it will track the package to Athens through Greece’s Hellenic Post tracking service at http://www.elta.gr/en-us/personal/tracktrace.aspx

Note: all distances listed above are “as the crow flies”, straight line city center to city center and are not necessarily correct for the transmission tower location.

This little radio is fast becoming a hand holdable favorite with easy to learn button placement for use in the dark. I am all ready beginning to prefer it to my Sony SW7600GR / AN200 loop combo for MW broadcast AM reception but I really must do more work with SW before calling the CountyComm my favorite of the two.

Steven followed up a week or so later with this addendum to his review:

I finally got the opportunity to test the FM performance of the radio using only the extended whip on the afternoon of April 1st, April 1st 19:30 – 21:00 UTC. Using www.radio-locator.com and my zip code I found 51 FM stations listed as local, distant and possible fringe reception. I was very surprised and pleased when I was able to log all of the most distant fringe stations, KUHF, KKBQ, KTBZ, KKHH, KHMX, KBXX, KODA, KILT, KLOL, KMJQ, KRBE, KOVE, and KGLK, with ERP’s listed as 90 to 100 kW and distances in the given in the 80 to 90 mile range. In short I was able to log all 51 listed stations. The FM broadcast band is crowded indeed with this little rocket radio. It should be noted my little corner of Southeast Texas is dead flat with nothing between me and these stations broadcast towers but Houston skyscrapers, the typical urban / suburban sprawl, timber and marsh. Ground elevations range from 16 ft to 80 ft above sea level between me and many of the broadcast towers.

[…]My Sony SW7600GR / AN200 loop / Sony AN-LP1 loop combination sits in it’s go bag rapidly falling into disfavor, replaced by the easily used in the dark one handed CountyComm GP-5/SSB. Again thank you for your kind response and thanks again to all who motivated me to purchase this rig.

Steven, thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with the GP5-SSB and the high-gain ferrite bar antenna.

I also have the high-gain ferrite bar antenna and have been meaning to post videos showing how it performs compared with the supplied GP5 antenna. I must say, it does do a pretty amazing job. I’ll get some videos posted in the coming weeks!

Spread the radio love

Netherlands clears way for licensed low power mediumwave/AM stations

9 Replies

SWLing Post readers might recall that the Netherlands was considering opening licensed mediumwave broadcasting to low-power stations–it appears the path is now clear. Yesterday, Minister Kamp gave the green light to low-power stations (those with a power output from 1 to 100 watts) who can now apply for a broadcasting license.

Stig Hartvig Nielsen posted the following on the WRTH Facebook page:

Today Dutch minister Kamp has made it public that the Medium Wave band now will be open for low power stations operating with a power of max. 100 Watt. Full story here (in Dutch): http://radio.nl/…/groen-licht-voor-laagvermogen-uitzendinge…

One of the first stations to go on the air under the new legislation may be the long time pirate – Atlantis Radio 1521 – in Friesland. They got a license (?) from Commissariaat voor de Media in March 2016, and they recently purchased a new 75 W AM transmitter (300 W PEP). The format is golden oldies – and the station can be heard online here:http://www.atlantisradio.eu/radio/ – and more details can be found here:https://www.facebook.com/RadioAtlantis1521KHz/

It will be interesting to see how this decision plays out and how many stations will apply for a license. I’ll certainly listen for new stations on the U Twente Web SDR as they pop up.

Spread the radio love

All India Radio adapting strategy

1 Reply

All India Radio (AIR) Headquarters in Dehli, India. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

All India Radio (AIR) Headquarters in Dehli, India. Photo source: Wikimedia.

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Mike R, for sharing this article from Asia Radio Today:

During a session on Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) at Radio Asia, Fayyaz Sheheryar the Director General of All India Radio said all PSB [Public Service] broadcasters are facing the question of how to make revenue within the public service model.

As governments are reducing funding for public service broadcasters, “there is competition between hedonism and altruism,” he said.

“If we want to earn money would it be at the expense of ethics? This is a question that requires everyone’s attention.”

The expansion of tv channels in India overshadowed radio for a while, but radio has come back to life “thanks to the deregulation of radio, new licences and new frequencies on FM and [DRM]” according to Sheheryar.

All India Radio has introduced new channels to compete with the new private commercial channels.

But, like other public broadcasters else where in the world, All India Radio is “facing questioning from commercial broadcasters about our role.”

[…]In India, All India Radio is allowed to take advertising, but advertising is not allowed to affect decisions on program content. It is heavily used by advertisers to reach both educated and mass rural populations, but the new private channels have taken a share of the pubic service broadcaster’s significant ad revenue.

“Public service broadcasting is a keystone of democracy,” said Sheheryar.

“Should we leave it to the market to decide the content of PSB? PSB gently leads the masses to more mature values and services all sectors of the population regardless of whether the have money to spend or not. Ratings cannot be the sole yardstick to measure the success of PSB.

[…]“The proliferation of private broadcasters has also contributed to the questioning of PSB’s role.”

[…]The question of how to fund AIR now that it is autonomous is constantly being discussed. All India Radio uses a “hybrid model of funding” with some government funding and some commercial revenue funding. Other sources of revenue are program sales, news media sales, facilities hire and transmission rental.

Despite the philosophical and revenue challenges Sheheryar is optimistic: “Public Service Broadcasting is on a revival course despite all the challenges. The [Indian] Prime Minister’s choice to broadcast regularly on AIR has helped us… For PBS to survive it must be recognised as a creative art and treated accordingly.”

Click here to read the full article.

Spread the radio love

Bob’s 1961 Radio Havana Cuba QSL Card and full text from DXers Unlimited on 55th anniversary

7 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Bob La Rose, who shares a QSL he received (see above and below) from Radio Havana Cuba after they had only been on the air a few days back in 1961.

Amazing, Bob! Thanks for taking the time to scan and share this report!

Also, many thanks to Arnie Coro, Host of Dxers Unlimited at Radio Havana Cuba, for sharing the full text/script from his May 1st 2016 anniversary edition of DXers Unlimited:

Radio Havana Cuba
Dxers Unlimited
Dxers Unlimited’s weekend edition for 1 May 2016
By Arnie Coro
Radio amateur CO2KK

Hi amigos radioaficionados, welcome to the weekend edition of Dxers Unlimited, today l am happy to celebrate with you all the 55th Anniversary of Radio Havana Cuba… Yes amigos, it was on the first day of May of 1961, during the May Day celebrations when Cuba had just won the battle against the mercenary invasion that we went on the air using our present name Radio Havana Cuba… Two announcers, Orlando Castellanos and Fernando Alcorta announced to the world that Radio Havana Cuba, was on the air… Previously we had used the name Cuban Experimental Short Wave, but from May one of 1961, we are known worldwide as Radio Havana Cuba…

So today is a very special day… remembering those who have passed away after many years of valuable services to our station, like Pedro Costa the General Administration Manager, Carlos Estrada our Chief Engineer, and former Director Generals Marcos Behamaras. Orlando Fundora, Jose Antonio Caiñas and Alfredo Viñas. I also keep very nice memories of Angel Hernandez our bilingual announcer with the most effective voice for short wave radio that I can recall, and also I remember Manolo Ortega, reading our Spanish language editorials so that they could be heard clearly through his powerful voice…

Si amigos, I was there at the station 55 years ago as a young radio technician in charge of supervising the operations of our studios and transmitters that at that time included four Brown Boveri Swiss made short wave transmitters connected to a still under construction antennas farm, and the two studios borrowed from Radio Progreso until we could finish building our first studios .

The history of Radio Havana Cuba is full of very relevant moments, like the day that our Experimental Station announced to the world that the mercenary invasion that entered the Bay of Pigs had been defeated after sixty six hours of fierce combats .

With a lot of enthusiast and the impacting presence of a new generation of announcers, journalists , technicians, engineers and support personnel we are moving ahead to provide the best possible programming keeping our short wave transmitting facilities because we do believe on the use of international short wave broadcasting, while not disregarding the feeding of streaming audio to the Internet-

I am Arnie Coro, your host here at this special 55th Anniversary edition of Dxers Unlimited, that will continue in just a few seconds after a station ID..

Musical short cut

Yes amigos this is Radio Havana Cuba, using short wave frequencies at different times of the day on the 16, 19, 22, 25 ,31, 49 and 60 meters bands… and now our next radio hobby related item, a very popular section of this show under the name Antenna Topics , that is dedicated today , at the request of several listeners to a very effective Dxing antenna, low take off angle radiator, known as the HENTENNA, A great number of listeners from all around the world have written to me recently, asking to learn more about this Japanese antenna design , known as the HENTENNA, that seems to continue to be making headlines in radio publications around the world once again… But before telling you more about the mysterious HENTENNA…. A solar activity update… believe it or not, we are seen the solar flux moving up to very near 100 units for the first time in many weeks… following the typical ups and downs of the tail end of solar cycle 24… so propagation conditions have improved on the short wave bands …. Now back to the HENTENNA…

By the way, the first original report about the HENTENNA that went on the air here at Dxers Unlimited, dates back to 1999,more precisely, it went on the air the 12th of October of 1999, and according to my records, it then generated a lot of interest from our listeners, who were at that time, 1999, getting ready to enjoy the peak years of solar dream solar cycle 23 !!! >Never as powerful as super cycle 19, but nevertheless much better than the present very poor cycle 24.

So amigos here is at the request of Dxers Unlimited’s fans , a special Dxers Unlimited’s report on the HENTENNA, the Japanese elongated rectangular loop antenna with an easy match to coaxial cable feedlines of any impedance, be it 50, 60 ,75 or 93 ohms…or even 150 ohms !!! Of course that you can feed it with parallel transmission line of 300 to 450 ohms too, it is just a matter of minutes to find the perfect match for the feedline in use.

Let me start by saying that I recently built yet another HENTENNA for the FM broadcast band, and it is working nicely, having already picked up some Sporadic E skip DX stations from Mexico, the US and Puerto Rico during first few days of this year’s spring and summer E skip season.

Now you will have to learn something very unusual about the HENTENNA… the HENTENNA produces or receives VERTICALLY polarized waves when the antenna is placed horizontally; that is, with the long sides of the rectangular loop parallel to the ground. AND, if you want horizontal polarization, just flip the HENTENNA so that the long sides of the loop are vertical, and the short sides are parallel to the ground, something that is puzzling, but that’s the way it is amigos…

By the way, one of the world’s foremost antenna experts, Dr. L. B. Cebik, amateur radio operator W4RNL, did during his fruitful life an extensive analysis of elongated loops, and his findings are really fascinating. Dr. Cebik , now sorrily a silent key specialized in computer modeling of complex antenna systems, and his work with the HENTENNA and other similar elongated loops shows that the HENTENNA is a very good performer indeed.

In a few seconds, be ready to write down, the formulas for calculating HENTENNAS in the frequency range from 14 megaHertz all the way up to 220 megaHertz.

And now, as promised more about the japanese wonder antenna… the HENTENNA. Dr. Cebik’s computer modeling shows that the elongated loop HENTENNA has an edge over a regular square one wavelength loop and the regular elongated loop.

HENTENNAS for receiving FM broadcast signals are very easy to build, using a wooden or PVC pipe frame and copper wire. I built the one just
mentioned cut for 100 megaHertz, using PVC insulated no. 12 wire, the one that is typically used for home wiring.

The loop was closed by soldering with a butane torch, and using regular solder with rosin core… The reason for using the butane torch is that no soldering iron at hand here could handle the heavy wire PLUS the high speed heat transfer of the copper wire.

The loop for the 100 megaHertz antenna is 1.5 meters on the long sides of the rectangle and 50 centimeters on the short sides. The feed point for the 50 ohm cable is was found to be located about 55 centimeters from one of the short sides of the loop.

The antenna is installed with the long sides in a vertical position; for receiving horizontally polarized FM broadcasts. I tried both 50 ohms and 75 ohms coaxial cables, and could not detect any difference on the weakest station that I am picking up here regularly with the FM band HENTENNA.

Again, now please pay extra attention …if you want to make of these elongated loops for receiving, here are the measurements to use: for the long sides of the rectangle 1/2 of a wavelength at the operating frequency, for the short side, the length is 1/6 of a wavelength… and the connection point for the coaxial cable of 50 ohms impedance is a little more than 1/6 of wavelength from one of the short sides of the rectangle, and it must be found experimentally by locating the point that provides the minimum standing wave ratio.

HENTENNAS can be built for any frequency between 10 megaHertz and 300
megaHertz by using heavy WIRE, and for the frequency range from about 50 megaHertz to 500 megaHertz you may try building HENTENNAS with copper or aluminum tubing.

Hope to have you all listening to my middle of the week edition of Dxers Unlimited amigos and do enjoy the improved short wave propagation conditions now in progress, especially after your local sunset.

Spread the radio love