Monthly Archives: June 2016

TDF Group to use DRM 30 as shortwave communications system

Two hours of rock and roll music on shortwave tonight!

Another two hour broadcast of rock n roll music–“The Classics Experience”–will happen tonight via the transmitters of Shortwave Service in Kall, Germany.

6005 kHz Friday June 24th 1800-2000
3985 kHz Saturday June 25th 0000-0200

Both broadcasts will have the MFSK32 text and picture as well. However, the picture will NOT decode properly and it isn’t a problem on your end. All it is is a rebroadcast of the WINB/WRMI, complete with WRMI/WINB mentions and no mentions of 3985/6005 kHz.

By the way, you can also expect my show on Laser Hot Hits in the 49 meter and 75 meter band sometime next month, airing on nearly a daily basis for a month or so.

QSL Information:

$2 is appreciated to cover costs

Paul B. Walker, Jr.
PO Box 353
Galena, Alaska 99741 USA

Paul Walker is located in Galena, Alaska and is a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Be sure to check out Paul’s YouTube channel and SoundCloud channel where everything he logs is recorded and posted. Click here to read his other contributions on the SWLing Post.

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RNZI to run single shortwave transmitter for analog and DRM

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Rafman, who writes:

Heard sad news this morning while listening to [RNZI’s] 9700 broadcast. It makes their future dimmer [IMHO].

RNZI will be running on a single transmitter for both analog & DRM. So now you won’t be able to try DRM on 9890 while 9700 is on air.

Thanks for sharing the news, Rafman. Here’s the accompanying RNZ press release with details from Radio New Zealand:

Information for individual analogue short-wave listeners in the Pacific region.

RNZ International (RNZI) is retiring its 27-year-old analogue-only short-wave transmitter and moving to a one-transmitter operation.

From 1 July 2016 we will be using our newer digital/analogue transmitter and swapping between its digital short-wave and analogue short-wave modes throughout each day.

The digital short-wave mode delivers a signal to relaying Pacific stations, and the analogue short-wave mode reaches individual short-wave listeners.

RNZI has made the decision not to replace the old short-wave transmitter, but to instead maximize the flexibility of our newer short-wave transmitter by using either its analogue or digital mode to deliver to different audiences at different times of the day.

We are also focusing on broadening the options for delivering our signal to relaying radio stations. These stations broadcast our daily news and current affairs content over their own local stations – and allow us to reach a large local Pacific audience.

By working with partners like the BBC World Service (Pacific stream) and Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Limited (PCBL) (which includes the former TVNZ satellite service) we’ve been extending our content delivery via satellite. We’ll be continuing to focus on this as a complimentary delivery to the DRM digital short-wave service.

RNZI’s online content and delivery, partnerships and use of our specialist content by individuals, media and organisations in the Pacific and worldwide, is also growing.

The move to a one-transmitter operation will result in a reduced service to current individual short-wave listeners in the region. RNZI will still broadcast in analogue short-wave for extensive periods of each day, but there won’t be a 24 hour service as there has been. This is likely to be most felt during breakfast hours when we will need to broadcast a digital signal for relaying stations, rather than an analogue one.

However, RNZI remains committed towards providing an analogue short-wave service for individual listeners across the Pacific. Our role in warning about, and covering, cyclones remains especially important. During cyclone season, RNZI has the flexibility to choose to broadcast entirely in analogue if we need to temporarily provide a fulltime service to individual listeners.

Over time we hope more individuals will be able to access our content online access the region. Online use of RNZI is growing quickly with Pacific visitors and others now increasingly accessing content on the RNZI site.

And in future years, as stations adopt other ways of receiving our signal, we may be able to devote more of our short-wave transmission capacity back into broadcasting in analogue.

With a mix of analogue short-wave, digital DRM short-wave, satellite, partnerships and online content delivery, we remain in a solid position to deliver our unique Pacific content to audiences in the region and beyond.

Our analogue and digital frequency schedule is available at www.rnzi.com along with with updated broadcast times.

Linden Clark
RNZI Manager
Radio New Zealand
[email protected]
[email protected]

Click here to read the full story at Radio New Zealand.

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It’s Field Day weekend 2016: find a local event, have fun

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If you live in North America and have an interest in becoming a ham radio operator, this is the weekend to check out what amateur radio is all about, and meet local radio enthusiasts.

It’s Field Day!

What is Field Day? I’ll quote from the ARRL, who sponsors the event:

“ARRL Field Day is the single most popular on-the-air event held annually in the US and Canada. On the fourth weekend of June of each year, more than 35,000 radio amateurs gather with their clubs, groups or simply with friends to operate from remote locations.

Field Day is a picnic, a camp out, practice for emergencies, an informal contest and, most of all, FUN!

It is a time where many aspects of Amateur Radio come together to highlight our many roles. While some will treat it as a contest, other groups use the opportunity to practice their emergency response capabilities. It is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Amateur Radio to the organizations that Amateur Radio might serve in an emergency, as well as the general public. For many clubs, ARRL Field Day is one of the highlights of their annual calendar.

The contest part is simply to contact as many other stations as possible and to learn to operate our radio gear in abnormal situations and less than optimal conditions.”

Many Field Day sites have a GOTA (Get On The Air) station where non-licensed individuals are welcome to play radio. It’s a fantastic way to try your hand at transmitting with a little guidance and encouragement from the more experienced. Indeed, even if there is no GOTA station, you will often be invited to try out the mic.

You’ll find that ham radio operators are very welcoming on Field Day–after all, spreading the word about the fun of amateur radio is what it’s all about. Indeed, I’ve shown up unannounced to a number of Field Days over the years; once I even got some serious radio time with the Charlotteville Amateur Radio Club while on vacation in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

This year, I’m joining the Québec Amateur Radio Club (Club Radio Amateur de Québec) and I’m looking forward to it very much!

Keep in mind that there are many shortwave listeners among the amateur radio community; indeed, many hams became interested in the hobby through SWLing.

The ARRL has made it quite easy to find registered Field Day locations in your region. Click here to find a local Field Day event near you–and have a great Field Day!

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Alex’s BBC World Service frequency chart

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Radio Moscow 1984

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We’ve just posted yet another excellent recording by Jim Jordan to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. This Cold War recording of Radio Moscow dates back to September 19, 1984.

Jim notes:

A nice Cold War piece from Radio Moscow on the double defection of the Soviet journalist Oleg Bitov. The real story behind it was revealed ten years later [click here to read article].

Also, check out this short mention in the Ukrainian Weekly:

THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY. NOVEMBER 4,1984

Jim’s recording was made using a National Panasonic RF-2200 tuned to 9.5 MHz around 08:10 UTC. The location was South Shields, UK.

Click here to download as a (mono) MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

You can listen to more archived shortwave recordings at the SRAA website, or by subscribing to the audio feed via iTunes. You can also listen to the archive on TuneIn radio.

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BBG, take note: Shortwave radio distributes smartphone apps

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Many thanks to Andy Sennitt, who posted a link to this Mission Networks News article on Facebook.

Imagine being able to download an app…without the internet.

Well, it’s finally happened, thanks to shortwave radio. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), take note: Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH), a Christian organization that distributes Bibles in parts of the world where they are difficult to distribute, have a free smartphone app called Bible.is. The only problem is, the app wasn’t available in countries where there is no access to the Internet nor where authorities block the app…at least, until now. By using Trans World Radio’s Guam shortwave transmitter site, they have successfully “downloaded” this app to multiple smartphones in Thailand:

[D]ue to a major recent breakthrough by Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH), they were able to deliver the Bible to an unconnected smartphone using shortwave radio towers over 3,000 miles for the first time ever.

Troy Carl, Vice President of FCBH, explains, “Yesterday, we were able to transmit file casting data packets from Guam all the way to Thailand using shortwave frequencies, and we were able to do that in partnership with Trans World Radio. So it was really quite exciting! Basically what we did is created one-way internet access turning that tower into a super WiFi router. And that’s quite a story because it’s never been done!”

To put it another way, Carl wrote this description in a recent post:

Just like the one you use everyday in your house, where you connect a data source (internet cable) and a power source (you plug it in) and the little antennas broadcast internet around your house (say 500 ft.) and you connect to it with your phone to read/listen/see the data it’s transmitting.

In Guam, we took a HUGE antenna, (supplied by Trans World Radio), hooked up a data source (a Bible.is app device), turned the power on (250kw) and sent the data into the air bouncing it off the ionosphere over 3,000 MILES!

Our team in Chang Mai Thailand, hooked up to this giant router with a proprietary decompiler. Then sideloaded the Bible.is app with all its content to multiple smart phones using a simple wifi broadcaster!

As I wrote in, Does Shortwave Radio Have a Future?, I’ve always believed that the shortwave medium could be leveraged for international digital/data communications, and should be, especially in countries under repressive regimes such as North Korea. In my article, I focused on Radio Canada International (RCI), which was then dismantling their shortwave transmitter site:

[B]roadcasters should not dismantle their transmission sites as Canada is currently doing. Not only is the current service originating from these sites a more reliable form of emergency communications than the Internet, should a national disaster befall us; not only do they continue to provide a broad-spectrum mode of diplomacy; but should future digital communication modes find a way to take advantage of the HF spectrum as is now under discussion, this would be most unfortunate.

Imagine a wi-fi signal with a footprint as large as several countries, digital devices with tiny fractal antennas that receive this signal containing rich media (e.g., audio and video)––these are not science fiction, but highly plausible uses of these transmission sites, even within the next decade…

FCBH’s innovation is simply a first step in this direction. If it turns out that this method is both accessible and affordable, this could truly pave a new road on the mobile information highway.

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