Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Michael Vitale, who (several weeks ago–!) asked:
Has anyone ever dealt with the equipment from Heros Technology Ltd UK specifically their VLF converters models 350-400? Their claim is these converters will work with any receiver (SW) on the market past or present.
Click here to view the video introduction to the VLF-LF Up-Converter.
I, personally, have no experience with VLF/LF up-converters, so I’m hoping someone else can help Michael. Please comment!
From The Isle of Music reports:
Our August 16 (August 15 in the Americas on WBCQ) program
marks the beginning of several weeks of Caribe Nostrum, winner of Cubadisco 2016 in the Concert and Chamber Music category and one of the two Gran Premio winners. Guido López Gavilán, the Director, will join us each week to talk about the recording. Our other special guest will be Roberto Carcasses, leader of Interactivo, one of the most exciting modern music ensembles in Cuba today. And, of course, we will have a few other musical surprises.
Two options for listening on shortwave:
WBCQ, 7490 KHz, Tuesdays 0000-0100 UTC
(8pm-9pm EDT Mondays in the Americas)
Channel 292, 6070 KHz, Tuesdays 1900-2000 UTC
(2100-2200 CEST)
See the NOTES section of our Facebook page for more information.
A strong signal with a clear ID from Conakry, Guinea, heard in Oxford UK on 08/08/16 at 18:04 hrs UTC using my trusty Panasonic RF-B65 and a 50 metre longwire. No SYNC of course, but once again, the vintage Panasonic performs very well for this personal-first reception. I do have another recording of this station using the Sony ICF-2001D, from which a performance comparison can be made at a later date. Great to hear Radio Guinée by the way; I believe they had been off-air for around 5 years, until earlier this year. Click the image below to watch the reception video on Oxford Shortwave log.
Radio Guinée 9650 kHz Conakry, Guinea, heard by Oxford Shortwave Log
Clint Gouveia is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Clint actively publishes videos of his shortwave radio excursions on his YouTube channel: Oxford Shortwave Log. Clint is based in Oxfordshire, England.
Hello all,
A few nights ago during great propagation in the Medium Wave band I had the opertunity to DX Radio Capital from Lima, Peru all the way to Northern Ireland. I was planning to sleep early but favourable conditions on MW prompted me to have a late night to chase DX. I have had this confirmed to me by a few very well known MW DX’ers.
The equipment I had used to get this catch were as follows ;
• Lack of sleep & plenty of caffeine
• SDR Play RSP with ferrite chokes
• Wellbrook ALA1530LN Active Loop Antenna with coax running out of the electric field of my house and ferrite chokes attaches at parts
Jordan Heyburn (MI6JVC) is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Jordan is an avid shortwave listener, ham radio operator and shortwave presenter/owner of Radio Northern Ireland. Jordan is based in Northern Ireland.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who announces his next show:
The next broadcast of The Classics Experience with Paul Walker is going to be the biggest yet. It’ll all take place in late August with 2 hours of rock n roll music with maybe a few country songs thrown in for good measure. The show is ALL about the music and providing something different on the shortwave bands, so all you’ll get from the show is MUSIC. There will be NO rants, raves, personal opinions or political and religious rants. No commercials or sponsors either. I fund the broadcast out of my own pocket so I can pick whatever music I want and not have to answer to anyone but George D. Beagle!
WRMI 7570kHz Saturday August 27th 0400 to 0600UTC. Beaming at 315 degrees towards Vancouver. It should provide a good signal to the West Coast of the US and Canada and probably parts of the midwest and upper midwest along the way.
WRMI 11580kHz Friday August 26th 2100 UTC to 2300UTC., This signal target area is Eastern North America and Western Europe.
WRMI 11530kHz Saturday August 27th, 0200UTC to 0400UTC targetting South America with maybe a little spill over to extreme Western Africa.
WINB 9265kHz Saturday August 27th 0330 to 0530UTC. This should provide good coverage into the Midwest, parts of southern Canada, into Mexico along with parts of Central & Southern Europe it seemed.. It was weakly heard in Australia and New Zealand during my last broadcast.
Channel 292 6070kHz Friday August 26th 2200 to 2400UTC. This should provide good coverage of central and parts of Western Europe.
Shortwave Services 15195khz via Armenia Saturday August 27th 1200 to 1400UTC. Beaming at 65 degrees towards Japan.
I am going to suspend my request for $ to cover postage and QSL costs. I’ve been so lax in sending out QSL cards, I haven’t gotten around to any of them from previous broadcasts and have gotten a few nastygrams about it. I feel bad, so I won’t ask for any money to cover costs this time around.
Contact information for reception reports:
Paul B. Walker, Jr.
PO Box 353
Galena, Alaska 99741-0353 USA
There may be MFSK32 data and pictures during the broadcast. I will announce during the broadcast if and when that happens.
If you’ve been following the Sangean DT-160CL versus Sony SRF-39FP battery endurance test, I have some news to report: one of our competitors has finally thrown in the towel…!
Yesterday, while I was on the road for about 1.5 hours, the Sangean DT-160CL at last gave up the contest.
Since I was traveling at the time, I can’t say with absolute certainty what o’clock the DT-160 cried uncle––but roughly, we’re looking at 116 hours, 30 minutes of run time, give or take 30 minutes.
Sangean claims the DT-160 series will operate for 100 hours with two AA batteries. That claim is obviously pretty conservative.
Though I used CVS Max Alkaline batteries (a generic version of Duracell’s Quantum batteries)–an improvement on the standard alkaline battery–I set the volume higher than I believe Sangean or Sony would have set it for testing purposes. This should have drained the batteries faster. The radios were also tuned to a variety of stations: weak AM, strong AM, weak FM and strong FM.
In short: I’m very impressed with the DT-160.
A 116 hour play time from two AA cells on a digitally-tuned receiver is, well, pretty incredible.
Now that the endurance test is over for the DT-160CL, I’ll replace the batteries with a fresh set of CVS Max Alkaline cells and start testing the AM/FM receiver performance.
My iPhone’s stopwatch has been tracking progress since last Wednesday.
Even more amazingly, the Sony SRF-39FP is still going strong––!
I actually fell asleep last night listening to the SRF-39FP and woke up this morning with music still in my ears. What a champ!
So, how long has the Sony SRF-39FP now been operating on one AA battery?
At time of posting, this little Sony’s clocked one hundred thirty nine hours.
Though I’ve always known that the SRF-39FP was a true battery miser–one of the reasons it’s been a choice radio in the prison system–I had no idea it could operate this long on one battery.
Of course, I’ll continue tracking the Sony SRF-39FP.
How much longer will the SRF-39FP last? Stay tuned to find out!
Follow this review thread by bookmarking the following tag: Sangean DT-160CL v Sony SRF-39FP.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Benn, who writes:
[Skycast (WI2XER)] is a station in the Experimental Radio Service, licensed under Part 5 of the FCC Rules.
Benn provided the following details:
Licensed 3 March 2016: SKYCAST SERVICES LLC WI2XER 0809-EX-PL-2015
New experimental to operate in HF bands from 13.87 MHz to 21 MHz to pursue significant advancements in the state of telecommunications technology.
Farmingville (Suffolk), NY
License:
https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=173579&x=.Explanation, redacted:
https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=170747&x=.Note location of receivers, stated in section 6.
Explanation of redactions:
https://apps.fcc.gov/els/GetAtt.html?id=171385&x=.
Benn continues:
HF operations in the ERS are rare. I have been following ERS for years.
Applicants in this service are required to describe their experimental program, but can ask the FCC to withhold certain details from public disclosure. That is the reason for the redactions.
The actual purpose of this Skycast is not obvious from the available documentation, but some intrepid investigation may reveal it. SWLs should listen for these operations. The company said that the receivers are in Western Europe.
Experimental stations are not supposed to directly generate revenue. There are occasional exceptions. Most ERS stations are for defense and security related developments, specific demonstrations or academic research.
Readers: please comment if you have any information about this station or its service. Any reception reports/notes would also be welcome!