Yearly Archives: 2016

North Korean numbers station in the press

SWLingPost-Spy-Numbers-Station

I’ve been offline and off-grid this week and have accumulated quite the backlog of email.

One news item that caught the attention of a large number of readers (thanks to all for the tips–!) was North Korean spy numbers. I’m very curious if any readers have logged and recorded this station–if so, please comment and consider sharing your recording!

The news was featured on at least two prominent news sites:

(Source: The Guardian)

North Korea’s radio broadcast of string of mysterious numbers is possible code

Numbers read on state radio may be cold war-era method of sending coded messages to spies in South Korea – or an attempt to wage psychological warfare

North Korea’s state radio has recently broadcast strings of indecipherable numbers, according to officials in Seoul, in a possible resumption of a cold war-era method of sending coded messages to spies operating in South Korea.

A female announcer at the radio station read numbers for two minutes on 24 June and 14 minutes on Friday, according to Seoul’s unification ministry and national intelligence service (NIS). A copy of those comments provided by the ministry included phrases such as “No 35 on Page 459” and “No 55 on Page 913”.[…]

(Source: BBC)

North Korea is criticised by South Korea for ‘spy broadcasts’

South Korean officials have criticised North Korea after it apparently resurrected a Cold War-era method of contacting spies.

In recent weeks, mysterious strings of numbers have twice been broadcast over the radio from the North.

A spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry said it couldn’t be sure about North Korea’s “hidden intentions”.

But it urged the North to “desist from such outdated practices”.[…]

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The Eleventh HOPE Conference

HOPE-2016

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

You might consider reporting on The SWLing Post that there will be several talks at the The Eleventh HOPE conference this Fri/Sat/Sun that might interest your readers, including:

Tuning in to New York City’s Pirates of the Air

David Goren

Pirate radio in New York City is a homegrown cultural phenomenon that is at once aesthetically vibrant, technologically tumultuous, and undeniably illegal. Emanating from clandestine studios and hidden transmitters, the sounds of Kreyol, Yiddish, Spanish, and Caribbean-accented English waft into the urban atmosphere. On an average night in Flatbush, Brooklyn, it’s not uncommon to be able to hear as many as three dozen pirate stations between 87.9 and 107.9 Mhz. This flowering of outlaw micro-radio stations in Brooklyn and throughout the greater New York City region is a major disruption to the status quo of corporate controlled, robo-playlisted mega stations. Their unregulated presence and programming often reflects the throb and hum of a diverse city more authentically than traditional media outlets. Join radio producer David Goren for an audio tour of these stations featuring the music, programs, and personalities that make up New York City’s pirate radio scene.

Monitoring Dusty War Zones and Tropical Paradises – Being a Broadcast Anthropologist

Mark Fahey

Tuning in distant foreign radio and television stations is a conduit to unique and exotic information. These signals are often confronting, uncensored, and unsanitized. In the western world, we blur or pixelate images of death and torture, but signals from war zones or rebellions show tragedies happening live on the air. Other signals broadcast the joy of life on this planet through exotic song, music, and film. Digital wide-band recordings of the electromagnetic spectrum allow virtual time travel, a form of mental teleportation whereby recorded spectrum is tuned to hear stations as if they were being tuned in real time. Take a virtual tour of Mark’s monitoring station in Sydney, Australia which is wired to access the world’s mass media via whatever delivery conduit is needed to capture the content. The station receives hundreds of thousands of inbound digital audio and video channels that let him monitor domestic radio and television from most parts of the world. If he wants to watch breakfast television from Tibet, or maybe the nightly news from the remote Pacific islands of Wallis and Futuna, then it’s available in perfect studio quality. You’ll also see his visits to remote broadcasters and rare, uncensored video from telejournalists that captures the tragedies and joy served up by our planet.

Democratizing Wireless Networks with LimeSDR: Open Source, Field-Programmable RF Technology

Ebrahim Bushehri

This talk presents new, low-cost, open-source, field programmable RF technology, where flexibility is extended from the digital to the RF domain. See demonstrations from the open-source community using the LimeSDR platform, which incorporates two transmitters and two receivers covering 100kHz to 3.8GHz which can emulate GSM, LTE, UMTS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, RFID, HDTV, radio astronomy, passive RADAR, 2G/3G/4G cellsites, IoT gateway, amateur radio, wireless keyboard/mouse transmission/detection, aviation transponders, utility meters, satellite reception, remote tire pressure monitoring, drone command and control, RF test and measurement, and more.

We have more than 150 speakers this time over three days in three tracks.

Thank you Ed! I trust a number of SWLing Post readers will attend HOPE 2016. I certainly wish my travels would make it possible for me to attend this year–it would especially be great to see presentations by my good friends, David Goren and Mark Fahey.

Click here to view The Eleventh HOPE site.

UPDATE: Live streams

Many thanks to post reader, Aaron Kuhn, who notes the following:

In regards to those HOPE talks, the conference talks will be streamed.

[The] schedule of the talks is here:

https://hope.net/grid.html

The streams will be at:

http://livestream.com/internetsociety
http://livestream.com/internetsociety2
http://livestream.com/internetsociety3

(depending on the room the talk is in)

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Video: Dan listens to RNZI’s Sunday Night with Grant Walker on a Hammarlund SP-600

DanH-SP-600

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Daniel Hawkins, who writes:

One of my favorite Radio New Zealand International programs is Sunday Night with Grant Walker. This program is heard on RNZ in New Zealand from 8:06-10:00 p.m. and is run at the same time on RNZI. Sunday Night features hit oldies and one interview. Each program highlights oldies from one year. Last Sunday was 1977 and the week before was 1955. My video from last Sunday includes a favorite that I haven’t heard for many years.

The RNZI broadcast of Sunday Night is 0806-1000 UTC Sunday on 9700 kHz. That’s 1:06-3:00 a.m. Sunday, PDT. Definitely a show for night owls. West Coast reception is nearly spectacular for the distance: 6,600 miles from my location in Davis, CA, USA. The radio used for the video is a Hammarlund SP-600 JX-21, built in 1956 or 1957. Yes, the tuning dial is a little off on this band. I’m using the 8 kHz selectivity setting with fully advanced AVC. The antenna is a 106’ outdoor random wire. The speaker is antique as well: a 10” Jensen PM-10C with matching transformer connected to the 600 ohm audio output on the SP-600.

DanH

Click here to view on YouTube.

Wow! Thank you for the program recommendation, Dan!  I, too, have an SP-600–there are few valve receivers that can rival it for both audio fidelity and sensitivity. What a beauty of a rig you have there!

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A Great Pirate QSL Card!

XFM927

Here’s a great example of a QSL report from Pirate Station X-FM Stereo Shortwave monitored Halloween 2015. Not only is it a beautiful card, Redhat (the Deejay) also included the playlist as a .txt attachment.

As I recall he also made live announcements of who had left reception reports/comments on the HF Underground forum as well as for those who sent him emails directly.

I sent a short recording as part of my reception report, and it was an added bonus to see that mentioned in his QSL card.

I am quite impressed with all the effort made to turn out a quality QSL card, but a Pirate transmitting in stereo obviously appreciates quality!!

Pirate Radio receptions are memorable events on their own, but the QSL cards really make them special! Happy Pirate hunting!

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

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The AAA-1C: An affordable loop antenna amplifier kit

Active-Antenna-the-kit-product-7

I recently stumbled upon the Active Antenna Amplifier (model AAA-1C) by LZ1AQ. At 87.00 EUR, it’s a pretty affordable and flexible solution for those who would like to design or use a loop antenna.

According to the website, it packs a lot of features:

  • 4 remotely switched modes (Loop A, Loop B, crossed parallel loops A&B and dipole)
  • Each mode can be switched immediately
  • Good sensitivity and a flat frequency response
  • High dynamic range
  • Protected input from strong signals
  • High immunity to local noise with balanced amplifiers and balanced feed line
  • Balun transformer coupling for common mode noise reduction
  • Extensive documentation manuals with detailed description how to build your own small antennas

The amplifier is described as a kit because you must mount the board, wire up the antenna and set up remote switching yourself. It appears the SMT board comes pre-populated, though so I’m not sure if any actually soldering is required (perhaps someone can verify).

AAA-1B kit components

AAA-1C kit components

Click here to download the mounting instructions (PDF).

I’m tempted to purchase one this winter for use on mediumwave.

Click here for more info about the AAA-1C at LZ1AQ’s website.

Have any SWLing Post readers built and used this amplifier? Please comment!

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Secret life of village that helped crack WWII code

WWii-radio(Source: Southgate ARC)

Whaddon: Secret life of village that helped crack WW2 code

On May 9, 2016, Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society members operated GB1SOE to establish contact with French special event station TM75SOE using WWII equipment

This was to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the first transmission sent back to Whaddon Hall, Buckinghamshire, by Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent Georges Begue. They operated from Whaddon Hall during Monday using a replica MKIII transmitter and HRO receiver,  on the French side a WWII B2 spy set was used.

The BBC report: The Codebreakers at Bletchley Park are well known for their top secret work which helped to change the course of the World War Two.

But the Buckinghamshire village of Whaddon, just a few miles down the road, has long been forgotten, despite the vital role it played. It was codenamed Section 8 and was a satellite station for Bletchley Park.

It is hoped a new memorial will give it its rightful place in history.

Watch the BBC TV report on the commemoration at Whaddon
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36245666

A shorter version of the BBC report is at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36248874

Further information in the QRZ.com entries for TM75SOE and GB1SOE

Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society (MKARS)
http://www.mkars.org.uk/

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From the Isle of Music July 18-19

PromoFTIOMjuly182016small
The July 19 (July 18 in the Americas on WBCQ) edition of From the Isle of Music includes more of María Felicia Pérez, Director of Coro Exaudi, winner of the Choral Music category in Cubadisco 2016, and our very special guest is El Noro, winner of the Popular Dance Music – New Artists category in Cubadisco 2016. We’ll be playing some of the album Sin Escala by his group El Noro y Primera Clase and conversing with him about the album and the group. We will also have some Reyes 73 from the 1970s.
Two options on shortwave:
WBCQ, 7490 KHz, Tuesdays 0000 UTC (8pm EDT Mondays)
Channel 292, 6070 KHz, Tuesdays 1900 UTC (2100 CEST)
See the NOTES section of our Facebook page for more information

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