Shortwave listening and everything radio including reviews, broadcasting, ham radio, field operation, DXing, maker kits, travel, emergency gear, events, and more
Caroline North is back this weekend live from the MV Ross Revenge on the River Blackwater Estuary near Bradwell, Essex.
Relayed on 1368 kHz with a transmitter power of 20kw from the Isle of Man.
According to Manx Radio’s website as well as being heard in the Isle of Man, the AM service is also audible in Southern Scotland, in the North West, in North Wales and in the West of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Stampfl was founded by Heinz Stampfl (HB9KOC)–I’ve been following his work the past few years, especially fascinated with his SDR designs which are (sadly) only experimental and have never been put into production.
I’ve written Heinz more than once encouraging him to put these on the market. Of course, it’s an easy request coming from a consumer who doesn’t have to front the production costs and inherent overhead!
Heinz, if you’re reading this, why not do a Kickstarter campaign for one of your fine SDR designs?!
It’s likely the only time you really notice one of your neighborhood broadcast and cell towers is at night when they’re lit up with conspicuous bright red lights.
Those lights help pilots see the huge metal structures that can reach 1,000 feet into the air — but they can spell disaster for birds.
In 1976 in Gun Lake, Mich., one tower killed over 2,300 birds in one night, says Caleb Putnam, who works for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. He says for reasons scientists still can’t quite figure out, birds kept flying headlong into towers.
“If that many are dying at one night at one tower and yet there are thousands of towers across the country and as you go across the world, the numbers are staggering,” he says.
Putnam says in North America alone it’s estimated that 7 million birds smash into towers every year. But until recently scientists didn’t know why it was happening.
[…]”We were able reduce the numbers of bird fatalities on communications towers by simply extinguishing those non-flashing lights,” she says. “Those fatalities were reduced by as much as 70 percent.”[…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Troy Riedel, who shares the following announcement from a Tecsun Radios Australia email newsletter:
Tecsun Radios Australia owner Garry Cratt was interviewed by ABC Rural this week about the ABC’s decision to end their shortwave radio transmission after almost 80 years.
The ABC have decided that as shortwave technology is now nearly a century old, it is outdated and serves a very limited audience. They are planning on moving towards a digital focused service instead.
Garry discussed this in his interview with ABC Rural: “A lot of the places that do receive Radio Australia, there is no power for a start, so they’re relying on batteries and solar panels. The people that are listening, that will be affected, are those people who are maybe still back in the last century, but that’s not their fault.”
Tecsun Radios Australia recently sent a shipment of 500 radios to the Solomon Islands to be given out to remote villages. Shortwave radio is often the only way to communicate in rural villages like these, this is especially important during times of natural disaster such as the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, and as recently as cyclones Yasi (2011), and Pam (2015).
The ABC are planning on building a stronger FM transmitter network to use instead of the shortwave transmission – but what will happen to the people who are out of range of FM radio?
There are many people without this equipment living in places like the Pacific Islands, where Radio Australia is one the few news and entertainment resources. Due to the sparse population and wide geographic dispersion it is extremely difficult to correctly measure the effect that turning off the shortwave transmission will have.
Here at Tecsun Radios Australia, we are asking you to help us let the ABC know that shortwave radio is a much valued service. You can do this by tweeting a photo of your shortwave radio tuned into Radio Australia, making sure you tag @ABCAustralia and @TecsunRadios and using the hashtag #saveshortwave
Additionally, we are calling on the Australian Government to restore funding to the ABC, (previously provided via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) to support the ABC’s international television and radio broadcasts. We acknowledge that the ABC has continued to provide international radio and television broadcasts by internally funding these programs, and now we ask the Australian Government to support our rural and Pacific Islands communities by giving the ABC the appropriate funding they require.
We are talking about $1.9 million in funding after all, which we think the Prime Minister could find if he checked under the Chesterfield seat cushions in his office…
My radio program “VORW Radio International” is now regularly back on shortwave, heard weekly to Europe and North America.
VORW stands for “Voice Of theReportoftheWeek” – TheReportOfTheWeek is my YouTube Channel which mainly features reviews of various items, as well as talk programs. This is the radio service thereof.
The program features a mixture of talk and music, and is a request-driven show, so the music has a great deal of variety to it. You can expect music from any time and genre to get played!
The broadcast schedule is as follows:
Thursday 2000 UTC – 2100 UTC – 6070 kHz To Europe Friday 0100 UTC – 0200 UTC – 7490 kHz To North America
If you do listen, please send feedback and reception reports to “[email protected]“.
Very cool, John! Happy to hear you have a regular schedule to Europe and North America. We’ll be listening!
PCJ Radio International will present a special program for Chinese New Years Eve for the Year of the Rooster. Extra MV/FM and shortwave frequencies have been added
North America
0100 – 0200 UTC
Frequency: 11580 kHz
Date: January 26, 2017
0100 – 0200 UTC
Frequency 7570 kHz
Date: January 27, 2017
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(Source: Mike Terry via Southgate ARC)
