(Source: NPR via Eric McFadden)
NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks to Brigitte Alepin, the creator of “Radio Dodo,” or Sleepytime Radio, a program that creates bedtime stories for Syrian refugees.
Click here to read the full transcript or listen to the story via NPR.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bruce F, who writes:
Here is a photo of a radio from the 2004 – 2009 TV series “Battlestar Galactica“. This radio is perhaps unique and worthy of careful study! Why? Because not only was it NOT MADE on Earth, but there is no connection in its design with any other known radio ever.
The reason for this is quite simple. This sci-fi TV series takes place in a distant future when all humans had left the Earth generations ago and migrated throughout the galaxy. The humans in this series have lost all touch with humanity’s origin planet. They do not know where Earth is, or even if it still exists, or if it ever actually existed.
“Earth” is an important part of their religion and mythology. So here is a totally un-Earthly radio. Odd though. it does closely resemble a Grundig wind-up radio I owned sometime in the 2000’s…
Ha ha! Yes indeed, Bruce. And I can confidently say that I’ve personally distributed hundreds upon hundreds of this particular radio model for Ears To Our World. Grundig used to market it as the Grundig FR-200, and Tecsun still offers it as the Tecsun Green-88 (or GR-88). It’s a brilliant receiver, although I’m not sure how effectively one can monitor shortwave while in a spacecraft! 🙂
I also grabbed some screenshots from BSG with a number of radios some time ago. I’m not sure I ever posted it, though. I’ll have to look through my (rather deep) drafts folder.
Thanks for sharing, Bruce. I’ll add this post to our growing archive of radios in film!
Many thanks to Thomas Cholakov (N1SPY) who shares the following video where he explains how radio receivers work and builds a radio receiver:
Click here to view on YouTube.
As always great video, Thomas! Keep up the good work!
(Source: BBC via Mike Barraclough)
Paddy Feeny, the legendary voice of “Saturday Special” (now Sportsworld) for 36 years has sadly passed away aged 87 after a short illness. Paddy hosted the show from 1959 until his retirement back in 1995. BBC correspondent Mike Costello was a colleague of his, and remembers him with admiration as a genius, pioneer and meticulous professional.
From the Isle of Music, June 17-23:
This week, we present some wonderful new Son Cubano from Septeto Santiaguero and Adalberto Álvarez y su Son, some recent TIMBA from JG and some Charanga from Manolito Simonet y su Trabuco.
1. For Eastern Europe but audible well beyond the target area in most of the Eastern Hemisphere (including parts of East Asia and Oceania) with 100Kw, Sunday 1500-1600 UTC on SpaceLine, 9400 KHz, from Kostinbrod, Bulgaria (1800-1900 MSK)
2. For the Americas and parts of Europe, Tuesday 0000-0100 UTC on WBCQ, 7490 KHz from Monticello, ME, USA (Monday 8-9PM EST in the US). This has been audible in parts of NW, Central and Southern Europe with an excellent skip to Italy recently.
3 & 4. For Europe and sometimes beyond, Tuesday 1900-2000 UTC and Saturday 1200-1300 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany.
Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot, Sun, June 17 & Tues, June 19, 2018
Episode 67 presents the music of Ghana, Guinea and Cameroon.
1. Sundays 2200-2230 UTC (6:00PM -6:30PM Eastern US) on
WBCQ The Planet 7490 KHz from the US to the Americas and parts of Europe
2. Tuesdays 2000-2030 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany for Europe. If current propagation conditions hold, the broadcast should reach from Iceland to Western Russia, Scandinavia down to North Africa and the Middle East, AND a long bounce to parts of New Zealand.
A few weeks ago, we posted an announcement that spectrum analyzer software was being developed for the SDRplay RSP software defined radio series. Many thanks to Andy, at SDRplay, who shares the following announcement:
We are pleased to announce the availability of the first cut of Spectrum Analyser software developed by Steve Andrew specifically for the RSP line of products. Please note that this is first alpha software and so it is still very much in development and some features are still to be added. Currently supported are:
- RSP1
- RSP2/RSP2pro
- RSP1A
This first alpha release gives a good idea as to the look and feel for the software. The main functional limitation is that sweeps of greater than 10 MHz are not currently supported. Steve is currently re-working the algorithms for providing wider sweeps than 10 MHz to improve sweep time and remove the issue of the DC spike in ZIF mode, so please bear with him.
We recommend using the software with AGC turned off and use manual control of the gain for better display stability.
Please see the Spectrum Analyser webpage: https://www.sdrplay.com/spectrum-analyser
Best regards,
SDRplay Support
(Source: BBC Blog)
BBC Monitoring is a specialist part of BBC News, part of the World Service group. We have experienced journalists and linguists who follow and track international media in foreign languages, in over 150 countries and about 100 languages.
We monitor that information, we report and analyse it, and we work on a subscription website basis. All our content is available to the BBC and to the UK Government and we also have commercial customers.
The service has been through a lot of changes in the last couple of years, and was delivered a savings target which we had to incorporate. We’ve changed the structure of the personnel and the organisation, we’ve changed the delivery platform, updated the technology, and we have new products, new customers and users.
We’ve moved from Caversham House, in Berkshire, which was an absolutely beautiful place to work, but it was expensive to run, and we were at a distance from a lot of our users in the BBC but also in the UK Government. Coming into Broadcasting House gives just that extra sense of being part of News.
[…]BBC Monitoring was set up to counter propaganda from Nazi Germany in the war, explaining propaganda and spotting messaging in media. Verification – and then the reporting of stories where fake news is part of the media, is still part of what we do.
I’m pleased that the World Service is pulling together all its coverage of fake news. Monitoring is a central part of that, and we’re also developing a small team that is solely going to be dedicated to disinformation and the manipulation of messaging in the media in certain parts of the world.
We already work with all parts of News, for example our Iran team work very closely with the Persian service. During the Iranian elections last year some of our team were embedded with the Persian service to help them with their coverage.
We’re constantly following the media in over 150 countries, so when you’re talking about a big, complex, international story we’re able to broaden the lens and say ‘Well, here’s the view from this part of the world’, and ‘Here’s what this other country is saying.’[…]