Monthly Archives: July 2019

Using amplified loop antennas with portable radios?

SWLing Post contributor, Klaus Boecker, sports a homebrew magnetic loop antenna on his balcony in Germany.

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

I have a question about loop antennas; specifically which type is “better,” passive magnetic loops or active electric loops?

I know, “It depends.”–?

I live in a ground-floor apartment, with a small porch, lots of RFI and restrictions against visible antennas. Also there are no trees within 75 ft of my porch, which faces on a parking lot. My radio is a Tecsun PL-660, which works okay inside with my 10-ft bare wire antenna hidden on the porch.

With a loop antenna, I’d like to mount the antenna on the porch at night and have a remote tuner/control inside because it’s very hot n humid here in Louisiana even after dark.

No doubt there are a number of magnetic loop antennas that could serve you well in your situation, Marty.

To answer your first question, though, you should search for a wideband amplified loop antenna since you’re only concerned with receiving.

Passive loops are great antennas on the shortwave bands–and easy to build–but they best serve ham radio operators who wish to transmit. Passive loops typically have a very narrow bandwidth that requires the operator to constantly tune the antenna when they tune the radio a few kHz. Most amplified wideband loops need no separate tuning mechanism.

Last year, I posted an article about choosing the right loop antenna for situations like yours where one has limited installation options.

Click here to read : Shortwave antenna options for apartments, flats and condos

Portables and amplified loops?

I do hesitate to encourage you to invest in an amplified loop antenna when your only receiver is a Tecsun PL-660. Some portables don’t handle amplified antennas well–they can easily overload and I imagine you can even damage the front end of the receiver.

I’m well aware, however, that there are a number of readers here who do couple their portable radio to an amplified loop. I have connected a number of portables to large wire antennas and found they could easily handle the extra gain, so I imagine an amplified loop would perform as well; the Sony ICF-SW7600GR, Tecsun S-8800, and Sangean ATS-909X come to mind.

But the PL-660 is a hot little receiver even with the built-in telescopic antenna–I’m not sure if amplification would help or hinder.

Please share your experience

This is where I hope the amazing SWLing Post community can pitch in and help us out here!

Does anyone here regularly connect their PL-660 to an amplified loop antenna? If so, what model of antenna are you using? Are there other portables out there that you regularly connect to amplified loops? Please share your notes, thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thank you in advance!

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ARRL reports California earthquakes disrupted west coast HF propagation

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(Source: Southgate ARC)

The ARRL reports earthquakes in California disrupted HF propagation on the west coast

British Columbia radio amateur Alex Schwarz, VE7DXW, said that an Independence Day magnitude 6.4 earthquake in California’s Mojave Desert and multiple aftershocks negatively affected HF propagation on the US west coast.

Schwarz, who maintains the “RF Seismograph” and has drawn a correlation between earthquake activity and HF band conditions, said the radio disruption began at around 1600 UTC on July 4, and continued into July 5. He said that on July 4, the blackout was total except for 20 meters, where conditions were “severely attenuated,” Schwarz said. The RF Seismograph also detected the magnitude 7.1 earthquake on July 6 in the same vicinity, Schwarz reported. The distance between the monitoring station in Vancouver, British Columbia, and that quake’s epicenter is 1,240 miles.

“Things are back to normal after the strong quake, as far as the ionosphere is concerned, but the unrest has not stopped yet,” Schwarz told ARRL on July 8.

Read the full ARRL report at
http://www.arrl.org/news/view/report-california-earthquakes-disrupted-hf-propagation-on-west-coast

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Radio Bremen: Another option for news in Latin

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Harald Kuhl, who shares the following in response to our previous post about the closure of the Latin service from Finnish Radio. Harald notes:

Here in Germany, Radio Bremen still has a monthly news bulletin in Latin:

https://www.radiobremen.de/bremenzwei/rubriken/latein/latein114.htm

If you’d like to hear a sample Latin podcast from Radio Bremen, listen via the player/link below:

Click here to download audio.

Thank you–or gratias tibi–Harald!

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SDRplay RSPduo: SDRuno update now adds diversity reception!

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The SDRplay RSPduo

Many thanks to Andy with SDRplay who notes:

We are pleased to announce the release of v1.32 of SDRuno. The purpose of this release is primarily to add MRC Diversity functionality for the RSPduo, but it also contains other fixes and additions based on customer feedback. Diversity functionality is described on P.78 of the SDRuno User Manual.

A full list of the changes can be found in the release notes: https://www.sdrplay.com/docs/SDRplay_SDRuno_Release_Notes.pdf

Issues can be reported to us via our ticket system: https://www.sdrplay.com/support

Comments and feedback can be sent to [email protected] – emails sent to that address are usually not responded to unless we have questions, but are always read and noted.

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USAGM: questions about journalistic and financial management

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(Source: New York Times)

WASHINGTON — The United States Agency for Global Media, the government’s foreign broadcast service, already struggling to clean house after a series of scandals last year at flagship operations like Voice of America and TV Martí, is now being rocked by two new cases that have raised further questions about its journalistic and financial management.

In one, Tomás Regalado Jr., a reporter for TV Martí, which broadcasts into Cuba, and a cameraman for the network, Rodolfo Hernandez, were suspended amid allegations that they faked a mortar attack on Mr. Regalado during a broadcast from Managua, Nicaragua, last year.

That incident surfaced only days after Haroon Ullah, the former chief strategy officer at the global media agency, which operates Martí and foreign-language networks around the world, pleaded guilty on June 27 in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to stealing government property.

A former deputy to the agency’s chief executive, John Lansing, Mr. Ullah admitted to fleecing the government of $37,000 between February and October last year by claiming reimbursements for expensive hotels he did not book, double-billing the government for official travel and forging a doctor’s note to allow him to fly business class. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

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The new problems are unrelated to each other; in the case of Mr. Ullah, the agency said its internal controls flagged the expense fraud. But along with many others over the past two years, the scandals have brought intensified scrutiny and criticism to the agency, formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Created during World War II to be an objective, trusted source of information in nations where freedom of the press is under attack, the agency has 3,500 journalists who reach more than 345 million people in 100 countries each week.

The United States Agency for Global Media initiated an investigation into the allegedly faked segment at TV Martí “immediately after these concerns about the footage in question were raised,” the agency said in a statement. “As the agency has made clear, we have zero tolerance for failing to honor clear and universally accepted standards of professional journalism. We also owe it to all involved to conduct a thorough and clear investigation to get all of the facts.”

“I take seriously any breach of professional journalistic standards at any U.S.A.G.M. network. I have asked for a thorough and swift investigation,” Mr. Lansing said in an emailed statement. “I expect all U.S.A.G.M. networks to adhere to truthfulness, fairness and accountability in their reporting.”

Click here to read the full article at the New York Times.

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FTIOM & UBMP, July 14-20

Google Nest Hub and other devices on sale

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Chris’ Google Nest Hub tuned to AWR Wavescan’s Internet stream

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Chris Freitas, who writes:

I wanted to let you know that Google has been doing a sale on some of their devices.

The Google Home Mini is on sale for $25 right now. Also the Google Nest Hub, basically a tablet slab on a speaker, is also on sale too for $79. It has much of the same functionality as the Mini but you can also cast video to it.

The link to the Nest Hub is https://store.google.com/product/google_nest_hub. The link to the Home Mini https://store.google.com/product/google_home_mini. You can also find this sale thru many retailers like Target, Best Buy, Walmart, and Home Depot.

I impulse bought the Nest Hub and it is a pretty awesome tool in the kitchen/living room of my apartment. I am going to put it thru some tests but it works well with streaming media.

Thanks for the tip, Chris!

So I’ll confess that I, too, just grabbed one of the Nest Hub devices. Your photo sold it, with the image of AWR Wavescan! (Enabler!)

I like the idea of a touch screen device that can also accept voice commands. That might make for a very usable and adaptable WiFi radio.

Of course, there’s the creepiness factor of any voice command personal assistant devices, but then again any smart phone has all of the same functionality.

I’ll certainly post a short review noting how well the Nest Hub might perform as an Internet/WiFi radio device.

Anyone else using the Nest Hub as a WiFi radio? Please comment!

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