Monthly Archives: November 2019

Radio Deal: AirSpy 30% off Black Friday Sale

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The AirSpy HF+ SDR

Just discovered through the AirSpy Twitter account that they’re offering 30% off all of their products via their authorized retail outlets.

This morning, I posted an article featuring their $169 HF+ Discovery. Another AirSpy SDR I highly recommend is the $199 HF+ SDR. This deal would give you 30% off those prices.

According to AirSpy, the coupon code AWARDWINNING2019 will be activated “within a few hours.” I believe this might mean at midnight UTC because they had mentioned a November 26th activation date. Although the sale extends until December 2, 2019, AirSpy states that supplies are limited.

If you’ve been considering an AirSpy product, now would be a good time to grab one!

Click here for a list of participating retailers in your region.

Note that we’re posting all of the holiday radio deals we discover with the tag: Black Friday Radios 2019

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Coastal DXing with the AirSpy HF+ Discovery and a homebrew passive loop antenna

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Last week, we packed the car and headed to coast of South Carolina.

The trip was a bit impromptu but through the creative use of hotel points, we scored a two bedroom ocean front unit with a fantastic little balcony.

The vacation gave me an excuse to test the new passive loop antenna my buddy Vlado (N3CZ) helped me build recently.

The loop design came from AirSpy’s engineer and president, Youssef Touil.

This passive mag loop takes advantage of the new AirSpy HF+ Discovery‘s exceptionally high dynamic range. Youssef had reported impressive results, so I had to build one.

Vlado had a length of Wireman Flexi 4XL that was ideal for this project. The only tricky part was penetrating the shielding and dielectric core at the bottom of the loop, then tapping into both sides of the center conductor for the balun connections.  Being Vlado, he used several lengths of heat shrink tubing to make a nice, clean and snag-free design.

The results were truly exceptional. I spent most of my time on mediumwave from the hotel balcony because I was determined to catch a transatlantic signal.

Check out the spectrum display from my Microsoft Surface Go tablet:

Our ocean front hotel was inundated with noise, but I still managed to null out most of it and maximize reception using the passive loop. I simply suspended the loop on the balcony rocking chair–not ideal, but effective and low-profile.

Want to take a test drive?

If you’d like to experience this portable SDR setup, why not tune through one of the spectrum recordings I made?

Click here to download the spectrum file [1.7GB .wav].

The recording was made on November 17, 2019 starting around 01:55 UTC–I chose it at random and have yet to listen to it myself. You’ll need to open this file in AirSpy’s application SDR# or a third party SDR app that can read AirSpy .wav files.

Stay tuned…

I’m writing an in-depth report of the HF+ Discovery, my experiments with this setup and AirSpy’s soon-to-be-released passive loop antenna for the January 2020 issue The Spectrum Monitor magazine. Spoiler alert: I am truly impressed with the wee little AirSpy HF+ Discovery. It’s a powerhouse!

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RRI’s Personality of the Year 2019

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who shares the following announcement from Radio Romania International:

Dear friends, RRI continues its traditional polling of listeners on short wave, the Internet and social media, with a new challenge that, we hope, you will find interesting.

We would like to ask you which person you think left their imprint on the world in a positive way in 2019. We are preparing to designate, based on your options, “The Personality of the Year 2019 on RRI”. Will this person be a politician, an opinion leader, a businessman, an athlete, an artist, a scientist, or even a regular person with a special story? It’s up to you! We would also want to ask you why you picked that particular person.

You can send your answers, as usual, by commenting on our website, at rri.ro, by e-mail at [email protected], on our Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, on WhatsApp at +40744312650, by fax at 00.40.21.319.05.62, or by post, at 60-64, General Berthelot Street, sector 1, Bucharest, area code 010165 (PO Box 111), Romania.

We recall that:

The “Personality of the year 2018 on RRI” was the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The “Personality of the year 2017 on RRI” was the Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, former no.1 in the WTA rankings and the “Personality of the year 2016 on RRI” was the American president Donald Trump.

The Personality of the year 2019 on RRI will be announced on January 1st, 2020.

Click here to read at the RRI website.

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500 TeraHertz border-crossing “light bridge”

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

SWLing Post readers might be interested in hearing this BBC World Service radio documentary about a political tech art project that uses visible light beam voice comms across the Mexico<>U.S. border to bridge communities. There’s a website that explains how it all works. I guess ~500 TeraHertz is technically radio?

(Source: BBC World Service)

BBC World Service – In the Studio

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Border Tuner

Released On: 19 Nov 2019

Imagine huge searchlights which can be seen over a ten mile, 15 kilometer radius talking to one another across two countries. This is exactly what electronic media artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is creating this November between Ciudad Juárez in Mexico and El Paso in Texas.

Called Border Tuner, the project will see enormous bridges of light connecting the US-Mexico border for the first time.

When lights from the stations (three on each side) are directed at each other and they manage to make a connection, a massive bridge of light is formed. This activates microphones and speakers allowing participants to communicate with one another across the border. The “light bridge” flickers like morse code as the participants listen and speak to one another. If they don’t like what they are hearing they can retune to a different light beam.

This is not the first time Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has used search lights in his art but he’s never done anything on this scale or with this complexity before. Born in Mexico City in 1967, he first produced a remote-controlled searchlight project in 1999 for the Zócalo Square in Mexico City. Since then he has created installations in dozens of cities around the world where the public controls the searchlights using the internet, mobile phones, megaphones or heart rate sensors.

Presented by Monica Ortiz Uribe
Produced by Emma Betteridge for the BBC World Service

Click here to listen via the BBC World Service.

Fascinating concept! Thank you for sharing, Ed!

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eBay: Dan spots a Winradio G39DDCe ‘Excelsior’ Wideband SDR radio receiver

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who notes this is the first time he’s seen a  Winradio G39DDCe ‘Excelsior’ on eBay.

The asking price is a steep $1,999.99 shipped. That may seem like a high price but, new, these retail for well over $4,000 US. The  Excelsior is an uncompromising, benchmark wideband receiver.  The seller is also accepting offers, so if you’ve ever considered purchasing an Excelsior, you might consider placing an offer. This is a rare one. Thanks for the tip, Dan!

Click here to view on eBay (partner link).

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Illustrator for Passport to World Band Radio, Gahan Wilson, dies at 89

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Those of us who purchased the Passport to World Band Radio will no doubt remember Gahan Wilson’s whimsical illustrations and cover art. I looked forward to each edition of PTWBR and, especially, seeing the cover art for the first time.

Wilson was a noted illustrator and cartoonist who did work for a numberof major publications. Obviously, he was also a radio enthusiast.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tony, who shares this obit of Wilson from the New York Times.

Rest in peace, Mr. Wilson.

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“Pour Reception”: An Arduino-based radio that uses glasses of water as an interface

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Image source: Yanko Design

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Korchin, who shares a link to this article on Yanko Design:

We’re all used to turning a couple of knobs and pressing a few buttons to operate a radio, but have you ever played with glasses of water to change a radio channel? Probably not. Designers Tore Knudsen, Simone Okholm Hansen, and Victor Permild recently launched their art project ‘Pour Reception’. And it’s beyond anything you can imagine. Pour Reception consists of two internal speakers, an AUX input, a handy guide and two glasses that must be placed on the body of the radio. And no the glasses aren’t just to sip water from, though you could do that. The radio uses the two glasses filled with water as it’s interface!

[…]Pour water into the glasses, and the stereo starts! Transfer some water from one glass to another and you can change channels. Touch the glasses, and you can fine-tune the radio’s signal, eliminating distortion. Finally, pop a finger into the water to control the volume or to bring the radio to a halt!

This might seem like a scenario from an alternate universe, but the tech behind it is pretty common. Objects emit micro amounts of electricity, and touch tends to disrupt this and convert it into a signal. By using Tact library by NANDstudio (an open-source Arduino shield that turns any object into a touch and proximity sensor), the designers converted the radio platform, glasses, and water into different layers of a capacitive interface, allowing them to conduct minute amounts of electricity and transforming them into sensors. Utilizing a Wekinator (an interactive machine learning tool), various gestures such as touching the glass or dipping a finger into the water were mapped into commands for controlling the radio. The end result; a radio with glasses of water functioning as a “digital material interface”.[…]

Click here to see a photo gallery and read the full article at Yanko Design.

Oh now that’s a fun way to combine radio and art! Obviously, this isn’t an RF radio–it either grabs streaming content or (more likely) uses pre-recorded content on an internal storage device. Still, I think it’s a creative little project and an ideal way to play with Arduino Tact library.

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