Author Archives: Thomas

WU2D and “Dream” SW Receivers of the 1960s and 70s

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara, who shares this most recent post from his excellent SolderSmoke Podcast blog:

Mike WU2D Looks at the “Dream” SW Receivers of the 1960s and 70s (Video)

Wow, I really liked Mike’s walk down memory lane. I saw several of my own dream receivers:

S-38E. Indeed, this little monster did add some danger to your life. AKA “The Widow Maker,” I gave one to my cousin’s husband so he could listen to what the commies on Radio Moscow were saying. He later told me that the receiver had given him a shock. I now have TWO S-38Es in my shack (two more than I really need). I have installed isolation transformers in both of them, so they have lost the one element (danger!) that made them attractive.

HA-600A. I got this one for Christmas in 1972. The A model is MUCH better than the plain vanilla HA-600. I recently got another HA-600A and found serious deficiencies in the Product Detector. Has anyone else noticed these problems? BACKGROUND INFO AND A PLEA FOR MORE INFO HERE: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=HA-600A+Product+Detector

HQ-100. Got one in the Dominican Republic. Fixed it up, repairing damages caused by radio life in the tropics. Disabled the goofy audio amplifier circuitry. I now wonder if this receiver might benefit from the insertion of a 455 kc ceramic filter.

NC190. Wow “Cosmic Blue” Perhaps this was an early influence that led to “Juliano Blue?”

HQ-180. “18 tubes and almost as many knobs!” FB!

HRO-500. Love the dial.

Transoceanic. Never had one, but built a BFO for the Transoceanic that W8NSA took with him to SE Asia during the war.

R-390A. I don’t have a crane for the workbench.

Thanks Mike — that was a lot of fun.

The Cooling Radio Station & MUSA: The Ultimate SSB Receiving Site

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark (AE2EA), who shares the following video from the Antique Wireless Association. Here’s the video description:

Cooling Radio Station was at the UK end of a point-to-point, shortwave signal beamed from Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The site of the station was carefully selected as the antenna, MUSA (Multiple Unit Steerable Antenna), upon which it depended to receive the incoming transmission, had to be: directly aligned with Lawrenceville NJ, USA; two miles long; comprised of an array of 16 individual rhombic antenna; and have an area of three miles in front of the MUSA that would be free from radio interference. The 16 rhombic antenna were strung between 60ft high telegraph poles; each side was 315ft long with internal angles of 140 degrees. The signal from each antenna was sent to the station via a core coaxial cable sheathed in a watertight copper tube and buried in a central trench.

This vital communications link, between the US and British governments at the very highest level, operated from 1942 until the early 1960s. Although a transatlantic telegraph cable had been in use since 1866, there was no telephone cable until 90 years later, in 1956. An initial shortwave system was set up in 1929, but was of poor quality. The Post Office set up and ran Cooling Radio Station solely for the reception side of two way, shortwave, voice channels with the United States. Land was purchased in 1938 and the building was completed in 1939. The receiver used 1,079 valves and was considered to be the most complex radio built. It was connected to the adjacent MUSA (Multiple Unit Steerable Antenna) and could receive 4 incoming radio telephone channels. It was officially in use on the 1st July 1942. This may well have been because German intelligence services were able to break the scrambler / encryption device available in 1939. By 1943, Bell Laboratories in the US had developed SIGSALY, a far more secure scrambler system. (This system was so well screened and secure that German records captured at the end of WW2 showed that they were not aware that transmissions were person to person, direct voice contact.) SIGSALY was installed in the basement of Selfridges department store in Oxford Street with extensions to 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet War Rooms and the US Embassy amongst others. The US transmitter was located at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, while UK transmissions were made from Rugby to the US receiver at Manahawkin, New Jersey.

Click here to view on YouTube.

Click here to become a member of the AWA.

Radio Waves: Shortwave Secret Weapon, Russian Propaganda in Kansas City, Crisis Radio, and Tape Measure Antenna,

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Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Opinion | Our Secret Weapon Against Putin Isn’t So Secret (Politico)

We already know a lot about how to break through the Kremlin’s wall of silence.

As has been so often stated, the war in Ukraine is, in large measure, an information war — a battle for hearts and minds. Some news outlets have been doing a brilliant job by using their own reporters as well as pictures and videos from social media, carefully vetted for accuracy, to show the horror of the assault by Russia, the bravery of the people of Ukraine and the generosity of people everywhere, especially in the neighboring countries which are absorbing millions of refugees.

Tragically, most of this news has been blocked out of Russia itself.

The government has closed down the few remaining independent newspapers such as Novaya Gazeta and the Moscow Times. President Vladimir Putin signed a law that calls for sentences of up to 15 years in prison for people who distribute “false news” about the Russian military. CNN, Bloomberg, CBS, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and German ARD and ZDF have suspended reporting from inside Russia in response. Russia has shut down social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram that some Russians used to access news.

It might seem like Russians have been shut off from all information except Putin-controlled state media — but they haven’t. The West has a lot of practice breaking through the wall of silence the Kremlin has reerected. To win the information war, we need to revamp the tools we already have in our information war arsenal.

Those include Western news services that broadcast into Russia via a range of technologies. The BBC World Service’s Russian broadcasts have played an important role, as have the Russian language services of Germany and France. But perhaps the most important and effective services are the Voice of America (which was created in 1942 to combat German propaganda) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (which was created to combat Soviet propaganda during the Cold War). Both are produced by the United States Agency for Global Media. As a group, these U.S.-funded journalists reach a weekly audience of about 400 million people in 62 languages.

Since the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both VOA and RFE/RL have recorded record-breaking traffic despite efforts by the Russian government to block access to their programs. Independent digital analytics reports have verified that there have already been more than 1 billion video views of their Russian language content. [Continue reading…]

Low-budget Missouri radio station continues airing Russian state radio programming (Market Watch)

ASSOCIATED PRESS, LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) — A man who runs a little-known, low-budget radio station in suburban Kansas City says he is standing up for free speech and alternative viewpoints when he airs Russian state-sponsored programming in the midst of the Ukrainian war.

Radio Sputnik, funded by the Russian government, pays broadcast companies in the U.S. to air its programs. Only two do so: One is Peter Schartel’s company in Liberty, Mo., and one is in Washington, D.C. Continue reading →

“Cannibal CME” to hit Earth during early hours of March 31, 2022

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

Readers of the SWLing Post blog might be interested in leaning that a “Cannibal CME” is approaching Earth. The Wikipedia page about the Carrington Event says it was probably 2 CME’s in rapid succession -like this description from SpaceWx of what’s coming:

Estimated time of arrival: March 31st

Space Weather News for March 29, 2022
https://spaceweather.com
https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com

A ‘CANNIBAL CME’ IS APPROACHING EARTH: A strong G3-class geomagnetic storm is possible later this week when a ‘Cannibal CME’ hits Earth’s magnetic field. It’s a ‘cannibal’ because it ate one of its own kind en route to our planet. The mash-up of two CMEs could spark naked-eye auroras visible from northern-tier US states. Full story @ Spaceweather.com ( https://spaceweather.com).

Thank you for the tip, Ed!

Carlos’ Shortwave Art and recording of Vatican Radio

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares his radio log art, this time following coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine through Vatican Radio.

Carlos notes:

Vatican Radio, 9705 kHz, special broadcasting, message from Pope Francis in Ukrainian and Russian to Kiev and Moscow due the war in Ukraine.

Broadcasting from Santa Maria di Galeria, Italy, listened in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
March 28, 2022, 04h49 and 05h14 (UTC).

Click here to view on YouTube.

Radio Taiwan International adds new frequency for Russian language service

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(Source: Radio Taiwan International) Note: English Google translation below, click here for the original Russian version at RTI.

6005 kHz from 20:00 to 20:30 UTC – a new broadcast frequency of the Russian MRI service!

Dear listeners of the programs of the Russian MRI Service!

Starting March 27, we will be switching to a new broadcast frequency: 6005 kHz from 20:00 to 20:30 UTC .

Broadcasting region – the European part of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus.

We ask our official monitors (and all listeners) to inform us about the audibility on the new frequency by e-mail [email protected].

Broadcasting at a frequency of 5900 kHz from 17:00 to 17:30 UTC and at a frequency of 9490 kHz from 11:00 to 12:00 is preserved!

Radio Waves: Solidarity Radio, BBC Shortwave & Dark Web, RnaG at 50, and CIDX Focus on Ukraine Update

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

On air! Prague’s ‘solidarity radio’ targets Ukrainians (MSN)

Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war to the Czech Republic got a fresh morale booster this week as a new radio station based in Prague started offering broadcasts in Ukrainian.

The new channel called Radio Ukrajina broadcasts news, tips for refugees, music and fairy tales for children, as well as spiritual comfort passed on by Ukrainian churches.

Run by the Media Bohemia group comprising several radio stations, it broadcasts from an office building in central Prague via a mobile app and on the internet.

“It’s a solidarity radio,” said on-air manager Natalia Churikova, who spent 27 years working for the Prague-based, US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

“We are targeting Ukrainian war refugees who have moved here and trying to give them information they need to start a new life here before they can go back home, which we hope will eventually happen,” she told AFP. [Continue reading…]

BBC turns to dark web and shortwave radio to bring outside news to Russian people amid wartime crackdown (iNews)

Russian citizens are going underground to keep abreast of news from outside Kremlin-controlled sources

The BBC is trying techniques new and old to give Russians access to news from the outside world in the wake of a Kremlin crackdown on critical media.

It is just one of a number of western news sources – including social media platforms – being accessed through the so-called “dark web”, an underground version of the internet which can allow users to avoid being tracked.

“The BBC is doing what it has a long tradition of doing – making independent news available to people, often in places where authorities are trying to restrict access,” a spokesman for the broadcaster told i.

“So BBC will use the tools at its disposal – whether that was shortwave in the past or using circumvention tools now.” [Continue reading…]

RnaG at 50: A radio station created by the people for the people (The Irish Times)

RAIDIÓ NA GAELTACHTA HAS HAD A PROFOUND EFFECT ON THE GAELTACHT OVER THE LAST 50 YEARS, BUT IT DIDN’T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT.

I’m a year older than Raidió na Gaeltachta, so I can’t remember a time that it wasn’t a presence in my life. So many memories are bound up in it,” says Gormfhlaith Ní Thuairisg, presenter of Raidió na Gaeltachta’s weekday morning news programme, Adhmhaidin.

On April 2nd, 1972, 50 years ago next weekend, the State delivered on a promise first made in the 1920s to establish a radio station dedicated to serving Irish speakers in their own language.

“It will not cost a great lot of money, and the intention is that it should provide a programme in keeping with the language of the people,” minister for posts and telegraphs JJ Walsh told the Dáil during a debate on the Wireless Telegraphy Bill in November 1926.

But by the time the 1960s came around, and with still no sign of an Irish language radio service, Irish speakers had had enough of what they saw as empty promises made by the State. [Continue reading…]

Canadian Int. DX Club’s “Focus on Ukraine – Version 2.1” now available (CIDX)

“Focus on Ukraine” is a compilation of news reports, feature articles, references, web links, monitoring information, radio frequencies, independent monitoring reports and more, focusing on the media, communications, radio broadcasting, etc. related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Version 2.1 of the special feature “Focus on Ukraine” is now available on the Canadian Int. DX Club’s webpage at https://cidxclub.ca/ukraine-v2/

NOTE: Items marked NEW in Version 2.1. are additions and updates to Version 1.1 of “Focus on Ukraine”, published March 9, 2022

Version 1.1 is also available at https://cidxclub.ca/ukraine/