Author Archives: Thomas

Weather radios given to communities in path of natural disasters

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

Hi Thomas,

A few months ago, a city in northern California gave away weather radios to help their community prepare for fire season. And last year a county in Georgia did the same thing in advance of extreme weather.

With all the fires and severe weather happening around the world, I’m curious if other communities have been doing emergency radio give-aways? I thought you or other SWLing Post readers might have seen similar stories?

73,
NT

Great question, NT!

Post readers: please comment if you know of other communities around the world who’ve deployed weather radios in an effort to prepare for natural disasters.

Radio Waves: Radio Hats, FCC Fees in 2022, Ham Saves Friend’s Life, and Monitoring the fall of the Afghan Government

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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!

The story of the Radio Hat, 1949 (Rare Historical Photos)

In 1949, Victor Hoeflich held a press conference to introduce the “Man from Mars, Radio Hat”. Hoeflich knew a picture would tell the story so he had several teenagers modeling the radio hats for the reporters and photographers. Soon pictures and news stories appeared in newspapers coast to coast. The articles typically included a photo of a young lady wearing the hat and a six-paragraph story.

Although the radio hat had a futuristic appearance at the time, this was in fact due to technical limitations. While the transistor had been invented in 1947, it was still experimental and not widely available. The hat’s radio relied on vacuum tube technology, and Hoeflich made the tubes a prominent feature, as well as the loop aerial. The tuning knob sat between the two valves. The battery was carried in the user’s pocket.

Continue reading →

Mark shares his preliminary C.Crane CC WiFi-3 notes

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark, who recently shared his notes about the new CC Wifi 3 that only recently started shipping:

Howdy Thomas,

I received the CCWiFi3 [last week]. I was surprised at the small box compared to my CCWiFi2. After opening I found the inner box tightly fitted to the outer shipping container. The radio box is quite nice with graphics and I will keep it for later use if needed.

When I took the radio out of the box it seemed lighter so I weighed it. The CCWiFi3 weighs 1 lbs compared to the CCWiFi2 that weighs 1 lbs 2.8 oz (excluding power adapters and antenna). I’ll be waiting to hear what the tech people will find inside the new radio.

Within five minutes I had the radio plugged in, the SSID found and the password entered without issues.

Continue reading →

Mark recalls passing the Voice of Mongolia by train

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark Fahey, who shared the following comment in reply to this recent post. Mark writes:

A few years ago I traveled Beijing to Helsinki – a 3 week journey via the all stops SLOWWWWW trains via Ulan Bator & Moscow. I was only carrying a backpack so I took along a Tecsun PL-380 (I think that was the model? – It’s up in my Bali home at the moment so I can’t check for sure) and it worked amazing well using the whip next to the train window.

On the journey I passed the Voice Of Mongolia SW Transmitter site – here is a link to my video of the antennas and township (Khonhor) – was a great trip! I will be doing it again next year – this time slightly longer Shanghai to Frankfurt.

That’s just brilliant, Mark! Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to a full tour of the Voice of Mongolia next time you’re passing by! 😉

The Radioddity Raddy WF-100C wireless weather station

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There are a few hobbies and activities that always seem to tie radio enthusiasts together: topics like aviation, astronomy, trains, languages/travel, and the weather.

The weather is a big one for amateur radio operators because it’s often one of the ice-breakers used while connecting with a fellow operator over the air. I suppose it’s for this reason, I can’t remember a single Hamvention that didn’t include at least one vendor exclusively selling personal weather stations.

A few weeks ago, SWLing Post sponsor Radioddity reached out and asked if I would be interested in reviewing and evaluating a new weather station they’ve started selling.

My how times have changed…

I’ve always wanted a proper personal weather station with built-in automatic rain gauge and an anemometer to measure wind speed in real-time. Many years ago, we purchased a commercial-grade Davis weather station for my brother-in-law who is a complete meteorology/weather geek. If memory serves, the entire system cost well over $500, but the Davis is a station that’s robust enough that scientists purchase these for remote monitoring, and research.

My brother-in-law used this station for many years until he moved to a ground floor apartment where he simply had no way to install it. He gave it to me, but I never installed it at our house because doing so with wires would have been challenging and, frankly, not terribly neat–black wires would have been running along our our exterior walls.

I considered purchasing a wireless station, but many were either too expensive or I didn’t know the company well so questioned the quality.

Enter the Raddy WF-100C

I get a lot [understatement alert!] of requests to review products from various companies and decline almost all of them. The reason is, I’m not persuaded by free products and my time to actually do reviews is very limited and precious to me. I stick with reviews directly related to the radio world and products I feel might be useful to our community.

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Malahit DSP-2 Review Update 3: Dan evaluates the latest hardware version

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, for the following guest post:

UPDATE NO 3: Malahit DSP-2 (August 18, 2021)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experiences with the Russia-made Malahit DSP-2 receiver, and made a recommendation that potential purchasers of the receiver hold off until the design team in Russia made some changes.

Weak points included the SMA antenna connector – specifically the short cable going from the antenna to the PCB board, and sharp noise spikes seen at numerous locations throughout the spectrum from mediumwave up to 30 MHz.

My particular DSP-2 unit went dead after an update to an early version of the 2.10TEST firmware. At the time, I had spoken via Skype with Georgiy on the Malahit team and kept up a string of communications on the Malahit Telegram channel.

It was not clear to me whether the problem with the first DSP-2 was primarily due to SMA antenna issues or also due to a problem with the firmware update I had applied at the time (it was an early version of 2.10TEST).

My appreciation goes to Georgiy who decided to send a new DSP-2 to me. This took about 3 weeks from the end of July until just recently when the receiver arrived (though the U.S. Postal Service made the end of that journey quite interesting).

Here are some observations that I hope will help current and prospective owners of the DSP-2: Continue reading →

Carlos Latuff’s shortwave radio logs are a work of art

For those who don’t know, our friend and SWLing Post contributor, Carlos Latuff, is not only a devoted radio enthusiast, but also a prominent political cartoonist in Brazil and throughout the world.

Recently, Carlos has been posting his shortwave logs on his Twitter feed and they’re pretty amazing.

Carlos’ shortwave logs not only include comments and notes from each broadcast, but also his own artwork.

Here’s Carlos’ recording of Vatican Radio which accompanies the log at the top of this post:

Click here to check out Carlos’ Twitter feed where he posts his political cartoons and, yes, even the occasional shortwave listening log!

If you’ve been a reader of the SWLing Post for long, you’ll notice that we’re not a space for political discussions; there are much better options out there on the Internet. Here, we stick to the world of radio, but we can’t help but highlight this intersection and Carlos’ creative logs.

In fact, Carlos, I might nudge you for that Vatican Radio recording and your artwork to post on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive!