Author Archives: Thomas

Voice of Justice broadcasts to North America?

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who comments:

It seems that the VOIRI “Voice of Justice” broadcast to North America may have been axed.

[I] did a quick search on that phrase in the [Shortwave Radio Audio Archive] but came up empty.

Might be nice if someone with a personal band archive could extract an example of that program and put in on the SRAA.

Can anyone confirm this for Richard? A VOIRI recording would make a nice addition to the archive, where we’re attempting to collect samples of as many shortwave broadcasters as possible.

Part 3: SWLing Post shack photos

3 Replies

Rajesh Chandwani (VU2OEC), Gurgaon (Haryana), India INDIA

Several months ago, we conducted a shack photo contest sponsored by Universal Radio. I’m posting all of your excellent photos as time allows and putting them under the tag, shack photos.

The following is the third set of ten photos along with any notes that were included.

Click on images to enlarge and enjoy:

Robert Gulley (AK3Q)

Notes: I have a Kenwood TM-D710G with lots of bells and whistles (center-right), including APRS and packet capability, Echolink, computer control, programming and data output, not to mention the regular functions of a dual-band, cross-band repeat radio. Another rig above and to the left (under the computer monitor) is my main all-mode rig, a Kenwood TS-2000. To the right is an old Swan 350 transceiver and power supply. There is an old manual Dentron tuner above that, and sitting atop of it all is an analog Uniden Bearcat BC898T scanner. There is an amplifier, a 220Mhz rig, several HTs, and on the bottom right my pride and joy Yaesu FRG-7 shortwave receiver. I currently have 6 speakers for various sound outputs. Out of the frame are two more computers, two SDR receivers, another monitor and a sound mixing board. I won’t begin to mention all the portable SW radios and several old DX-160s (my first real SW radio). I love listening/transmitting here, but I also take portable radios around the house and on the front or back porch as the mood hits.

Mahesh Jain (57HS4688)

Notes: I am radio hobbyist particularly my beloved shortwave radio. But it makes me sad to see that most of the radio stations on shortwave in my country India are closing their shortwave broadcast and they are going online and digital, which is available to few not the all people. Hope the radio and specially shortwave radio revive soon. Hope we all have good old days back. 🙂

I love my Graundig Yacht boy 80 radios which I won from DW (german radio) and later i bought Sony ICF SW35. I use telescopic antenna and sometimes I use a reel antenna. I have very little technical knowledge about the radios and antennas used. Still, I keep on experimenting and sometimes found far far away stations, which is obviously a thrilling experience. with this hobby of DXing I have learned a lot about different cultures and nations. Moreover i am using the internet technology to get far away stations which are not targeting my country/region and the WEB SDR is the best source.

Ray Sylvester (NR1R)

Notes: Ray’s main shack rig is the Yaesu FTDX5000MP.

Darwin McDonald (SWL/W8)

Notes: The Drake Receiver is my best–using a long wire and an antenna tuner.

S B Sharma

Notes: In the photo above, I am listening to radio at world famous Buddhist temple in Barbadur, Indonesia. Photo taken while I was surfing and listening voice of Indonesia and general overseas service of India on the temple. I have been listening to radio for the past 32 years and continue today. Due to this hobby, I won two free foreign tours till date and hope there will be some more.

Clyde Ramsdell (N1BHH)

Notes: My simple station/listening post is the Icom IC-735 using one of three antennas:

Off Center Fed Dipole (130 feet) at 45 feet high,
160 meter (250 feet long) dipole at 30 feet high,
Random wire, roughly 45 feet draped around my room.

My bedside radio is a Grundig Yachtboy YB-400 with another random wire draped around the room. In the photo (above) you’ll find the Icom IC-735 on the Astron RS-35 power supply, MFJ-949E tuner and Bencher paddle, a Radio Shack Pro-106 scanner, Icom IC-3AT 220 HT and Yaesu FT-2900R.

Jawahar Shaikh

Notes: My favorite receiver is none other than Tecsun PL-660 as it pulls a lot of far away radio stations without any external antenna!!! On MW I could log a number of South Korea, Japan, and Australian radio stations.On shortwave, numerous far away radio stations including 1 KW Australian Marine Weather Broadcast station VMW. On longwave…Vow…Ireland radio on 252 khz…What else do I need from a budget Tecsun?

The tinyTecsun PL-660 is my DX magic box !!!! So,This is my listening post!

Location: Tamil Nadu state, India.

José William

Notes: This is my little shack that is located in my backyard.

Features:
Receiver- DEGEN DE 1103
Antenna- RGP3-OC Loop Magnética and DEGEN 31MS active loop antenna
Amplifier- Amplificador Indutivo de RF DXCB-V1
Recorder- Sony ICD-PX312F

Peter Ströhlein

Notes: My Listeningt post consists of my fav. Kenwood TS-50 (30khz – 30Mhz) and a VHF YAESU FT-1900.

All night long when my kids are in bed, I spend my time listening to numerous SW Stations.

This is my hobby since nearly 30 years! 🙂 So that’s my little listening post, illuminated with two little LED-Spots for SWL Nights with “Style”. 🙂

Hank Dean (KU8S)

Notes: Here are four photos of a portable outing “QRP to the field” op in April 2013. This park is called Bear Pond and is located in the Seminole State Forest, west of Sanford, FL on SR 46, about four miles from my house. I love this place. Great place to have lunch and play radio.

The rig is a Yaesu FT-817ND QRP transceiver, a PAR end fed wire antenna, and SLAB 12v 10AHr battery. Apple IPad does the logging chores. Add some Chinese food, some almond cookies, a little sweet tea, Hmmnnnnnn, life is good!

Life is good, indeed, Hank! What a great way to cap off this third set of shack photos!

Again, many thanks to all who sent in their listening post photos. I absolutely love the variety!

Follow the tag Shack Photos for more!

Nothing to hear on shortwave? Jacques disagrees…

15 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Jacques Catherine, who left the following comment on our post from 2012: Is there anything to listen to on shortwave?

“I live in Mauritius Island in the Indian Ocean and I’ve been listening to Shortwave since I was a kid (I’m 58 today) on my dad’s good old Phillips wooden valve radio.

I’m sorry, but shortwave is certainly not dead. After having read all the comments above, I come to the conclusion that reception definitely depends on your location.

The Tecsun PL-660.

I have two Tecsun receivers ( Tecsun S 2000 and PL 660) hooked to a Windom antenna and an ATU. I receive dozens of stations from all over the world here as well as a lot of stuff on ssb, including – in the morning – New York MWARA (8825.0 usb), Gander (8831.0 usb) or, in the evening, Brisbane (5634.0 usb).

Broadcast stations from Japan, Taiwan, India, Iran, Australia, Singapore, China, Africa and even the US, come in here loud and clear with very little static, depending on the season and time of the day. I think I’m privileged to be located where I am !

And I bought some years back a pair of cheap small wooden amplified speakers in Hong Kong that reproduce exactly the sound of my dad’s old valve radio!”

Thank you for your comment, Jacques. You’re right: it’s all about your location…and you certainly live in a prime spot!

I’m most fortunate that I live where I do–quite far away from sources of noise that plague our urban readers/listeners (and that have plagued me in the past). My location is not ideal (from a radio/receiving standpoint) because my ground conductivity is very poor and I’m in North America where very few broadcasts are targeted these days. I do, however, have the space for a rather large horizontal delta loop antenna that serves me well across the HF bands. I might have invested $50 in the antenna wire and components five years ago.

When propagation is good, some broadcast bands are actually packed tightly with signals. Indeed, Thursday last week, I could’ve easily logged two dozen stations on the 31 meter band alone. Here’s a screen capture from the spectrum display of my SDR:

If you live in an urban area and feel that you’re missing out on the action, consider taking your receiver outdoors and away from interference. Take your receiver on hikes, camping trips or to the beach. You might be surprised by the number of stations you’ll log!

Recently, our friend London Shortwave has been posting an amazing array of broadcast recordings he’s made in a park in the middle of London, England. He’s the guru of mitigating urban interference.

When I have time to curate the recordings, I hope to do a 2016 update of “Is there anything to listen to on shortwave?“–it’s been on my to-do list for a while now.

Jacques, thanks again for your comment and reminding us to keep listening!

One year with the TitanSDR

2 Replies

Last year, I reviewed the TitanSDR Pro by the Italian manufacturer, Enablia,. I was very impressed with not only this receiver’s performance, but also its accompanying application’s user interface. I also noted in the review that the TitanSDR is pricier than many other benchmark SDRs on the market ($1380-1970 EUR) but it is, after all, essentially a military-grade SDR that has been ported to the enthusiast/ham radio market.

I’ve been using and testing updates to theTitanSDR Pro for a year now, and I continue to be just as impressed with this receiver––and, especially, with the company who manufactures it, Enablia.

I wondered at the time of my initial review how supportive Enablia might turn out to be; I knew time would tell. Since my original review last year, Enablia has been regularly updating the TitanSDR application, adding many features requested by its users. This shows a remarkable degree of responsiveness, and I now feel safe to say that that Enablia is an exceptional manufacturer with an exceptional product.

Only recently, I received an update which added two notch filters per narrowband channel, memories that retain AGC and notch filters settings, and sessions that retain AGC settings. I understand Enablia is also preparing updates that improve upon memory management, user interface, audio defaults, as well as offering a few tweaks to the existing feature set.

Overall, Enablia developers are certainly making this signal intelligence SDR cater to the ham radio and enthusiast market even better than before.

Though I use a number of SDRs, I reach for the TitanSDR any time there are multiple-band openings since it can record spectrum and audio across the entire LW/MW/SW landscape. Unlike my other SDRs, it’s not limited to an (already generous) 2-6 MHz recording/listening window.

For example, on Thursday night I had a lot on my listening/recording plate as there were a number of band openings. I had the TitanSDR tuned to:

the 31 meter band,
the 20 meter ham radio band,
the 49 meter band (specifically monitoring South American stations), and even
the mediumwave band.

The TitanSDR was recording spectrum on the 49 meter band while I made this AF recording of the Voice of Greece on the 31 meter band (9420 kHz, starting around 00:26 UTC on April 8, 2016):

Surprisingly, all of this recording wasn’t taxing my PC, nor the TitanSDR.

The TitanSDR application is highly stable and uses resources efficiently. Indeed, in the past year, to my knowledge the TitanSDR application hasn’t crashed even once, despite my rigorous demands of it. Since it runs nearly 24/7 in my shack, on a four-year old PC (third generation i5 Win 7), that’s saying a lot.

SWLing Post reader, Tony Roper, is also a heavy TitanSDR user and recently posted this 30+ minute video demonstrating some of the TitanSDR’s new features. Note that his screen capture software produced fairly low audio, so you’ll need to turn up the volume to hear his commentary:

Click here to view on YouTube.

In short, I stand by my conclusions drawn last year in my TitanSDR review: although pricey compared to the competition, for those who can afford the price tag, the TitanSDR is a worthy hard-core DX machine that is especially useful to need a receiver with a bullet-proof front end, to weak-signal DXers, and to radio archivists like yours truly.

ISS Slow Scan TV reception opportunities in April

ISS Slow Scan TV in April

ARISS reports that International Space Station (ISS) Slow Scan Television (SSTV) transmissions on 145.800 MHz FM may take place between April 11-15, 2016

The schedule for the ARISS commemorative event is currently:
• Setup and activation on April 11 about 18:25 UT.
• Paused April 12 from 12:15 until 14:15 UT to allow for a school contact with Romania.
• Paused April 13 from 12:45 until 14:30 UT to allow for a school contact with Argentina.
• Deactivation on April 14 at 11:35 UT.

This opportunity should cover most of the world during the operational period. The image transmissions should be on 145.800 MHz and the mode is planned to be PD180.

In addition, MAI-75 (SSTV Experiment) will be conducting two sessions afterwards. The first one is April 14 from 14:45 until 18:00 UT.
The second session is on April 15 from 14:10 until 19:00 UT. These times do not cross N. America but will provide opportunities for Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia and S. America.

Check the ARISS SSTV Blog for the latest updates
http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.co.uk/

For information on how to receive SSTV from the ISS with sample audio from John Brier KG4AKV and a link to his popular hints page see
https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/iss-sstv/

Information on the MAI-75 SSTV experiment
http://www.energia.ru/eng/iss/researches/education-26.html

Click here to read this article on the Southgate ARC website.

Can you help Paul ID this station?

5 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who is seeking your help. Paul writes:

Well, I think I have an ID but I also think I’m wrong.

I had weather in english by a female computerized voice on 6518.80USB. Heard on 04/10/16 at 910PM AKDT (0510UTC 04/11/16) in Galena, Alaska using a Tecsun PL880 and 80 foot longwire.

Here’s the audio, all 7 minutes and 3 seconds worth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GanBsfuyS0

Click here to listen on YouTube.

It was fairly clear and pretty steady here in the middle of central Alaska.
It was giving weather for the Caribbean and apparently the only hit I can find online for either both from Eibi and Google says that 6518.80 USB belongs to Punta Carretas, Uruguay.

If that’s really what I heard, A.) It was strong and B.) Why was it in english?
I suspect I didn’t really have them and it was from somewhere else. This signal is just to be good to be Uruguay, but a DX says they are the only things that come up in a search for 6518.80 USB but the times I heard them don’t match.

If you can help Paul, please comment!

eBay find: Rack of classic receivers

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shared a link to this rack of classic cold war era receivers. The starting bid is $943.75 and there is no shipping cost as it’s local pickup only (no surprise there).

Here’s the description from eBay:

LOCAL PICK UP ONLY Paso Robles Ca. 93446. Good condition, rack of Communications and Amateur Radio receivers. Includes Hallicrafters R-46B loudspeaker, two each Hammarlund SP-600 JX-26 receivers with one frequency readout as shown above the top receiver, a National NC-300 receiver with calibrator accessory, and a Hallcrafters SX-101A receiver with calibrator accessory. The rack cabinet is included. All have normal wear for vintage electronics, worn with faded, chipped and rust spots. The SP-600 receivers (both) dial slips and may need repair. All units may need further repair, alignment, or refurbishing. Local pick up only, I can help loading into your vehicle. 70hi 22wide 20deep weights about 600 pounds

Click here to view on eBay.

I think this would be a great deal if all of the equipment was in working order. I suspect this seller hasn’t tested anything and is, most likely, not a radio enthusiast. I bet the reason the SP-600 dials are spinning freely is because the tuning lock is engaged on each unit–possibly a good sign that the previous owner took care of the equipment. All of it looks good (cosmetically) for its age.

If I were interested, I’d go by and check this out in person prior to bidding.