Shortwave listening and everything radio including reviews, broadcasting, ham radio, field operation, DXing, maker kits, travel, emergency gear, events, and more
It’s a Radio Set SCR-203 (Phillip pack saddle mounted). Consisted of: BC-228 transmitter – Transmitter, 2.1-3.1 MHz, 2 ea VT-25 & VT-50, Part of SCR-203 BC-227 receiver – Receiver, 2.1-3.1 MHz, Part of SCR-203 BC-235 control box – Control box, Part of SCR-203
The unit was powered by various battery packs and a GN-35 hand cranked generator and used a 25 ft whip antenna (Image: W.J. Schweitzer collection)
Thanks so much for identifying the equipment, Richard!
SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, is seeking your input for his next shortwave broadcast. Paul writes:
Thomas, I will be doing another shortwave broadcast in about 2 months and I need some input from your readers, particularly those in the US.
I will likely broadcast just on WRMI this time, but instead of an East Coast target area on 11580khz, I am going to aim for the Midwest & West Coast via 5850khz or 7570khz.
It appears the signals which are on 2300UTC to 1400UTC daily have the same beam at 315 degrees towards Vancouver, Canada. They both appear to cover the Midwest fairly well as hitting the west coast.
I would love to hear from readers if there is an actual difference in the two signals despite the same power and beam. Maybe one channel has adjacent channel interference or something.
If folks could check either frequency as close as possible to 0500UTC/12midnight eastern and note conditions on both signal and the differences between the two, I would appreciate it. (0500utc/12midnight eastern wlll likely be the time of my next broadcast.
One friend already reported slightly better audio processing and slightly better modulation. […]I want to know what my target audience in the Midwest & Western US thinks.
Thanks, Paul
Please feel free to comment if you can assist Paul.
“AM occurs elsewhere in nature. A lightning strike or manmade electrical discharge will produce a burst of electrical noise that varies in amplitude. Since AM radios are designed to detect variations in amplitude, this is why they are prone to interference from such things. AM held sway as the primary method of modulating a radio wave up to WWII, not only for broadcasting, but for all types of radio communications.
Every vintage consumer radio, be it standard broadcast or shortwave, up to WWII, received amplitude modulated signals. Nowadays, AM broadcast stations are associated with lower quality audio, but such was not always the case. Receiver design really came of age in the 1930s with the superheterodyne circuit and advancements in loudspeaker design. The grand floor consoles of the late 1930s leading up to WWII were capable of producing audio that was very good, even by today’s standards, the only exception being that they were monaural, as stereo technology was still a ways off.”[…]
Litwinovich’s article is a must-read as he gives a concise overview of amplitude modulation, AM vs. FM, and even covers current proposed uses of the broadcast band (something we’ve also recently mentioned).
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, William Lee, who shared the following story from Mynorthwest.com about how radio station KIRO saved a bit of radio history through “accidental preservation.” Here’a an excerpt:
One of the most important events of the 20th century was World War II. The Cold War that followed and many of the national borders that exist to this day were largely created during that deadly, years-long conflict from the late 1930s to 1945.
An expert speaking at the Library of Congress at the first-ever Radio Preservation Task Force Conference described how one of the most important tools for understanding World War II is available to researchers only because of an “accident” at KIRO Radio more than 70 years ago.
During his keynote address last week in Washington, DC, longtime archivist and librarian Sam Brylawski spoke of KIRO Radio’s role in saving a priceless audio record of American history.
It was a case of “accidental preservation,” Brylawski told the audience of more than 200 radio history scholars from around the US and Canada, that resulted in the creation of a nearly complete archive of CBS news broadcasts during World War II.
“KIRO is the station in Seattle that cut lacquer discs to timeshift,” Byrlawski said, explaining how the scheduling of live broadcasts of CBS Radio’s news coverage was aimed at the Eastern time zone, which was not convenient for West Coast audiences. KIRO, as Brylawski described, violated network radio policies to make recordings of news programs on giant, 16-inch diameter discs, and then play them back a few hours later at times that were more convenient to Seattle-area listeners.
Looking back through my notes this morning, I re-discovered this excellent documentary on the early days of radio listening; how radio changed the way we interacted with music and how we interacted with our radios.
As broadcasting took the world by storm in the 1920s, the radio quickly became the hub of many households. Entire families would huddle around their receiver, each person individually connected with their own headset.
But for this first generation of radio listeners, the flexible styles of listening that we habitually employ today were by no means innate – many sat silent and fully attentive, listening just as they would in a concert hall.
Historian Dominic Sandbrook charts how a new, more informal style of listening gradually evolved through the 1920s and 30s, by delving into the diaries of the Austrian musician Heinrich Schenker.
Schenker began to record what he heard on the radio within days of the inaugural broadcast from Austria’s first official station, Radio Wien. This rare and fascinating record, which spans just over a decade, offers tangible evidence of how new approaches to listening emerged over these formative years. We’ll follow Schenker’s journey as the radio shifts from being something that demanded his rapt attention, to eventually becoming an integrated part of his domestic life.
Yesterday, my buddy Eric (WD8RIF) sent the following message:
“Take your girls outside with an HT and listen to the ARISS pass in just about 10 minutes. The downlink freq is 145.800.”
Though I was in the middle of another project, I took Eric’s advice: I grabbed my Yaesu VX-3, corralled my daughters and ran outside. Eric’s message was already eight minutes old when I read it, so I only had about two minutes to get ready.
My Everyday Carry (EDC) pack, loaded with all of the essentials.
Fortunately, I always have a Yaesu VX-3R loaded with fresh batteries in my EDC pack (above).
Official NASA portrait of British astronaut Timothy Peake. Photographer: Robert Markowitz
With the VX-3 tuned to 145.8 MHz, we waited as the ISS made its way above the horizon. The downlink audio of astronaut Tim Peake (KG5BVI) communicating with Walter Jackson Elementary in Decatur, Alabama, started to punch through the static after a minute or two. We listened the entire time we had line-of-sight to the ISS–about five minutes or so. We were pretty deep in a valley at that point, so I’m pleased we were able to catch even that much of a pass.
Of course, we could only hear one side of the conversation: the downlink from the International Space Station.
It was a memorable event for my girls who have seen ISS passes at night, but had never heard live audio from an astronaut before.
Eric pointed me to the ARISS “Upcoming Contacts” (http://www.ariss.org/upcoming-contacts.html) page where future ARISS QSOs are listed. Evidently, this particular ARISS QSO was the third Eric had monitored in two weeks.
Pretty much any receiver that can tune to 145.80 MHz FM–or a VHF scanner–can hear the ARISS downlink as long as the ISS is passing overhead during the transmission. Of course, if you have a high-gain antenna that can track the ISS as it moves across the sky, you’ll get even better results than I did with my basic rubber duck antenna.
My advice? If you want to impress a child (or your inner child–!) find a little time to listen to a future ARISS QSO!
Indeed, the next step for me is to see if I can propose an ARISS QSO for our school group!
Please support this website by adding us to your whitelist in your ad blocker. Ads are what helps us bring you premium content! Thank you!
