Author Archives: Thomas

San Diego Elephant Cage scheduled for demolition

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SanDiego

On the topic of Wullenweber antennas, SWLing Post reader, Mike, points to this article on U-T San Diego’s website:

Navy’s mysterious ‘elephant cage’ retired: Cold War-era structure a visual landmark on Silver Strand

Beachgoers will say goodbye this month to the “elephant cage” — the mysterious metal structure that has graced the south end of the Silver Strand for 50 years.

The Navy will demolish the circular cage-like contraption as part of an initiative to get rid of obsolete gear.

Officially known as the Wullenweber Antenna Array, the 1,300-foot-diameter structure was built in 1964.

Many details are shrouded in Cold War-era secrecy, Navy officials say.

[…]In simple terms, the huge circular antenna was used to intercept radio signals and detect which direction they came from.

With a range up to 3,200 nautical miles, the Silver Strand antenna likely monitored the Pacific Ocean and parts of Central and South America.

U.S. allies around the world also housed “elephant cages” during the Cold War.

One was located in the United Kingdom, to intercept signals originating from Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe as well as portions of the former Soviet Union.

Another array, located in San Vito dei Norrnanni Air Station. ltaly, opened in 1960 to monitor areas of the Middle East.

Others were built in West Germany, the Philippines, Japan and Canada.

In order to preserve history, the Navy plans to keep the five tallest screens plus some guy wires and anchorage posts. It is also working on a digital 3-D model of the antenna.

Read the full article at U-T San Diego…

John Lennon and the Sony ICF-2001

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icf2001l

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Robert Yowell, who writes:

“I happen to be a huge Beatles fan, and especially a fan of John Lennon’s solo music as well. The last album he recorded was “Double Fantasy” which was made in New York City during the summer of 1980.

As you probably know, Sony introduced that same year the revolutionary ICF-2001 PLL synthesized receiver. John was known to have been a great fan of home electronics, especially those produced by Sony and other Japanese manufacturers. He also was a great fan of radio – as his appearances on the local WNEW-FM rock music station in NYC in the 70’s attest to.”

Photo credit: Bob Gruen, a photographer who photographed John many times during the latter part of his life in New York City.

Photo credit: Bob Gruen who photographed John Lennon many times during the latter part of his life in New York City.

“The attached photo was taken at the NYC studio called “The Record Plant” during the making of the album “Double Fantasy” in 1980.While I cannot be 100% sure that the ICF-2001 sitting on the table belonged to John – I think it is extremely likely. He still stayed in regular contact with his native England, and at this pre-Internet time, the only easy way for him to listen to the BBC was through this radio.

Another possibility is John enjoyed experimenting with new sounds in his music. During the Beatles, he even plugged in a radio into the sound mixing board when the song “I Am the Walrus” was recorded. You can hear at the end of the song a heterodyne whistle of tuning in a station as it settles on the BBC during a reading of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Perhaps John was intending to do something similar in the studio the day this photo was taken?”

I imagine that was a good possibility, Robert. Again, many thanks for this bit of Lennon history.

For those of you who have never heard “I am the Walrus,” you can listen below courtesy of YouTube:

Tearing down an Elephant Cage

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800px-CDAA_Elmendorf_AFBThis past week, I posted a couple of articles about Wullenweber antennas (a.k.a. “Elephant Cages”). Many thanks to Andrea Borgnino who shares this article by Joseph Trevithick
via Medium.com:

The U.S. Air Force Is Tearing Down a Giant Spy Antenna: ’Elephant cages’ are a dying breed

The U.S. Air Force has started tearing down a massive antenna in Japan. Once used to scan airwaves around the world, these systems have become obsolete as countries change how they communicate.

On Oct. 15, workers began removing the antenna—designated AN/FLR-9—at Misawa air base in Japan. The demolition has been on the flying branch’s agenda for more than a year now.

“Technology and fiscal constraints have driven Misawa Security Operations Center to seek new ways of doing business,” Col. Joseph Winters told Air Force reporters. The antenna—which is almost 1,500 feet wide—should be completely gone by the end of 2015.

Misawa’s system was one of eight AN/FLR-9s the Pentagon built in the United States, Europe and the Pacific during the 1960s. The site actually has three concentric rings of smaller antennae, hence the popular “elephant cage” nickname.

Continue reading on Medium.com…

Shortwave Radio Recordings: The Mighty KBC

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Kinks_Lola_Uk_CoverLast Sunday, I tuned to The Mighty KBC on 7,375 kHz, starting at 0000 UTC. The KBC signal out of Europe was blow-torch strength.

The Mighty KBC’s Giant Jukebox is chock-full of rock-n-roll and Euro-pop variety, spanning the decades. DJ “Uncle Eric” never disappoints.

If band conditions are as good as last night, you should be able to hear The Mighty KBC quite easily tonight.

In the meantime, here’s a recording from last week to wet your appetite:

Audio Player

Capturing spectrum and logging band openings last night

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My 31 meter band spectrum display last night. Strong signals across the board.

Waterfall display of the 31 meter band last night.

Last night, band conditions were superb above 7 MHz. Both the 31 and 25 meter bands seemed crowded with stations; for a moment, it felt like a true solar peak.

This morning, solar flares have dampened down the excitement but I imagine conditions could favorably change at times this weekend, so stay tuned!

I recorded the entire 25M band for a couple of hours yesterday evening and a large portion of the 31 meter band throughout the night. Fortunately, I had just invested in another Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA drive, so there was ample space to make these (very) large recordings. I think this brings my overall spectrum storage up to 12 TB!?!

I love the fact that these SDR band captures will make for good listening sometime this winter when the sun isn’t being so cooperative. I liken it to radio time travel, but I believe David Goren (of shortwaveology.net) said it best in a comment he posted in “Confessions of an SDRaholic: when 4.5 terabytes is not enough“:

“My approach to recording SDR band captures is like assembling a collection of fine wines. I tend to record captures when there are unusual propagational openings…and while recording a whole swath of frequencies for an hour or so you can still tune around and make discoveries and even record them singly.. And then once the capture is done, you have it as long as you want to keep it.. So, on a static-y summers day I can go to the shelf and pull down “Ye Olde Auroral MW Opening 10/15/11? or “Hot Bolivian evening on 60 meters.” and I can make discoveries to my heart’s content. Since I can listen to an hour’s worth of each frequency it will take a long time to exhaust the potential of any particular capture, esp. with the ability to refilter and change. multiple parameters of reception.”

See? (I tell my wife) I’m simply building my collection of fine wines!

Below, you’ll find some of the stations I logged last night (actually, this morning in UTC).

Logs:

31 meter band beginning 00:00 UTC, 25 OCT 2014

  • 9410 BBC English Nakhon Sawan
  • 9420 ERT Open/VOG Greek
  • 9455 China National Radio 1 Chinese
  • 9470 AIR National Channel Hindi/English (vy wk)
  • 9475 WTWW English
  • 9510 China Radio International Russian
  • 9520 PBS Nei Menggu Chinese AND Radio Romania International Romanian
  • 9565 Radio Tupi/Super Radio Deus e Amor Portuguese (QRM from CRI 9570)
  • 9570 China Radio International English
  • 9586 Super Radio Deus e Amor Portuguese
  • 9590 China Radio International Spanish
  • 9630 Radio Aparecida Portuguese
  • 9645 Radio Bandeirantes Portuguese
  • 9660 Radio Taiwan International Chinese
  • 9665 China National Radio 5 Chinese or possibly KCBS Pyongyang Korean
  • 9690 All India Radio English
  • 9700 Radio Romania International English
  • 9705 All India Radio English
  • 9710 China Radio International Portuguese
  • 9730 Adventist World Radio Manumanaw Karen or possibly 9730 Myanmar Radio Burmese
  • 9740 BBC English (vy weak)
  • 9800 China Radio International Spanish
  • 9810 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish
  • 9820 Radio 9 de Julho Portuguese
  • 9855 Voice of America Tibetan
  • 9860 Voice of Islamic Rep. of Iran Spanish
  • 9870 AIR New Delhi Hindi
  • 9880 Voice of America Chinese (vy weak)
  • 9935 ERT Open, VOG Greek
  • 9965 Radio Cairo Arabic
  • 10000 WWV Ft. Collins

25 meter band beginning  0100 UTC, 25 OCT 2014

  • 11520 EWTN (WEWN) English
  • 11580 SOH Xi Wang Zhi Sheng Chinese/Cantonese
  • 11590 Radio Japan Hindi (vy weak)
  • 11620 China National Radio 5 Chinese
  • 11640 Radio Free Asia Uyghur
  • 11650 China Radio International Chinese
  • 11670 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish
  • 11695 Radio Free Asia Tibetan
  • 11710.7 Radio Cairo Spanish (transmitter noise)
  • 11760 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish
  • 11780 Radio Nacional da Brasilia Portuguese
  • 11825 Bro Stair
  • 11840 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish
  • 11855 Radio Aparecida Portuguese
  • 11870 EWTN (WEWN) Spanish
  • 11905 Sri Lanka BC English/Hindi
  • 11955 Radio Romania International French
  • 12020 VoA Deewa Radio Pashto
  • 12025 UNID
  • 12070 Radio Cairo Spanish (jammed or transmitter noise?)
  • 12105 WTWW Spanish

ERT Open (Voice of Greece) moves back to 9420 kHz

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ERT_DigitalIf you were listening to the 31 meter band last night in North America, you would have heard a very strong ERT Open (Voice of Greece) back on their long-established frequency of 9420 kHz.

Only yesterday, I posted a note about ERT’s apparent move to 9415 kHz to avoid interference with the IRIB. Seems they changed their mind.

Indeed, conditions were superb last night and bands were wide open above 7 MHz. ERT was broadcasting on 9420 and 9935 kHz and both were strong (S9+).

I’m very curious if ERT will remain on 9420 or move back to 9415 kHz during the week. I suppose time will tell.

The Guardian: BBC broadcasts banned over Rawanda genocide documentary

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the-guardian-logo(Source: The Guardian via Andy Sennitt)

The Rwandan government has suspended all BBC radio broadcasts in Rwanda’s most common language to protest against the news organisation’s recent documentary about the 1994 genocide in the country.

President Paul Kagame’s government, members of parliament and genocide survivors have expressed their anger at the BBC over the recent documentary that suggested the country’s president may have had a hand shooting down his predecessor’s plane, a crash that triggered the mass killings.

Its hour-long documentary, Rwanda, The Untold Story, also quoted US researchers who suggested that many of the more than 800,000 Rwandans who died in the 1994 genocide may have been ethnic Hutus, and not ethnic Tutsis as the Rwandan government maintains.

Late on Friday, the Rwandan Utilities Regulatory Authority announced the suspension of the BBC’s broadcasts in the local language, Kinyarwanda. The board said it took the action because it has received complaints of “incitement, hatred, divisionism, genocide denial and revision” from the public. It said further action could be taken.

The BBC had defended the film on Friday, saying it had a “duty to investigate difficult and challenging subjects”.

Continue reading at The Guardian…