Category Archives: Art

“Requiem For Radio” shortwave schedule

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View of the western cluster of curtain antennas from the roof of RCI Sackville’s transmissions building. (Photo: The SWLing Post) –Click to enlarge

(Source: Mauno Ritola via the WRTH Facebook Group)

From Christian Milling: A classical piece for 5 voices will be also sung where bass comes eg. from Nauen, alto from Moosbrunn, tenor from WRMI etc…
The European tx antennas are directed towards Canada / NAm.

Airtimes:

25th May 2017 2300-2400 UTC
26th May 2017 2300-2400 UTC
27th May 2017 2300-2400 UTC

Schedule:

WRMI : Radio Miami International 11580 kHz
WBCQ : Free Speech Radio 5130 kHz
Nauen: Shortwaveservice 9690 kHz
Moosbrunn: Shortwaveservice 9620 kHz
Boston Pirate Radio 6850 kHz

The content is identically on all three days. A QSL is planned.

Click here to learn more about Requiem for Radio.

Requiem For Radio: Amanda Dawn Christie’s performance piece honoring RCI Sackville

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(Source: Amanda Dawn Christie via Twitter)

(Source: CBC News)

Moncton artist bringing back sounds of former Sackville Radio-Canada towers

A Moncton artist has brought back to life the sounds of the 13 CBC Radio-Canada International shortwave towers that once stood in Sackville, N.B. on the Tantramar Marsh.

“It’s kind of like you’re conjuring ghosts of radio towers,” explained the artist Amanda Dawn Christie on Shift N.B.

Requiem For Radio: Full Quiet Flutter

The experimental sound art project Requiem For Radio: Full Quiet Flutter involves a scale model of the original towers, but a large model — about 16-metres wide, six-metres deep and five-metres tall.

Christie said the towers have red lights resembling the originals. They are made from pipes with four copper pads on each tower.

She added that when someone touches one of the copper pads, a wireless signal is sent to a computer, which then sends a sound file back to that tower of the actual, recorded sound the original tower made when it was operational. The sound is transmitted through a speaker on the model tower.

[…]But the model towers are more than something to be gazed upon and admired. They are musical instruments that Christie and two other musicians will be playing at one-hour performances on May 26 and 27 at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre in Moncton. The performances will also be broadcast on radio stations in Moncton, Montreal and New York.[…]

Continue reading at CBC News…

More radios in the movies: James Bond “Dr. No” (1962)

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bruce Fisher, who adds the following to our growing archive of radios in film. Bruce writes:

Here are three shots from the first few minutes of the 1962 James Bond
film “Dr. No”:

The second shot is a close up of the radio in the first shot. (These appear at about 4:30)

I suppose the last shot is from the BBC Monitoring Station? (about 5:30).

Thanks for sharing these screen shots, Bruce!

That looks like a K.W. Vanguard amateur transmitter in the first two photos, of course, but I can’t determine what the receiver is on the right. Can someone identify?

2017 Winter SWL Fest: Selected forum recordings

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The DoubleTree hotel where the Winter SWL Fest is held. (Note the mag loop antenna on the top floor!)

This year, at the Winter SWL Fest, representatives from the Wave Farm recorded a number of Fest forums and events. Many thanks to David Goren who recently shared a link to these recordings on the Wave Farm’s website. For convenience, I’ve pasted a list of the recordings below which link directly to the Wavefarm archive:

“Turn Your Radio On” performed live at the 2017 Shortwave Shindig: Mar 4, 2017
Performed by Saul Brody

Pirate Radio in Continental Europe – A Personal View: Mar 4, 2017
Presented by Andy Walker ?+ Chris Ise

Shortwave Shindig Part I: Mar 4, 2017
Hosted by David Goren

Pirate Radio Year in Review?: Mar 3, 2017
Presented by ?George Zeller

Farewell to the BBG: What’s Ahead for U.S. International Media and the VOA?? : Mar 3, 2017
Presented by Dan Robinson?

Radio 101 Part II: Mar 2, 2017
Presented by Charles Hargove.

Radio 101 — The Past, Present and Future of Radio for Newbies and Significant Others of Radio Geeks: Mar 2, 2017
Presented by Charles Hargrove

Radio on the Road: Mar 2, 2017
Presented by Janice Laws + Steve Karlock

SDR on the Cheap: Mar 2, 2017
Presented by Dan Srebnick

SWL Winter Fest memories: Mar 2, 2017

Pristine Condition Braun T-1000 Receiver Appears on Ebay

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The German industrial designer Dieter Rams is world renowned for his beautiful and functional product designs, including the Braun T-1000 portable receiver.

These fine, collectable receivers appear on Ebay regularly, but this one is in pristine shape:

The asking price is a cool $1,800 USD, but for the near mint condition of this T-1000 it is likely appropriate; perhaps the new owner will acquire it for a “Best Offer” price. Other T-1000s on Ebay currently are priced from $370 to $1,299.

Of course, the cost is in-line with a collectable value; functionally, it’s reception abilities are almost certainly surpassed by a modestly priced SDRPlay RSP1 or a vintage Sony ICF-2010 for instance. The radio aficionado interested in the 55 year old T-1000 is not expecting best-in-class reception, but the chance to own a recognized icon of industrial design (the T-1000 is in NYC’s Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection).

Click here for the Ebay auction of the Braun T-1000: http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAUN-T1000-GERMAN-GRUNDIG-SATELLIT-LIKE-SW-TRANSISTOR-RADIO-NEAR-MINT-/201891688853

Guy Atkins is a Sr. Graphic Designer for T-Mobile and lives near Seattle, Washington.  He’s a regular contributor to the SWLing Post.

One vintage radio in two classic films

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Hawkins, who writes:

This evening I watched the excellent Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines on Netflix streaming. This is a 1943 training film for Office of Strategic Services personnel learning how be secret agents. The film was directed by the legendary John Ford who also took an acting role in the film. In this scene, Al is receiving his forged papers from an OSS agent before leaving for Germany. A radio may seen on a shelf in the background.

Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines is also available on YouTube:

Click here to view on YouTube.

The next film is much better known. The same model radio makes a foreground appearance in Some Like it Hot. Osgood Fielding III has one of these on his yacht.

Maybe Osgood is laughing because the film takes place in 1929 and the company that made the radio was founded several years later.

I won’t spoil the secret of this radio’s maker and model. It will probably not take long for SWLing Post readers to come up with an answer.

Post readers: are you up for the challenge? 🙂 What model of radio do we see here? I’ll keep quiet, because it’s one of my favorite manufacturers.

And, Dan, many thanks. I really do owe you one because I was not familiar with Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines. I can’t believe there was a WWII era Ford film I had missed. I, too, have Netflix but the YouTube copy you suggested is actually a better restored version in terms of audio.  Thanks again!

Short Waves / Long Distance Repository

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Goren, who shares the following (via Facebook):

Short Waves / Long Distance Repository

The Short Waves / Long Distance Repository is now online. Comprised of selected works from submissions to the highly competitive open call Short Waves / Long Distance, these 38 works exploring the sonics of the shortwave radio spectrum (2-30 mHz), and the experience of long distance listening. The Repository features the following works:

a lagoon, considered against its archival image, Sally Ann McIntyre (Radio Cegeste)
All the News All the Time, Dafna Naphtali
an electrical discharge, a sea of burning oil slicks, Sally Ann McIntyre (Radio Cegeste)
Argent Discovery, Jed Miner
CODEX: Post-Human Speech Sounds, Tom Miller (a.k.a. Comrade Squelch)
Caller, Ed Osborn
Chasing Waterfalls, Sam Rowell
Crimean Snow, John Roach
Elegy for RCI, Lee Rosevere
Fringe Area, William Basinski
Fuzz, Ricardo Paraíso Silvestre
Ghostwave, Jacques Foschia
Hellschreiber, Acoustic Mirror
I listened to the buzzer for hours and nothing happened (edit), D.N.P vs Mutate
Körper, Antonio D’Amato
L’abolition de la Croix, Meira Asher
Let’s Absorb The Waves As We Hold On For Dear Life, Nicholas Knouf
Michael Sedore, ND2Q, Dominique Ferraton
Modulation I, Javier Suarez Quiros
Ondes Simultanee et Perturber, Patrick Harrop
Oracle, Edward Ruchalski
Orbital Lullaby, Craig Dongoski
Over the Horizon, Pietro Bonanno
öö and ää, Evangelos Makropoulos, Gosha Hniu, Victor Math, and Horace Prawn
Short Waves, So Beast
Shortwave Radio, South Africa, IV, Gregory Kramer
Shortwaves trip, Paolo Pastorino
Spectres of Shortwave: Falling Towers (excerpt), Amanda Dawn Christie
St Columb Major – transmission received, Mark Vernon
Staubrauschen (Dusty Noise / Media Dirt), Timo Kahlen
Strange Sonars, Linda Dusman & Alan Wonneberger
Stratocode from nowhere, Flaub
The Perfect Storm, Stephen Bradley
Three Steppes Forward Two Steppes Back, Jeff Gburek
through the shortwave, part one, Spasmodular sounds from Steve’s shortwave
TransSonic Awakenings in D, Douglas Hedwig

Click here to view the Short Waves / Long Distance Repository.