Category Archives: Articles

New Kindle eBook – “How to Listen To The World”

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Ken Reitz (KS4ZR), features editor at Monitoring Times, has released a Kindle eBook called How To Listen To The World. It focuses on almost all aspects of listening to international broadcasts–see full table of contents in the press release below.

This would make a nice, inexpensive last-minute Christmas or birthday gift that can be delivered instantly.

At $2.99, it’s an easy decision! Click here to buy on Amazon. Note that you will either need an Amazon Kindle device or a Kindle application in order to read this book.

(Below: Full Press Release for How To Listen To The World)

“How to Listen to the World” by Ken Reitz KS4ZR is an introduction to shortwave listening, amateur radio, Free-to-Air satellite TV/radio, AM-FM DX, Internet radio and the new phenomenon of cord-cutting; getting off the addiction to cable and satellite-TV.

Much of the material is from columns and feature articles written by the author over the last two years for Monitoring Times, a national monthly magazine about all things radio, now in its thirty-first year. Each section has been updated to include the latest information available with over 100 links to the most important websites for each topic. Previously unpublished material has also been added to give a fuller understanding of each topic. Kindle e-books can be read on any e-reader, laptop, desktop, or smartphone.

About the Author:

A freelance writer since 1988, Ken Reitz has written hundreds of feature articles and columns covering radio and television for several national consumer magazines. He has interviewed many of the top industry leaders and reviewed dozens of new products in this field. He has also earlier enjoyed a five year career in commercial AM and FM broadcasting and has been an amateur radio operator for the last 24 years holding an Extra Class license under the call sign KS4ZR. He is currently the features editor at Monitoring Times for which also he writes the Communications and Beginner’s Corner columns.

“How to Listen to the World” Table of Contents

  • Getting Started in Shortwave Listening
  • Buying Your First Shortwave Radio
  • Chasing DRM: The Elusive Dream of Digital Audio on Shortwave
  • A Look at Three New Shortwave Radios
  • The Best of the Cheap Shortwave Portables
  • Listening to Shortwave Radio in Your Car
  • Weather Facsimile via Shortwave on Your iPad
  • Radio Pirates: The intriguing world of unlicensed broadcasting
  • Amateur Radio for Everybody: Getting Your License
  • Getting Started on HF Part I
  • Getting Started on HF Part 2: Chasing DX
  • Getting Started on HF Part 3: QSL those Contacts!
  • Shortwave and Ham Antennas for the less Financially Endowed
  • Loop your way to HF DX Success
  • The Joys of Ten Meters
  • Digital Operating on the Ham Bands
  • Tuning in to the International Space Station
  • Whatever Happened to TVRO?
  • The Newest FTA Receiver: Manhattan RS1933
  • AM-FM-TV DX
  • FM-HD: A Long and Winding Road
  • A Cord-Cutter’s Primer
  • Internet Radio Listening in a Non-FiOS Home

John Allen keeps radio history alive

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(Source: Delmarva Now)

A fat and sassy black cat purrs in John Allen’s lap. Relaxing in his favorite chair, Allen’s fingers vanished into the silky fur as he stroked his cat while listening to the Big Band sounds coming through a 1930s radio.

With its warm wood finish and the soft yellow glow of light from the dial, the vintage radio is as soothing as the thin shadows in the room.

[…]Stacked neatly in his living room are a dozen or so radios from the past. The sets are piled several deep. Other are stored in his shop, tucked tightly on shelves.

[…]”Maybe if you count the regular radios, the military radios, and the spy radios, I might have a little more than 200,” he said.

That’s right, he said “spy radios.”

Click hear to read the full story on Delmarva Now. If you like this sort of article, you have to check out the BBC radio documentary on Gerry Wells.

Leeds Radio featured in the NY Times

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(Source: NY Times)

WHEN an insurance company declared the merchandise at Leeds Radio “not pilferable” last year, it meant that the store’s hundreds of thousands of analog electronic parts — all manufactured before 1968 — were unlikely to be stolen anytime soon.

[…]And yet Leeds, one of the oldest electronics stores in the country, has plenty of paying customers. Located at 68 North Seventh Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, two blocks from the Bedford Avenue stop of the L train, it attracts a steady stream of musicians, hi-fi aficionados, ham radio buffs and the kind of people who build Tesla coils in their basements.

The 2,500-square-foot space smells like a vintage record shop (an odor Mr. Matthews describes as equal parts phenolic resin, adhesive, old cardboard and wire insulation) and appears shockingly disorganized. Cubist piles of boxes overflow with switches, capacitors, Bakelite knobs and watt meters. The floor glitters with the glass of shattered vacuum tubes.

Sounds like my radio room, though on a much, much larger scale…the part with piles of boxes, at least. Thanks to the Herculodge for leading me to the NY Times article. We actually posted another article about Leeds Radio when it was featured on WNYC. As both articles mention, radio parts shops like Leeds are certainly on the decline [understatement alert]–luckily, the internet opens up a whole world of mom-and-pop vendors like Leeds, though with a virtual store front, so there is still hope.

Read the full article here.

WWII shortwave messages found on cardboard discs

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Photographer: Nigel Mykura. (Creative Commons)

(Source: The Globe and Mail)

The voices of Canadian servicemen fade in and out, at times clear and booming, at others distant and muffled. But for their families, these scratchy, static-laden messages were the sound of hope.

The men were prisoners captured during the Second World War by the Japanese army, which broadcast their messages home over Radio Tokyo. Short-wave radio enthusiasts on the west coast of the United States listened in, making a hobby of recording the messages onto cardboard discs and sending them to the soldiers’ families.

Complete with audio from the original discs, this is an article you should view in full at The Globe and Mail.

 

The Register: Global internet surveillance skyrocketing

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(Photo courtesy: USAID)

As I’ve mentioned in many previous articles, the internet is surely an excellent first-world technology. However, as this article from The Register points out,  the internet also hides a much shadowier, more alarming nature, exemplified in the growing amount of internet surveillance.

A top US government official believes that the internet is under fierce attack by authoritarian governments worldwide, and that the situation is rapidly deteriorating.

“Today we face a series of challenges at the intersection of human rights, connected technologies, business, and government. It’s a busy intersection – and a lot of people want to put up traffic lights,” said US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, speaking at the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

[…]And as information communications technology moves ever deeper into less-developed countries, Posner sees the problems increasing. “These are the places where repressive regimes are getting hold of the latest, greatest Western technologies and using them to spy on their own citizens for purposes of silencing dissent,” he said. “Journalists, bloggers and activists are of course the primary targets.”

From his point of view, governments in some of these emerging markets “appear fiercely determined to control what people do online.”

Again, this underlines the straightforward, egalitarian nature of an alternative media source:  shortwave radio.  People living under the control of such a regime can turn to radio to hear voices from across the globe, to dispel inaccuracies and fallacies, and learn the truth.  Unlike the internet, there’s no virtual gateway that can be locked down by a government’s heavy hand. Shortwave radio has no regard for border crossings.

Best of all, no one can prevent these listeners from listening; no one can track them or their listening habits.

Herein lies my fear that, as many large international broadcasters such as the BBC, VOA, DW and others abandon shortwave service to invest in the internet, we put all our eggs in one tenuous basket. Certainly, we can invest in technologies which attempt to stall government efforts to temper our internet presence in, for example, China; but what about the people accessing these protective internet sites?  Who is watching them and their surfing habits?

Crack.  There goes democracy…


Radio World looks into the future of digital shortwave radio

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(Source: Radio World Online)

“DRM is not seen as a profitable line for the major manufacturers,” said Sennitt. “A few smaller manufacturers have produced DRM receivers, but the unit cost is still too high, and there simply aren’t enough DRM transmissions audible at any one location to stimulate consumer demand. It’s a classic chicken and egg situation — which comes first, the transmissions or the receivers? The broadcasters and the receiver manufacturers are each waiting for the other to move first.”

Read the full article at Radio World Online.

Is radio a Canadian invention?

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Today is Thanksgiving in Canada–and perhaps we should all thank this fine country for its contribution to radio as we know it today.

In this short audio documentary, Radio Canada International focuses on the innovative work of Canadian Reginald Aubrey Fessenden. As this piece points out, though Marconi receives recognition as the father of radio, Fessenden played a stronger role in making it possible to hear the human voice over the air.

Click hear to listen to LITTLE KNOWN CANADIAN FACTS: Radio, a Canadian invention at Radio Canada International.

For a full biography of Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, check out the Hammond Museum of Radio‘s website.

Thanks to RCI’s The Link for the tip & Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!