Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, @UlisK3LU, who notes that New Jersey pirate radio station operator, Winston Tulloch (KC2ALN), has been fined $25,000 for operating an unlicensed station on 90.9 MHz FM. According to the FCC, the hefty penalty comes after after multiple requests to halt broadcasting starting in February 2015. The station was finally taken off the air in September 2017.
Click here to read the full FCC Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (PDF).
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mario Filippi (N2HUN), for sharing the following guest post:
by Mario Filippi (N2HUN)
All photos courtesy of author
Most hobbyists own some type of transceiver whether it is a handheld, mobile, or base station. Some examples are amateur radio HF/VHF/UHF transceivers, Citizen’s Band radios, FRS (Family Radio Service) and GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) handhelds.
A useful tool for the shack or the field is a frequency counter/tone meter since it can measure frequencies and analog/digital tones from transmitters/transceivers. At times ascertaining that a UUT (Unit Under Test) such as a 2 meter handheld is transmitting accurately may be indicated due to problems communicating with other stations. In addition, if the UUT transmits a sub-audible tone (either analog or digital) to access a repeater, a frequency counter/tone meter can detect the presence and verify accuracy of the CTCSS/digital tone.
Author’s TYT SF-401Plus, includes instructions, antenna, rechargeable battery and charger/cable. Covers 27 MHz – 3 GHz
Frequency/tone meters can be purchased for less than twenty US dollars but normally do not include a rechargeable battery and BNC connector for attaching an external antenna. Having had experience with these types, the time finally came for an upgrade.
After shopping around a decision was made to purchase the Tytera TYT SF-401 Plus. This model includes an instruction sheet, antenna, internal rechargeable battery, USB charger and cable. It represents a significant improvement over my previous, inexpensive meter, as the TYT has a BNC connector to attach a larger antenna and has four control buttons on the front panel. It also has, via a system menu, options to adjust the frequency/tone offset, dimmer levels, three or four decimal display and auto power off. All these valuable features warrant a higher cost, which was about $50, but well worth it. This price fits the budget of most hobbyists. However, higher end frequency/tone meters are available and cost several hundred dollars for those requiring that level of quality.
Out of the box the TYT SF-401 Plus, when checked against an IFR FM/AM-500A communications service monitor, was right on the money as far as accuracy. Note that the IFR-500A was calibrated against a high precision internal 10 MHz crystal in an “oven” and this is my gold standard reference for frequency accuracy in my shack.
TYT accuracy checked against an IFR FM/AM-500A communications service monitor transmitting a 146.52 MHz/131.8 Hz tone. Note frequency readout to four decimal places.
Now, it was time to check typical radios around the shack using the TYT. The first radio tested for frequency accuracy was a BTECH GMRS-V1 HT which I use to communicate with the home QTH while running errands around town. See photo for results. The BTECH and TYT agreed perfectly. Note that the TYT’s display includes a battery status indicator on top left and a timer use indicator, which resets every time the TYT is turned on. If you are going to measure digital signals (not included in this review) there is an option in the Setup Menu for that. With the BTECH handheld running 2 watts the TYT could detect its’ frequency at roughly four feet away.
Confirming BTECH transmit frequency against the TYT. Output is 2 watts. TYT multicolor display is super.
For VHF/UHF operating, especially when afield with other hams or groups such as CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams), problems can ensue if one does not have the correct frequency or tone programmed, so having the TYT in your shirt pocket to confirm these parameters when trouble occurs can be a quick way to get to the problem. See photo of an Icom IC-2300H 2 meter transceiver checked against the TYT for proper offset and tone. The Icom was putting out 65 watts and a repeater with an offset of -1.3 MHz and 88.5 Hz tone was checked.
TYT confirming unusual offset (-1.3 MHz) and tone for a repeater. Icom IC-2300H was at high (65W) setting and connected to an outdoor discone antenna.
According to the instructions included with the TYT SF-401 Plus, the operating range is from 27 MHz – 3000 MHz with a note stating “27 MHz – 100 MHz it can not be guaranteed and the corresponding normal emission appliance” which I interpret as accuracy is not guaranteed in this frequency range. Well, I checked the TYT against the IFR FM/AM-500A service monitor transmitting an AM signal on CB Channel 19, 27.185 MHz, and the TYT measured it exactly. One other important note is that according to the instructions, the tone decoder operates in the 136 MHz – 174 MHz and 400 MHz – 520 MHz frequency range. So that may limit its use in certain areas of the spectrum. One other item if interest is that the TYT has a 10 dB attenuator when dealing with high power signals.
All in all, I’m very happy with this purchase, and find the TYT SF-401 Plus useful for “first pass” troubleshooting and helpful when aligning older rigs which due to age are off frequency /tone. It definitely has a use in this shack.
Wow–what a bargain tool for the radio shack! Thank you for sharing your review, Mario. Once again, however, you have tempted me with a purchase! I remember when frequency counters would set you back a couple hundred bucks–it’s insane to think that you can grab one for $40-50 US shipped.
Note that the TYT SF 401 Plus is also marketed as the Surecom SF401 Plus:
(Source: Global Voices via Mike Hansgen)
How RootIO Broadcasts Radio in Uganda Using a Bucket
The open-source toolkit allows users to broadcast using just a smartphone and a transmitter
Radio is still and continues to be a powerful medium across most of the African continent. Not only is radio used to share community information but it is cheap and very accessible. In Uganda, a mixing of radio’s power with new mobile and internet technologies has created a cheap and powerful open-source toolkit that allows communities to create their own micro-radio stations. All one needs is an inexpensive smartphone and a transmitter and a community that will share, promote and collaborate on dynamic content.
[…]They have no studio and all the radio shows are done using the host’s smartphone.
How does this work? Users can purchase most of the materials at local markets. A small transmitter is built into a waterproof bucket with a fan, a charge-controller and a smartphone, which is connected to an antenna and a solar panel.
The radio stations are really small and can serve a village or a couple of villages reaching to 10,000 listeners. The content produced by the radio hosts lives in the cloud so stations are able to share content with other stations.[…]
Click here to read the full article at Global Voices.
Note that we first published a post about RootIO five years ago. Very happy to see it’s now in use!
Recently, there have been numerous articles regarding FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s efforts to increase pirate radio enforcement. This article in The Outline is a worthy read and features our good friend David Goren prominently:
The FCC wants pirate radio stations off the air
Immigrant communities rely on these unlicensed broadcasts to stay connected to their roots. Now they could lose the signal.
On any given night, David Goren can tune into more than 30 underground radio stations from his apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn. “About a dozen of them broadcast in Creole, to the Haitian community,” Goren, a local journalist and producer who researches the city’s pirate stations, told The Outline. “A lot of the stations will air news from home.” In addition to news and politics updates, Goren said, these stations feature Caribbean music that doesn’t get airtime on mainstream stations, advertisements for local businesses, and occasional call-in sessions with immigration attorneys.
For some immigrant communities across the country, these underground radio stations are an easy way of staying connected to one’s roots. In New York City, there may be more unlicensed broadcasters than licensed ones. Some of these clandestine broadcasters are small enterprises, while others are full-fledged stations that run advertisements and generate revenue. All of them run the risk of being fined — or in some states, including New York, New Jersey, and Florida, having their operators imprisoned — if they’re caught by the Federal Communications Commission.
[…]A map of enforcement actions on the FCC’s website illustrates the crackdown. The FCC has undertaken 306 pirate investigations since Pai took office in January 2017. The majority of these actions — 210, according to a press release issued by the agency on Wednesday — were Notices of Unauthorized Operations, warnings from the FCC telling the unlicensed stations to immediately shut down or risk fines and prison time. The release also notes that the FCC “took more than twice as many actions against pirate broadcasters” in 2017 than it did the previous year. (For the first time since its inception, the agency said, it has begun holding property owners liable for “supporting this illegal activity on their property.”)[…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who shares this article from Radio World. Here’s an excerpt:
Headsets Deliver FM to Mobile Devices, No Chip or Internet Required
[The BLACKLOUD SOUNDOT AF1] headsets are nothing like the ones you might remember from your first Sony Walkman. According to information provided by Blackloud, SounDots feature patented psychoacoustic technology, a six-band customizable graphic equalizer, 3D stereo effect, dual dynamic driver design, inline microphone, and a control box with a volume up (+), volume down (–) and multifunction (pause/play) button. This multifunction button enables many actions depending on the app that is running, including: answer/hang up a phone/video call, start/stop recording or playback using most any audio/video/camera app, enable/disable/seek up/down the FM tuner, and lastly, activate Siri or Google Assistant.[…]
Click here to read the full article at Radio World.
Richard notes that we’ve posted articles in the past focusing on the fact that iPhones (and a number of Android phone models) do not have or allow user access to a built-in FM reception chip.
Richard sees the new Blackloud SounDot AF1 earphones as an elegant work-around and has pre-ordered a set. If these earphones live up to their specs, they should sound fantastic.
Richard, I hope you’ll post a review after you put them into service! Thanks for the tip!
UPDATE: Many thanks to Mike Barraclough who notes that a report today is that this has been averted. Click here to read.
(Source: Southgate ARC)
Germany – up to 10 million people could be hit by threatened radio shut down
The airwaves across many parts of Germany could fall silent next week due to a financial dispute between radio stations and an FM broadcasting provider.
The company Media Broadcast announced on Friday that it would cut off FM broadcasters for several radio stations if they did not immediately fulfil certain payment demands.
“Up to 10 million radio listeners could be affected by their FM broadcaster being cut off from Wednesday onwards,” company head Wolfgang Breuer told Die Welt.
Major public service broadcasters such as MDR, NDR and Deutschlandfunk are among those who could be cut off, the newspaper reported.
The dispute began when Media Broadcast, formerly a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, decided to move focus away from FM radio and onto digital platforms last year. The shift meant that broadcasting antennae across Germany, for which Media Broadcast had previously been responsible, were sold to private investors.
Broadcasters and their network operators were then left furious when many of the new owners raised prices for the use of their antennae, leading to a stalemate in business negotiations.
Hessian broadcaster FFH told dpa that a 50 percent rise in the cost of antennae use had left them with a “massive problem”.
In order to break the stalemate, Media Broadcast recently agreed to continue operating all antennae until the end of June, so as to provide more time for negotiations. Yet such an arrangement would still require the stations to contract the company during that period.
Media Broadcast now claims that around 75 percent of stations have not done this, and has threatened to cut these stations off if they do not officially contract the company by Monday.
Though digital and online streaming radio will still be available, the mass cut-off of FM radio broadcasts would affect a huge proportion of the population. According to Bild, around 92.7 percent of Germans said they still preferred listening to radio on an analogue device in a poll last year.
Up to 10 million people could be hit by threatened radio shut down
https://www.thelocal.de/20180406/up-to-10-million-people-could-be-hit-by-threatened-radio-shut-down
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, The Professor, who shares the following review of the XHDTA D-328:
First off, this is the best radio I’ve ever operated… that cost me less than ten dollars new. When I saw the promotion on the SWLing Post for free or half price radios, I had to bite, especially because the deal was that the first ten to respond would get a free XHDATA D-328. They told me I was the 15th caller, so I was allowed one for half price. And since they were going for just under fourteen bucks on Amazon, it felt like it was almost free.
Of course, I didn’t expect much. But as they wanted the people who received these free or very inexpensive little radios to leave reviews, I figured the Chinese manufacturers knew there were some good features radio folk might notice. And there are. And I’m not sure if I’ll post part of this brief review on Amazon, but I’ll do so here in this comment.
If you want a radio that will reliably pick up local AM and FM stations and play some MP3 files, this will work, and work pretty well. And it doesn’t sound bad at all for the size. I personally don’t have much love for these new analog-style tuning DSP radios, but I suppose people who aren’t as radio wise as readers of the SWL Listening Post won’t notice the less than poetic effects of moving between stations on these sets. Most probably tune in their desired stations and just listen to it, and this radio does this well enough.
I don’t really listen to FM much, but the XHDATA D-328 seems adequate enough. And with headphones on it sounds quite rich on FM. AM isn’t bad either, but it’s far from selective. I was able to dig out clear channel regional biggies like Zoomer Radio at 740kHz and WHAS at 840kHz in Louisville from here in Brooklyn at night, but in between often easy to find fifty-thousand watt stations like WBBM or CKLW weren’t there. The DSP tuning just defaulted to the next local station like WNYC or WABC when I turned the dial.
Shortwave was worse. Beyond the U.S. powerhouses like WWCR this radio doesn’t seem a very worthy shortwave set for those of us in North America. But I can imagine in that in third world countries where international and local broadcasters still target broadcasts that this radio might be an inexpensive way to access that programming.
I must admit that listening to MP3 music files was kind of pleasing. Again, the audio is really good for a radio at this price point. However you are listening blind, there’s no screen to tell you what you’re hearing, and no shuffle function to make a folder full of MP3s into unique sequences of songs each time. What you get are the songs in the alphabetical order of the file titles, although you do have the option to jump ahead 10 files before or after the one you are playing. So the best use of an MP3 player like this would be to listen to podcasts or whole radio programs with it. What I would do is copy the files onto the SD card and then perhaps number the filenames in the order I would like to hear the shows.
So, for the price there’s not a lot to complain about. People have already mentioned the off-center small kickstand, and that’s a little cheesy. But the tuning thumb wheel moves smoothly thru the imperfect DSP tuning function, and the volume thumb wheel is actually analog which make it much easier to get the exact volume you want out of this radio. But the sliding band selection switch under the tuning scale is a bit worrisome, as I’ve had a few cheap Chinese radios with a switch like this and just normal use eventually rendered them unable to switch bands adequately. This one feels a little bit more stable then they did, but time will tell.
All that said, there are radios that are not too much more expensive than this radio that offer much more in a number of ways. The small and inexpensive analog Tecsun radios from a few years ago are a case in point. Selling for twenty to thirty dollars, those multi-band radios are a little challenging to tune (a stiff thumb wheel on some), and the tuning scale may be a little off and they may drift a little, but the analog tuning is a much better experience. And you can DX with them. I remember listing to All India Radio with a decent signal one afternoon on my Tecsun R-9710.
There’s a lot of similar analog radios which I believe are probably just about the same radio – the Tecsun R-9012, the Tecsun R-911, the Tecsun R-909 and the Kaito WRX-911, among others. Once you get a look at these you’ll recognize other similar radios in this family. I’d say they’re the best really cheap receivers I know of. They generally run between twenty to just over thirty bucks. I believe these radios appeared on the scene in the early 2000s.
I have this fear that they’ll start turning these radios into DSP sets. That would be a real shame, but I’ve heard no mention of that. However I did notice that the marketers of the XHDATA D-328 didn’t even mention that it was based on a DSP chip. And Chinese manufacturers are notoriously not very open about how they are altering radios that they’re putting out, so be aware of that.
As far as MP3 playback, the one radio I would really recommend is the Meloson (or Tesslor) M8 (or the Meloson M7 or S8 if you can find one). It’s simply the best audio you’ll hear in a really small radio, AND you can shuffle the MP3 files in a folder with these. While it only give you the sequential number of the song in the display, it will generate a unique sequence of songs each time you shuffle. Fill a folder on a card full of songs and let it rip. It’s the perfect micro music player if you make a good folder of music. And the DSP radio in these is not bad either. It’s digital, not fake analog tuning, and most AM clear channel targets you can usually find at night in your region will show up on these. They used to go for less than thirty bucks, but right now I see they cost close to fifty dollars.
Two other radios I have that I can recommend for MP3 playback, are the Tecsun ICR-110 and the Tivdio V-115. Neither one offers playback shuffle, but they will play the files in alphanumeric order just fine. But they both have a cool feature in that you can press a button and record the broadcast you’re hearing as an MP3 file. And they both also sound great. The Tivdio has incredible sound for a tiny radio, but the ICR-110 is even more impressive. I believe it has the same speaker setup as the much more expensive Tecsun PL-880 and it also has similar warm and clear audio.
The reception with the V-115 is OK, nothing stellar, but the ICR-110 is kind of a monster on medium wave. I’ve been impressed. The ICR-110 is rather big compared to the other radios I’ve mentioned, closer to the PL-880 in size, but quite a bit lighter. The ICR-110 used to be cheaper, but can be found for around forty bucks. The Tivdio V-115 still goes for just under twenty if you look around. A bargain. Tecsun, Tivdio, Degen and other Chinese manufacturers have all sorts of inexpensive radios for sale out there, and others I haven’t used or mentioned might be quite good as well. If one appeals to you, do a little online research.
Of course, since I’m talking about small and inexpensive radios I should mention that the Tecsun digital DSP sets like the PL-310ET, the PL-360, PL-380, PL-390 and other variations are all amazing inexpensive radios that will run you around 35 to 50 bucks. The ultralight DX community loves these things, and for good reason. And there’s a version of the PL-390 that plays MP3 files from an SD card and another that offers bluetooth playback. No, none are perfect, but they’re solid sets, and all would have been dream radios thirty years ago.
So, that’s my evaluation of the XHDATA D-328, well worth fourteen dollars, but for a few dollars more you can get radios with similar features that do much more. It’s small, it doesn’t sound bad, and it’s fairly well-built. It will pick up all your favorite local stations and play all your MP3 podcasts effortlessly. Not bad. Like I said, it’s the best super cheap radio I’ve ever used.
Excellent review! I’m impressed that the D-328 has enough AM performance to grab some night time clear channel stations. It’s disappointing, however, that it lacks performance on the shortwave bands.
Thanks for posting your review–always great to hear from The Professor!
The XHDATA D-328 is available on Amazon.com (affiliate link).
