Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ulis (K3LU), who shares the following note via his Twitter feed:
“Comrade Africa” – a historic look at the GDR’s (Radio Berlin International) Cold War era shortwave broadcasts to Africa via the BBC World Service:
Click here to listen to the documentary at the BBC World Service.
Halley VI: The British Antarctic Survey’s new base (Source: British Antarctic Survey)
In the comments section of this post, I’d like you to share your recording of the BBC Midwinter Broadcast to Antarctica!
In years past, I’ve created a post with all of the Midwinter recordings curated in one article. This usually takes me 12+ hours to prepare over a couple of weeks as many of the audio clips and video recordings must be formatted for the site and embedded. There is also a lot of discussions back/forth confirming details with listeners. This year, my schedule is such that if I try to piece one of these articles together I might not have it published for many, many weeks. That and I will not have reliable internet service over the next couple of weeks.
Instead, I’d like to try something new!
Listening to the 2017 BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast from the back of my vehicle in Saint-Anne-de-Beaupré, Québec, Canada.
I’ve created this dedicated post where you can comment and include links to audio and video of your 2021 Midwinter Broadcast recordings. This will allow you to post your logs and recordings at your convenience without my availability becoming the bottleneck.
Here’s the format I’d like you to leave in your comment of this post:
Name:
Listening location:
Notes: (Include frequencies and any details about your receiver and antenna.)
Link to audio or video: (YouTube, Vimeo, Internet Archive, SoundCloud, etc.)
There is no way to directly upload audio in your comments, however, you can link to the recordings if you upload them to the Internet Archive (which I’d highly recommend) or any of the video streaming services like YouTube and Vimeo–or audio services like SoundCloud.
If you have a photo you’d like to include in your comment, send me an email from the same address you used in your comment. I’ll manually post the image at the top of your comment when time allows.
As with each year, I’ll make sure the BAS team and the BBC receive a link with all of your recordings!
Many thanks to Richard Hollingham with Boffin Media, who writes:
Hi – I’m (proudly) the Executive Producer of the Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast. It’s made by Boffin Media for the BBC….I’m about to deliver this year’s edition.
In terms of the broadcast itself, following the test on Monday, the BBC’s decided to transmit on all four of the frequencies [noted here] this year.
Because it’s a unique broadcast, the SW version is 30 minutes long whereas the global version is 26′ 29″ (to fit the standard World Service half hour, following the news bulletin). The SW version also has a different introduction as it’s aimed just at our audience of 35 in Antarctica.
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this, Richard. We’ll be listening!
As a reminder, here are the frequencies courtesy of Richard Langley:
Halley VI: The British Antarctic Survey’s new base (Source: British Antarctic Survey)
Click here to read an update to this post (17 June 2021).
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who follows up with the following information about the 2021 Midwinter Broadcast to Antarctica:
As usual, there was a test of this year’s possible frequencies yesterday (14 June) from 21:30 to 21:45 UTC.
They were:
As has been the case in past years, three of these frequencies will be chosen for the actual broadcast. Here in NB yesterday, good signals were received on 6170, 7305, and 9505 kHz. 6035 kHz was not heard.
Thank you for sharing this, Richard!
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors David Shannon, Sheldon Harvey (Int. Radio Report), Jorge Garzón Gutiérrez, and Ulis Fleming for the following tips:
European DX listeners have recently discovered a wonderful new target. On 27 MHz it is possible to receive Catholic mass celebrations from Ireland and Northern Ireland. Hundreds of local churches around the island are broadcasting holy masses live. If you tune in between 27000 and 28000 kHz, you might be able to hear many interesting churches. The transmitter power is usually only 3 watts, so a strong F2 opening is needed. Luckily with the current solar maximum this happens quite often.
How did all this start? This is a fascinating story, told by a Father, who has been helping the idea to become reality.
The broadcasting of Masses was introduced in a rural Irish diocese over 30 years ago when the resident priest was considering a way of reaching out to those who were housebound in his parish. They had access to religious broadcasts on National Radio and TV, but he knew that it was no comparison to a local broadcast. There were many incidents of families coming home from Mass on Sunday and their housebound parent or grandparent had ‘all the news’ (they were aware of all the happenings in the parish) when they arrived home.[…]
Click here to continue reading at DXing.info.
Decades before Spotify, Pandora, and even satellite radio, terrestrial (land-based) AM and FM radio reigned supreme. Many listeners, including Utica resident Ron Robinson, idolized the disc jockeys just as much as the artists they played.
Robinson, 51, is working on a documentary film entitled “Radio Dayz… The Movie,” which focuses on the history of radio, including the early days of Detroit radio. “(The film) tells the story of radio through the people who worked in radio,” he said.
Robinson interviewed several well-known radio personalities such as Paul W. Smith, Dick Purtain, Fred Jacobs, Dick Kernen, and more for the film. Robinson, who worked for WJR for 20 years before starting his own production company, has several connections in the industry. He started interviewing for the documentary in 2013.
“Most people think of radio, they think of New York, California, and Chicago, and rightfully so. But, Detroit has been an important and ground-breaking city for the medium of radio,” Robinson said.
The documentary is a chronological look at the history of radio, starting with the first radio stations. It also takes aim at the first radio “celebrity,” Fr. Charles Coughlin. The Detroit-area priest took to the airways in the 1920s and eventually garnered an audience of 30 million to his weekly radio show. Coughlin would later become a polarizing figure as World War II approached. “He’s on the wrong side of history, if you will,” Robinson said.
[…]
Often I get surprised when I listen to the FM Band with my autoradio. It has no bandwidth options, no filters, but sensitivity and selectivity are much better than most of the well-know portables. Mine is inserted into the Skoda console so I have no way to know who manufactured it, the brand/model or its tech specifications. Most of the times I wonder why other portable firmwares does not include, for instance, similar choices like the high speed decoding RDS info. Then I thought… Will be my ULR Sangean DT-800 up to the task?
An autoradio like mine (SKODA Spaceback car) decodes RDS and hears weak signals at once. It is part of a well balanced system: receiver-feedline and rubber antenna on the metallic car roof. My pocket ultralight radios use the earphone cable as an aerial, so even being very good receivers, the antenna is far to be reliable with tricky and changing reception as it depends on the cable position at every moment. Uhmmm! I needed to find a better way to listen using my small toys.
In the shack I had some whips with male BNC and PL-359 connectors, but the Pocket ULR has a 3,5 mm female plug-in, so I found a “female BNC > male jack 3,5 mm” adapter and connected the whip. I chose a telescopic antenna 20/115 cm long folded/unfolded to test the Sangean DT-800T versus the SKODA autoradio, focused on the BOTB from 87,5 to 91,5 MHz. When a long whip is used some unwanted effects come into the scene. The first is related with audio; connecting the whip the sound must be heard via the small speaker so don’t forget to choose a quiet environment not to miss weak stations. The second one is pure physics; due to the whip length, the ULR 3,5 mm female plug-in gets extra strain and that could damage the inner weldings, so extra care must be kept in mind at any time.[…]
Read the full article at Ideria DX.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Matt, who shares a link to a radio classifieds site he has created. Check it out!
The UsedRadioMall.com web site lists radios and items related to the subject of radio. The list may include receivers, transmitters, transceivers, amplifiers, antennas, parts, and components related to amateur radio, two-way radio, cb radio, broadcasting, recording, production, and hi-fi.
Introduction
Changes in ionospheric electron density caused by space weather and diurnal solar changes are known to cause Doppler shifts on HF ray paths. For example, see Figure 7 in Boitman et al., 1999. As part of the WWV centennial, 50 stations collected Doppler shift data for the original Festival of Frequency Measurement, demonstrating the value of volunteer participation in collecting this data. This June, we request that all amateur radio stations, shortwave listeners, and others capable of making high-quality HF frequency measurements help us collect frequency data for the June 10 annular eclipse. Researchers will use the crowdsourced data to investigate the superimposed effects of auroral particle precipitation and the eclipse on Doppler shift.
All you need to collect data is an HF rig connected to a computer running open-source software. A precision frequency standard, such as a GPS-disciplined oscillator, is desired but not required to participate. All ham operators and shortwave listeners around the globe are invited to join in, even if your station is far from the path of totality. Last year’s eclipse festivals included over 100 participants from 45 countries. The experiment will run from 7-12 June. All participants will receive QSL certificates and updates as the data is processed. This is a pilot experiment for HamSCI’s Personal Space Weather Station project, which seeks to develop a global network monitoring the geospace environment.
Contact information:
Kristina Collins: [email protected]
Click here to read the full article at HamSci.org.
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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tracy Wood, who snapped the photo above as he passed by this former IBB facility. Tracy noted:
The antenna field is still intact.
As a kid, the signals would leak into cheap AM radio sets in Oregon.
I could only imagine they would! Thanks for sharing this, Tracy. Amazing to see that the antenna field is still standing.
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Marty, Richard Cuff, David Iurescia, and Doug Katz for the following tips:
Canada’s international broadcast service from the English language team of Radio Canada International has come to an end.
RCI, (originally the International Service, CBC-IS) was initially created towards the end of the Second World War. The purpose was to broadcast news and information from home via shortwave to Canadian military personnel fighting in Europe. It also began providing reliable news and information to recently liberated countries and to Germans still in the war.
That reliable news and information was considered of great value during the subsequent Cold War years, as several more languages were added to the service such as Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Hungarian and Polish. Other languages sections included as Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese. With 14 language sections in 1990, and some 200 staff, the full English and French newsroom provided news of interest and importance for each language section specifically targeted to each of the various broadcast regions around the world.
Following a major budget cut of some 80 per cent in 2012, the shortwave and satellite service was terminated along with the majority of staff including the newsroom and some language sections. In recent years, only Chinese (Mandarin), Arabic, and Spanish remained along with English and French. RCI was transformed into a much smaller internet-based operation consisting of three people per language section.
In December 2020, the domestic public broadcaster CBC / Radio-Canada announced that the English and French sections of RCI would close for good in May. In their place curated stories from the domestic English and French public broadcaster will be provided.
A manager will now oversee the staff of eight who will adapt curated stories from the CBC and Radio-Canada into Mandarin, Arabic, and Spanish, along with Punjabi and Tagalog.
An effort was and is being made by the RCI Action Committee to preserve and even expand the service which has garnered great support from a former prime minister, former diplomats and many academics, but the end date has come. This is the last entry by the RCI English section.
From the English Section consisting of Lynn, Marc, and Levon, faithful and long-time popular replacement Terry Haig, and recently also Vincenzo Morello, and the many others over the all those years, we thank you for having shared our stories over these many years.[…]
In 2018, David Goren, a radio producer and audio archivist, created the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map to collect the sounds of dozens of pirated broadcasts from across the borough. Pirate stations earn their name by hitching a ride on already licensed radio frequencies that typically cost commercial stations millions of dollars to acquire and set up. Nowhere in the country are there more pirate radio stations than in New York, where they provide a vital service to immigrant populations.
Goren estimates that New York has about a hundred pirate stations, transmitting from rooftops and attics to listeners seeking news from around the city and back home, as well as
entertainment and religious programming. The broadcasts bypass socioeconomic barriers and provide a means to seize control of the flow of information. But they are now at risk of extinction: Before Donald Trump left the White House, he signed the Pirate Act, which increased the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to fight pirate operations through mandatory sweeps in cities with high concentrations of pirate radio use. Pirate stations today face fines of up to two million dollars. “The people running these stations, they don’t have two million dollars,” Goren said. Broadcasters that don’t make it onto his sound map could be lost forever.
Click here to read the full story and listen to the audio tour with David Goren.
Inspired by espionage devices used during World War II and the Cold War, Shortwave transforms audio into clandestine operations of the past; Russian number stations, mysterious sounds transmitted by radio, and eerie sounds stored on early portable recorders.
Choose between 2 types of noise and interference, and control it with the Exposure parameter. Velocity and Focus control the amount of pitch stabilization. Shortwave will add an interesting emotional response and atmosphere to dry, simple sounds, or destroy a signal like no other fuzz pedal can.
Hand-made in Seattle, WA. Shortwave operates on a standard “Boss” style 9vdc power supply (not included), but can also run at 18vdc for additional headroom. True bypass switching. Included a limited-lifetime warranty.
Enclosure size: 4.77″ x 2.6″ x 1.39″
Voyager 1 – one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space – still works and zooms toward infinity.
As the craft toils, it has long since zipped past the edge of the solar system through the heliopause – the solar system’s border with interstellar space – into the interstellar medium. Now, its instruments have detected the constant drone of interstellar gas (plasma waves), according to Cornell-led research published May 10 in Nature Astronomy.
Examining data slowly sent back from more than 14 billion miles away, Stella Koch Ocker, a Cornell doctoral student in astronomy, has uncovered the emission. “It’s very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth,” Ocker said. “We’re detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas.”
This work allows scientists to understand how the interstellar medium interacts with the solar wind, Ocker said, and how the protective bubble of the solar system’s heliosphere is shaped and modified by the interstellar environment.
Launched in September 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft flew by Jupiter in 1979 and then Saturn in late 1980. Travelling at about 38,000 mph, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in August 2012.
After entering interstellar space, the spacecraft’s Plasma Wave System detected perturbations in the gas. But, in between those eruptions – caused by our own roiling sun – researchers have uncovered a steady, persistent signature produced by the tenuous near-vacuum of space.
“The interstellar medium is like a quiet or gentle rain,” said senior author James Cordes, the George Feldstein Professor of Astronomy (A&S). “In the case of a solar outburst, it’s like detecting a lightning burst in a thunderstorm and then it’s back to a gentle rain.”
Ocker believes there is more low-level activity in the interstellar gas than scientists had previously thought, which allows researchers to track the spatial distribution of plasma – that is, when it’s not being perturbed by solar flares.[…]
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