Category Archives: Music

KSKO’s “Virtual Dance Party Request Party Thingy” via WRMI

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who shares the following announcement:

Tune into WRMI for “The LIVE Friday Night Virtual Dance Party Request Party Thingy” from community station 89.5 KSKO McGrath, Alaska.

The broadcast will take place on Saturday, March 20th 2021 from 0300 to 0500 UTC on 7570 kHz for the west coast and 7780 kHz for the east coast. KSKO Program Director Paul Walker is going to be hosting the show and WILL take requests by phone at (907) 524-3001 DURING the show!

It’ll be all kinds of music from the 60s to today from all genres, so there’s probably going to be something for everyone. Paul says, “I’m funding the WRMI airtime costs from my own personal pocket, not the stations bank account. I’m doing it just because, for fun.. because I can.. because why not?”

Thanks, Paul! I’ll certainly tune in and perhaps even call in!

Ladies of Texas Music Tribute on WRMI starting tonight

(Source: Terry Colgan via FB)

LADIES OF TEXAS MUSIC TRIBUTE ON WRMI TONIGHT

Cap’n Ric is pleased to announce the artists featured in the upcoming Ladies of Texas Music

Tribute:
Jeanie C. Riley
Jamie Lin Wilson
Sunny Sweeney
Lisa Loeb
Norah Jones
Lydia Mendoza
Marcia Ball
Lucinda Williams
St. Vincent
Barbara Lynn
“Sippie” Wallace
“Big Mama” Thornton
Bessie Tucker
Janis Joplin
Lacey Sturm.

Cap’n wagers you haven’t heard of many of these female artists, and also wagers that you’ll enjoy their music.

The tribute program will air several times:
March 7 – 0200 UTC 5950 kHz via WRMI
March 20 – 0900 UTC 6070 kHz and 1800 UTC 3955 kHz via Channel 292 in Germany
March 28 – 0200 UTC 6160 kHz via WBCQ.

Third Mate Susan designed a special limited edition eQSL to be sent to listeners who submit correct reception reports to [email protected].

Radio Northern Europe International Show #14

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, with Radio Northern Europe International who shares the following announcement:


Hei alle,
RNEI show #14 is now on air complete with TIAEMS for February 2021!

February marks a year since the first RNEI broadcast on 6070 kHz, the 15th of February 2020 ?
To celebrate this we are starting the show with an acoustic version of the first song we played on RNEI followed by music like:

 A cute song from Beni Holm
• More great songs from Vionavega, BEHM and ISÁK
• Our second ever song from Estonia ??
• One of my favourite dance songs for the data section from LOKE

The extras for this show are:
 An MFSK 64 Song playlist embedded into the final song for all Editions of the show.
 HamDRM with our Animated HTML Playlist for WRMI, Onda and Channel 292 versions.
 Comb Stereo encoding for all Shortwave broadcasts compatible with any radio, for more information please see https://rnei.org/stereo/
 30 minutes of calming music on the WRMI edition to fill the extra time, hopefully you don’t fall asleep haha!

You can find our full up to date frequency schedule here: (https://rnei.org/listen)

Can’t tune into a radio or just want the music without the extras? We also have Spotify Playlists of all of our broadcasts available here: RNEI Spotify Profle

We thought we’d give a little shout-out, in the form of a map, for all of our listeners around the world, we love you all ?

 

Wishing you lovely listeners all the best for February,
– Roseanna

“Our Little Rendezvous” has a shortwave reference

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Gregg Freeby, who writes:

Heres another one for you. I know we are always watching for short wave radios in popular movies but what about pop music? Turns out Chuck Berry’s song, “Our Little Rendezvous” recorded in 1960 has a reference to a short wave radio. You can listen to it here:

How very cool! The grandfather of rock’n’roll never disappoints.  Thank you for sharing, Gregg!

“This Is A Music Show” 100th show via WRMI

Many thanks to the host of This Is A Music Show, who shares the following announcement:

Hi Thomas,

Just wanted to let you (and your readers) know about the special milestone broadcast happening on Wednesday evening in North America: “This Is A Music Show” will be having its 100th episode, and to celebrate the occasion the show will be 2 hours long. The show is broadcast on WRMI’s 5850 kHz transmitter, which covers most of North America coast-to-coast. The official schedule:

Thursday 0200-0400UTC on 5850 kHz (Wednesday 6-8pm PT/9-11pm ET) via WRMI

For those who haven’t heard the program, each week I play the finest secondhand vinyl records found at thrift stores, garage sales, flea markets, etc. The 100th episode will feature some favourite finds from the past couple of years, along with a wide range of lesser-known-but-still-great tunes that you may or may not have heard before. I hope you can tune in and maybe hear your new favourite song or artist. 🙂

Best Regards–

Your Host

Radio Waves: Guardians of Early Recordings, VOA Firewall, New DRM-Based HF Station, and Breakfast on BBC Essex Features Amateur Radio

Radio Waves:  Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

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 Kim Elliott, Benn Kobb, and the Southgate ARC for the following tips:


Meet the guardians of the world’s earliest musical recordings (LA Times)

The voice seeps in as if from another dimension, hissy and distant, like an AM radio broadcaster transmitting through late-night static.

“‘The Ambassador March’ by Brown’s Orche-streee for the Los Angeles Phonograph Company of Los Angeles, California,” a man announces with a gentlemanly accent. After a moment’s scratchy pause, a violinist opens with a melody, and a small orchestra jumps in. Led by a Long Beach-based bandleader named E.R. Brown, the song dances along for two minutes.

The fidelity is primitive by today’s high-definition audio standards, a quaint toss-away. But “The Ambassador March” and the Coke-can-sized wax cylinder upon which it was etched into permanence in the late 1800s open a portal to another era.

That wax cylinder and others like it — rescued from rural estate sales and dusty attics — have survived earthquakes, heat waves, mold and indifference. They feature Mexican folk songs; military band marches; minstrelsy songs of the kind that preceded American blues, folk and country music; and the voices of former Lincoln cabinet members, Southern senators, popes, preachers and comedians. Their survival is emblematic of a revolution that allowed sound to be freed from its origins. Once untethered, the world would be forever changed.[]

US international broadcasting: Rebuilding the firewall in the new administration (The Hill)

by Kim Andrew Elliott

President-elect Joe Biden, who as a senator had a key interest in U.S. international broadcasting, is looking at its future.

He named Richard Stengel, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, to head the transition team for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Under USAGM are the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Inc., Radio Free Asia Inc., Office of Cuba Broadcast (Radio/TV Martí to Cuba) and Middle East Broadcasting Networks Inc. (the Arabic-language Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa).

With government officials under President Trump instructed not to cooperate with Biden’s teams, the transition for the time being will have to be done from afar. The Trump-appointed USAGM CEO Michael Pack, whose leadership has fomented several controversies since he was installed in June, might decide to be a benign, if uncooperative, caretaker until the new management comes in. Or he could impose personnel changes and alterations in content that could diminish the credibility of the USAGM entities, a situation that could take years to repair.

During his campaign, Biden promised to fire Pack. Pack might try to serve out the three-year term stipulated in the legislation that replaced the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) with a politically appointed CEO (Pack being the first). If such an attempt ends up in court, a June Supreme Court decision overruling the fixed term of the director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, a victory for the Trump administration, could, ironically, be the undoing of any plans by Pack to stay on at USAGM.

Pack has already left his mark by rescinding the firewall “rule” published in June by the outgoing BBG. The rule, however, was not an act of Congress or a presidential directive. It was simply language placed in the Federal Register “to codify and memorialize definitions and practices associated with the firewall.” On such shallow roots, this tree was easy to fall. In October, Pack issued a repeal, which waved away the firewall rule as readily as it was instituted.[]

A New HF Station that’s Similar, but Different (DRMNA.info)

On October 21, 2020, DPA Mac LLC filed a FCC license application for a new, DRM-based International Broadcast Station to be located in Maple Park, IL. The principal is San Francisco entrepreneur Seth Kenvin and its technical consultant is Tamir Ostfeld of Raft Technologies, an Israeli developer of low-latency HF systems for so-called algorithmic trading.

No station devoted to algorithmic trading has ever been authorized for regular commercial operation in the U.S., as there is no formal radio service or spectrum allocation for that purpose. Several such stations have been licensed in the Experimental Radio Service (ERS), which is ostensibly for scientific studies only.

If the FCC licenses DPA Mac, it will be the first such station to make the transition from the ERS to regular, non-experimental licensing. This station would be the successor to experimental station WI2XXG. Other than the license document, the FCC has withheld most of WI2XXG’s records from public disclosure since it was first licensed in 2017.

DPA Mac is similar to other DRM stations on which we previously reported: WIPE in Alpine, NJ, which is built and is waiting on its FCC license; and WPBC, proposed for Batavia, IL. With regard to their use for non-broadcast, private data transmissions, those stations made general and non-descriptive representations to the FCC. On the other hand, DPA Mac’s license application is fairly transparent. The station aims to transmit “investment data from points within the United States to locations outside the United States carried over a channel immediately adjacent to the HF broadcasts…a low-power, low-latency digital data transmission service provided to private investors, including small- and medium-sized firms.” [Continue reading…]

Amateur radio on BBC Radio Essex

On Tuesday, November 24, CB and amateur radio featured in Sonia Watson’s popular Breakfast show on BBC Radio Essex

Among those interviewed was the Chair of Essex Ham, Pete M0PSX, who talked about the resurgence of interest in amateur radio.

Listen to the interview at 1:38:20 in this recording
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08xv7dv

You can find out more about amateur radio and the free Essex Ham Foundation Online training course at
https://www.essexham.co.uk/train/foundation-online/

You can follow Essex Ham on Twitter at
https://twitter.com/EssexHam

 


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