Sir David Frost has passed away at age 74–no doubt, one of the greatest interviewers of our time.
The BBC has a video tribute on this page. Of course, Frost is possibly best known for his interview with Richard Nixon, post Watergate.
(Photo: RTE Radio)
RTÉ Radio has announced that it will broadcast the GAA All Ireland Hurling Final on Sunday 8 September and the All Ireland Football Final on Sunday 22 September via multiple sources including shortwave radio (frequencies and times below).
RTÉ Radio explains:
“In Africa, where many Irish people live and work, often in relative isolation with poor communications, RTÉ is providing special transmissions on shortwave radio.
[…]These services are part of RTÉ’s continued commitment to Irish people overseas and, over the years, has proven especially popular with those in geographically or technically isolated areas.”
Of course, RTÉ will broadcast both finals via the Internet, local radio and television.
On shortwave, RTÉ will broadcast on multiple frequencies–attempting to target most regions of Africa–so there’s a very good chance you could hear one.
Both Finals throw in at 3:30 pm Irish Time (14:30 UTC)
(Source: VOA Radiogram)
This weekend’s VOA Radiogram will include sample text in Vietnamese and Russian. Vietnamese has all sorts of diacritics, and Russian uses a Cyrillic alphabet, so this will be a real workout for your decoding software. Your character set should be UTF-8. In Fldigi, this adjustment is via Configure > Colors & Fonts.
The program will also attempt to improve the performance of RSID (Reed-Solomon Identification), the brief signal at the beginning of a digital mode transmission that automatically switches decoding software to the correct mode and audio frequency. I produced the program using Fldigi 3.21.74AB. You will need Fldigi 3.21.73 or newer for the MFSK64 and MFSK128 RSIDs to work correctly. If you have a previous version of Fldigi, or another decoding software, I have provided time for the mode to be changed manually.
Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, 31 August/September 1 2013:
2:55 MFSK16: Program preview
3:10 MFSK32: Vietnamese and Russian text samples
2:58 MFSK32: Discussion of RSIDs
1:50 MFSK64/Flmsg: VOA News re dung beetles*
:56 MFSK32: Image of dung beetle
3:07 MFSK128/Flmsg/Base64: VOA blue logo*
2:16 MFSK64: VOA News re China hack attack
2:38 MFSK32: VOA Khmer radio photo contest
2:31 MFSK32: Image of submitted radio photo
1:10 MFSK16: Closing announcements
:15 Surprise mode of the week
*To make Flmsg work with Fldigi, in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS, under Reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your Flmsg.exe file is located.
VOA Radiogram transmission schedule
(all days and times UTC)
Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz
All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.
Please send reception reports to radiogram (at) voanews.com
Most pirate radio stations will send you an electronic or paper QSL. This is one I received from All Along The Watchtower Radio. (Click to enlarge)
Monday, September 2nd, is Labor Day throughout most of North America; shortwave pirates love to operate on long holiday weekends (though you can hear them most any weekend for that matter).
So, if you’ve never heard a live pirate station on shortwave radio, this is a great opportunity to catch your first pirate!
Where to find pirate stations
In a nutshell: In North America, you can usually find pirate radio broadcasters in AM or upper side band (USB) between 6,920 – 6,970 kHz from early evening into the night. 6,925 kHz is one of the most popular frequencies. Pirates broadcast elsewhere–especially in Europe–but this is the best watering hole in North America.
Pirates transmit at much lower power than commercial broadcasters, so it takes a good ear and, sometimes, a little patience to hear them through the static.
Let us know if you hear any pirate stations this weekend! Weather permitting, I’ll be listening and even tweeting pirates/frequencies when I hear them. Also check the HF Underground forum for live pirate radio loggings.
Good luck and good listening!
Troy wites:
…I received [an email] from the Voice of Russia. It parallels what you have reported on your blog, however in her reply Elena Osipova also sent me an attachment in the form of a “poll” or survey. It seems she may be collecting data re: listenership habits. I would encourage others disappointed in the VOR closure reports to email Ms. Osipova and complete the survey as well.
If you wish to participate, click here to download the poll, then send your answers to [email protected].
Thank you, Troy, for forwarding this!
The Kremilin (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
I wrote the Voice of Russia following the suggestion that their broadcasting on shortwave radio may soon end. A response has now arrived from the Letters Department of the VOR’s World Service. And the current word? Very similar to that of my previous post, though VOR confesses that the topic is presently being talked about:
This is to…inform you that the information about the presumable cancellation by the Voice of Russia of shortwave broadcasts as of January 2014 does not come from VOR’s official sources, therefore at this point we can neither confirm nor deny it since the issue is currently under discussion.
In other words, stay tuned…
Not exactly a positive note–no news is no news–but I am impressed that they are taking the time to respond to each inquiry so quickly.
Our friend, Myke Dodge Weiskopf, writes with an update:
“I went through all 600+ recordings of mine and generated a highly accurate Google Earth KML file pinpointing all the transmitters (along with reception details). Lots of fun for SWL types to fly around and look at antenna farms!
http://dodgeblog.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/SWM-GoogleEarth.kml
It’s also available directly from www.myke.me/shortwavemusic/ along with the normal maps version and the comprehensive spreadsheet.”
This is fascinating–thanks, Myke!
I’ve already checked out the Google Maps version online but will certainly download the KML file and import it into Google Earth as well. It’s fun zooming around the globe and finding all of these transmitter sites; this took serious dedication to plot. (To have had tools like this when I was eight years old…)
Note that the next season of shortwavemusic starts on October 1st. Check out Myke’s website for more details!