Category Archives: News

This weekend: Historic NSS Call Sign reactivated during Armed Forces Day Crossband Test

100th Anniversary QSL card for NSS

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Brian Smith (W9IND), who shares the following press release regarding the historic U.S. Navy callsign NSS that will be reactivated during the 100th anniversary of the former Naval Radio Station in Annapolis, Maryland:

Historic NSS Call Sign to be Reactivated During its 100th Anniversary

Historic U.S. Navy callsign NSS will be reactivated during the 100th anniversary of the former Naval Radio Station in Annapolis, Maryland. The U.S. Naval Academy Radio Club (W3ADO) and the Potomac Valley Radio Club (W3GRF) will reactivate the historic callsign during the upcoming Armed Forces Day Crossband Military/Amateur Radio Communications Test.

NSS operations from the location of the former Naval Radio Station on Greenbury Point will be from 1300Z Saturday May 12 to 0200Z May 13. CW and SSB transmissions will be on 4038.5, 5330.5, 7533.5, 9447, 14487 and 17545 kHz. NSS will listen for callers on announced frequencies in adjacent amateur bands. Commemorative QSLs will be sent for all QSOs.

NSS began operations in 1918 as the Annapolis High Power Radio Station using a pair of Federal Telegraph Company 500 kilowatt Poulson Arc transmitters and four 600 foot towers operating in the Very Low Frequency (VLF) band. At that time VLF provided the only known capability for trans-oceanic radio communications. NSS began continuous operations in the HF bands about ten years later until 1976 when its HF mission was transferred to Naval Radio Station NAM in Norfolk, Virginia. The 1200 foot central tower and dozens of other towers and masts were demolished in 1999, except for three iconic 600 foot Eiffel towers that remain at the southern tip of Greenbury Point.

A brief video history of NSS is here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWuJ6DB9drw

A virtual tour of NSS is here:

http://j-hawkins.com/nss.shtml

Important: Click here for details about the Armed Forces Day Crossband Test this Saturday May 12, 2018.

Many thanks for sharing this item, Brian! I will do my best to snag a few stations during the crossband test tomorrow!

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Eric Swartz (WA6HHQ) on Ham Radio Workbench

The “PIRATE Act” promises fines up to $100,000 per day

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(Source: Radio World via Mike Hansgen)

Pirate Radio Bill Formally Introduced

Bipartisan legislation designed to thwart and penalize radio pirates and supporters

BY SUSAN ASHWORTH, MAY 9, 2018

Another legislative step has been taken in the effort to fight illegal pirate radio operations.

On May 8, Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) formally introduced a bill to Congress designed to thwart and penalize illegal radio operations.

Known as the ‘‘Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act,” the PIRATE Act will increase the ability of the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on pirate activity by increasing fines, streamlining enforcement and placing liability those who facilitate illegal radio broadcasts.

“It is time to take these pirates off the air by hiking the penalties and working with the Federal Communications Commission on enforcement,” Lance said in a statement. Chairman Pai and Commissioner O’Rielly have been able partners in making sure these broadcasts are stopped. This bill will give the FCC even more tools to take down these illegal broadcasts.”

As a commissioner who has long been searching for more Congressional authority to address pirate radio operations, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly commended the effort after the news was announced.

“This bill rightfully increases the penalties, requires regular enforcement sweeps, and augments the tools available to the commission, which are woefully inadequate and outdated, to deal with illegal pirate broadcasters,” O’Rielly said in a statement.[…]

Click here to read the full article via RadioWorld.

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Alan Roe’s A18 season guide to music on shortwave

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who notes that he has now compiled his Music on Shortwave listing for the A18 broadcast season.

Alan, thanks so much for keeping this excellent guide updated each broadcast season and for sharing it here with the community!

Click here to download Alan Roe’s A18 Shortwave Music Guide version 1.0 (PDF).

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Mystery: Traders using “shortwave to cross oceans with less latency than any fiber”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, London Shortwave, who shares this fascinating article which takes a look at high-frequency trading firms:

(Source: Sniper in Mahwah & Friends)

Shortwave Trading | Part I | the West Chicago Tower Mystery

Since 2014 this blog has extensively covered the wireless networks built by high-frequency trading (HFT) firms or network providers to reduce latencies between the different exchanges around the world (market makers need fast connectivity to manage risk, news traders also need to be fast, etc.). This epic investigation on microwave, which started with HFT in my backyard, will be fully reported in a book I’m currently writing (in French for now). As I’m quite busy with this writing (and other/more interesting matters about market structure), I didn’t really have the time to check out what I have been hearing about “shortwave” or “high frequency” radio. This is the way high-frequency trading firms may use shortwave radio to directly connect widely-separated locations (in short, traders are willing to use shortwave to cross oceans with less latency than any fiber – like Hibernia).

But recently I got more intel about the situation (and some fun anecdotes). With some help from the US, I found that a firm purchased a field for more than 1$M to build towers and antennas; with some help from the EU, I got hints about Germany; and I dug into UK public records. I even met, last March in Amsterdam, people involved in those projects. Not surprisingly, at least five HFT/market making firms showed up behind the shell companies/names they use to hide. The usual suspects. Above all, I have been contacted recently by someone from Chicago, Bob, who decided to investigate the “shortwave” networks in his backyard. Today I’m pleased to host Bob as a new guest writer on this blog. This first part of the “Shortwave Trading” series is released at the same time Bob is talking about what he found at the STAC Summit in Chicago. Next parts will follow soon.[…]

Read the full guest post by Bob (KE9YQ) at the blog Sniper in Mahwah & Friends.

This is a fascinating read, and it’s fun to follow Bob–who obviously knows his way around communications sites and the FCC–put all of the pieces together. I’m looking forward to his future posts.

I think it’s fascinating that while some are calling the HF/shortwave spectrum a dead, outdated medium, others are working in the background leveraging shortwave’s strong and unique properties as a communications medium:

Shortwave requires no infrastructure between communication points
Shortwave can be used to communicate over vast distances
Shortwave needs no permission to cross borders
Shortwave has no latency–signals/communications travel at the speed of light
Shortwave communications are relatively durable, adaptive and are difficult/costly to intentionally block

As I’ve mentioned a number of times in the past–especially in this article from almost four years ago–while we may be seeing big government broadcasts sun-setting we haven’t seen the end of shortwave communications.

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Coming soon: A Spectrum Analyzer function for SDRplay RSP series SDRs

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[UPDATE: Click here for information about downloading Steve’s Spectrum Analyser tool.]

(Source: SDRplay)

Steve Andrews contacted the SDRplay forum recently to share ideas for a new Spectrum Analyser tool for use with SDRplay RSPs. A lively discussion started, with a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement from the user community, for something optimised for these devices. Steve is progressing well with the software development and hopes to have an Alpha release of the basic tool available during May. You can follow the discussion, review progress and add your comments by joining the SDRplay forum and going to: https://www.sdrplay.com/community/viewforum.php?f=12 where we have created a section especially for the Spectrum Analyser topic.

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Visit Radio Caroline’s MV Ross Revenge ship

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(Source: Southgate ARC)

Radio Caroline Trip 2018

The Martello Tower group will once again be running a special event station GB5RC from the Radio Caroline ship the MV Ross Revenge over a long weekend 3rd to 5th August.

This weekend we have arranged 6 trips out to visit the ship for a tour of the ship including studios, transmitter room etc. There will be 3 trips on both the Saturday and same on the Sunday and each trip can carry up to 11 visitors.

Each trip is for the whole 11 people and cost is £275 so if you fill the boat it’s just £25 per person. Sailing times are 1.30pm 4pm and 6.30pm and each trip is around 2.5 hours round trip and will be from Mersey island in Essex.

Bookings will need to be paid in full. Please note we are not taking individual bookings for spaces on trips only bookings of £275 per trip. This is on a first come paid bookings only.

To book a trip call Paul G0HWC on 07810 607766

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