Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following photos he snapped at the Berryville Hamfest this past weekend:
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Hemphill (WD9EQD) who writes:
Hi Thomas,
Last night, I was watching the movie “Hollow Man.” Being a ham, I’m always watching for ham gear being used in movies. Quite often they use various Kenwood or Icom handheld radios.
At about 1 and half hours in the movie, I caught a glimpse of what I thought was one
of the more usual (and unlikely) ham heldhelds:
Just from this screen clip, I was pretty sure that I was looking at the Alinco DJ-C5 credit card HT.
I was able to capture another clip that confirmed it:
In the late 90’s, Alinco made three credit card radios; DJ-C1 for two meters, DJ-C4 for 440 and finally the DJ-C5 dual band that could also receive the aircraft band.
The C1 and C4 were earpiece only radios while the C5 had a small speaker added which made it a lot more usable.
They are quite amazing little radios. It was great fun seeing them appear in a movie.
Here’s one of mine with a ink pen next to it to show size:
Thank you for sharing this, Bill! I remember when these credit card-sized HTs were on the market and I wanted one if for no other reason than to feel like a spy! Great catch, OM!
Caversham Park (Photo source: BBC)
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 John Smith and Chris Greenway for the following tips.
The PIRATE Act Prohibits Landowners and Property Managers from Aiding Pirate
Radio Operations
—
WASHINGTON, July 21, 2023—The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau today issued nine warnings to landowners and property managers in the Miami area for apparently allowing illegal broadcasting from their properties. The FCC may issue a fine exceeding $2 million if it determines that a party continues to permit any individual or entity to engage in pirate radio broadcasting from any property that they own or manage.
“Providing a safe haven for pirate radio operations that can interfere with licensed broadcast signals and fail to provide emergency alert system notifications can have serious consequences for landowners and property managers that allow this conduct to occur on their properties,” said Loyaan A. Egal, Chief of the Enforcement Bureau. “I want to thank our field agents for their continued efforts to ensure compliance with federal law in this area.”
The Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting sent today target properties identified by
Enforcement Bureau field agents as sources of pirate radio transmissions. These notices formally notify landowners and property managers of the illegal broadcasting activity occurring on their property; inform landowners and property managers of their potential liability for permitting such activity to occur on their property; demand proof that the illegal broadcasting has ceased on the property; and request identification of the individual(s) engaged in the illegal broadcasting.
The PIRATE Act provides the FCC with additional enforcement authority, including higher
penalties against pirate radio broadcasters of up to inflation-adjusted amounts of $115,802 per day with a maximum of $2,316,034. In addition to tougher fines on violators, the law requires the FCC to conduct periodic enforcement sweeps and grants the Commission authority to take enforcement action against landlords and property owners that willfully and knowingly permit pirate radio broadcasting on their properties.
The Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting are available at:
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-warnings-allowing-illegal-radio-broadcasts.
Readers note that the number of comments on the Shortwave Modernization Petition have surpassed well over 600 at time of posting. No doubt, this particular petition is getting more visibility and notice than expected.
You may know someone who met the love of their life through writing letters, and these days you’d be hard pressed to NOT know people who’ve met online… but have you ever come across someone who’s met her husband in Morse code?
Ulla Knox-Little knew that getting to do an expedition to Antarctica as the radio room operator would be a life-changing experience, but she never expected it to lead to her meeting the love of her life.
Hosted and produced by Helen Shield.
Click here to listen to this short radio piece.
Last month, Readex welcomed librarians to a special breakfast presentation at this year’s ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, IL. Dr. Alban Webb, lecturer of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, captivated the audience in attendance with his talk on “The Art of Listening: BBC Monitoring and the Historical Significance of the Transatlantic Open Source Intelligence Relationship”
Dr. Webb—a noted historian of BBC World Service—gave a fascinating and informative overview of the history of open-source intelligence (OSINT) and the role of BBC Monitoring, highlighting perspectives these newly digitized archives represent for the study of the 20th century history. Click here to read the full article.
Please consider supporting us via Patreon or our Coffee Fund!
Your support makes articles like this one possible. Thank you!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who writes:
Two of the best foreign shows on Netflix are Wrong Side of the Tracks, produced in Spain, and The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, from Israel.
Classic antique radios feature in both.
In Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, a wonderful old tube set appears in a scene set in a shop in old Jerusalem (the left of the shopkeeper).
Someone in Spain must be in love with old classic radios because we see a number of them in different scenes — primarily on a shelf in the shop of one of the main characters, along with a few portable radios. The large radio could be Grundig or any one of a number of other European sets — perhaps SWLing experts can provide the answer.
Click images to enlarge:
Can you ID some of these radios? Please comment!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:
A Coruña coast
by Don Moore
Some of my favorite sites to visit while traveling are historical, marine, and military museums. I’ve always been interested in those subjects and sometimes those kinds of museums have a few old radios on display. That makes a nice bonus to the visit. Last year, I spent May and June traveling all over Spain (with some short excursions into neighboring countries). One of my favorite regions was Galicia, where I stayed for five nights in the capital of A Coruña and six days in a rural village to the east. And the museums of Galicia had some of the most interesting radio-themed items I’ve ever seen.
Galicia is that small region of northwestern Spain directly north of Portugal. It was part of the Celtic world (along with Brittany in France and the British Isles) and the coastline was home to Phoenician and Greek settlements. It later came under Roman rule along with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula.
A Coruña Fishing Boats
A Coruña Fish Market
Spanish is spoken everywhere but the people are proud of their native language, Galician or Gallego. The language looks and sounds like Portuguese with a lot of Spanish influence but is actually older than either of those. Some linguists believe that Portuguese was derived from Galician.
The rugged Galician coast is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen with its numerous bays, estuaries, steep hillsides, and rocky shore. Most of Spain is arid but Galicia is one of the rainiest parts of Europe so the countryside is green and lush. And because of the neighboring cold Atlantic Ocean, temperatures remain comfortable even when the rest of Spain (and places further north) are baking in the summer heat.
A Coruña City Hall
One of the first places I visited in A Coruña was the Museo Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnología on the west side of the harbor. The very first display in the museum is a piece of radio history like no other. In the 1960s NASA set up a network of communication stations around the world to maintain constant contact with the Apollo moon missions. The primary stations were located in rural California, near Canberra in Australia, and in the little village of Fresnedillas outside Madrid. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969 Madrid was facing towards them and received the first radio transmissions from the surface of the moon. This museum has one of several redundant radio racks that were used to receive that historic broadcast.
After visiting the museum I wandered uphill to Monte de San Pedro Park, the best place in A Coruña to view the city and harbor. Those heights were also once vital to the city’s defenses and the park contains several mothballed gun turrets built in the 1930s. Continue reading
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 Dennis Dura, Sten Odenwald, Paul Walker, and David Iurescia for the following tips:
Many thanks to David Iurescia who shares the following announcement (translated from French):
Dear listener,
The French service of Radio Taiwan International is pleased to inform you that during the month of August 2023, we will be broadcasting directly from the Tamsui transmission center in northern Taiwan to Europe and South Africa. north.
In order to better prepare for this radio activity in French, a test broadcast will be carried out on Saturday July 1 on short waves, at the following times and frequencies:
Your listening reports on these 10-minute segment tests will help us identify the two optimal frequencies for August’s “Live from Tamsui” broadcast under the best possible listening conditions.
Thank you for your valued input!
A special QSL card is produced for all the listening reports that you will send us by post, email to the French service or via the stations’s online form, both for the test broadcast and during the August broadcast.
Thank you for listening and for your loyalty.
Cordially,
French Service, RTI
Family members of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea have recorded encouraging messages for a radio broadcast aimed at the country.
The messages were recorded in Tokyo for Free North Korea Radio, a shortwave broadcaster. Its daily radio program is run by a group of people who defected from the North to South Korea.
The abductees’ relatives called on their loved ones never to give up until they are rescued.
The leader of the relatives’ group, Yokota Takuya, is a younger brother of Yokota Megumi, who was abducted in 1977 at the age of 13. He asked his sister how she is doing. He also said he is sorry that she has had to spend a long time in North Korea without freedom.
He added that the relatives will never give up until they achieve the return of all the abductees.
His twin brother, Yokota Tetsuya, told his sister about their parents. He said that their father, who died three years ago, thought about rescuing his daughter every day.
He added that their 87-year-old mother often falls over, but is doing well. He vowed to get back his sister and asked her to stay healthy until she can be reunited with her mother.
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said last month that he wants to start high-level talks under his direct control to hold a summit with North Korea at an early date.
Yokota Takuya said after the recording that he wants the Japanese government to continue its steady diplomatic efforts until all the abductees are returned.
He expressed hope that a Japan-North Korea summit can be held and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will decide to hand over all the abductees. [Read the full story and watch the video here…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Sten Odenwald, who writes:
Hi Thomas!
Thanks so much for your contribution to the History of Space Weather book I published several years ago!
I have just published a new book I think you might be interested in. It’s called Exploring Space Weather with DIY Magnetometers, and it’s now available at amazon.com (see below). It provides step-by-step designs for building six sensitive instruments for under $60.00 that can measure real-time changes in Earth’s magnetic field.
If you are interested in such a building project, or you know of a family member, teacher, or even a student looking for a science fair project, this book will show you how to build these instruments. I also provide examples of storm events that were actually detected by each design so you can see what typical data looks like. For additional examples and updates, visit my blog page at http://sten.astronomycafe.net/diy-magnetometers/
Thanks again for your help!
Sten Odenwald
Astronomer
Click here to check out this book on Amazon.com (SWLing Post affiliate link).
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dennis Dura, who notes that a number of vintage and late model radios are up for auction at Schulman’s:
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who shares the following tip:
It appears they are now operating at US night times now. For the longest time, as you may be aware, they were only on 9275 kHz during the day.
Sometime around mid last week, they were being reported on 15150 kHz as well.
And I finally logged them too.. nice signal on 15150 kHz here just after 0400!!
Please consider supporting us via Patreon or our Coffee Fund!
Your support makes articles like this one possible. Thank you!
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 and Dennis Dura for the following tips:
My most prized possession was once somebody’s trash.
It’s a blocky, black radio that was manufactured in 1941, the year my father was 12 years old. I snatched it from the county landfill when I was 13, in 1978.
The person who threw it away must have determined they couldn’t fix it, though it seemed they thought someone else might. They had set the radio off to the side of the dumpster, safe in plain view, just in case some industrious person with know-how appeared.
That person was my father, who ran an electronics repair business from our garage. Though at first reluctant to save “that ugly old thing,” he seemed pleased hours later when he entered the kitchen announcing that the radio worked fine and had only needed a tube. For years after this, my father kept that radio on a shelf above his workbench, listening to country singers croon about lonesome truckers.
I like to think of myself as a minimalist, but since my father died in 1994, I’ve carried what I consider to be “our” radio thousands of miles from the Appalachian farm where I grew up, out to Los Angeles, and then many years later back home again. In California, I’d tune our radio to horse races being transmitted from Santa Anita or Hollywood Park while cleaning my kitchen. Or I listened to Paul Harvey, Casey Kasem or evangelists spouting “truths” about Jesus and cars. [Continue reading…]
New analysis of AM reach provides market-level insight to listening habits
Following up its recent report on the 141 local markets where at least 20% of the market listens to AM radio, Nielsen has released a deeper look with new data at the state- and DMA-level.
Pierre Bouvard, chief insights officer of the Cumulus Media / Westwood One Audio Active Group, recently posted an analysis of the findings. The data comes from the Fall 2022 survey, but is based on all U.S. radio stations, not just Nielsen subscribers.
Nationwide, 30.9% of radio reach comes from AM stations, representing 82,346,8000 American radio listeners aged 12+ who listen to AM every month. At the state level it ranged from a high of 52.7% in North Dakota to a low of 4.6% in the District of Columbia. In 29 states, the percent of radio reach via AM is greater than 20%. [Continue reading…]
Auto group also says it would take two decades for fleet to turn over and AM to phase out
“Whether or not AM radio is physically installed in vehicles in the future has no bearing on the multiple methods of delivering those emergency communications alerts to the public.”
So writes the president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. John Bozzella used a blog post this past week to summarize the auto industry’s case against a mandate to include AM radio in cars.
It’s simply not necessary, he wrote; and government shouldn’t be propping up a particular technology that’s competing with other communications options, either.
“It’s tempting to take a cheap shot at misplaced government priorities and unnecessary mandates or make light of the whole thing with a jab about laws for hand-crank windows or cassette players,” he writes, calling the legislation a bipartisan solution searching for a problem. [Continue reading…]
Please consider supporting us via Patreon or our Coffee Fund!
Your support makes articles like this one possible. Thank you!