Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Paul, who writes:
Hi Thomas I thought readers may be interested in this YouTube video about Ham Radio in the Movies. It details quite a number of radios that were featured in different movies.
Click here to view on YouTube.
Cheers, Paul
Christchurch, New Zealand
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Mark Hirst, who writes:
Thomas,
I picked up Season 5 of the cult TV show “The Avengers” at a street market last weekend.
In the episode “Never, never say die”, Mrs Emma Peel follows a lead and meets a radio ham playing chess with other radio hams around the world.
With all the little details in the room, I wonder if someone involved in setting up the scene knew something about amateur radio?
Mark
I bet they did, Mark! How many of these fine radios can the SWLing Post community identify? Please comment!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall for once again sharing a remarkable collection of vintage off-air AM radio recordings. In this post, he shares recordings made from his home and during his travels across North America and the Caribbean.
Dan writes:
Hi Thomas
Judging by the interest on my Internet Archive page, vintage AM radio audio clips from the 1970’s are among the most popular files. In addition to the one posted on the SRAA in September 2023, here are the remaining ones I have to take you back 50 years.
The Voice of America station from Marathon Key, Florida is heard signing off on its frequency of 1180 kHz. This recording was made while on vacation in West End, Bahamas in December 1973. Reception of the station in much of North America was tough due to the signal being south beamed to Cuba. However, at least one listener in New Zealand managed reception as evidenced by the attached QSL image from 1972.
ZNS3 radio on 1060 kHz from Freeport, Bahamas is heard with a station identification jingle. The recording was made while on vacation in West End (near Freeport) on Grand Bahama Island in December 1973.
Brief airchecks from 5 local radio stations recorded while visiting Bermuda in March 1975. They are as follows:
ZBM1 1230 kHz
ZBM2 1340 kHz
ZBM-FM 89.1 MHz
ZFB1 960 kHz
ZFB-FM 94.9 MHz
Brief aircheck from radio station WVMT in Burlington, Vermont on 620 kHz recorded in March 1975 in Montreal, Quebec. Starts with “Mandy” by Barry Manilow, station ID, then into NBC news.
Short audio recording of radio XERF on 1570 kHz as received in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada in November 1971.
“This is radio station XERF in Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila, Mexico. This is Paul Kallinger, your good neighbor along the way.”
Used a Hallicrafters S-52 communications receiver and a longwire antenna.
KPCR radio in Bowling Green, Missouri as heard in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada on 1530 kHz during an overnight DX test on December 17, 1973. They only ran 1000 watts, but 50 kw WCKY in Cincinnati was off the air that night. Used a Realistic DX150A receiver and a longwire antenna.
A brief aircheck from KFDI Radio 1070 in Wichita, Kansas as heard in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada on February 22, 1974. Receiving equipment was a Realistic DX150A using a longwire antenna.
WDXR radio in Paducah, Kentucky is heard signing off for their broadcast day. This recording was made circa 1974 while they were operating on 1560 kHz. Receiver location was Ancaster, Ontario, Canada and equipment was a Realistic DX150A and longwire antenna.
A brief aircheck of WANN radio in Annapolis, Maryland heard here signing off for their broadcast day. The recording was made circa 1974 while they were operating on 1190 Khz, A lucky catch for me since WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana was usually heard on 1190. Receiver location was Ancaster, Ontario, Canada, (40 miles SW of Toronto) and equipment used was a Realistic DX150A and a longwire antenna.
One of the easiest ways to log the state of Mississippi on the AM broadcast band in the 1970’s from my location near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, was WCPC in Houston, MS on 940 kHz around local sunset. Here they are giving a station ID as heard on a Realistic DX-150A receiver and a long wire antenna.
Here is a brief English language aircheck from radio station XEMO in Tiajuana, Mexico as received in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada (a distance of 3392 km or 2108 miles) circa 1971. They were broadcasting on their frequency of 860 kHz. At the very end, there is a quick “X E M O Tiajuana Mexico” in Spanish.
Here is a brief aircheck/jingle from radio station WGR in Buffalo, New York on 550 kHz as recorded in 1973 at Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. That same year, the song “Get Down” by Gilbert O’Sullivan reached number 7 on the Billboard Top 100, and WGR aired it regularly as heard here in the second recording, Most of the time they would just ID as “GR-55”.
These brief vintage AM broadcast band airchecks were recorded in March 1975 while vacationing in Warwick, Bermuda at the Belmont Hotel.
1. ZDK, Antigua, West Indies 1100 kHz
2. WKAQ, San Juan, Puerto Rico 580 kHz
3. Radio Paradise, Basse Terre, St. Kitts, West Indies 1265 kHz
4. WHN, New York, NY 1050 kHz
5. WKBR, Manchester, NH 1250 kHz
6. WRKO, Boston, MA 680 kHz
7. CFBC, St. John, NB, Canada 930 kHz
In the wee hours of October 28, 1973, this DX recording was made of radio station KKJO in St. Joseph, MO broadcasting on 1550 kHz in the AM broadcast band. My receiving post was some 800 + miles distant in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. I was using a Realistic DX150A communications receiver hooked up to a long wire antenna. You can hear the station fade gradually in and out a number of times during the recording, but fortunately faded in around the 2:49 mark to catch their station ID and announcement about returning to Central Standard Time. Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” is heard at first, and Art Garfunkel’s “All I Know” afterward, 2 very popular songs in 1973.
KRLD in Dallas, Texas on 1080 kHz was not heard often at my listening post in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada during the 1970’s. WTIC in Hartford, CT was normally received on this frequency instead. Here is a recording made in early 1974 when KRLD managed to make it through. My receiver was a Realistic DX150A hooked up to a longwire antenna.
Here are a few more airchecks from the AM broadcast band recorded in 1973 at Ancaster, Ontario, Canada unless otherwise noted below.
1. WLW Cincinnati, OH 700 kHz
2. WIRK West Palm Beach, FL 1290 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
3. WINZ Miami, FL 940 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
4. WSMB New Orleans, LA 1350 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
5. WDBO Orlando, FL 580 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
6. WPOM Riviera Beach, FL 1600 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
7. KFYR, Bismarck, ND 550
8. KWAM Memphis, TN 990
9. WPTR Albany, NY 1540
10. WOKY Milwaukee, WI 920
11. WIBC, Indianapolis, IN 1070
12. WPDX Clarksburg, WVA 750 (special DX test early hours of Feb. 18, 1974)
13. WMAQ Chicago, IL 670
14. WBT Charlotte, NC 1110
15. WNOE New Orleans, LA 1060
16. WSM Nashville, TN 650
17. WJR Detroit, MI 760
73
Dan Greenall, Ontario, Canada
Click here to view all of Dan Greenall’s Archive.org contributions and click here to browse his collections on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:
Santo Tomas Church, Chichicastenango, Guatemala (by Lucía García González via Wikimedia Commons)
More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.
After my first attempt to visit La Voz de Atitlán failed in June 1983, I turned my sights northward. The next morning in Panajachel I boarded a bus bound for Guatemala City but got off when the bus reached the main highway at the Los Encuentros intersection. A few minutes later I caught a ride on a ‘chicken bus’ headed north to my first destination of the day – Chichicastenango.
Chichicastenango is not a town that DXers would be familiar with but anyone who has seriously traveled around Guatemala has surely been there at least once. The outdoor markets held on Thursday and Sunday are among the largest in all of Central America. Guatemala has dozens of towns with long names ending in …tenango, meaning “place of.” Chichicastenango is the place of the chichicaste plant, in reference to a thorny bush that grows in the area. Most of the time people just call the town Chichi as it’s common to drop the tenango part from names when speaking.
For over five hundred years, Quiché Mayans from the surrounding area have been coming here twice weekly for the market held in the plaza in front of the Santo Tomás church. The steps to the church are always filled with flower vendors and men swinging containers of incense.
In the early days of the Spanish conquest, Catholic churches were often built on the sites already holy to the Indians. It was a clever way to get the newly forced converts to come to mass. In the case of Santo Tomás, however, they unknowingly picked a location of major spiritual importance in the Mayan religion. As a result many Mayan ceremonies involving nature and natural gods have survived in this area. Some became intertwined with Catholic practices while others were practiced in secret for centuries until it finally became safe to bring them out into the open again.
It was only June but I did my Christmas shopping that day and mailed everything home from Guatemala City a few days later. Guatemala’s post office was very reliable. Everything arrived safely in less than two weeks.
With my purchases packed in my now very heavy bag, I got on the next bus heading south and once again got out at Los Encuentros. This time I was looking for any bus heading west. I wasn’t going too far. A few minutes later a bus bound for Quetzaltenango stopped and I got on, telling the driver’s assistant that I wanted to get off at Nahualá.
I knew Nahualá was in the northwest corner of Sololá department a little way off the Pan-American Highway but I was surprised when about an hour later the bus stopped next to a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. I gave the driver’s assistant a puzzled look when he told me this was my stop. He explained that they could leave me off further down the highway where the road to Nahualá branched off. But it would be a long walk from there. From here, the walk was only about ten minutes. There was a well-worn path leading upwards through the cornfield, so I took him at his word. Continue reading
From Ronald W. Kenyon’s collection
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ronald, who writes:
I am 83 years old now. When I was actively DXing from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, some stations, such as Radio Prague and Radio Nederland, and clubs such as the Japan Short Wave Club (JSWC) organized contests with prizes, usually special QSL cards.
In 1957, Radio Nederland ran a DX contest and offered a special QSL card. The JSWC offered a special QSL card to SWLers who received confirmation of their special 5th Anniversary broadcasts from eight stations between December 1956 and January 1957. I reproduced the JSWC card and the Radio Nederland card in my book, QSL: How I Traveled the World and Never Left Home.
Perhaps on this occasion or another occasion, Radio Nederland ran a contest and offered
prizes. I won one of these prizes, a silver-plated commemorative sugar scoop spoon made by “Schonenberg.”
I illustrated it on the colophon of my book.Googling “Schonenberg,” I couldn’t figure out where it was located. Some said the Netherlands, some said Canton Thurgau, Switzerland, and one source (obviously wrong) said England.
“Wettig gedept” on the box is abbreviated Dutch for Wettig gedeponeerd “legally deposed,” which suggests “Trademark Registered” in English. Thus, I conclude that the spoons are made in the Netherlands–logical for Radio Nederland to have its prizes manufactured in its own country!
Questions:
Ronald
Readers: If you can help Ronald answer these questions, please comment!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Robert, who shares the following:
Hi Thomas – I visited the President Truman Library today and noticed an interesting item in their Oval Office recreation. It appears that not only did Mr. Truman have the first television inside the Oval Office, he apparently also had a Hallicrafters model SX-28 right behind his desk.
One wonders what stations he would specifically listen to, and what type of antenna was installed at the White House for this radio?
Cheers,
Robert
Source: The Great International Math on Keys Book, Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas, Texas, p. 4-7, 1976.
Move along. Nothing informative to read here, just the wandering of an idle mind scheming with meandering fingers on a keyboard. On the other hand, if your curiosity can’t be controlled, consider that a significant amount of enjoyment in this hobby is the mere operation of the radio – seeing what all the buttons, knobs, and switches do, both separately and in combination. It’s always been this way. Beginning in the Amplifiozoic Epoch there was continual rotation of the knobs. This occurred before the discovery of ganged capacitors, when each circuit had to be tuned independently to resonate at the proper frequency. Otherwise, nothing.
It could be quite confounding for a non-radiofile trying to break into the sport. Just getting some sound out of a two-knob radio could be a challenge. My late mother solved this problem on all our radios by painting a dab of red nail polish at the points on the dial where each local station came in.
Later, with the humble entry-level shortwave “set” there was conundrum in the way the bandspread interacted with the main tuning control, and the curious effect of the BFO switch. Even the venerable Hallicrafters Company, which catered to the hams and SWLs of the time, recognized the problem. They tried to solve this by prescribing a default setting in installation and operating procedures for model S-40 receiver, The Hallicrafters Company, Chicago, USA, p. 4, 1946:
“NOTE. – Some of the control markings are in RED. This is an added feature incorporated for the convenience of the listener who is not familiar with radio terminology as an aid in setting the controls most used for the reception of standard broadcast stations.”
That was the nice way of saying it. After many years, I still chuckle to myself thinking of an old ham radio mentor of mine who insensitively explained that the purpose of these markings was for certain members of the household who could not otherwise make the radio work. On my S-40B, the “convenience” markings are white dots.
Modern radios have many buttons, which can work in different ways. A short press will do one thing while a long press will do something else. Some buttons do one thing with the radio turned off and another thing with the radio turned on. On many radios you can lock the buttons and knobs, in which case they won’t do anything. You must get it right.
Today, the possibilities with all these variables are boundless, even beyond the control of the manufacturers who incorporate the complex TEF6686 30-pin IC chips in their designs. Qodosen has set the bar high by making a plethora of user-adjustable functions available on the DX-286. An uncommonly informative 40-page manual has been included with each radio and is highly recommended as an essential tool to assist with its operation.
In recent years, Tecsun has capitalized on this by incorporating “hidden features” in some of their models; that is, their operation and even their very existence are not revealed in the manual. In computer gaming parlance, these features are called “Easter eggs” for which one must hunt. Originally, the inclusion of hidden features may not have been intentional, but with the introduction of the PL-880 in 2013 they became a veritable sensation, as testified by the countless owner postings on the PL-880 Yahoo users’ group of that time. A prize of unbounded esteem and self-satisfaction went to the intrepid listener who discovered and solved a hidden feature. This interest went on for several months as Tecsun tweaked the firmware and the “features” migrated somewhat. But unfortunately, a spoiler has been introduced. Hidden feature data sheets are now packaged with current models. In case you are missing any, here is a sampling.
For the Tecsun PL-368 see https://swling.com/blog/2021/08/troys-tecsun-pl-368-hidden-features-quick-reference-sheet/
For the Tecsun PL-990 see https://swling.com/blog/2020/10/johns-pl-990-hidden-features-quick-reference-sheet/
For the Tecsun PL-880 see https://swling.com/blog/2019/10/40072/
For the Tecsun S-8800 see https://swling.com/blog/2018/08/bill-discovers-a-number-of-tecsun-s-8800-hidden-features/
The complexity of radio operation is compounded still further by the advent of SDR, wherein combinations of various hardware and software components result in a host of possibilities. Features and their placement seem endless as they are distributed on multiple menus. As my personal experience is limited to WebSDR, I leave the pursuit of this point to others.
Finally, the inclusion of some elementary form of leverage and dexterity is present in some radios. Isn’t the hand-powered crank on today’s emergency radio akin to the vintage treadle-operated transcription machine pictured at the beginning of this posting? Perhaps we have come full circle.
Today’s radios are a sort of Rubik’s cube which can continually be manipulated to provide many hours of discovery and complement the listening and DXing experiences. So, the next time you crawl underneath the headset and unconsciously tune to the object frequency, zero beat on the necessary sideband, and adjust the proper bandwidth and volume, reflect on all the time and practice it took you to develop this useful skill.