Category Archives: Radio History

Recordings of WI2XLQ: 2021 Commemorative Fessenden Broadcast on 486 kHz

WA1ZMS’ 600 meter transmitter

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Brian Smith (W9IND), who shares the following recordings and notes:

Since 2012, experimental radio station WI2XLQ in Forest, Virginia, has presented an annual Christmas Eve/Christmas Day transmission in honor of Canadian radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden. Operated by Brian Justin, WA1ZMS, the station transmits on 486 kHz, just below the American AM broadcast band.

Here are two short recordings of the 2021 broadcast that I made around 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve (Indianapolis time) or 0200 UTC Christmas Day.

No DXing feat on my part: Unable to receive the station in the Indianapolis area, I listened via the online SDR of K1RA in Warrenton, Virginia, about 120 miles northeast of WI2XLQ.

My recording equipment? Again, nothing to brag about — just my trusty Android cell phone, which captured 4- and 6-minute snippets of the broadcast.

Signal strength varied widely from inaudible to excellent — mostly in between — and not surprisingly there’s plenty of QRN (static). The repeating program consisted of two songs, including a violin rendition of “O Holy Night,” followed by a station ID.

For those who’ve never managed to hear WI2XLQ’s annual transmissions, I hope you’ll enjoy this sampling of what you missed.

NOTE: As even Justin acknowledges, these broadcasts commemorate a reputed 1906 event that may not actually have taken place. Despite Fessenden’s claim of achieving the first voice (and music) transmission, substantiation is lacking. Whatever the truth, Fessenden was unquestionably one of the foremost radio experimenters of his era.

Recordings:

Many thanks for sharing this, Brian!

Note that if you missed the WI2XLQ on Christmas, note than Brian Justin plans to repeat the Fessenden broadcast on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day!

Radio Waves: Eiffel Tower Radio 100 Years Ago, Raspberry Pi Radio Time Machine, Barrie ARC Thrives in Pandemic, and The Voice of Ganymede via JUNO

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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 Dan Srebnick, the Southgate ARC and Geneva Witherspoon for the following tips:

Signal of strength: Eiffel Tower celebrates a centenary of radio broadcast (RFI)

A hundred years ago this week, France’s most famous landmark, the Eiffel Tower, was first used as an antenna for radio programmes. Looming high above the city’s uniform skyline, the tower was an obvious choice to pioneer public radio in France, proving the country’s prowess in broadcast technology.

On 22 December 1921, just three years after the end of WWI, “Radio Tour Eiffel” broadcast its first ever show, a live performance featuring legendary singers.

The trial was the beginning of a long series of broadcasts that continues today, with 45 television stations and 32 FM stations – including RFI – broadcasting from the Eiffel Tower.

According to the Lille-based publication Le Réveil du Nord of 24 December 2021, “a concert by wireless telephony took place at the Lille Theatre”.

Famous artists of that era, the legendary Sacha Guitry, the soprano Jeanne Hatto, the tenor Maurice Dutreix and others sang in a microphone in a room in the Eiffel Tower, from where it was broadcast to a “wireless phone set” in the hall of the Lille theatre.

“A large audience attended this session,” according to the dispatch. [Continue reading…]

Nostalgic Raspberry Pi Radio Tunes to Music From Past Decades (Tom’s Hardware)

The Raspberry Pi makes an excellent gift on its own, but getting one in a custom Time Machine Radio is remarkably fulfilling. This holiday, a maker known as Byte-rider created a custom Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W-powered radio for his father. Continue reading →

Experimental Station WI2XLQ will recreate 1906 Fessenden transmissions again this Holiday season

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Canadian Reginald Aubrey Fessenden in his lab believed circa 1906 (Source: Radio Canada International)

(Source: ARRL News)

Experimental Station will Recreate 1906 Fessenden Transmissions

Experimental station WI2XLQ will be on the air on 486 kHz AM for the Reginald Fessenden commemorative transmission. Brian Justin, WA1ZMS, is the licensee. He will transmit for 24 hours starting at 2000 UTC on December 24, with a repeat transmission starting at 2000 UTC on December 31. Justin will use a homebrew 1921-era MOPA exciter with Heising modulation, followed by a modern 500-W linear. The transmission will be the same as in past years — two violin pieces that Fessenden claims to have played as one of the very first voice transmissions from his Brant Rock, Massachusetts, radio lab site. “While doubt remains that such a transmission ever took place, Fessenden did perform some crude voice transmissions over a few miles distance in early December near Washington, DC, as a demonstration for the US Navy,” Justin said. “So, perhaps some credit is due Fessenden for his efforts to transmit the human voice in an era of spark transmissions.”

If you would like more information about Brian Justin and WI2XLQ, check out our interview with him in 2013. Indeed, I successfully heard the 2013 WG2XFG broadcast and posted this audio clip on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.

Radio Waves: Pocket SSB Transceiver, Radio On The Bay Event, New Book on History of Spaceweather, and PSK31 on 437 MHz from the Moon

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The uSDX/uSDR QRP transceiver (Chinese version)

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Ham Radio SSB Transceiver Fits in Pocket (Hackaday)

Talking about this Chinese ham radio transceiver requires a veritable flurry of acronyms: HF, SSB, QRP, and SDR to start with. [Paul] does a nice job of unboxing the rig and checking it out. The radio is a clone of a German project and provides a low-power radio with a rechargeable battery. You can see his video about the gear below.

SSB is an odd choice for low power operation, although we wonder if you couldn’t feed digital data in using a mode like PSK31 that has good performance at low power. There are several variations of the radio available and they cost generally less than $200 — sometimes quite a bit less.

There isn’t much on the front of the radio. There are a few buttons, a rotary encoder, and an LCD along with a speaker and microphone built-in. There are ports for power to run the radio if you want to not use the battery and a separate port for battery charging. There are also ports for a key, external microphone and speakers, and audio connections that look like they’d work for digital modes. According to commenters, the radio doesn’t have an internal charging circuit, so you have to be careful what you plug into the charging port. [Continue reading…]

(SIDE NOTE: I have been testing one of the USDX / USDR transceivers (a Chinese version–not the open source homebrew project) over at QRPer.com and have been very displeased with performance. So much so, I returned it for a refund. One of the biggest issues being spurious emissions that were produced in harmonics, but also the receiver is one of the worst I’ve ever tested. -Thomas) Continue reading →

BBC Newshour and the first shortwave Transatlantic Tests

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Former BBC World Service HQ – The Bush House

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors, Doug and Kris, who both share a link to BBC Newshour which was broadcast yesterday (Dec 12, 2021).

The final segment of the show focuses on the birth of international shortwave radio and the first Transatlantic tests. You can listen to this report over the next month via the BBC Sounds website. This is the final piece in Newshour and starts at the 45:05 mark. Very much worth your time!

Click here to listen to this segment on BBC Sounds (starting at 45:05).

Guest Post: Don targets rare Norwegian stations during Newfoundland DXpedition

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Photo by the Bjørnøya Meteorologiske Stasjon

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–author of Following Ghosts in Northern Peru–for the following guest post:

The Rarest DX?

By Don Moore

In mid-October I received an invitation to attend the annual DXpedition in Cappahayden, Newfoundland with Jean Burnell, John Fisher, and Jim Renfrews. It didn’t take long for me to say yes. Newfoundland is one of the best places in the world to DX from and all kinds of amazing stuff has been heard there. I was excited at the prospect of great medium wave DX and being able to log low-powered European private and pirate shortwave broadcasters.

But something else was at the top of my try-for list. One of my many DX interests has always been logging coastal marine stations in the 1600 to 3000 kHz range. In preparation I started checking online sources to update my spreadsheet of schedules. In going through a recently added section on Marine Broadcasts in the DX Info Centre website I came across listings for twice-daily weather broadcasts from Hopen Island on 1750 kHz and Bjørnøya (Bear Island) on 1757 kHz.

I didn’t remember ever seeing anything about broadcasts from these remote islands in the Norwegian Arctic before. Were these stations actually on the air, I wondered. And if they were, could I hear them in Newfoundland? Continue reading →

Radio Waves: First Transatlantic Signal 120 Years Today, 100 Years of German Radio, NASA Laser Communications, and Ham Transmitter on the Moon

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Marconi watching associates raising the kite (a “Levitor” by B.F.S. Baden-Powell[47]) used to lift the antenna at St. John’s, Newfoundland, December 1901 (via Wikipedia)

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Trevor R, Andrea Bornino, Wilbur Forcier, and the Southgate ARC for the following tips:

First radio transmission sent across the Atlantic Ocean (History.com)

Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message–simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”–traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.

Born in Bologna, Italy, in 1874 to an Italian father and an Irish mother, Marconi studied physics and became interested in the transmission of radio waves after learning of the experiments of the German physicist Heinrich Hertz. He began his own experiments in Bologna beginning in 1894 and soon succeeded in sending a radio signal over a distance of 1.5 miles. Receiving little encouragement for his experiments in Italy, he went to England in 1896. He formed a wireless telegraph company and soon was sending transmissions from distances farther than 10 miles. In 1899, he succeeded in sending a transmission across the English Channel. That year, he also equipped two U.S. ships to report to New York newspapers on the progress of the America’s Cup yacht race. That successful endeavor aroused widespread interest in Marconi and his wireless company. Continue reading →