Category Archives: Radio Memories

Bob’s Radio Corner: The Last Radio I Really Needed

My original PL-660 has high mileage but still
has its original kick stand and whip antenna.

The Last Radio I Really Needed

By Bob Colegrove

Like most folks, I have a favorite radio.  My favorite radio is the one I happen to be listening to at the time.  Each radio has its own attractions.  The fact that one particular radio is turned on indicates that, at least for the moment, it is my favorite.

I also have a special radio.  It is special because, ever since I bought it, there has never been a compelling reason to buy another radio.  That said, there is no accounting for irrational behavior which has subsequently caused me to buy several more radios, always with the hope that the next radio would somehow provide better performance than my special radio.

My longstanding experience has been with vacuum tube radios.  I have used multiband radio consoles.  I have used everything from a Hallicrafters S-38 to a Collins R-390A and most everything in between.  I tried a couple of analog, multiband, solid-state portables in the 1960s and ‘70s.  I bought a Sony ICF-2010 early on and still have two of them fully functional.  For many years, the -2010s were my go-to radios.

Then, I happened to read the review of the Tecsun PL-660 in the 2012 WRTH.  The price seemed reasonable, and I decided to buy one.  From the very beginning, I was not disappointed.  Selectable sidebands and synchronous detection – not a Sony, but very good.  Further, the -660 was notably smaller and packed quite easily.  I could include a pair of earphones, a length of wire and this radio, set up away from the shack, and operate.

So why is this radio special?  It is not perfect.  But for LW, MW, SW, and FM, there is nothing I can hear on any of my radios that I can’t hear on the Tecsun PL-660.  Reception seems to be especially sensitive and clear.

I must qualify the claim above.  Normally I use external antennas.  External antennas are the great equalizers.  Properly matched they make a radio perform at its best.  Radio reviews and comparisons will often include judgements about sensitivity.  Unfortunately, many reviewers do not specify the conditions under which they tested the radio.  The reader must assume that these judgements are based on the use of stock internal antennas — most often the LW and MW ferrite loop and the SW and FM whip.  For portable radios this makes sense, as internal antennas are paramount to the radio’s transportable versatility.

Not Perfect

I will spare everyone yet another review of a radio now in its adolescent years.  I merely focus on a couple of picks I have with the PL-660.  There are others which are well documented.

Birdies

Probably the worst fault with the -660 is birdies.  There are a few along the LW spectrum but the worst by far is one which generally appears between 950 kHz and 1000 kHz in the MW band.  I have read where this is traceable to the DC-DC converter but have never found a remedy.  This nasty signal is very rich in harmonics and will replicate through the entire SW spectrum.  Further, the fundamental birdie and its harmonics tend to slowly drift upward for about an hour after the radio is turned on.  The drift accelerates with multiples of harmonics.  For example, while the fundamental birdie is creeping up 1 kHz, the second harmonic will travel 2 kHz, the third 3 kHz, and so forth.  There are many harmonics where no harm is done; however, the 4th harmonic will blaze a trail squarely through the 80-meter ham band.  Wait a while and it will drift onward but ultimately stop at some equally inconvenient location.

Poor Encoder

The PL-660 tuning encoder, as with its cousins in the -600 and the -680, is … well, very poor.  From the get-go it will jump erratically forward or backward.  This becomes worse over time, particularly with any prolonged periods of disuse.  I have not determined whether this is dirt, poor contact, or just poor design.  I have found that vigorous exercise forward and backward with the tuning knob is the best temporary remedy.  This will generally bring the encoder back to tolerable performance.

Replacement encoders are available at modest cost.  I went this route as a last resort but managed to lay up my -660 for several months having failed to make the replacement work at all on the first attempt.  A few months later with renewed determination, followed by a series of deep cleansing breaths, I reopened the radio and discovered that my mistake was just a solder bridge between two of the encoder pins.  Note to self: For the future, this surgery should only be performed by people with good vision and steady hands.  After several months of storage there was unbounded joy when the 12-year-old -660 came alive and began to tune perfectly – well as perfectly as it could.

My Mods

One of the reasons why the Tecsun PL-660 is special to me is that it is a tangible link to my tinkering past.  In former times, much satisfaction was obtained by aligning RF and IF stages, restringing dial cords, and replacing leaky capacitors.  For most tinkers, the advent of large-scale, solid-state integration and surface-mounted components has made tinkering virtually impossible.  Detailed data are scarce, parts much more specialized, and soldering skills more demanding.

The PL-660 came along at a point where vacuum tube tinkering was still within recent memory and the skills for maintaining and modifying high-tech radios had not become so intimidating.  To summarize, with just a few exceptions, today’s radios are for all practical purposes unrepairable, unmodifiable, and therefore more readily disposable.  What a pity.  The term “parted out” has entered our vocabulary, whereby a defective radio is cannibalized to provide its serviceable vital organs to its remaining siblings.

Dynamic Squelch

Briefly, the Tecsun PL-660 dynamic squelch function automatically adjusts the signal threshold based on its strength.  Ostensibly, this helps prevent the radio from being overwhelmed by noise when no signal is present while still allowing strong signals to be heard.  The “dynamic” part of the term refers to the feature turning itself on or off as the situation demands.  The downside is twofold:  a) weak signals may be totally blocked with squelch engaged; and b) the feature may oscillate on an off as a signal fades and then gets stronger.  There are several demonstrations of this on YouTube.

In 2012, a Russian radiofile managed to identify the transistor that switched the feature on and off.  By the simple expedient of grounding one of its leads, it could be permanently turned off, eliminating its drawbacks.  An optional further modification provided for the tone control switch to be repurposed to manually enable or disable the basic modification.

The relatively simple concept turned out to be rather involved surgery requiring a large metal circuit shield to be unsoldered and removed to access the transistor.  The old Yahoo PL-660 Group was abuzz with interest at the time.  Many folks were doing the modification.  Had it not been discussed so widely, I would likely have ignored it.  But being a wild, impulsive 70-year-old at the time, I had to give it a go and fortunately was successful.

Disablement of the dynamic squelch required removal of a shield on PCB

External LW and MW antennas

I do not like to be limited by the lack of an external LW/MW antenna connection.  The PL-660 has no means to switch one on.  You can easily inductively couple an AN-100/200 or Terk Advantage loop and get good results, but I wanted more.  I took the classic approach of winding a 5-turn transfer coil around the ferrite bar.  Initially I simply connected this to a twisted pair which ran out the unused hole for the wrist strap.  The twisted pair was connected to a phone jack and dangled out of the radio like a pig tail.

Pigtail used the hole in the case vacated by the wrist strap.

Sometime after my mod, Geir Laastad, LA6LU, published a paper with a much more elegant solution.  He discovered that the PL-880 used a stereo external antenna jack, the center (ring) terminal was not used, and the cumbersome pigtail could be eliminated by connecting the added transfer coil between this center terminal on the jack and the radio ground.  This necessitated use of a stereo plug to mate with the jack for connection of a LW/MW external antenna, but the jack could otherwise be used normally for SW.  I found that Tecsun used the same stereo jack approach on the -600, -660, and -680, and was able to connect the transfer coil to each radio the same way.  Geir’s paper is at https://groups.io/g/Tecsun-PL-880/files/_Tecsun_PL-880_LW_&_MW_Antenna_Mod.pdf, but you may have to request membership in the group to download it.

Enlarged fine tuning knob

One of the weak features of the -600, -660 and -680 is the fine-tuning pot.  Zero-beating a signal is a bit touchy.  The problem is exacerbated by a mechanical detent in the control’s center of rotation, that is, the point where zero beat is likely to be encountered.  I found a foam, doughnut-shaped packing spacer from a spindle of CDs had just the right internal and external diameters to slip over the fine-tuning knob and provide some added gear reduction.  By pressing the foam against the case, the effects of the detent could be mitigated.

Well, unfortunately, CDs are going the way of cassette tapes these days, so the availability of the packing spacers may not be so good.  It may be within the realm of possibility to fabricate one.

Wrist Strap

My final alteration is not so much a modification as it is a simple omission.  On the first disassembly of the -660 I omitted reinstalling the wrist strap.  IMHO, this piece of ribbon is no more useful than fender skirts on a ’57 Chevy.  Besides, it’s usually in the way.  Sometime in the murky past, this appendage made its appearance on a small portable radio.  Since then, nearly every manufacturer has felt compelled to include one.  I envision someone grabbing the radio by the strap and sashaying down the street with it dangling precariously by one’s side.  I have tried to imagine how its purpose might be inverted into a safety feature – perhaps first looping the strap around the wrist and then grabbing the radio with the hand.  But somehow, I can’t imagine anyone going to that trouble.  Maybe I’m missing something.

The wrist strap on this Realistic 12-714 AM/FM pocket radio from 1984 is hard to ignore.

The reader may be aware of other modifications to the PL-660, but mine are limited to those described above.

Epilogue

The old -660 has never been coddled.  Neither has it been subjected to the same vicissitudes as a soccer ball.  It remains a relatively handsome, finely crafted instrument still capable of soldiering on in the frontlines of the DX battle.

Is my old PL-660 a better-than-average “creampuff” off the Tecsun production line?  Does that make it special?  During the three or four months it was laid up with the encoder problem, I took the precaution of buying one of the last production units – this on the chance it might be my only opportunity of having an operational PL-660.  The newer one looks like its predecessor; it operates like its predecessor, even to the extent that it has the same birdies and the erratic encoder.  It does have the added feature of dial recalibration – a feature totally unnecessary on the original PL-660.  Somehow, it’s just not the old PL-660.  That one is special.

Maybe you have a special radio.

History of the Radio Intelligence Division Before and During World War II

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Mike, who writes:

Good afternoon, Thomas. Recalling that there have been a few postings on the SWLing Post over time on the FCC’s Radio Intelligence Division, I thought this might interest you and some readers. I just came across this (I don’t even remember what linked me to it) and have only briefly looked reviewed it, but the manuscript appears to be pretty interesting. https://www.qsl.net/w3df/sterling/ridhist.pdf 

Additional history can be found here: https://www.qsl.net/w3df/sterling/dfh1.html.

An interesting local (to me) tidbit on page 19: “It [RID] patrolled the outside of the Oak Ridge, Tennessee installation, the scene of the Manhattan Project but without the personnel knowing what atomic developments were being made inside.

73,
Mike in Knoxville,
KW1ND

Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this, Mike.

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Guatemala (Part Six) – Huehuetenango

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


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Don Moore’s Photo Album:
Guatemala (Part Six) – Huehuetenango

by Don Moore

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.

I first heard of Huehuetenango in February 1974. I had gotten my first serious receiver, a Barlow-Wadley XCR-30, a few weeks earlier. Now I could try for stations in the 120-meter band. The first one I heard was Radio Maya de Barillas on 2360 kHz from a place named Barillas in Guatemala. And Santa Cruz de Barillas (the town’s full official name) was in a department named Huehuetenango. The name sounded exotic and magical.

In my mind, Radio Maya de Barillas was the ultimate DX target. The Evangelical Protestant station used a tiny amount of power in 120-meters, the shortwave band that provided the most challenge to DXers. The programs were in Mayan languages with mostly hard-to-pronounce names. And my map showed that Barillas was literally at the end of the road. There was nowhere to go beyond Barillas.

That sense of Huehuetenango being on the edge of civilization was totally correct. The department contains the rugged Cuchumatanes mountains, the highest non-volcanic mountains in Central America. It’s the only place in Central America where it’s too cold to grow corn. Instead, people get by raising sheep and planting potatoes. The mountains explain why eight different Mayan languages (belonging to three different language families) are spoken in this one department. Steep rugged mountains are a barrier to communication. A lack of communication causes a common language to diverge into multiple languages over just a few centuries.

The Mam, numbering about half a million, are the fourth largest Mayan group in Guatemala and their homeland extends into other departments in the south. But the other seven languages are only found in Huehuetenango with maybe a little spillover across the borders. The largest of those is Kanjobal, spoken by about 80,000 people today. The Tectiteco (Tektik) number just a little over two thousand.

As noted on the back of my QSL from Radio Maya de Barillas, that station broadcast in six of the region’s languages, including Mam and Kanjobal, the language spoken in and around the town of Barillas. For about a decade Radio Maya was the only radio station to broadcast in the region’s languages. Then in 1975 the Roman Catholic church opened an educational station, Radio Mam, in Cabricán to the south in Quetzaltenango department. But Radio Mam only broadcast in the Mam language. (And, unfortunately, I never got to visit the station.)

Visiting Huehuetenango (or not)

When I was traveling to Guatemala while living in Honduras in the early 1980s, one of my goals was to visit as many Guatemalan shortwave stations as possible. Yet I never once considered going to Barillas. Sure, I knew that the dirt road from the town of Huehuetenango to Barillas was one of the worst in Central America and that the bus ride took twelve hours. That wasn’t going to stop me.

 What stopped me from visiting Radio Maya was that Barillas was right in the middle of the area of the heaviest fighting between the government and the guerrillas. This may surprise you if you’ve read the previous parts of this series, but there really were some things back then that I knew better than to do. Going into the worst part of a war zone was one. The closest I came to Barillas was passing through the southern part of the department on the Pan-American Highway on my way to Mexico in December 1984. That was just a few weeks after a guerilla band had ventured south and blown up four bridges on the road. Continue reading

Pure AM Radio Nostalgia: Vintage Aircheck Recordings from the 1970s by Dan Greenall

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.

VOA Marathon 1973

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.

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ZNS3 Bahamas 1973

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.

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Bermuda AM/FM airchecks 1975

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

Audio Player

WVMT Burlington VT 1975

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.

Audio Player

XERF Ciudad Acuna, Mexico 1971

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.

Audio Player

KPCR Bowling Green, MO 1973

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.

Audio Player

KFDI Wichita, KS 1974

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.

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WDXR Paducah, KY 1974

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.

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WANN Annapolis, MD 1974

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.

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WCPC Houston, MS circa 1974

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.

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XEMO Tiajuana, Mexico circa 1971

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.

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WGR Buffalo, NY 1973

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”.

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Vintage AM radio airchecks 1975 recorded from Bermuda

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

Audio Player

KKJO St. Joseph, MO 1973

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.

Audio Player

KRLD Dallas, TX 1974

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.

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Vintage AM radio airchecks 1973 part 2

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

Audio Player

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.

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Guatemala (Part Five) – Visiting Nahualá

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)

Don Moore’s Photo Album: 
Guatemala (Part Five) – Visiting Nahualá

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.

On to Nahualá

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

Radio Nederland, DX Contests, and a Silver Spoon: Ronald is Seeking Answers from the Past

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:

    1. When did this contest take place?
    2. What were the rules of the contest?
    3. How many Schonenberg spoons were offered as prizes?
    4. Were there other prizes?

Ronald

Readers: If you can help Ronald answer these questions, please comment!

Don Moore’s Photo Album:  Guatemala (Part Three)- Guatemala City Continued

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:


Photo Source: Dennis Sylvester Hurd via Wikimedia Commons

Don Moore’s Photo Album:
Guatemala (Part Three) – Guatemala City continued

by Don Moore

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.

When I started DXing in 1971, and for several decades afterwards, the most widely logged Guatemalan shortwave station by DXers was Radio Cultural on 3300 kHz. It was also known as TGNA, the call letters of that 90-meter-band frequency. The medium wave outlet on 730 kHz was TGN. The station also used 5955 kHz and 9505 kHz, but those frequencies were always harder to hear because of interference from more powerful international broadcasters.

Back then this Evangelical broadcaster was owned and operated by the Central American Mission of Dallas, Texas, but only received a portion of its funding from the CAM. Additional funding came from local donations in Guatemala and another important source was selling time to American Evangelical preachers to air their prerecorded English language religious programs. These programs were broadcast late at night, when propagation into North America and Europe was best, and were always preceded by an English station identification. That made it an easier log for DXers who didn’t understand Spanish.

TGNA was the station I most wanted to visit when I arrived in Guatemala City in June 1983. But Guatemala DX Club members informed me that the station had been temporarily closed down because of “philosophical disagreements” with the government. They were off the air and would remain so for several weeks. I made four more visits to Guatemala City over the next year but somehow never found the time to visit the station. It wasn’t until my visit in December 1987 that I finally stepped inside their front door. That visit became the subject of the first article I wrote for Monitoring Times magazine in June 1988.

Wayne Berger, station manager and chief engineer, and missionary Bob Rice gave us a very long tour of the station. Wayne and Bob had built or rebuilt most of the station’s technical equipment and even some of the infrastructure. On the day we arrived they were welding a broken door back on its hinges. Wayne had built the 3300 kHz transmitter, shown in the next picture, out of spare parts.

Main studio control room at TGNA in 1987.

At the time of my visit, TGNA had two pennants. The larger one was mostly reserved for local listeners. The smaller one was sometimes included with QSLs to lucky DXers.

But neither of those compared with these traditional handmade weavings given by listeners for the station’s 37th anniversary in August, 1987. (I just wish my color photos had survived.)

English ID from Radio Cultural, 3300 kHz, as heard in Pennsylvania 23 November 1979 at 0427 UTC:

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Radio Cultural, 3300 kHz, as heard in Michigan 23 March 1989 at 1101 UTC:

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Easter in Guatemala

Of all the things I’ve seen in my travels, the Easter processions of Guatemala certainly rank near the top. I am fortunate to have been in Guatemala twice for the holiday, in 1982 and 1984, and I plan a return trip in the next few years. Processions take place all over Guatemala during Easter week, but the most elaborate take place on Easter Thursday and Good Friday in Guatemala City and, especially, in Antigua, the old capital twenty kilometers to the west. There are several processions both days in each city and each procession takes several hours. Continue reading