Category Archives: Shortwave Radio

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!

Eric Swartz (WA6HHQ) on Ham Radio Workbench

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).

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.

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.

Deutsche Welle’s 65th anniversary

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(Source: Deutsche Welle)

Deutsche Welle marks 65th anniversary

For six-and-a-half decades, Germany’s international public broadcaster has been providing the world with news and information. Deutsche Welle’s offerings are more diverse and widely used than ever before.

“Dear listeners in faraway countries” — with these words from German President Theodor Heuss, Deutsche Welle (DW) began broadcasting on May 3, 1953. Germany’s foreign public radio station was charged with providing audiences abroad with a political, economic, and cultural picture of the country.

DW broadcast via shortwave and initially only in German. The first foreign languages were added in 1954. In 1992, DW expanded into television and, shortly thereafter, the internet.

“Of course the days of just shortwave were easier,” says Deutsche Welle Director General Peter Limbourg. “But thanks to the internet, social media, and our network of partners, we now have the chance to reach significantly more people than we used to. We offer a mix of news, background, and think pieces, presented in a modern fashion and oriented around the interests of our diverse and often very young target audiences.”

Limbourg has been DW’s director general for the past four and a half years.[…]

Click here to read the full article at Deutsche Welle.

Dan shares photos from journalist trip to Zanzibar in 1986

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who writes:

Here’s a blast from the past that might be interesting reading for the SWLing Post.

Back in 1986, just before ending my three year tour as VOA East Africa bureau chief, I had an opportunity to visit Zanzibar, with a group of journalists. Back then, Zanzibar was still under the socialist government in charge at the time, and was still attached to Tanzania’s socialist government.

Zanzibar town was full of old structures, and clay/stucco type buildings [see photo at top of page]–it was a wonderfully exotic place, with pristine beaches. The main hotel at the time was in poor condition — this was way before any of the extensive hotel development that the island has seen in recent decades.

One day we were traveling across the island, but I made a point of stopping at what was then still Radio Tanzania/Zanzibar. This was of course years before that station would become ZBC, which remains on the air today, and that time the power was still far lower than the station we know today that serves some fairly wide sections of East Africa and up into the Gulf region.

I hadn’t remembered snapping this photo, but found it recently while going through some old prints. This is what I believe to be Radio Tanzania/Zanzibar as it looked back in 1986 [see below].

Another photo [below] shows old Zanzibar town (shot taken from just off the shore).

Two other shots [below] show a graveyard on Grave Island, off Zanzibar, with one of the stones belonging to someone named Henry Bodley Carpenter (click here for more info) who served on the H.M.S. Briton and died in 1873.

Thanks so much, Dan, for taking the time to share these photos of Zanzibar with us. I imagine your work with the Voice of America took you to many corners of our wonderful planet!