Category Archives: Shortwave Radio

Editorial doesn’t mention RFE and VOA audio broadcasts

RFE and VOA audio services are broadcast over the air and are streamed online.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who writes:

The Washington Post’s Editorial Board put out this opinion piece this weekend entitled, “Russian propaganda has flooded U.S. airwaves. How about some reciprocity?”

I wrote to them at <[email protected]> and asked why they didn’t mention the U.S. Government’s considerable state media broadcast resources in their article.

Apparently they never heard of international broadcasting.

Maybe you could link to this article in the SWLing Post and encourage readers to write to the Washington Post’s Editorial Board to enlighten them.

It amazes me that people who work at high levels in a major U.S.-based news media outlet seem so ignorant about international broadcasting.

Thanks, Ed. It is interesting that while the article notes RFE and VOA’s TV program, Current Time (which is only available online), they fail to mention the substantial resources backing RFE/Radio Liberty and VOA’s on-air audio broadcasts that are also available to stream online.

KIMF broadcast schedule via the HFCC

6 Replies

KIMF transmitter site (Source: James Planck via Facebook)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ethan Best (KC9YDN), who notes:

KIMF’s schedule has been posted on the HFCC’s website:

http://hfcc.org/data/schedbybrc.php?seas=A17&broadc=IMF

Thank you for sharing this, Ethan!

KIMF has actually been in the HFCC listings since at least 2014, even though they only recently received FCC approval to operate.

Check out these posts for more KIMF info and photos.

VOA museum marks 75th anniversary with gala

KIMF issued HF broadcasting license

2 Replies

Many thanks to an SWLing Post contributor who notes that KIMF has been issued a high frequency broadcasting license by the FCC. For more information about KIMF check out this post from March 2017.

Click here to download the FCC public notice above as a PDF.

Video: Paul’s large aperture “Volleyball Net” loop antenna

9 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who shares the following video and notes:

Here is a 10 minute narrated, detailed video on my 25 foot long by 10 foot tall “Volleyball Net” Loop antenna using a Wellbrook ALA100LN amp control head and antenna interface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICHNlcLhAKE

Click here to view on YouTube.

Great job, Paul!

I like how Paul is using the antenna space he has so effectively. Though he has no antenna restrictions, his mag loop can be deployed and taken down quite easily; it’s obviously serving him well on both the HF and mediumwave bands. As he mentions, it’ s also manually steerable.

Those of you with the Wellbrook ALA100LN amplifier might try building this loop as well.

I also like how Paul is using the Tecsun ICR-100 recorder. Not only does it provide an easy way to record line-in audio from his radio, but the built-in speaker serves as an excellent monitor. It’s pretty affordable, too.

I agree with Paul about the Emtech ZM-2 ATU: it’s an exceptional little tuner that can be used for both QRP and SWL applications. I recently purchased the ZM-2 after having borrowed one from my buddy Eric (WD8RIF). Great value, in my opinion.

Thanks again, Paul!

Post readers: If you have an antenna design you’d like to share, please comment or contact me.

Operator shares what it’s like to work for a numbers station

1 Reply

(Source: Numbers Stations)

Working at a numbers station 6 decades ago was not much different than working at an AM broadcast station. Located on a WWII old Naval Base it consisted of one building surrounded by a double chain link fence inside which older local men drove pickup trucks around for security. Inside the building there was a workshop, two 20,000-watt AM shortwave transmitters, crystal controlled oscillators, and a soundproof booth with a record player and records of well-known music in a language and culture common to the target. Outside the compound was an antenna farm with a log periodic antenna, a rhombic, and a couple dipoles.

I lived, with my wife, about a mile from the site and would drive through a back road to the location, be admitted by security through each gate, and park, and relieve the other op who, after briefing me, was free to go home. My job was to follow a schedule, select the proper frequency at the proper time, tune the transmitter, hit the plate voltage, play the record the schedule told me to, and then recite the messages arranged in five-number groups of numbers in the appropriate language into the microphone in the recording booth. This was all done live and, as far as I know, no recordings were kept.

[…]Other than that it’s just a job. The messages were all prepared somewhere else by someone else and delivered to us along with the schedule. We all had high level clearances but we never knew who we sent these to or what the real ones might have said. This sort of compartmentalization was (and is) common.

I often thought of those for whom the messages were intended… how they felt, where they were… whether they were in an attic or shed or stranded somewhere copying down a message that was a threat to their very lives on a radio that was a death penalty to simply be in possession of. I was very careful to do it right.[…]

Read the full article at Numbers-Stations.com.

DW: South Sudan blocks access to independent websites

3 Replies

(Source: Deutsche Welle)

Internet and mobile phone users in South Sudan are not able to access the websites of at least four independent media outlets. The government has grown increasingly hostile to the media since civil war began in 2013.

The South Sudanese government has blocked access to the websites of Dutch-backed Radio Tamazuj, as well as the popular news blogs Nyamilepedia and Paanluel Wel. Internet users said that the website of the Paris-based Sudan Tribune was also affected on some mobile phone and Wi-Fi networks.

Radio Tamazuj and the Sudan Tribune are reputable sites which have been critical in their coverage of South Sudan’s government, which has grown increasingly hostile towards the media since civil war broke out in 2013.

The government is justified in blocking the websites to protect citizens from outlets that “disseminate subversive material,” South Sudan’s Minister of Authorities Michael Makuei Lueth told the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).[…]

Continue reading at Deutsche Welle online.

Fortunately, the South Sudan communities I’ve worked with through Ears To Our World have access to shortwave radio which is not affected by an Internet block.

No doubt, shortwave radio is the ultimate free speech medium, as it has no regard for national borders, nor for whom is in power (or not in power) at any moment.

Shortwave radio may be a sunsetting technology, but it’s also the most accessible and effective vehicle of the free press. What other technology can thoroughly blanket the globe with news and information yet can also be be received with a simple $20 battery-powered portable device?

This photo was taken in South Sudan, after Ears To Our World distributed radios in this rural community for the fourth year running. We’ve been distributing radios in South Sudan through our partners there since 2009.

Check out these recent comments from the head of DW regarding the importance of international broadcasting. Thanks for the tip, Rich!