C. Crane has published a full pre-order page for their latest travel portable: the CC Skywave SSB.
The price is $169.99 US–they’ve noted an expected ship date of sometime after November 3, 2017.
We’ve been testing a pilot run CC Skywave SSB and recently posted photos. Once we have an production unit, we’ll post comparison videos and review notes.
Click here to view the CC Skywave SSB product page at C. Crane.
(Source: Universal Radio)
Universal Radio Inc. is moving to a more efficient location in nearby Worthington, Ohio where we can continue to serve our loyal customers. This will be the fourth location change since Universal was founded in 1942. We look forward to many more years of serving the amateur and short wave communities which Universal Radio has done for 75 years. Effective October 12, 2017 our new address will be:
Universal Radio Inc.
651 Lakeview Plaza Blvd. Suite B
Worthington, OH 43085
Our store hours and phone numbers will not change.
For further information visit: www.universal-radio.com
The Yaesu FRG-7 featured prominently in the film trailer
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, The Professor, who adds to our discussion about the recently released film Shortwave:
I saw that David posted a comment on your blog where he wondered what radio the guy in that “Shortwave” film might be using. Well, watched a couple trailers and discovered that the movie featured a few receivers.
So I took screen shots, and I thought some of your readers might be curious about this as well, and I’m sure some will ID all of them.
I had hoped the movie might feature Gene Scott or Pete Peters broadcasting from the underworld, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Anyway, here are some stills from the trailers[…]
Thanks, Prof! There are some classics here–Heathkit, Hammarlund, Hallicrafters and more.
Perhaps Post readers can comment with makes and models!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following review of a new movie called “shortwave”
Movie Review – Shortwave (2016) // Flickering Myth
https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2017/10/movie-review-shortwave-2016/Shortwave, 2016.
Directed by Ryan Gregory Phillips.
Starring Juanita Ringeling, Cristobal Tapia Montt, and Kyle Davis.SYNOPSIS:
Isabel and Josh, a young couple dealing with the recent loss of their child, move to a remote home that Josh’s work has can study mysterious radio signals. As Josh hones in on the origin of the signals, Isabel begins to exhibit strange behavior, which leads to the pair confronting their painful past as well as their bizarre present circumstances.
Though it is a smaller, more intimate film, writer-director Ryan Gregory Phillips’s Shortwave will evoke inevitable comparisons to this year’s It Comes at Night. The two films both feature small groups of characters in isolated forest settings being terrorized both by mysterious forces and each other. And both share a fondness for dream sequences and ominous red lighting. But where It Comes at Night was frustrating in its evasiveness and its refusal to embrace most of the tenets of its genre, Shortwave is mysterious yet forthright about its science fiction and horror DNA.
The plot is set into motion when Josh and his wife Isabel (Cristobal Tapia Montt and Juanita Ringeling) are sent by his employer to live in a remote home, where he can continue to study the origins of mysterious radio signals. Their relationship is under extreme pressure for a multitude of reasons, most significantly their disappearance of their child. As Josh gets closer to discovering the origins of the radio signals, Isabel begins to act very strangely.
There is no doubt that Shortwave is a low-budget film, but it uses that to its advantage. It’s setting feels like a real home in an isolated forest, and the fact that most scenes feature Isabel and/or Matt and no other actors allows the viewer to focus on their relationship, which is really the epicenter of the film. Ringeling and Montt both give excellent performances in roles that require a full range of emotion, and Phillips wisely gives them room to operate, even within the film’s slim 85-minute runtime. The two actors have excellent chemistry as well, making them believable as a couple even when the script has them at odds with one another.
Shortwave also has some commonalities with this year’s excellent indie A Dark Song in that while it is unapologetically a genre effort, it isn’t afraid to really dig into the foundation in which is plot is based. In the case of both films, the foundation is two damaged people dealing with loss and grief under extraordinary, partially otherworldly pressures. Given the grim subject matter, Phillips wisely keeps the pacing brisk and the runtime short. As a result, Shortwave, while serious, doesn’t overuse its ability to raise questions about loss and grief. Instead, it balances them in with solid scares and creative mysteries that seem to have a lot more backstory than what is explained here.
There should be more films like Shortwave, as its successes come as a result of sharp ideas and well-executed direction and performances rather than a huge budget. It manages to carve out a unique perspective in a saturated genre, and triggers the heart and mind in addition to the adrenal glands. Though it ends a bit abruptly, it still manages to feel like a complete experience, and has some genuinely scary moments. Shortwave is definitely worth watching as horror film, as a domestic drama, and as a showcase for the talents of its stars and its director.
Mike McClelland
One of the joys of running the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive (SRAA) is that, over time, more and more people have become aware of it and submit recordings they’ve had in their private collections for decades.
Quite often, SRAA off-air recordings were originally made on reel-to-reel or cassette tapes which degrade with time. When SRAA contributors take the time to digitize these recordings, and share them via the SRAA, they put these collections in the hands of hundreds of archivists. We’re grateful each time we receive one of these shortwave or mediumwave/AM recordings.
You can imagine my excitement when I received the following message from one of our newest contributors, Colin Anderton:
“As a space flight nut, I have many recordings from the 1970s from Radio Moscow. They used to broadcast on the medium wave, and I used to record the news bulletins during some of the space flights. In particular, there was a period between December 1977 and March 1978 when Soviet cosmonauts first lived aboard the Salyut 6 space station. I recorded each days’ news reports on the flights, and also some additional items about them.”
Colin’s recordings are amazing. Here’s a sample from December 10, 1977:
We’ve started publishing Colin’s recordings on the archive at regular intervals.
Click here to listen to Colin’s recordings on the SRAA.
Interestingly, I discovered that Colin also has a website dedicated to NASA highlight recordings from the space age. Several months ago, he spent a considerable amount of time making the public domain series more listenable–removing voice-actuated recorder noises, tape clicks, etc.
Colin has made his collection of re-engineered NASA recordings free to download on his website. If you download and enjoy his recordings, consider dropping him a donation. If you’re into spaceflight like I am, you’ll certainly enjoy this collection:
Colin, once again, thanks so much for adding your off-air recordings to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive!
Indeed, thanks to the many contributors who make the archive such a treasure trove of broadcast recordings! Click here to browse the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.
Skywave Schedules App will allow you to search a comprehensive, regularly updated, database of shortwave radio broadcasts.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Cap, who has just notified me that his shortwave radio schedules app for Android–Skywave Radio Schedules–is now available via the Google Play store.
You might recall that Cap first shared this app in Beta form and invited us to share feedback and comments. Cap has spent weeks incorporating our suggestions and making changes in the background–Skywave Radio Schedules feels refined and responsive. Best yet? It’s free and has no ads. Amazing.
Cap does note that you should uninstall any previous versions of this app before installing it from the Google Play store.
Thank you, Cap! Great job making this app a reality.
Click here to view Skywave Radio Schedules on the Google Play store.
(Source: GlobalNews.ca)
One of the BBC’s newest radio stations began broadcasting across the Korean peninsula on Tuesday. And the signal was almost immediately jammed by the North Korean government, according to news reports.
[…]But cracks are appearing in the system. InterMedia, a research firm, interviewed defectors from North Korea and found that 48 per cent of them had seen foreign DVDs and 27 per cent had listened to foreign radio, according to a 2013 report.
Defectors aren’t exactly unbiased sources or representative of the North Korean population – they’re people who hated the regime enough to risk their lives fleeing it and who were able to do so – but such surveys are one of the only ways to learn about North Korean television viewing habits.
Some defectors have reported that what they saw in foreign media influenced their decision to leave, according to Williams.
“I think it’s just spreading dissatisfaction, cracking the government’s complete control of information which is one of the central parts of the entire system. If you start to crack away at that then you start to crack away at the system as a whole,” he said.
[…]Although it’s illegal to watch foreign media, many people watch these DVDs or USB sticks filled with movies and South Korean TV shows. South Korean soap operas are popular, said Williams, and are more seditious than romance and melodrama might seem at first glance.
[…]Radios sold in North Korea are modified so they can only tune in to certain frequencies – government-operated North Korean stations, of course. But people do illegally “jailbreak” their radios, says Reporters Without Borders. They can then listen to South Korean stations near the border, or to shortwave foreign broadcasts like the BBC’s and similar ones from Radio Free Asia and Voice of America.
“North Korea does its best to stop the broadcasts coming in but it is the only way that exists at the moment to get current information into the country,” said Williams.[…]