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Another radio spotted in a TV show, this time in the Netflix show iZombie.
Having been gifted a Yaesu FRG-7700 recently, it was an easy spot.
Click to enlarge
This FRG-7700 appears to be a ‘special’ model however, with a microphone plugged into the headphone socket and able to act as a transceiver!!
You have sharp eyes, Mark! Yes, indeed, it looks like they’ve turned that ‘7700 into a transceiver by plugging a mic into the headphone jack. Now why didn’t we think of that?!? 🙂
The last VOA Radiogram is this weekend. The successor to VOA Radiogram is Shortwave Radiogram, which will be broadcast for the first time on 25 June on the WRMI times and frequencies in the schedule below.
To help us keep in touch after the migration from the old Radiogram to the new Radiogram, please note the following changes …
The Mighty KBC transmits to Europe Saturdays at 1500-1530 UTC on 9400 kHz (via Bulgaria), with the minute of MFSK at about 1530 UTC (if you are outside of Europe, listen via websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ ). And to North America Sundays at 0000-0200 UTC (Saturday 8-10 pm EDT) on 9925 kHz, via Germany. The minute of MFSK is at about 0130 UTC. Reports to Eric: [email protected] . See also http://www.kbcradio.eu/ and https://www.facebook.com/TheMightyKbc/.
Italian Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) For the complete IBC transmission schedule visit http://ibcradio.webs.com/ Five minutes of MFSK32 is at the end of the 30-minute English-language “Shortwave Panorama,” per the schedule below:
WEDNESDAY
18.55 UTC 6070 KHZ TO EUROPE
19.55 UTC 1584 KHZ TO EUROPE
THURSDAY
02.55 UTC 1584 KHZ TO EUROPE
FRIDAY
01.25 UTC 9955 KHZ TO CENTRAL/SOUTH AMERICA
SATURDAY
01.55 UTC 11580 KHZ TO NORTH AMERICA
20.25 UTC 1584 KHZ TO SOUTH EUROPE
SUNDAY
00.55 UTC 7730 KHZ TO NORTH AMERICA
10.55 UTC 6070 KHZ TO EUROPE
Thank you for your support during the four-plus years of VOA Radiogram!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following regarding a Furuno RV-103SR marine receiver he discovered on eBay:
Recently, I came upon two great rarities in the world of receivers.
Furuno is a Japanese company known for maritime equipment, and is featured on one or two pages of the Osterman receiver directory. Two of these rare receivers came up on eBay, both located in an Asian location.
The Furuno RV-103SR and RV-128 are beautiful animals, and both receivers appear(ed) to be in good condition, obviously taken from ships, likely as part of tear downs in a shipyard.
There is very little information online about Furuno. One Japanese blogger did a review of the RV-128. And a guy in Republic of Srpska got to use the RV-128 which was installed on a giant oil tanker, during a trip he made as a navigator way back in 2002 (see the story at http://www.qsl.net/e78cb/mmstory.htm).
In my correspondence with him, Fred Osterman notes that the RV-103SR variant was not known to him, and likely stands for rack mount. And Fred says he never saw these receivers in the flesh, and never saw one offered on the used market, “a rare bird” indeed. For those interested, Furuno equipment is on page 216 of Fred’s massive and excellent receiver book.
The appearance of these beautiful radios, and similar ones, again demonstrates the kind of equipment that is popping up in Ebay and other locations. We have seen numerous JRC marine receivers become available, many of them also former ship receivers. Anyone interested in these should ask the usual questions about condition, ask for photos and videos, to try to ensure that what eventually arrives is not DOA or suffering from various issues.
Furuno, it turns out, and as noted in the Osterman book, was behind the first fish finder ever produced. And the company had a range of transceivers for maritime use.
Post Readers: this is what I love about Dan Robinson’s discoveries on eBay: he finds these rare treasures, then provides a little history about their origins, use and current availability. Thank you so much, Dan, for sharing!
This just went up on Ebay — a seemingly new and unused R-1000. Price is actually not high for one in this condition [$450 US]. I would jump on this if I didn’t already have one in this shape….
The seller also has a “Make Offer” option. Perhaps they would even be more flexible? I’ve never owned an R-1000, but I do love the simple design and have used it enough to know it’s a great receiver with excellent audio. The fact that Dan Robinson and Dave Zantow give it such a good report speaks volumes.
We have released a Raspberry Pi 3 image that has a number of SDR applications pre-built and tested that support the RSP. Periodically, we will update the image with software updates and new software.
The current list of software included on the image is:
SoapySDR/SoapySDRPlay, SoapyRemote, ADS-B (dump1090), CubicSDR and SDR-J DAB receiver
Please note: This is a complete OS with software image. Writing the image to a micro SD card will wipe the micro SD card of any other data that is on there, so we recommend you make sure you have backed up any data on your existing micro SD card or you use a new micro SD card.
Instructions:
1. Download image. There are two downloads provided, the 7zip version is just a smaller download but not everyone has 7zip which is why we also provide a zip download. The links are here:
2. Extract the contents of the compressed file. This will extract to a .img file which will be about 7.2 GB
3. Use an image writer such as Win32DiskImager (https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager) to put the image onto the micro SD card.
WARNING: Please make sure that you use the correct drive letter for the micro SD card. The image writing software will completely remove any data that is on the destination media.
That’s it – put the micro SD card into the Raspberry Pi 3 micro SD card slot and boot the system. Allow the system to fully boot and you will see a GUI that will allow you to run each of the applications or read further information.
We also recommend that you use an active cooling system on your Raspberry Pi 3 to avoid any issues with over heating. In our tests, we have used heatsinks and a fan in a case. The CPU speed will be throttled if the temperature gets too hot, so for optimum use this is really recommended. These cases are available at reasonable prices from many Raspberry Pi stores.
If you are a developer of software that supports the RSP and you would like to be included on the image that we will release periodically, please contact us at [email protected] – currently we’re aiming to update the image every quarter, this will largely depend on software availability and what the demand is.
We are aware of other software that we are looking to get onto the next release such as Pothos and more SDR-J software. We will work with developers on any issues we’ve seen during this process so that we can get them onto future images.
Best regards,
SDRplay Support
This is great news in my book, because a fully-loaded and configured disk image makes it much easier to get started with an RSP/Pi combo.
Note that the message above is merely the announcement on SDRplay’s community forum. I would strongly encourage you to follow this thread, and the forum in general, if you’re interested in updates and announcements.
Raspberry Pi systems are very affordable and available in a number of configurations (from $35US – $80US depending on accessories) and from a number of retailers including:
