Category Archives: Shortwave Radio

PantronX Titus II update

Many thanks to Mike at PantronX who has provided the following update on the Titus II portable SDR:

As you can imagine the response to Titus has almost been overwhelming! Pre-orders far exceeded our imagination and excitement from broadcasters has been very loud. DRM and digital broadcasting seems to be reinvigorated with Titus in 2017. I think we really broke the price barrier that most everyone has been dreaming of and provided the flexibility
that has held back the cause.

As posted on http://hfcc.org/delivery/receivers.phtml

‘Update on availability received from PantronX: “We have been overwhelmed with the response to Titus with orders and request – coupled with an early Chinese New Year that the pre-production date has slipped a bit. Please be patient as we work with our suppliers and add more functions.” ‘

We are doing all we can to push – Chinese New Year is a crazy time – the factories are shut down for 3 to 4 weeks and as you can imagine the stress prior to and the performance after.

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks our http://titusradio.com/ website will undergo a much needed update. So much to do – but we are making good headway.

Thank you, Mike! I’ve had a number of readers asking about progress on the Titus II, so I appreciate the update!

Tecsun PL-880: Richard shares winter DXing notes

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who lives in New Brunswick, Canada, and sent the following update earlier this month:

I often go outdoors to escape the RFI generated in and around the house, which can be even worse during the holidays with all the LED Christmas displays.

Trouble is, the snow is getting a bit deep for the trek to the back of the cleared part of my yard.

The attached photos show my setup on New Year’s Day to record Stephen Cooper’s DigiDX program over WRMI.

One thing about DXing and SWLing outside in the winter is that the knobs on the Tecsun PL-880 can become stiff to turn if it’s too cold and the battery doesn’t last as long as when it’s warm outside. Best approach is to go out with a fully charged battery, tune to a particular frequency and record the audio for later playback.

[…]I’ve also noted on a couple of occasions that the Tecsun will shut itself off after a few hours in really cold weather (around -20°C). And it’s not that the battery power is exhausted. I can turn it back on manually and it shows plenty of battery capacity remaining.

Thanks for sharing your notes, Richard! It certainly looks like a winter wonderland at your home. I like how you’ve made such a lightweight, portable station that protects the PL-880 from moisture.

Paul Walker also uses the PL-880 extensively in Galena, Alaska–in some very cold temps as well. Perhaps we can compare notes.

Post readers: What radios do you use outdoors in winter conditions? Please feel free to share your experiences!

By the way: I should offer my sincere apologies for sharing beautiful winter wonderland scenes while many of our dear readers in Australia are coping with a sweltering heatwave! 🙂 Perhaps we should also be sharing notes about high temp outdoor DXing!?

Shortwave Relays This Weekend

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(Source: Tom Taylor)

Relays this Weekend

Hamurger Lokal Radio via Shortwave Station Göhren, Germany with 1KW to Western Europe:
6190 KHz Every Saturday 07.00 to 11.00 UTC
7265 KHz Every Saturday 11.00 to 16.00 UTC
9485 KHz Every Sunday 10.00 to 13.00 UTC
Contact email: [email protected]

NEXT WEEK Radio City via:
IRRS to Europe on 7290 KHz (every 3rd Friday) between 19.00 to 20.00 UTC
IRRS to Europe on 9510 KHz (every Saturday) between 09.00 to 10.00 UTC
Challenger Radio to Northern Italy on 1368 KHz every Saturdays from 20.00 UTC onwards
Radio Merkurs on 1485 KHz Every Saturday between 20.00 onwards
Contact email: [email protected]
A comment: IRRS has been noted on a Sunday on 9880 kHz instead of 9510 kHz, in order to avaoid co-channel
interference from a domestic Chinese station. This may perhaps also apply to Saturday transmissions.

European Music Radio Transmissions via;
WBCQ to Central & North America on 7490 KHz on 14th January between 22.00 to 23.00 UTC
KBC to Western Europe on 6045 KHz on 15th January between 09.00 to 10.00 UTC
Shortwave Station Göhren on 9485 KHz on 15th January between 09.00 to 10.00 UTC
Channel 292 on 6070 KHz on 15th January between 14.00 to 15.00 UTC
Contact email: [email protected]

EMR Internet Repeats on 15th January 2017:
EMR will repeat this months Transmissions via two streams running at the following Times:16.00, 18.00, 20.00 UTC
http://nednl.net:8000/emr.m3u will be on 96 kbps /44 KHz stereo for normal listening
http://nednl.net:8000/emr24.m3u will be 24 kbps / 22 KHz mono will be especially for low bandwidth like mobile phones.
( at 17.00, 19.00 & 21.00 UTC are recordings from the 15th of January 1978 with AJ’s DX & Roger Tate’s mail box )

KBC via:
Media Broadcast to America on 6145 KHz Every Sunday between 00.00 to 01.00
Contact email: [email protected]

Hobart Radio via:
Channel 292 to Western Europe on 6070 KHz Sundays between 21.00 to 21.30 UTC
WRMI to Americas, Asia/Pacific on 9955 KHz Sunday between 03.30 to 04.00 UTC
WRMI to Americas, Asia/Pacific on 9955 KHz Tuesday between 22.30 to 23.00 UTC
WBCQ to North America on 5130 KHz Mondays 03.30 to 04.00 UTC
Contact email: [email protected]

For outside the listening area please try the Twente/Netherlands Web RX at http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

You can also hear many European free and alternative stations via the Internet at: http://laut.fm/jukebox

Radio Channel 292 Transmission schedules on 6070 KHz (on the air every day):
http://www.channel292.de/schedule-for-bookings/

Radio Mi Amigo Transmission schedules:
www.radiomiamigo.es/shortwave

Good Listening!
73s

Nova Spaceline shortwave broadcasts to Antarctica

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The following information was first shared with me by SWLing Post contributor, Harald Kuhl. As I looked for more details, I discovered the following note in the excellent CIDX Messenger:

From Alan Roe of Teddington, UK, here is information on new transmissions targeting
Antarctica:

According to posting on “Shortwave Airtime” Facebook page:

“Spaceline Ltd and Radio Nova News are to start transmissions to Antarctica for campaign for access of information to the Bulgarian Antractic base. Shortwave is the only media that can reach directly Antarctida at the distance of 13.000 km. Transmissions will start on 1’st of January, 01.00 – 02.00 UTC daily on frequency 11600 kHz. For more information visit www.spaceline.bg”

I couldn’t find any more information at either the Spaceline website or the Radio Nova news
website at https://nova.bg/

However, I received today the following reply (below) from Spaceline:

Hello Alan,

The information on the Facebook page is correct, and Space Line will start the transmissions of Nova News to Antarctica very soon.It was been planned to start the project on January the 1’st, but due to some logistic problems with the base, is postponed for middle or the end of January this year, but there was a test transmission on January the 1st 2017 on 11600 kHz. After the test it appeared that here may be a frequency change from the announced one, due to some propagation anomalies.

The retransmission of Radio Nova News on shortwave is a common project between Nova, Spaceline Ltd. and Bulgarian Antarctic Institute, for reaching the scientists in Bulgarian Antarctic Base on South Shetland Island with fresh news information feed about the social life in Bulgaria.

Stay tuned to the shortwave.airtime FB page for more information about the project.
Best Regards,
Ventsislav Georgiev
Manager R&D
SpaceLine Ltd. | www.spaceline.bg
Mob : +359 888 554 297
E-mail: [email protected]
James Baucher blvd 71, Fl. 6, Office 5,
1407 Sofia , BULGARIA

Thank you Harald and Alan for the tip!

Lennart reflects on Radio St. Helena Day history

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Lennart Weirell, who shares the following:

Some Radio St. Helena History

The idea to put St. Helena on the shortwave map came up in conjunction with the preparations for the Nordic Championships in DX-ing in 1990 arranged by Stora Tuna DX-klubb.

The two Swedish dx-ers Jan Tunér and John Ekwall wanted to add a special station into the competition. John was also the person behind the shortwave transmission from Radio Syd in Gambia in 1984.

The first shortwave transmission from St. Helena took place in the evening of 1990-10-06. I participated myself in the competition, but I did not manage to hear the station at that time. The response for the Radio St Helena was so good that they decided to continue once a year with what was known as Radio St. Helena Day.

In 1993 I managed to hear the station and I got it verified.

More about Radio St Helena can be found at http://www.sthelena.se/radioproject/

Lennart also included scans of Radio St. Helena’s 1993 newsletter (click on each page to enlarge).

Thank you for sharing this with us, Lennart. Honestly, much of these hidden, fascinating bits of radio history would be lost and forgotten if it weren’t for folks like you and our other contributors who share them with the world!

SDR-Console V3 Preview now supports the SDRplay RSP2

Klaus demonstrates his folding mag loop antenna

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Klaus Boecker, who follows up after our recent post showcasing his homebrew magnetic loop antenna.

One of the cool things about Klaus’ antenna is that he can easily position it vertically (see above), or fold it over into a horizontal position (see below).

While one would think Klaus would get optimal performance from his loop while vertically-oriented, it’s not always the case. Klaus has discovered that on some frequencies, placing the antenna in the horizontal position lowers the noise level and increases the target signal’s strength.

To demonstrate, Klaus made the following short video for us:

https://youtu.be/pP0e7wnAjEY

Click here to view on YouTube.

That’s a pretty amazing difference, Klaus! I’m no antenna expert, but perhaps what’s happening is you’re eliminating noise that is polarized in the plane of your antenna, thus the signal “pops out” much better when oriented horizontally?

I’m curious if any readers can explain this. I know very little about loop antennas–especially small loops since so much of their surroundings affect their performance.

Thanks for sharing, Klaus!