Category Archives: Shortwave Radio

AM sync lessens noise in this The Voice of Greece broadcast

Sometimes, the Voice of Greece plays very little Greek music; October 10th was one of those occasions. Nonetheless, I recorded that evening’s broadcast.

Using AM sync for sideband noise

In the first hour of the 10/10 VOG broadcast, you’ll hear a pulsating noise from an unknown origin (possibly a jammer?). The noise was centered about 20 kHz above VOG.

Fortunately, most of the noise was in the upper side band of the VOG signal, so I was able to mitigate it by using an AM sync lock on the lower side band. Without AM sync, this VOG broadcast––and its music mix––was almost inaudible.

If you have a synchronous detector on your receiver and tune in a station with interference, always try turning on sync lock and locking it on either the upper or lower sideband. If most of the noise resides in one of the sidebands, the lock can help tremendously. I often use this method while listening to AM pirate radio stations in noisy conditions.

A confession…

I have no idea what she’s talking about–it could be something absolutely mundane–but I love this radio host’s voice as she speaks and Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb begins. (Start listening around 26:00)

Click here to download more than two hours of the Voice of Greece, recorded on October 10, 2013, starting around 03:15 UTC on 9,420 kHz, or simply listen via the embedded player below. Most of the noise disappears around 00:21:

Purple Power: Another solution for sticky radios

9 Replies

Many thanks to Mike Nikolich (N9OVQ), who writes with another solution for sticky radios:

After the display on my Eton E-1 receiver died, the good folks at Universal Radio swapped my broken but lightly used radio for a factory reconditioned unit. Fred Osterman warned me that the plastic case was sticky and somewhat gross and he wasn’t kidding, but I was still grateful that he had a replacement radio.

After searching around the Internet (including your blog) and trying various cleaners and solutions that didn’t remove the dirt and grime from the radio (such as rubbing alcohol, Gunk and dishwasher detergent), I went to my local O’Reilly Auto Parts store and asked if they had a recommendation. Their solution was a product called Purple Power ($4.49) and a microfiber shammy mitt ($4.50). In less time than it took me to watch an episode of “Dr. Phil,” my Eton cleaned up beautifully, with no damage to the unit — it looks and feels brand new. The plastic retained that nice tacky feel without all of the stickiness that attracts gunk like dust, hair and other crud.

Purple Power is made by Aiken Chemical. You’ll want to have a clean bucket of water to remove the gunk that Purple Power removes from the plastic — it really was disgusting but I won’t hesitate to give the radio a Purple Power bath the next time it starts getting gross. And, no, I’m not affiliated with Purple Power, Eton or anyone else, including the microfiber shammy!

Click this link to find Purple Power retailers.

Thanks to US shutdown, pirate radio activity reaches an all-time high

3 Replies

As frustrated as many are over the US government shutdown, it nonetheless offers one unique benefit to the shortwave radio community, and to pirate radio in particular––no FCC enforcement.

As we mentioned earlier, the FCC’s enforcement arm was shut down along with all other FCC activities that weren’t directly connected with “the protection of life or property.”

The result? Pirates––lots of pirates––on the air! The Jolly Roger flaps in the breeze…

Pirate radio activity since the shutdown has truly been at a record high, with pirates taking to the airwaves throughout the week, and especially on the weekends.

Case in point: this past weekend, the North American “pirate radio grounds” of 6,920-6,970 kHz were packed with pirate radio stations. There were even crowded band conditions; at one point I tweeted that there were no less than three pirates broadcasting simultaneously in just a small chunk of bandwidth on AM. Indeed, there may even have been a fourth that I couldn’t quite detect…An unusual occurrence, to say the least. And with pirate radio’s favorite holiday, Halloween (think War of the Worlds), fast approaching, there’s likely to be more such unusual activity.

In the meantime, check out a few of our recent pirate radio recordings.

Pirate Radio Recordings: Radio Gallifrey Intergalactic

Pirate Radio Recordings: Radio Casablanca

1 Reply

Thursday night, I received word from Richard Blaine at Radio Casablanca:

“We plan to be on the air tonight on 6940 kHz AM, starting sometime around 2300 UTC, and running until the plane to Lisbon has departed.”

So at 23:00 Zulu, I started recording…

Though the noise level was particularly high on the lower HF bands, and Casablanca’s signal wasn’t quite as strong as previous nights, I could still enjoy Blaine’s nostalgic mix of WWII era music through the static. What a treat.

You can listen to the full recording via the embedded player above, or simply click here to download the MP3.

Work the NASA Spacecraft Juno (and get a QSL card)!

4 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Troy, who emailed us about a really fun and unique opportunity for amateur radio operators: to send the NASA spacecraft Juno a Morse Code greeting [specifically, “HI”] when it passes over Earth tomorrow, starting around 18:00 UTC.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains:

“NASA’s Juno spacecraft will fly past Earth on October 9, 2013, to receive a gravity assist from our planet, putting it on course for Jupiter. To celebrate this event, the Juno mission is inviting amateur radio operators around the world to say “HI” to Juno in a coordinated Morse Code message. Juno’s radio & plasma wave experiment, called Waves, should be able to detect the message if enough people participate. So please join in, and help spread the word to fellow amateur radio enthusiasts!

This page will be updated with additional information as the event approaches. In addition, we have created a Facebook event page where you are welcome to a discuss[ion of] this activity.”

To be clear, this is a coordinated and unified message to the Juno craft; there will be no opportunity to hear a response from it. Rather, the Waves instrument data containing the message will be shared by the Juno team after the flyby. But still, what fun!

If you’re a licensed ham, and this sounds like something that you’d like to be part of, please check out the the NASA JPL page dedicated to this event. It has all of the information you’ll need to transmit to Juno, including a countdown clock–or to simply listen to everyone who does. Be sure to check out Juno’s Technical FAQ (click on the FAQ link) which answers a lot of the questions participants have already asked.

I’ll certainly do my best to be a part of the unified greeting to Juno.

I should note that I’m pleased to see the JPL page is running despite the US government shutdown. Many other NASA web pages have been affected.

Hi, Juno; we send our greetings!