Alas–! It’s time to bid a fond farewell to my trusty Alinco DX-R8T. I’m only selling it to raise money to purchase hard drive storage for spectrum recordings and more review radios, which fuel this site.
Needless to say, it’s in great shape and reviews most favorably. Indeed, the sensitivity is so good, I’m a little reluctant to sell it…But sacrifices must be made; there are some 4TB SATA drives with my name on them (plus, admittedly, I still have five other tabletop receivers for consolation).
(Source: HF Underground)
Just last night, I came across a new shortwave pirate radio station: BOCHF.
BOCHF started broadcasting around 23:10 UTC on 6,925 kHz USB, and after about a twenty-five minute set, took a five minute break, then returned with a forty-two minute set, ending with an SSTV QSL. The signal, as you can hear below, is fairly strong, but interference was also strong at times; especially from SSB pescadores (fishermen) and the usual summer static crashes.
The entire mix consisted of Boards of Canada music from Tomorrow’s Harvest. There were no vocal ID’s, but there were messages in CW (Morse code) which clearly identifies this pirate as BOCHF.
The artists Boards of Canada have always had an affinity with shortwave radio, so I find a shortwave pirate station playing their music to be an appropriate tribute. Due to sound card problems, I was unable to decode the SSTV QSL, but thankfully a great copy was posted on HF Underground’s pirate radio forum (see above) by forum contributor, Chris Smolinski.
Click here to download MP3s of Part One and Part Two from the full broadcast last night or simply listen via the embedded audio players below:
BOCHF Part One:
BOCHF Part Two:
As I mentioned yesterday, Labor Day weekend is a great weekend to catch a few pirate stations on shortwave. Happy listening!
(Photo: RTE Radio)
RTÉ Radio has announced that it will broadcast the GAA All Ireland Hurling Final on Sunday 8 September and the All Ireland Football Final on Sunday 22 September via multiple sources including shortwave radio (frequencies and times below).
RTÉ Radio explains:
“In Africa, where many Irish people live and work, often in relative isolation with poor communications, RTÉ is providing special transmissions on shortwave radio.
[…]These services are part of RTÉ’s continued commitment to Irish people overseas and, over the years, has proven especially popular with those in geographically or technically isolated areas.”
Of course, RTÉ will broadcast both finals via the Internet, local radio and television.
On shortwave, RTÉ will broadcast on multiple frequencies–attempting to target most regions of Africa–so there’s a very good chance you could hear one.
Both Finals throw in at 3:30 pm Irish Time (14:30 UTC)
James Cook, associate editor, at The Kernal has written an excellent article about the Russian numbers station UVB-76. Those of us who listen to numbers stations are very familiar with this reliable buzzer on 4.625 MHz. Cook writes:
The radio signal that occupies 4625 kHz has reportedly been broadcasting since the late 1970s. The earliest known recording of it is dated 1982. Ever since curious owners of shortwave radios first discovered the signal, it has broadcast a repeating buzzing noise. Every few years, the buzzer stops, and a Russian voice reads a mixture of numbers and Russian names.
A typical message came hours before Christmas day, 1997:
“Ya UVB-76, Ya UVB-76. 180 08 BROMAL 74 27 99 14. Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa. 7 4 2 7 9 9 1 4”
Instead of shutting down with the fall of communism in Russia, UVB-76 became even more active. Since the millenium, voice messages have become more and more frequent.
Click here to read Cook’s full article on The Kernel.
If you would like to listen to UVB-76, and can’t easily receive it via radio, click this link to listen to a live stream or click this one to load a live stream in iTunes.
If you’re interested in numbers stations, click here to read some previous articles on the SWLing Post.
Click to enlarge
Today, I visited the Voice of America in Washington, DC and had lunch with my good friend and fellow shortwave radio enthusiast, Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott, creator of the VOA Radiogram. Besides giving me an update on the success of the VOA Radiogram broadcasts, Kim took me to the roof of the VOA building on Independence Avenue, so that I could check out the antenna farm of the VOA Ham Radio Club (K3VOA). I took several photos on my DSLR camera and will post them here upon my return.
While up there, I couldn’t help but note this incredible view of the Capitol Building; I snapped this quick shot–which can’t do it justice–with my iPhone.
Our friend, Myke Dodge Weiskopf, writes with an update:
“I went through all 600+ recordings of mine and generated a highly accurate Google Earth KML file pinpointing all the transmitters (along with reception details). Lots of fun for SWL types to fly around and look at antenna farms!
http://dodgeblog.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/SWM-GoogleEarth.kml
It’s also available directly from www.myke.me/shortwavemusic/ along with the normal maps version and the comprehensive spreadsheet.”
This is fascinating–thanks, Myke!
I’ve already checked out the Google Maps version online but will certainly download the KML file and import it into Google Earth as well. It’s fun zooming around the globe and finding all of these transmitter sites; this took serious dedication to plot. (To have had tools like this when I was eight years old…)
Note that the next season of shortwavemusic starts on October 1st. Check out Myke’s website for more details!
Voice of Russia Antenna site in Wachenbrunn, Germany (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Dominik, for sharing email responses he received from the Voice of Russia regarding news of their closure.
Below are two quotes from two different responses:
“Unfortunately, so far we have no official information as regards the cancellation of shortwave broadcasting. However, we cannot rule out such a scenario for the future, since currently the VOR is speedily introducing modern day technologies of radio and internet broadcasting.”
“Thank you very much for your letter and for your concern about the presumable cancellation of shortwave broadcasting by the Voice of Russia. As I said earlier, so far we have received no official information in this regard, however, we keep receiving letters from concerned listeners. Thank you very much for your support.”
Looks like they’re neither confirming nor denying the news we posted earlier.