Category Archives: Shortwave Radio

Purple Power: Another solution for sticky radios

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

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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

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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)!

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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!

Shortwave Radio Recordings: The Mighty KBC

Shutdown: Wake Island DXpedition on ice

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I’ve been somewhat amazed at the number of ways the US government shutdown has had an impact upon radio.

Many ham radio operators are aware of the upcoming Wake Island DXpedition commemorating the 70th anniversary of the World War II massacre; everything had been arranged in advance, including payment for the flight to Wake Island. But as the last leg of the operators’ trip to Wake Island relies upon a coordinated venture with the US Air Force, just as many USAF employees suddenly find themselves on furlough, the trip has been placed on hold until the shutdown ends. This is particularly unfortunate in that DXpeditions are pricey ventures; the total cost of the Wake Island DXpedition cost each radio operator $9,000 out-of-pocket, for a grand total of $140,000 US.

I received the following message from the DXpedition on Wednesday:

To All:

Those of us on the Wake Atoll DXpedition team were scheduled to depart today for Hawaii, on our way to Wake Island Friday.

However, because of the U.S. Government shutdown yesterday, the DXpedition has been delayed. The USAF is preoccupied with sequestration activities and many staff personnel have been furloughed.

We are hoping this is a short-term delay, as we continue to pursue the approval process. As soon as a revised schedule is finalized, new dates will be posted on the Wake DXpedition website.

http://wake2013.org/

In the meantime, thanks to all for your continued support.

73,
John Miller, K6MM

Yesterday, the DXpedition actually caught the attention of the Reuters news service:

(Source: Reuters)

For anyone questioning the reach of the federal government shutdown, consider Wake Island.

Not much more than military-plane refueling and classified operations occur on the unincorporated U.S. territory, a coral atoll located between Hawaii and Guam, about 6,700 miles (10,780 kilometers) from the legislative standoff in Washington.

That was about to change this week with the arrival of a dozen ham-radio operators who thought they’d won approval for a two-week commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the World War II massacre of almost 100 U.S. civilian contractors on Wake Island by the Japanese on Oct. 7, 1943.

Instead, after months of preparation, the trip is on ice because of a paperwork delay the group attributes to the partial federal shutdown, which started Oct. 1 as Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on a stopgap spending measure.

“They made it sound like it was just unfortunate timing,” said Craig Thompson, 61, one of the expedition’s leaders. “At the level that it was at, they were focused on what they had to do to shut down government, to prepare their budgets and deal with all of the other changes that were going on.”

The operation was of special interest to tens of thousands of ham operators inside and outside the U.S. The hobbyists collect contacts with all countries and islands in a practice known as DXing. Because Wake Island hasn’t had a major radio expedition since 1998, there’s great demand for its confirmation of a contact there.

All the paperwork was in place, except for final travel orders that needed one last Pentagon signature, said Thompson, an electronics company owner from central Illinois who is a veteran of radio expeditions to other remote locales, including Midway Island and Swains Island in thePacific Ocean.

[…]The U.S. Air Force manages Wake and access is restricted. The group was to fly commercial on Oct. 2 to Honolulu, where they would have then boarded a military flight today to Wake.

The decision to cancel was made late on Oct. 1 after determining the group probably wouldn’t get final approval in time to catch the second flight, flown once every two weeks.

[Continue reading the full article on Reuters…]