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TX Factor goes digital as Mike Marsh gives Bob McCreadie an introduction to operating on DMR, Yaesu Fusion and D Star as part of his digital fun. In part one of a three-part series, they take a trip to a local farm to see how an amateur has set up his own Fusion Gateway.
Ever wonder why QSL cards take a long time to complete their journey? Bob finds out what we can do to help speed up he process.
Pete visits Norwich to spend a day with the Norfolk Amateur Radio Club at their annual field day event, Radio Active to discover why they won the coveted prize of RSGB Large Club of The Year.
Click here to view Episode 17 on TX Factor’s website, or click here to watch on YouTube.
This is another excellent TX Factor episode well worth your time. I was especially impressed with the in-depth feature about the Norfolk Amateur Radio Club–truly a case study for other amateur radio clubs who struggle with outreach.
Halley VI: The British Antarctic Survey’s new base (Source: British Antarctic Survey)
On Wednesday, 21 June 2017, the BBC World Service officially transmitted the 2017 BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast–an international radio broadcast intended for a small group of scientists, technicians, and support staff who work for the British Antarctic Survey.
This is one of my favorite annual broadcasts, and I endeavor to listen every year. Once again, the SWLing Post called upon readers to make a short recording of the broadcast from their locale.
Below are the entries, roughly organized by continent and country/region, including reader’s photos if provided. If I’ve somehow missed including your entry, please contact me; I’ll amend this post.
So, without further ado….
The 2017 BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast Recordings
Europe
Denmark
SWL: Willy, OZ4ZT Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Notes: Here is a short recording of BBC AMB on 5985kHz. It was recorded using the IC 7300’s internal record function. Antenna used was a dipole for 7MHz.
SWL: Klaus Boecker Location: JN49AC in Germany Notes: Attached please find the link to my reception Video of the 2017 Midwinter broadcast. and a photo. Just failed the first seconds, because I’ve muted my headphones and was wondering why I couldn’t hear anything. Hihi.
For the reception, I used my good, old Kenwood R1000 and my homebrewed mag-loop.
Recorded via soundcard and processed with Audacity. The Video later on is done with the NCH VideoPad Software.
SWL: Tony Roper Location: Ruhpolding, Germany Notes: 2017 BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast being received on my Tecsun PL-660 whilst in Ruhpolding, Germany. Antenna was just the supplied wire hanging vertically from the window. Wasn’t expecting much due to the surrounding hills but was pleased to pick up the Ascension transmitter.
SWL: Daniele Forleo Location: Puglia, Italy Notes: This is my recording of the midwinter Antarctic broadcast, recorded in Puglia (Southern Italy) with Tecsun PL-660 with Its whip antenna.
SWL: Marc Vittorini Location: Turin, Italy Notes: Even this year I had the pleasure of listening the BBC ANTARCTIC MIDWINTER BROADCAST TRANSMISSION and I send you the listening report.
My name: Marc Vittorini
Loc: Favria (Turin) – Italy – JN35UH
Rx: Icom IC-R71E
Ant: Midland Skylab
Freq: 5985 kHz
Time: 2330-2400 utc
Signal: 9+20 with fading
I attach the recording of the first minute of the transmission received and also pictures of my receiver (during reception) and my antenna.
Unfortunately the first 20 seconds of recording are disturbed by noise due to an error in connection between receiver and recorder.
SWL: Giuseppe Morlè iz0gzw Location: Formia, Italy Notes: I used the Tecsun PL-660 with its telescopic antenna and only on Dhabbayya frequency 6035 I had a bit of difficulty. I’m on my home balcony in Formia, Center Italy, Tyrrenian sea.
SWL: Grabriele Sommas Location: Roccapiemonte, Italy Notes: Below is a video of my MIDWINTER reception–I listened to the 5,985 and 7,360 frequencies. Included are photos of my shack and antennas:
SWL: Andrea Coloru (IW3IAB) Location: Italy (locator JN55XI) Notes: I used an AOR 1500 with a long wire antenna (about 40 meters). My QTH locator is JN55XI and best frequency was 5985 kHz. There was light overlap by an RTTY station but reception was loud and clear. Other frequencies were bad, too much fading or unreadable.
SWL: Davide Borroni Location: Saronno, Italy Notes: I listened BBC Midwinter with SINPO 34333 on 6035 kHz AM Thanks for show !
I use my Hallicrafters receiver R45 ARR7 and Siemens E401 , magnetic loop antenna:
Davide with his Siemens E401 magnetic loop antenna.
I was curious to listen this transmission and Wednesday I tried to receive it with a little Tecsun PL-300wt and its antenna. My QTH is impossible for electric noise (I live in a flat on a bank with alarm, neon, and so on) but I listened the transmission on 6035 khz SINPO 24131 (quite inaudible), on 7360 kHz SINPO 34232 so I’ve listen on 5985 kHz SINPO 44333 (in record attached with ID), I’ve listen transmission from 21:30 to 21:50.
SWL: Renato IK0OZK Location: Marta, Italy Notes: Signal Report: S 9+10 to Woofferton at 5.985 Khz and Ascension on 7.360 Khz, S 5-7 to Dhabayya on 6.035 kHz. QTH: Marta VT Italy Grid: jn52xm
SWL: Cap Tux Location: Scotland Notes: BBC World Service Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast 2017. Cerys Matthews (Catatonia) presents music requests and special messages to the staff at the British Antarctic Survey, broadcasting in English, June 21 2017, 2130-2200 GMT on 5985 kHz (transmitter power of 300kW, transmitter location: Woofferton, UK).
Recorded with an SDRPlay RSP2 using SDRuno and a homebrew passive Mag Loop.
SWL: Ayrshire, Scotland Location: Scotland Notes:
Tonight I rushed home from work in time to hear the broadcast. Signals were good at my QTH in Scotland, even though we had thunder storms to the East of Scotland.
I made several (shaky) videos on my smart phone. As you will see from the videos, my receivers are more of the classic/old type, but reception was good with my home made antennas.
Details of my receivers, antennas and location are on the youtube videos.
I have posted one of reception from Wooferton on 5985 kHz Am, and one of
reception from Ascension on 7360 kHz AM.
I also heard Dhabayya with a good readable signal, but the first two were the best signals best with me.
SWL: Mark Hirst Location: Basingstoke, England Notes: Please find enclosed a short extract from yesterday’s broadcast, plus a picture of the radio used just before the programme started. Again it was so interesting to hear a broadcast aimed to such a small audience with heartfelt messages from their friends and family.
SWL: Rawad Hamwi Location: Turaif – Northern Borders Province – Saudi Arabia Notes:
[Wednesday] I tried listening to the BBC Antarctica Midwinter Broadcast (for the first time) from northern Saudi Arabia and really I enjoy it so much! All the 3 frequencies were loud and clear but the most audible one was 5985 kHz
I filmed the entire 30 min broadcast and the video is uploaded on YouTube
Here are some details I included in the video description
Date/Time: 21/6/2017@21:30 UTC | 22/6/2017@00:30 Arabia Standard Time (UTC+3)
Frequencies: 7360 kHz – 6035 kHz – 5985 kHz
Receiver: Sony ICF 7600GR
Antenna: 30 LM Longwire Antenna
Location: Turaif – Northern Borders Province – Saudi Arabia
North America
Canada
SWL: Richard Langley Location: New Brunswick Notes:
I had good luck with recording the BAS broadcast both here and using the U. Twente receiver. Attached are two two-minute clips, one from the start of each recording. Also attached [above] is a photo of the “listening post” at the back of my yard.
The Elecraft KX2 which I hooked up to a NASA PA 30 multi-band compact wire antenna that I suspended in a tree.
None of the frequencies used for the Midwinter broadcast were ideal for my location and time of day (after all, these broadcasts target Antarctica!) but last year I did successfully receive the 41 meter band broadcast.
The KX2/NASA PA 30 provided the best reception results, but sadly the recording turned out quite poor due to an incorrect setting on my Zoom H2N digital recorder.
Fortunately, I did make the following video of my Sony ICF-SW100 in action:
SWL: Ed McCorry (KI4QDE) Location: North Carolina Notes: Attached are 2 audio clips of the broadcast. Both on 7360 from Ascension.
I could not hear anything on the other frequencies.
SWL: Nace Magner Location: Bowling Green, Kentucky Notes: I listened to the signal on 7360 kHz from the back porch of my home in Bowling Green, KY. I used a 35′ end-fed external antenna located about 20′ up in a tree. I received a similar quality signal using the external antenna with a Kaito 1103 radio. I also received the signal on the Kaito using only its whip, although the signal was substantially weaker.
Thank you for your excellent work on the SWLing Post.
SWL: Jon Pott Location: Michigan Notes: My first attempt at catching the Midwinter broadcast; I wasn’t expecting to pick up anything at all, but the Ascension Island location came through well enough that I could positively identify it when I compared to BBC’s recorded broadcast.
Recording of my reception (the beginning of the recording corresponds approximately to the 4:00 mark in the BBC recording below).
Location was western Michigan in the U.S.
42°46’40” N
86°03’48” W
Elevation: Approx. 212m ASL
SWL: David Iurescia (LW4DAF) Location: Argentina Notes: I’m sending you the first seconds of the BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast, using a Yaesu FT 840 and a half wave dipole, 30 Km south from Buenos Aires. It is on 7360 Khz. It had good signal, but too much noise here.
Rothera Research Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica (Image Source: British Antarctic Survey)
Once again, many thanks to all of you who submitted your recordings of the BBC Midwinter Broadcast!
We’ll be sharing this post with both the British Antarctic Survey and the BBC World Service. And to all of you, from the SWLing Post: Happy Midwinter! Happy Summer/Winter Solstice!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov (NO2CW), who writes:
My 11 year old son Tommy (N1SPY) completed a project where he compared a 1W lightbulb to a .25 W radio beacon that he put together and bet that the radio beacon can be heard around the world. I asked him to document his activities as he went along. The project took a couple of months but is now complete and we stitched together a video of his activities.
I especially like how you’ve taken time to explain the principles behind the various steps of the process. Brilliant job!
Tommy, your future videos are always welcome here. Keep up the good work and we’d love to hear how many new countries you’ve racked up on your WSPR system!
Carl Laufer isn’t a ham (yet), but he got caught up in the RTL-SDR craze in his home town, Auckland NZ, as he was completing his PHD
He began writing about them, and selling them, on his blog at www.RTL-SDR.com, and soon discovered that the little SDR receiver dongles could stand some improvement.
So he designed ways to make them work better, and contracted a Chinese manufacturer to build them with his mods. That just about doubled the price, from $10 to about $20. Yeah, big deal.
TAPR invited Carl to come to the 2017 Dayton Hamvention to talk about them at both their Friday Forum (part of HamRadioNow Episode 324) and as the main speaker at the TAPR/AMSAT Banquet.
And we got him for a conversation with HamRadioNow’s KN4AQ and PhasingLine’s Chicken With Fries in the SIB back in Tent City.
Watch HRN 328: Carl Laufer’s RTL-SDR on HamRadioNow:
I got to meet Carl at the Hamvention this year–what a great guy and his website is certainly the best source of information about the RTL-SDR.
I should note that I also met with contributor, Mike Ladd, in person at the Hamvention. Mike now works for SDRplay.
This is one of the great things about gatherings like the Hamvention–it brings together so many people that you’d otherwise likely never meet in person!
Many thanks to Jon Hudson with SDRplay who recently shared the following video by Kevin Loughin which details the installation and operation of of the RSP2 on Linux. Kevin has written scripts that make the installation process more accessible to those not as familiar with Linux.
According to Kevin, this will run on Ubuntu 16.04 and other Debian-based Linux distributions.
Check out Kevin’s video below (or on YouTube). Kevin also published a step-by-step guide on his blog.
In the past week, I’ve had no less than two readers ask about tutorial resources for SDRuno, and the RSP series software defined radios, so Mike’s message is timely.
So far, Mike has covered the following topics (click link to watch video):
Hi there, subscribers to the Oxford Shortwave Log YouTube channel and regular readers of this excellent website will be aware that I have been using a Bonito Boni whip E-field wideband antenna for a couple of months now. You may have seen my previous post here, detailing some excellent initial DX results achieved with the Boni Whip. What makes this antenna so compelling for a DXer such as myself is simply that it’s so light and compact; I can literally take it anywhere. Currently it lives in a small flight case (see above & below) on the back seat of my car, with either my Sony ICF-SW55 or Eton Satellit, a home-brew battery pack (that literally cost pence) and some peripheral bits and pieces; spare batteries, cables etc. I think it’s probably already clear that if you consider the Boni Whip’s performance as a function of portability and price, it’s out there on its own – I’m not aware of another antenna that can match it. Of course, there are H-field antennas, such as the excellent Wellbrook active loops that will effectively reject QRM, if that’s an issue for the user, but at a significant cost delta.
Since my last posting, I have continued to use the Boni Whip regularly on my DXpeditions and upload the reception videos to my YouTube channel. I have been nothing but totally impressed with this antenna, to the point that I’ve actually been surprised by the signals I’ve caught and recorded with it. Recent catches include a number of low-power stations from Brazil, including Radio Bandeirantes – Sao Paolo, Radio Voz Missionaria – Camboriu (on the 49 and 31 metre broadcast bands) and Radio Aparecida. Some of these signals are incredibly difficult to hear in Europe at all, let alone well and yet the ultra-compact Boni-Whip running off AA batteries, coupled to the (equally brilliant) Eton Satellit managed it with aplomb. Other catches include Zambia NBC Radio 1 – Lusaka and a signal from Bangladesh Betar that sounded as if the transmitter was 5 miles down the road!
All-in-all, I’m extremely satisfied with the performance of the Bonito Boni Whip and highly recommend it to those DXers requiring a high-performance, compact antenna, for use at home in electrically quiet environments or on any DXpedition. You certainly won’t be disappointed.
Please find embedded reception videos below and text links that will take you to the Oxford Shortwave Log YouTube channel. Thanks for reading/watching/listening and I wish you all great DX.
Clint Gouveia is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Clint actively publishes videos of his shortwave radio excursions on his YouTube channel: Oxford Shortwave Log. Clint is based in Oxfordshire, England.
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