Category Archives: Videos

Radio Caroline: A video diary of the weekend aboard the MV Ross Revenge

Many thanks to Mike Terry who shared the following note and video via Facebook:

The great old days when the signal was mellow and radio waves were not blocked by buildings and hills and propagated beyond the horizon especially at night, it all added to the excitement. We would never have heard many of the great records of the 60s and later without this station! So many international stars made their name on the offshore stations around our coast 50 years or so ago. UK radio was changed for ever.

[Note: This video may only be viewable via Facebook or the SWLing Post site.]

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Video: This Is Radio Free Europe (1964)

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If you’re in the mood for a little Cold War era nostalgia, check out this video produced by Radio Free Europe in 1964. One of the things I found most fascinating was seeing the number of rack-mounted Hammarlund SP-600s (and other benchmark receivers) at the RFE monitoring station near Munich.

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1944 WWII Hallicrafters Shortwave Radio Promo

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Interesting 15 min. video demonstrating the Army Signal Corps using an Hallicrafters SCR-299.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TURd_XVpwvk

While certainly a promotional piece for Hallicrafters, this has great footage and captures a bit of the excitement of radio expanding into new frontiers. There is a discussion of how the radio was modified for military conditions as well as some innovations which were implemented to make such a system mobile.

As an aside, it never ceases to amaze me how clear and crisp black and white film technology of the time seems somehow better than the color images which replaced it. But that may just be me — a black-and-white guy living in a colorized world!

There is a second part to this video, as well as other WWII-era videos available on YouTube with a bit of searching, and of course don’t forget to check out the SWLing’s Shortwave Radio Archive page for more interesting shortwave audio old and new!

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

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While Not Directly Radio Related . . .

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While not directly radio related, this was too amazing not to share (so forgive me in advance! There is an Arduino involved, if that helps?!)

The video above is of a robot which can solve Rubik’s Cube in about 1 second.

I will not embarrass myself in telling how long it takes me to solve it . . . .

It is, however, easy to see how radio hobbyists could find these Arduino boards quite intriguing!

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

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The Empire Strikes Back: Is that WWV I hear?

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With all of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens hype going on, I remembered that, as a kid, I thought I heard WWV in a scene from The Empire Strikes Back.

I looked through some video clips of the movie online and discovered it again this morning: I heard the WWV-like sound in the Battle Of Hoth scene. [Update: RadioGeek suggests this may actually be CHU’s date pips.]

This video clip will start around the :23 second mark; start listening for the metronomic tick in the background around :25 seconds and then again at :40 seconds:

https://youtu.be/HgY3rOOascY?t=23s

I may be mistaken, but I believe that sounds like 1980s era WWV. Has anyone else noticed this?

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Video: How The Teleprinter Works (1940)

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Telegraph

(Source: Stephen, G7VFY, via the Southgate ARC)

Produced by the GPO Film Unit. Models are used to demonstrate the working of a teleprinter. Shown is how the pressing of a key on the keyboard generates a five unit teleprinter code, is then transmitted as a serial code to the teleprinter line and finally is decoded to select the correct character on the type wheel of the printing mechanism of the receiving teleprinter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcMHam54EOI

Click here to view on YouTube.

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