(Source: YouTube)
Radio Canada International journalist Marc Montgomery broke down in tears during his farewell speech to listeners as RCI ended its 67-year history of shortwave broadcasts yesterday. June 22, 2012, was the last day of The Link, RCI’s flagship English language daily radio show, which Marc hosted from its very inception in October 2006.
I just discovered a film produced by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) Film Unit in the 1950s explaining the principles behind the first accurate atomic clock. The clock was designed by Louis Essen and built at the National Physical Laboratory in 1955.
This film gives fascinating insight into the physics that run atomic clocks like those behind the WWV and CHU time stations. Better yet, the science is easy to swallow with the traditional “BBC” style voice narration. Enjoy!
(photo: Spaceweather.com)
Shortwave radio listeners know that coronal mass ejections (CMEs) often disturbing our SWLing. More than once I’ve been in the middle of listening to a broadcast, or even chatting with a fellow radio amateur on the HF spectrum and the effects from a CME would, in essence, wipe us out.
CMEs, in fact, have been getting a lot of publicity as of late. Now’s your chance to hear whatone sounds like–a little closer to the source:
[The following video] is a sonification of the recent solar storm activity turns data from two spacecraft into sound. It uses measurements from the NASA SOHO spacecraft and the University of Michigan’s Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) on NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury. The creator is Robert Alexander, a design science doctoral student at the University of Michigan and NASA fellow.
In the video below, Alan (W2AEW), shows us the installation and basic operation of an upgraded micro-controller for the Ten Tec Model 1254 Superhet Receiver Kit.
As Alan points out in the video, this is one of two upgrades offered at Cholakian.com. Both upgrades enhance the operation and usability of the Model 1254, giving it many more choices of tuning steps (yes!), the ability to automatically turn off the LED display, more memories and allowing you to eliminate the 9V battery back-up. This basic upgrade costs $38, the premium upgrade costs $68 even allows you to control the receiver via your PC.
Thanks, Alan, for showing us just how simple this upgrade is to perform:
You can see more of Alan’s projects at his website.
This documentary certainly touches on the motivation behind most pirate radio stations. I should note that while many FM pirate stations are dissapearing with the advent of online sources, shortwave pirates seem to be going strong and they use many of the same remote transmitter tactics that appear in this short film.
If you have trouble watching the embedded video above, please click here for the documentary video page.
(Source: RT)
Read the full transcript on RT. Thanks to Kim Elliott for the tip!
I’ve often told people that radios should be some of the first things shipped to an area after a natural disaster. Why not food or medicine? Good question. HERE is the answer: information feeds us!
Click here to view if embedded video does not appear above.