Cold War Echo: RT investigates UVB-76

“From a lonely rusted tower in a forest north of Moscow, a mysterious shortwave radio station transmitted day and night. For at least the decade leading up to 1992, it broadcast almost nothing but beeps; after that, it switched to buzzes, generally between 21 and 34 per minute, each lasting roughly a second—a nasally foghorn blaring through a crackly ether.

The signal was said to emanate from the grounds of a voyenni gorodok (mini military city) near the village of Povarovo, and very rarely, perhaps once every few weeks, the monotony was broken by a male voice reciting brief sequences of numbers and words, often strings of Russian names: “Anna, Nikolai, Ivan, Tatyana, Roman.” But the balance of the airtime was filled by a steady, almost maddening, series of inexplicable tones.”

Click here to watch the video on YouTube, or view via the embedded player below:

If you can’t hear UVB-76 from where you live via shortwave radio (4,625 kHz), you can always listen to this live stream.

Radio: “a rare dimension to our human experience”

Radio is dead? Not according to Mullins

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Garth Mullins

Garth Mullins is an SWL and a radio geek: yes, he’s one of us.

What’s more, Mullins believes that radio is now experiencing a renaissance. Listen to his brilliant documentary, End of the Dial, which was recently re-broadcast on the CBC program Ideas with Paul Kennedy. Best 54 minutes you’ve ever spent.

Be sure to check out Garth’s website: http://www.garthmullins.com/

Grundig G5 via Blinq: Might want to pass…

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While many SWLing Post readers have reported positively about their experience with the online discount retailer Blinq.com, several buyers have not been happy with the used/open box Grundig G5 units Blinq is selling for $45 US each.

Mike (K8RAT) noted that his G5’s “audio distorts when volume greater than 10 on the numerical read-out […] higher level sends the audio into oscillation.” Another buyer noted his G5 was nearly deaf on AM.

If you order a G5 from the Blinq, check out the radio thoroughly before tucking it away on a shelf somewhere. Or, better yet, just pass on this particular deal.

Fortunately, I’ve only received excellent reports of Blinq’s customer service. They’ve happily refunded consumers money for defective products in a timely fashion.

On a side note, I can only report negatively about the retailer 1Sale.com. I’ve been trying for six weeks to receive a refund on a defective (non radio) item I purchased. I’ve still haven’t received a response from customer service. I’m sending my 6th request today; I’ll never purchase from 1Sale.com again.

Best application for the SDR-IQ on a MacBook Air?

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I’m plotting travels soon and plan to take my RF Space SDR-IQ along for the ride.

I’ve noted a number of excellent open source applications that work with the SDR-IQ, but many of them don’t work on the Mac OS X operating system. Those that do work on Mac OS X seem to lack the ability to make spectrum and audio (AF) recordings.

I had considered installing Windows 7 on my MacBook Air (as a dual boot) and running an app like SDR#, but I simply don’t have the storage space to effectively house two operating systems on the Air’s solid state drive.

I’m curious if anyone has an SDR application recommendation. Please comment if you do!

AOR to announce two new products

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Is this the TRX-305? We might not know until the Tokyo Ham Radio Fair.

According to Dave Zantow (N9EWO), AOR plans to announce two new products this year at the Tokyo Ham Radio Fair: the AR-DV1 receiver and the TRX-305 transceiver.

For more information, check out the news section onDave’s website.

Field Recording with the Tecsun PL-380 and Transcend MP330

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SWLing Post reader, London Shortwave, shared photos of his portable recording kit on Twitter yesterday. It consists of a Tecsun PL-380, Transcend MP330, in ear headphones, and a simple clip-on antenna (supplied with the PL-380). He recorded Radio New Zealand International with this gear.

listen to ‘Radio New Zealand Int. received in London, UK’ on Audioboo

I love the compact form factor of the Transcend MP330–ideal for field recording. I’m curious if there are other high-capacity USB memory/recording sticks on the market.

The PL-380 is a superb ultralight radio; my favorite small travel radio, in fact. The PL-380 can be found for about $42 US shipped via Amazon; an impressive value.

Many thanks to London Shortwave for sharing images of his ultralight DXing & recording kit!