Shortwave listening and everything radio including reviews, broadcasting, ham radio, field operation, DXing, maker kits, travel, emergency gear, events, and more
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares his radio log art of a recent recording of the Voice of Korea’s Japanese Language Service.
Carlos’ goal is to vividly illustrate the broadcaster’s message in his own unique artistic style and is not a reflection of his own beliefs or those of the SWLing Post. His objective is for his artwork to add historical context and put a visual with the news, reporting, and broadcast content:
Carlos notes:
Part of news bulletin broadcasted in Japanese from DPRK’s Voice of Korea radio, via shortwave. Reply message from Chinese President Xi Jinping about the condolence message sent by DPRK’s President of State Affairs Kim Jong-un due the passing of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
The Zenith is seen sitting between an elderly German couple who were helping to hide a Jewish family from the Nazis.
Hunters is an excellent, if sometimes hard to watch, series which brought Pacino back to TV. The scenes with the Zenith radio were almost as long as the one in Last of Us containing the Grundig 700.
What a gorgeous Zenith, Dan. Thank you for sharing this and your notes about Hunters.
Good day all shortwave community, Fastradioburst23 here letting you know of a further CBRG special on WRMI from the Imaginary Stations crew. It’s a special low r.p.m. edition and it’s on Sunday 22nd January 2023 on 9395 kHz at 2300 hrs UTC. More on CBRG below. Tune in and enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Balázs Kovács, who writes:
Hi Thomas,
Some radios from the first episode of the new post apocalyptic (video game adaptation) series “The Last of Us”.
with best regards,
Balazs
Great catch! Thank you for sharing this with us, Balázs! These images are pretty dark, but I bet some readers will be able to ID some of those radios in the background!
It was 1913, the year of the Binghamton Clothing Company Fire, and the year after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and the sinking of the Titanic.
Several major disasters that had left the region and the nation reeling from the loss of human life amidst a growing industrial base in the country. Thousands of immigrants were arriving to find new lives and work among the huddling masses. Many of those would make their way to the Binghamton area to find employment in the many cigar and shoe factories scattered on the landscape.
It was important to find a feel-good moment in the ever-rapidly increasing technology world that was changing the way we performed our work and lived our lives. Communication growth was one aspect of those changes. The number of newspapers and their influence was important, but so was the development of what we today call radio – originally known as wireless telegraphy, using radio waves to transmit telegraphic signals from point to point.
The first practical incarnation of wireless telegraphy was created by Guglielmo Marconi of Italy. The discovery of those waves had been made only about two decades prior to his use of those to transmit telegraph signals. In 1897, he formed the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in the United Kingdom. The company would later be called the Marconi Wireless Company, and continued to work on the ability to send these wireless signals farther and farther. Eventually, he also worked to see if these signals could be transmitted and received by moving objects, such as ships at sea and railroad trains. [Continue reading…]
Orson Welles’ contrived The War of the Worlds news bulletin “interrupted” a radio broadcast in 1938 to advise terrified listeners that aliens had invaded the Earth. As many as 12 million people were tuned in, according to NPR – and perhaps a million of them apparently worried that it was actually happening.
We’ve gained historical perspective on the stunt, even while the way we consume media has vastly changed over the decades that followed. Critics would later downplay the impact of The War of the Worlds, with some arguing that newspapers purposely over-sensationalized the broadcast to cast doubts on the trustworthiness of then-new technology that was siphoning off ad revenue.
What’s clear is that signal intrusions – including unauthorized hijacking of radio, television or satellite feeds – have continued ever since. They’ve served a variety of purposes, as you’ll see on the following list. Many were a form of political protest, while others were just looking to have a little fun. All of them trace back in some way to Welles’ fateful “interruption.”
Southern Television Broadcast
Nov. 26, 1977, England
Viewers of an early evening Southern Television broadcast in England were alarmed when an electronic voice purported to represent the “Ashtar Galactic Command” overtook the audio of a news segment for a full six minutes. The message, which was accompanied by a pulsating sound and eerie distortions, said: “For many years, you have seen us as lights in the sky. We speak to you now in peace and wisdom as we have done to your brothers and sisters all over this, your planet Earth.” This strange voice went on to advise humanity to “abandon its weapons” in order to participate in a “future awakening” and “achieve a higher state of evolution.” It also warned viewers that government officials weren’t who they claimed to be, and that they were leading the unwitting public into a New World Order. The hack ended with a final message: “Have no fear, seek only to know yourselves, and live in harmony with the ways of your planet Earth. We hear at the Ashtar Galactic Command thank you for your attention. We are now leaving the planes of your existence. May you be blessed by the supreme love and truth of the cosmos.” The interruption prompted a flood of phone calls from an understandably concerned audience then living under the threat of Cold War. A local newspaper said “thousands” of viewers were horrified; one man described the experience as “very eerie indeed” and said it “sounded very authentic.” A woman said she had to call her friends to make sure she wasn’t “hearing things,” adding that “it sounded like a genuine voice from outer space and was quite frightening.” An investigation revealed the Independent Broadcasting Authority’s Hannington transmitter had rebroadcast the signal from a nearby, unauthorized transmitter. The mastermind behind it all was never identified.
Researchers in Drexel University’s College of Engineering have developed a thin film device, fabricated by spray coating, that can block electromagnetic radiation with the flip of a switch. The breakthrough, enabled by versatile two-dimensional materials called MXenes, could adjust the performance of electronic devices, strengthen wireless connections and secure mobile communications against intrusion.
The team, led by Yury Gogotsi, Ph.D., Distinguished University and Bach professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering, previously demonstrated that the two-dimensional layered MXene materials, discovered just over a decade ago, when combined with an electrolyte solution, can be turned into a potent active shield against electromagnetic waves.
This latest MXene discovery, reported in Nature Nanotechnology, shows how this shielding can be tuned when a small voltage—less than that produced by an alkaline battery—is applied.
“Dynamic control of electromagnetic wave jamming has been a significant technological challenge for protecting electronic devices working at gigahertz frequencies and a variety of other communications technologies,” Gogotsi said.
“As the number of wireless devices being used in industrial and private sectors has increased by orders of magnitude over the past decade, the urgency of this challenge has grown accordingly. This is why our discovery—which would dynamically mitigate the effect of electromagnetic interference on these devices—could have a broad impact.”
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Adrian Korol, who shares the following announcement:
LRA 36 RADIO NACIONAL ARCANGEL SAN GABRIEL presents UNIENDO VOCES, a special production made together with RAE (Radiodifusión Argentina al Exterior) and dedicated to shortwave listeners, DXers and ham radio amateurs from all over the world.
The transmission will take place on SATURDAY, JANUARY 21 at 15 UTC with repetition at 19 UTC on the frequency of 15476 kHz (USB) 19-meter band and will include the participation of Adrian Korol, Director of RAE and Juan Benavente, member of the Joint Antarctic Command, together with Marcelo Ayala, a journalist from Radio Nacional who hosts the morning Panorama Informativo for all Public Radio stations during January from LRA36.
The contents include live interviews, interesting material from the LRA36 sound archive such as audio from its first transmission, different IDs, audio from listeners of right-wingers at different times, and material from LA ROSA DE TOKIO, the program by Omar Somma and Arnaldo Slaen, who is RAE’s DX Editor.
This year is very important for LRA36. During the month of February, evaluation and measurement tasks of the irradiating system and short wave transmission will be carried out with the aim of providing A NEW SHORT WAVE TRANSMITTER to the beloved Antarctic station, the CCA 10 KW transmitter will also be withdrawn to the continent For your repair.
A new antenna will also be installed for the FM signal at 96.7 Mhz that will start to emit with a power of 250 watts (currently it does so with 25).
As always, we await your comments and reception reports at [email protected]
The new year was bittersweet for many Bengali radio fans this year, as listeners learned that BBC Bangla Radio would stop airing on December 31, 2022, after an 81-year run. In the years leading up to its closure, two sets of half-hour programs were aired each day on shortwave and FM bands in the morning and evening. The webpage was archived as soon as the night programs finished on the last day, closing the chapter on the iconic British Broadcasting Channel segment.
In an effort to cut spending and follow media trends, BBC World Service will be pivoting toward increased digital offerings, leading them to shut down radio-wave broadcasts in several international languages. BBC Bangla will continue as a digital-only multimedia channel in a limited capacity.
Bangla (Bengali) is the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. Spoken by approximately 261 million worldwide, it is the primary language in the region of Bengal, comprising Bangladesh (61 percent of speakers) and the Indian state of West Bengal (37 percent of speakers). [Continue reading…]
A trove of more than 150 such QSL cards, formerly owned by an operator who went by the call sign W2RP, was obtained by designer Roger Bova. Bova then collaborated with the book imprint Standards Manual (full disclosure: I’ve done some work with the publisher’s parent company, the design firm Order) to collect them into a handsome volume. I’m reprinting some of the images here, with the publisher’s permission.
W2RP, as it turns out, was no ordinary “amateur.” W2RP was the late Charles Hellman, who lived to the age of 106. The cards obtained by Bova are both a visual map and a physical manifestation of the numerous conversations he participated in over what is said to have likely been the longest continuously active ham license, more than 90 years. Hellman first obtained his license at the age of 15. Some historical context: he was born in 1910, one year after the Nobel Prize in Physics went to Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun for their pioneering work in radio. Hellman himself taught physics in Manhattan and the Bronx, and two of his students reportedly went on to win the Nobel in physics. (More on his remarkable life at qcwa.org.) [Continue reading…]
‘It would be the understatement of the year to say there were a lot of radios and radio-related paraphernalia’ at Chevy Halladay’s Orillia home
As I crossed the porch toward the side door of Chevy Halladay’s century home near Orillia, I had no idea what to expect. The door opened before I could knock, Chevy extended his arm to shake hands, and welcomed me into his home.
To my right was a small closet where I could hang my coat. I missed the hook, sending the coat to the floor. I was much too distracted to waste another second on hanging it neatly. To my left was a huge, free-standing mid-50s radio and TV tube testing machine stacked high with rare tubes, a six-foot-tall floor clock and radio with a built-in turntable, and a vintage Coca Cola vending machine. Each piece had been carefully restored for appearance and functionality.
A single step further into the room brought Chevy’s, and his wife Maggie’s, kitchen counter into view. Atop it were two partially restored radios, one a jumble of dusty tubes and a speaker early into the process, the other a spectacular and rare wood-cased Stromberg-Carlson, being prepared for final refinishing before being shipped to a friend in Bethesda, Maryland.
Don’t misunderstand. This was no hoarder’s enclave or home transformed into a ramshackle workshop. Their house is immaculate, and Maggie is on-side with Chevy’s mono-themed interior decorating style, yet it would be the understatement of the year to say there were a lot of radios and radio-related paraphernalia everywhere.
There was not an inch of wall that wasn’t shelved to display countless historic radios, or covered with hanging wall clocks that were used as promotional items by radio companies, steel promotional signs, framed advertising posters, or other memorabilia. [Continue reading…]
Between 1970 and 1991 a woman, never named and with a sonorous antipodean accent, could be heard broadcasting some of the most extraordinary communist propaganda ever heard amongst the radio stations of the former socialist countries.
Radio Tirana broadcast from Albania – at one time Europe’s most secretive and closed country.
The transmissions were the source of enormous fascination for one 13 year old boy who listened to the programmes at bath time, with increasing amazement.
53 year old journalist John Escolme was that 13 year old.
We join his journey to track down the mystery broadcaster who not only recalls her life on-air, but her own extraordinary personal story – one that took her from remote New Zealand to an eccentric Stalinist regime rarely visited by anyone from the west. [Click here for original article.]
