KVOH test broadcasts this weekend

Ray Robinson, Operations Manager at KVOH (Voice of Hope / Voz de Esperanza) writes:

[W]e would very much appreciate your reception reports (or preferably, recordings) of the tests we will be running on 9975 kHz on Friday and Saturday evenings this week. The exact times are:

Saturday 7th – 0100-0400 UTC

Sunday 8th – 0100-0400 UTC

In North and Central America, that would be this Friday and Saturday evenings, 8-11pm Central, 9pm-12am Eastern. The test program will be similar to last time, but not exactly the same. It will contain segments in both English and Spanish.

The transmitter site is near Los Angeles, and here it is currently getting dark at about 0230 UTC (7:30pm local). Therefore, during the first half of these tests, the transmission path will be increasingly in darkness, and for the last 90 minutes or so will be in complete darkness. Please let us know what reception sounds like at your location as the evening progresses, and also what type of receiver and antenna you are using.

Reception reports may be emailed to “[email protected]” or sent to:

KVOH – Voice of Hope
P.O.Box 102
Los Angeles, CA 90078
United States of America

All correct reports will be verified with our QSL card.

Thank you very much in advance for your assistance with this test!

VOA Radiogram, 7-8 September 2013: Fldigi, Flmsg, Flamp, RSIDs, MFSK

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(Source: VOA Radiogram)

VOA Radiogram for the weekend of 7-8 September 2013 will include more experiments with RSIDs, the brief signals that automatically switch your decoding software to the correct mode.

For best results, please install Fldigi 3.21.75 from w1hkj.com. When you have 3.21.75 installed, go to Configure > ID > RsID, and adjust Errors to 0 (zero). This will prevent Fldigi from flipping to another mode while decoding our MFSK transmissions. For more information about this, seewww.w1hkj.com/FldigiHelp-3.21/ConfigID.html

Please also download the latest versions of Flmsg and Flamp (2.1.00) from w1hkj.com.

This weekend’s VOA Radiogram will include another transmission in MFSK128. This will be done mainly to see if the RSID works. However, to improve the chances for a successful decode of the very fast MFSK128, it will be in Flamp format. A paragraph will be divided into seven blocks of 64 characters each. And it will be transmitted three times, with the second and third passes filling in any blocks with incorrect checksums. Make sure Flamp is running before the MFSK128 transmission begins; it does not turn on automatically like Flmsg.

The foreign language for the weekend will be Spanish, with brief VOA news items in both plain text and Flmsg formatted. Please turn off and restart Fldigi before each of this weekend’s VOA Radiogram broadcasts to ensure the accented Spanish letters display correctly. You will need the UTF-8 character set. The adjustment can be found via Configure > Colors & Fonts.

In the Flmsg-formatted Spanish news story, you will see several html codes such as í for the accented characters. They might look like decoding errors, but the story should look OK when the web page renders.

To make Flmsg work with Fldigi, in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS — Under Reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your Flmsg.exe file is located.

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, 7-8 September 2013:

3:55 MFSK16: Program preview

2:09 MFSK32: VOA Spanish news re old iPhones

3:41 MFSK32/Flmsg: VOA Spanish news re new iPhone model

2:29 MFSK64: VOA News re Al Jazeera in Egypt

2:48 MFSK32: YouTube screen capture of Al Jazeera

:50 MFSK32: Introduction to MFSK128 item

1:30 MFSK128/Flamp: Brief description of VOA

:45 MFSK32: Introduction to MFSK64

2:55 MFSK64: VOA News re LADEE moon mission

2:56 MFSK32: Artist’s rendition of LADEE spacecraft

1:11 MFSK16: Closing announcements

:41 MFSK32: VOA Radiogram logo

:20 Surprise mode of the week

Please send reception reports to [email protected].

VOA Radiogram transmission schedule

(all days and times UTC)

Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz

Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz

Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz

Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz

All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.

There will also be a minute of MFSK32 on The Mighty KBC, via Germany, Saturday at approximately 1130 UTC on 6095 kHz, and Sunday at approximately 0130 UTC on 7375 kHz (Saturday evening 9:30 pm EDT).

Also check out their post: Base64 VOA logo via MFSK128: a few unexpected successes. Fascinating!

C.Crane’s 30 Days of Giveaways

Pirate Radio Recordings: Radio Casablanca

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Confession time: one of my favorite pirate radio stations is Radio Casablanca.

Why?

For one thing the format is WWII-era music. When I hear Radio Casablanca, I close my eyes and imagine what it must have been like to hear the great bands of the era over the shortwaves…

Radio nostalgia at its best.

The signal strength is always sufficient to be heard in relatively good fidelity here in my radio room, but not so strong as to detract from the perceived distance. I believe the recording you’ll hear below could very well mimic broadcasts over shortwave, heard across borders during WWII as well as listened to on classic console radios in people’s living rooms and front parlors.

When my buddy Mark Coady posted that he was listening to Radio Casablanca Tuesday night on 6940 kHz AM, I immediately rushed outside to hook up my antenna, and started rolling. I didn’t want to miss even one more minute (I came across Mark’s post about twenty minutes into the broadcast). Though regional storms produced some static pops and crashes, overall fidelity is decent. You will hear the filter and side-band sync being adjusted at times as I attempted to eliminate adjacent noises–which, in the end, are all a part of the listening experience.

Click here to download an MP3 of the recording, or simply listen via the embedded player below. Either way, prepare to go (or at least, send your ears) back in time…

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Deutsche Welle

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For your listening pleasure: a recording of the Deutsche Welle English service made this morning, September 3rd, starting at 04:00 UTC.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below (note about 40 seconds of carrier prior to the beginning of the broadcast):

By the way, if you believe there’s nothing to listen to on shortwave, you should check out our What’s On Shortwave category!

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Voice of Greece

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Lately, the Voice of Greece has been playing very long sets of music; and not all of it Greek. I assume the break in format has to do with the reorganization of Greek national broadcasting.

I believe VoG could be cut without notice. With heavy budget cuts being dealt to national broadcasting, I doubt investment in shortwave radio will continue since they no longer even have an English language service. This is one of the reasons I’ve devoted a lot of recording time to VoG as of late. Admittedly, I certainly hope I’m wrong about my prediction.

On September 1st, I recorded over five hours of VoG, starting around 22:00 UTC. After about an hour of Greek commentary, you’ll hear music ranging from contemporary to classical.

Click here to download the full recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below.