Wired: Listen to a Solar Flare Drown Out Radio Communications on Earth

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(Photo: NASA via Wired)

(Photo: NASA via Wired)

(Source: Wired)

Over the weekend, a tiny spot on the sun erupted into a moderately sized solar flare that was particularly loud in radio waves. With the sound of a roaring wave, it completely drowned out radio communication all over the Earth between 28 MHz and 21.1 MHz.

The recording [found on this page] comes from either a short wave radio station or a Ham radio transmission, said amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft, who works with NASA’s Radio JOVE project. It’s interesting to hear the voices get “swallowed up as the solar wave passes through,” he added in an e-mail to Wired.[…]

Read the full article on Wired.

Pirate Radio Recordings: Rave On Radio

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1-RadioListening2

“Yep, I can hear him through the static!”

While Rave On Radio‘s upper side band signal was fairly weak, at least in my part of the world, on Friday night, I managed to record it just the same.  The broadcast started around 23:15 UTC (February 1st) on 6,925 kHz.

I believe I recorded the entire broadcast; if not, I at least captured the majority of it. This is not “armchair” copy, of course, but it doesn’t take seasoned ears to hear the IDs and music through the static, either. (Indeed, I rather appreciate this skill-dependent aspect of the listening hobby).

Click here to download an MP3 of the entire show, or simply listen in the embedded Archive.org player below:

Note: This is a recording of a real pirate radio broadcast. Though I don’t think this broadcast applies, if you are easily offended by strong lyrics and offensive music, you should slowly back away.

Shortwave Radio Recordings: The Giant Jukebox and Kim Elliott’s digital text on The Mighty KBC

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wurlitzerJukeboxThe Mighty KBC’s broadcast from Bulgaria was mighty strong last night into North America. I recorded the full 2 hour show of The Giant Jukebox on 9,450 kHz beginning at 00:00 UTC.

As I’ve come to expect from The Mighty KBC, this show has an marvelous mix of rock-n-roll through the decades along with Eric’s professional DJing. The Mighty KBC has real people behind the music mix, a refreshing alternative to the iHeart Radio and Pandoras of the world.

Click here to download an MP3 of the entire show, or simply listen via the embedded Archive.org player below:

Of course, this recording includes Kim Elliott’s digital text modes. For those of you who would like to decode it, here are the details:

At about 01:30 into the recording, 4xPSK63R is centered on 1000 Hz and MFSK64 centered on 2000 Hz. (For 4XPSK63R, use Fldigi 3.21.65 or newer: OpMode > PSKR > MultiCarrier > 4XPSK63R.)

At just before the end of the transmission, an image will be transmitted in the MFSK16 mode. Also, MT63-2000 (long interleave) will be centered on 1500 Hz. This will be an Flmsg formatted transmission, with html. Fldigi and Flmsg can be downloaded from www.w1hkj.com.

Please comment if you were able to decode.

Making A Transistor Radio by George Dobbs

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A sample illustration from "How To Build a Transistor Radio"

A sample illustration from “Making a Transistor Radio”

Those of you who are ham radio operators (especially QRPers) are familiar with the name George Dobbs (G3RJV). In 1972, Reverend Dobbs wrote a book called, Making A Transistor Radio and now it’s available online.

Making A Transistor Radio is a clear, simple, step-by-step guide to building your own transistor radio. In each stage of the process you’re rewarded with a working radio. In addition, you’ll learn about all of the stages of a working receiver.

Perhaps what I love best about this book–besides the fact that is resembles the mountains of electronics books I poured through in my youth–are the illustrations.  Each illustration describes exactly how each component of the radio should be built, leaving nothing to be pondered.

If you’ve ever wanted to build your own radio, from scratch, this is a great place to start.

Thanks, Eric, for sending this link!

Pirate Radio Recordings: Bust A Nut Radio

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You know the proceedure

Bust A Nut Radio‘s AM signal came in fairly strong last night sometime around 5:45 UTC (February 2nd) on 6,940 kHz.

You’ll hear a great variety of music–from classic rock to electronica–complete with originally produced ID’s and bumpers in this pirate radio recording.

Click here to download an MP3 of the entire show, or simply listen in the embedded Archive.org player below:

Note: This is a recording of a real pirate radio broadcast. If you are easily offended by strong lyrics and offensive music, you should slowly back away.

Pirate Radio Recordings: Red Mercury Labs

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electromagneticradiowavesLast Saturday night, I caught the shortwave radio pirate, Red Mercury Labs, on 6.9251 MHz in the upper side band.

This broadcast, which started around 1:57 UTC, contains a great mix of rock music with some commentary throughout.

You can download the full recording as an MP3 file by clicking here, or listen via the embedded player below. Enjoy:

 

CommRadio CR1 is now available for purchase

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The CommRadio CR-1

The CommRadio CR-1

You can now purchase the CommRadio CR1 (we recently mentioned) for $500 plus $12 shipping on CommRadio’s website.

Don Moore (N0HDX), founder of CommRadio, placed the following statement on the CR-1 order page:

As the lead designer of the CR-1, I am pleased to offer this new radio to you. It draws on my experience as a kid building Knight Kits, from my paper route earnings through currently owning a classic Drake 2B and a Zenith Transoceanic; my benchmarks for enjoyable, high quality short wave listening. I added a smooth machined aluminum tuning knob and minimized the number of buttons to provide you (and me), an intuitively obvious and enjoyable radio to operate. This radio is solid as a brick, looks cool and sounds great. The tall feet have a purpose besides good-looks: rest your hand on the tabletop to spin the knob and for the bottom- speaker to bounce the sound to you instead of going straight up into up in space. The military ‘black box’ people who visit us see it sitting on the shelf with the bright OLED display and they all say: “I want one!” Well, here it is. Let the CR-1 draw you into the wonderful hobby I’ve enjoyed throughout my life.

I do love the look of this little radio–its simplicity reminds me of the Palstar line of shortwave radios.