Listening to Shortwave Australia this morning

I’m traveling at present and staying in a hotel where, let’s just say, QRM is heavy.

I decided to cruise the KiwiSDR network and found myself on the VK2GGC KiwiSDR in Hunter Valley NSW, Australia. As I was band-scanning, I stumbled upon Shortwave Australia on 4,835 kHz around 9:40 UTC.

It was great hearing this low power shortwave broadcaster on the air again!  Check out the recording below with ID:

Click here to download audio.

WebSDRs are such a wonderful resource when you truly need to escape QRM. It’s fun to travel the globe and tune through the bands like a local. Again, it’s great to hear Shortwave Australia again–I’m curious if anyone has logged them as DX from home.

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Upcoming High Power Broadcast of VORW Radio International to Europe & Beyond

 

Hello shortwave listeners! I wanted to make this little post as a reminder for an upcoming broadcast of mine – transmitted with high power for listeners in Europe and beyond!

Friday 1600 UTC (7 PM EEST/MSK) – 9670 kHz – Moosbrunn 100 kW – Europe, Russia, The Middle East, Central & East Asia

You can hear this airing every Friday, the program is 1 Hour in length and features miscellaneous discussion (sometimes about current events, other times about random subjects on my mind) at the start of the program and is then balanced out with good listener requested music. I hope for it to be an enjoyable light entertainment program with good music and discussion.

For this airing only, I verify reception reports with a special e-QSL! Listener reception feedback is much appreciated at [email protected]

Happy listening!

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Photos from the 2022 Milton Ontario Hamfest

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike (VE3MKX), who writes:

The following pictures are from a Hamfest which was held yearly at the Milton Fairgrounds in Milton Ontario, Canada. (Located 20 minutes west of Toronto).

The Burlington Amateur Radio Club organizes the event and confirms that they had 108 vendor spaces sold and over 475 general admin passed through the gates.

A great day of meeting friends, lots of deals and smiling faces!

Thank you so much for sharing this, Mike! I haven’t been to a hamfest yet this year, so it’s great to catch a glimpse of what looks like a very successful one! 

Readers: This is a large gallery of 132 photos courtesy of Kevin (VA3RCA) and Mike (VE3MKX). If you would like to view the entire image gallery click on the link to see more.  Continue reading

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Ken reverse-engineers the Apollo spacecraft’s FM radio

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul, who shares the following post from Ken Shirriffs’ Blog:

Reverse-engineering the Apollo spacecraft’s FM radio

How did NASA communicate with the Apollo astronauts, hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth? The premodulation processor1 (below) was the heart of the communication system onboard the Apollo spacecraft. Its multiple functions included an FM radio for communication to the astronauts, implemented by the Voice Detector, the module second from the top. In this blog post, I reverse-engineer the circuitry for that module and explain how it worked.

The Apollo communication system was complex and full of redundancy. Most communication took place over a high-frequency radio link that supported audio, telemetry, scientific data, and television images.2 NASA’s massive 85-foot dish antennas transmitted signals to the spacecraft at 2106.4 megahertz, an S-band frequency, giving the system the name “Unified S-Band”. These radio signals were encoded using phase modulation;3 onboard the spacecraft, a complex box called the transponder received the S-band signal and demodulated it.4

The voice and data signals from Earth were combined through a second layer of modulation: voice was frequency-modulated (FM) onto a 30-kilohertz subcarrier while data was on a 70-kilohertz subcarrier, so the two signals wouldn’t conflict.5 One of the tasks of the premodulation processor was to extract the voice and data signals from the transponder’s output. These voice signals went to yet another box, the Audio Center Equipment, so the astronauts could hear the messages from the ground. The data signals were decoded by the Up-Data Link, allowing NASA to send commands to the Apollo Guidance Computer, control onboard relays, or set the spacecraft’s clock.

Many systems worked together for communication, but I’m focusing on a single module: the voice detector inside the premodulation processor that performed the FM demodulation. [Continue reading the full article…]

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Further adventures of WELK

Hi to all SWLing Post community, it’s Fastradioburst23 again letting you know about the second transmission of WELK this evening at 2200 utc on 9395 kHz thanks to the good folks at WRMI.

If you enjoyed all the accordion and squeezebox based tunes last week you’ll be sure to love this second installment and it’ll be a good one to have on in the background whilst perfecting those air accordion moves.

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Changes to KTWR’s DRM broadcast schedule effective 3rd July, 2022

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mangosman, who shares the following tip from Mike Sabin at KTWR via Alokesh Gupta’s blog:

Due to requests for later broadcasts, improved propagation, and the addition of a program, KTWR is changing its DRM broadcast schedule effective 3rd July, 2022.

KTWR Digital Broadcasts
DRM broadcasts (Effective 3rd July 2022):

Day Time(UTC) Frequency Coverage Area Language
—————————————————
Saturday 1100-1127 12000 kHz China English
Saturday 1128-1230 9910 kHz Japan Japanese, English
Mon-Fri 1215-1245 9910 kHz China Mandarin
Sunday 1500-1545 15205 kHz India English
Sunday 1600-1630 15390 kHz India South Indian languages

(Mike Sabin, KTWR)

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