Wireless Flirt episode explores shortwave radio

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I’m very honored to have been interviewed by John Walsh who produces the excellent program Wireless on Flirt FM in Ireland. John reached out to discuss the relevance of the shortwave radio medium, particularly through the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here’s the show description:

In the April 2022 edition of Wireless, we look at the part of the radio spectrum called shortwave, consider its importance in the past and continued relevance in a digital world. Founder of the SWLing blog Thomas Witherspoon discusses the historical development of shortwave, including its heyday during the Cold War, and explains how it continues to be used today, for instance to evade Russian internet censorship during the Ukrainian war. The programme also remembers Irish pirate shortwave operators of the 1980s as featured on our related site Pirate.ie.

Click here to listen to the full show at Wireless Flirt.

John is a true kindred spirit and devoted radio enthusiast. I would encourage you to subscribe to his monthly Wireless episodes via your favorite podcast player; here are links to iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

In addition, John is the one of the founders and curators of Pirate.ie which is a brilliantly documented archive of pirate radio stations in Ireland. I highly recommend checking it out!

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Video: “The Glory Days of Shortwave Radio”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Adi, who writes:

Hi Thomas, this video just popped for me on YouTube. I searched the SWLing Post and didn’t find it, it’s not new so maybe you missed it.

Thank you, Adi. I’m almost positive I’ve posted this one before–but if I have it’s been so long it should be re-posted! A wonderful nostalgia trip! Thanks for sharing.

Click here to view on YouTube.

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Tim recommends shortwave pirate “Ballsmacker Radio”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tim Brockett, who writes:

Good Morning Thomas.

I enjoy receiving your daily posts. They are informative, helpful and sometimes enlightening.

I wanted to alert you to a change in frequency for Ballsmacker Radio.

I tuned into them on Friday, March 26 at 6960 kHz. They came in well at Willow Beach, Arizona which is just south of Las Vegas, Nevada. The broadcast started at 01:00 UTC and ended at 02:25 UTC.

Ballsmacker is a pirate station that airs from “somewhere in the northeast” in the USA. He uses just 200 watts but has a great frequency and time. I have routinely picked him up in Willow Beach.

His website is at https://ballsmacker.net/

He welcomes reception reports and sends out eQSLs that appear to be different for each week. He broadcasts once a week at 01:00 UTC. You can also stream past shows from his website. The theme of last night’s show was “luck”. Each song had something to do with chance or luck. Most of the show is popular music from the 20th century. The music is interspersed with station IDs, email and website addresses.

His email is [email protected]

Hope this assists with your fine work.

Sincerely,
Tim Brockett

Thanks so much, Tim! You’re right: Ballsmacker Radio puts out a great signal and certainly offers up proper music variety! Thanks again for sharing your tip!

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Voice of Greece closure delayed two months

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(Source: Greek City Times via Alokesh Gupta)

Voice of Greece granted a reprieve – still broadcasting for 2 more months (Greek City Times)

The closure of the analog broadcast of the Voice of Greece has been delayed, even temporarily. With a decision taken last Wednesday and signed by ERT CEO George Gabritsos, the public radio and television announced that at the request of the Ministry of Defense, the Avlida shortwave broadcast centre will remain active until May 31, when re-evaluating the conditions for further continuation or not of its operation.

In an earlier decision, ERT had stated that its broadcast on shortwave would end yesterday, March 31, and had addressed the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense “to decide whether they want the continuation of the shortwave broadcasts, as well as the acquisition of ownership and the operation of the shortwave operation at their own risk “.

Voice of Greece
Shortwave Frequencies

9420 kHz for Europe & North America,

11645 kHz for Central & South Africa,

9935 kHz for Europe Central America.

Read the full article at the Greek City Times.

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Mark seeks a vintage radio repair technician in the DC metro area

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark Irish, who writes:

Good afternoon Mr. Witherspoon,

Just wanted to follow up on a contact for fixing several shortwave radios from the primarily the 70s and 80s, preferably someone located in the DC Metropolitan area, Virginia or North Carolina. These would include the Zenith R-7000-2 and General Electric World Monitor P4990A. Is this something that you could post on your blog? If possible, please let me know either way.

Thank you,

Mark Irish

Great question, Mark! It’s difficult to find radio repair technicians these days.

I have a couple of suggestions, but perhaps the SWLing Post community can comment with even more options!

You might check with Vlado at HamRadio.repair. He has worked on some vintage solid state radios in the past–he’s located near Asheville, North Carolina.

Also, you might reach out to the National Capital Radio & TV Museum in Bowie, MD. They offer classes in radio repair and I imagine they would be the best source to find a technician in the DC Metro area.

Post readers: Please comment if you know of other resources for Mark!

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WU2D and “Dream” SW Receivers of the 1960s and 70s

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara, who shares this most recent post from his excellent SolderSmoke Podcast blog:

Mike WU2D Looks at the “Dream” SW Receivers of the 1960s and 70s (Video)

Wow, I really liked Mike’s walk down memory lane. I saw several of my own dream receivers:

S-38E. Indeed, this little monster did add some danger to your life. AKA “The Widow Maker,” I gave one to my cousin’s husband so he could listen to what the commies on Radio Moscow were saying. He later told me that the receiver had given him a shock. I now have TWO S-38Es in my shack (two more than I really need). I have installed isolation transformers in both of them, so they have lost the one element (danger!) that made them attractive.

HA-600A. I got this one for Christmas in 1972. The A model is MUCH better than the plain vanilla HA-600. I recently got another HA-600A and found serious deficiencies in the Product Detector. Has anyone else noticed these problems? BACKGROUND INFO AND A PLEA FOR MORE INFO HERE: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=HA-600A+Product+Detector

HQ-100. Got one in the Dominican Republic. Fixed it up, repairing damages caused by radio life in the tropics. Disabled the goofy audio amplifier circuitry. I now wonder if this receiver might benefit from the insertion of a 455 kc ceramic filter.

NC190. Wow “Cosmic Blue” Perhaps this was an early influence that led to “Juliano Blue?”

HQ-180. “18 tubes and almost as many knobs!” FB!

HRO-500. Love the dial.

Transoceanic. Never had one, but built a BFO for the Transoceanic that W8NSA took with him to SE Asia during the war.

R-390A. I don’t have a crane for the workbench.

Thanks Mike — that was a lot of fun.

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The Cooling Radio Station & MUSA: The Ultimate SSB Receiving Site

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark (AE2EA), who shares the following video from the Antique Wireless Association. Here’s the video description:

Cooling Radio Station was at the UK end of a point-to-point, shortwave signal beamed from Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The site of the station was carefully selected as the antenna, MUSA (Multiple Unit Steerable Antenna), upon which it depended to receive the incoming transmission, had to be: directly aligned with Lawrenceville NJ, USA; two miles long; comprised of an array of 16 individual rhombic antenna; and have an area of three miles in front of the MUSA that would be free from radio interference. The 16 rhombic antenna were strung between 60ft high telegraph poles; each side was 315ft long with internal angles of 140 degrees. The signal from each antenna was sent to the station via a core coaxial cable sheathed in a watertight copper tube and buried in a central trench.

This vital communications link, between the US and British governments at the very highest level, operated from 1942 until the early 1960s. Although a transatlantic telegraph cable had been in use since 1866, there was no telephone cable until 90 years later, in 1956. An initial shortwave system was set up in 1929, but was of poor quality. The Post Office set up and ran Cooling Radio Station solely for the reception side of two way, shortwave, voice channels with the United States. Land was purchased in 1938 and the building was completed in 1939. The receiver used 1,079 valves and was considered to be the most complex radio built. It was connected to the adjacent MUSA (Multiple Unit Steerable Antenna) and could receive 4 incoming radio telephone channels. It was officially in use on the 1st July 1942. This may well have been because German intelligence services were able to break the scrambler / encryption device available in 1939. By 1943, Bell Laboratories in the US had developed SIGSALY, a far more secure scrambler system. (This system was so well screened and secure that German records captured at the end of WW2 showed that they were not aware that transmissions were person to person, direct voice contact.) SIGSALY was installed in the basement of Selfridges department store in Oxford Street with extensions to 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet War Rooms and the US Embassy amongst others. The US transmitter was located at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, while UK transmissions were made from Rugby to the US receiver at Manahawkin, New Jersey.