RNW headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands (photo courtesy: Former RNW)
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike Barraclough, who shares the following:
[Here’s a video] link to Jonathan Marks and Andy Sennitt talking about Media Network at the Amsterdam Radio Day in 2011, a meeting I attended.
Those annual events were mostly panels about offshore radio:
Thank you so much for sharing this, Mike! I was not attend this gathering, so it’s wonderful to do a little time travel!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Grant, who writes:
Hi Thomas,
In case it hasn’t crossed your path yet, Alan put out a nice review of the GP-7 yesterday. He has a gift for explaining things…
Click here to view on YouTube.
He does indeed! Thank you for sharing this, Grant!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Carlos Latuff, who shares another example of his radio log art, this time for Radio Amhara.
Carlos notes:
Radio Amhara, 6090 kHz, broadcasting in Amharic language from Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.
Interview about the current civil war in Ethiopia.
Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is mentioned.
The conflict in the region turned one year old.
Signal listened in countryside Anapolis, Goias, Brazil, November 25, 2021, 04h10 (UTC).
Thank you Mr. Abel Work for the translation of what is said in this audio clip:
“I just listened to the audio clip and 95% of it is just noise and from the couple of sentences that I got, they are talking about that the TPLF has created a lot of people displaced from their home and they need all Ethiopians to help these people with everything including food and shelter”.
Click here to listen on YouTube.
Carlos posts many of his shortwave logs on his Twitter feed–definitely check them out!
Many thanks, Carlos!
While I’m not exactly in the market for anything other than a few radio accessories, I have been checking out some Black Friday Deals online. I must admit that there seems to be even more deals this year than there were last year.
A few retailers worth checking out (in alphabetical order):
As we mentioned in a previous post, AirSpy is once again offering huge discounts via their international distributors. This is a great time to snag the HF+ Discovery.
C.Crane has a small selection of items on deep discount for Black Friday including two of their popular SoftSpeaker pillow speakers and an LED flashlight. Click here to check out their deals.
US manufacturer, Elecraft, has included a number of products in their Black Friday sale. Note that some items may have a 6-8 week lead time. I’m a massive fan of their KX2 and KX3 transceivers–they currently have shack-in-a-box KX2/KX3 packages in their promotion. Click here to check out their sale.
GigaParts always has an impressive number of items in their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. They have the super popular Yaesu FT-891–which is a great general coverage transceiver for broadcast band listening–for $629.95. I also noticed they have the Icom IC-R6 wideband handheld receiver in stock for $185.95. Click here to check out all of their deals.
HRO has a number of radio items in their Black Friday sale. In particular, they have the SDRplay RSP1A wideband SDR for $99.95. They also have the Yaesu FT-891 for $629.95. They’ve many more deals, so check out their homepage for details.
Ham Test Online is offering a sale on their online license self-paced programs. Everyone in my family used this system for at least one license level and it worked brilliantly. From their newsletter:
Take advantage of our Black Friday Cyber Weekend Sale from Black Friday through Cyber Monday (November 26-29). If you’ve been wanting to get your license or upgrade, do it now and save $10 on each of our courses and $35 on the FCC fee:
Technician — $19.95 (33% off the $29.95 list price).
General — $24.95 (29% off the $34.95 list price).
Extra — $29.95 (25% off the $39.95 list price).
Renewal — $14.95 (50% off the $29.95 list price).
Click here to check it out at Ham Test Online.
Two readers note that MTC is having a year sale which includes a Tecsun PL-880 for $169 and a number of radios and accessories.
Click here to check out their home page.
Radioddity’s Black Friday sale includes 15% off site-wide. They’re one of the biggest Xiegu retailers, so if you’ve been considering a G90, X5105, or the new X6100 for example, this would be a great time to purchase. Click here to check out their deals (use the discount code BFCM).
Please comment with any special deals you’ve found and I’ll add them to this post!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Istvan Biliczky, who shares the following announcement:
From 1 December 2021. 00:00 UTC to 31 December 2021 24:00 UTC.
The contest is open for all shortwave listeners and free of charge.
All the information is available on our website: www.topdx-radioclub.com/top10dx.html
Thanks for sharing, Istvan! A number of SWLs here in the SWLing Post community truly enjoyed participating in the past! Click here for all contest details.
Many thanks to the folks at Airspy who shares the following announcement:
It’s that time of the year again! This year we offer a generous 25% Black Friday discount on all our Airspy products though our network of distributors.
Check: https://airspy.com/purchase
Click here to view their announcement on Twitter.
If you’ve been considering the Airspy HF+ Discovery–which is one of my choice HF SDRs–I would suggest you bite the bullet during this sale. The price via Airspy.us, for example, is $126.75; a proper bargain for a benchmark budget SDR! Of course, all international Airspy distributors are offering equivalent discounts.
Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
The Deke Duncan show on Radio 77 had it all — the latest hits, bouncy jingles, and a DJ who was born to be on the airwaves. In the 1970s it ran around the clock, several days a week, playing to the smallest audience in the world: Deke’s only listener was his wife. Radio 77 was based in a shed in Duncan’s backyard in a small English town, and everything on the show was a figment of his imagination. “My ultimate ambition would be to broadcast my radio station to the rest of Stevenage,” he told the BBC’s Nationwide TV show, when they visited his shed in 1974.
In a new podcast episode from Snap Judgement and Narratively, Duncan, now 75, reveals how he made up the news, the weather, and even the commercials — and kept Radio 77 alive for over forty years. It was Britain’s ‘pirate’ radio stations that inspired him, he said, recalling the rock’n’roll ships that broadcast illegally from international waters in the 1960s. But the young DJ’s dreams had been dashed when the BBC turned down his job application.
“They said, ‘I suggest you go away and get yourself a real job,’” Duncan recalled. (Check out an original Radio 77 show, recorded in 1974.) [Continue reading…]
Dear friends, RRI continues its traditional polling of listeners on short wave, the Internet and social media, with a new challenge, in a further complicated context generated by the Covid-19 pandemic. We would like to ask you which person you think left their imprint on the world in a positive way in 2021.
We are preparing to designate, based on your options, “The Personality of the Year 2021 on RRI”. Will this person be a public person, an opinion leader or a regular person with a special story? The decision is yours. We would also want to ask you why you picked that particular person. Continue reading