All Tribes Radio: A mission of peace and music via shortwave

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ken, who shares the following announcement about All Tribes Radio:

ALL TRIBES RADIO

www.alltribesradio.com

ONE PLANET, ONE PEOPLE…. This is ALL TRIBES RADIO and RADIO TODAS LAS TRIBUS, Nosara, Costa Rica

Broadcasting across the globe on shortwave radio, as well as streaming on the internet, All Tribes Radio (ATR) promotes world peace with an eclectic mix of culturally-diverse music, multi-lingual spoken word, and vintage programming from the golden age of radio. We provide a forum for independent artists who have licensed their works through Creative Commons, in addition to providing open-source, public domain, copyleft, and otherwise copyright-free content.

ATR was founded in 2008 by Canadian broadcaster, activist, and musician Ken Dunn (a.k.a. Don Kenet). With studios in Nosara, Costa Rica, Canada, and the U.S., ATR’s signal was transmitted via an internet server in Tampa, Florida. For over two years, the station broadcast an audio stream 24/7 on the internet to an average 6,000 listeners per month in over 120 countries on all continents. Streaming was discontinued in 2011 in favour of podcasting. A total of 68 one-hour podcasts were subsequently produced for iTunes and completed in 2012.

Original All Tribes Radio / Radio Todas Las Tribus Crew, Nosara, Costa Rica
(From Left: Aida Sequeira, Don Kenet, y Chuleta Gabbie)

After a hiatus of eight years, ATR returned to the airwaves in December 2020, this time on Shortwave Radio with a weekly one-hour show broadcast from both WRMI in Okeechobee, Florida and Channel 292 in Rohrbach, Germany.

All Tribes Radio is a non-commercial, non-profit enterprise. However, we are happy to accept donations to offset costs involved in program production and broadcasting. In addition, our membership program provides many benefits to our subscribers.

Peace, health, and happy listening !! Don Kenet, Station Manager, Nosara, Costa Rica.

www.alltribesradio.com

Spread the radio love

A simple guide to portable radio power

4 Replies

Over on QRPer.com, I just published a post on portable power that was The Spectrum Monitor magazine’s April 2021 cover article.

This article is essentially an overview of a few different types of rechargeable batteries including pros and cons of each chemistry.

While this article focuses on use in ham radio field applications, it also applies to anyone powering receivers–especially those without an internal power supply–in the field.

Click here to read at QRPer.com.

Spread the radio love

REE Noblejas Site Celebrates 50 Years

1 Reply

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tracy Wood, who shares the following article and translation:

REE Noblejas Site celebrates 50 years.

Radio Exterior de España’s “Amigos de la Onda Corta” latest show marks the history of the 50 years of the Noblejas Broadcast Center.

Program Summary (loose translation)

Noblejas is the voice of Spain in the world, the only shortwave site that Radio Exterior de España currently has to broadcast the country’s events.

The RNE Shortwave Broadcast Center No. 2 was inaugurated on July 21, 1971. It is the largest space in dimensions that the Spanish Radio Television Corporation currently has. For half a century, Noblejas has been the voice of Spain to the world, the only transmission site that Radio Exterior de España currently has after the closure of the centers in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1982, Arganda del Rey (Madrid) in 1985 and Cariari de Pococí (Costa Rica) in 2013. It occupies 144 hectares (355 acres) and has a main building with three floors offering 8,000 square meters of useful area, housing four transmitters with which the REE signal is transmitted to all of the Americas, West Africa, the South Atlantic, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean. The antenna field consists of 27 directional curtain arrays that encompass some three kilometers in length. The Noblejas transmission center has been operating for 50 years. It was only absent for two months (from October to December 2014) when the government wanted to halt REE shortwave broadcasts (ed. – RTVE budget cuts.) Fortunately, the broadcasts returned, and listeners still can enjoy eight hours of daily broadcasting on that band.

(The “Amigos” program notes the station still has available four 100 kilowatt units capable of 6-26 Mhz. REE broadcasts in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Russian, English and Sefardí.)

Spanish Audio is here:
https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/amigos-de-la-onda-corta/amigos-onda-corta-50-anos-del-centro-emisor-noblejas-15-07-21/5987840/

Documentary film clip of Francisco Franco at the station’s inauguration is here starting at the 50-second mark:
https://www.rtve.es/filmoteca/no-do/not-1490/1486589/

Spread the radio love

From Cuba with noise? Massive jamming on the 40 meter band.

25 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, 13dka, who shares the following guest post:

Massive jamming on 40m (possibly from Cuba) is bugging the radio community

by 13dka

Apparently this is going on for a week now on 40m:

Spent last night at my beach listening post on the German North Sea coast and found this fairly strong signal and a 40m band mostly cleared of any other signals. As soon as I found out that it wasn’t something local, I was wondering who’s responsible for this mess again. It looks like Josh (“Ham Radio Crash Course” YouTube channel) may have found a possible origin of that signal:

Here’s what it sounds like on each of the apparently manually controlled jamming channels:

Cuba would’ve probably been my last guess here on the other side of the big pond. 🙂 In other words, they – whoever they are – jam the band for at least half of the world. Luckily 40m isn’t exactly a pleasure in most of the summer anyway but after having to suffer OTH radars, FHSS blips and politically motivated broadcasting with associated jamming on 40m for a long time, this is a new low. I don’t want to get all political here but trying to erect some electromagnetic fence around a country has never really worked out, it’s just a futile, at most temporarily effective and symbolic act, perceived as pointless and aggressive vandalism out of blank despair by the rest of the world.

Ollie

Spread the radio love

Checking In: Where are you on the dial–?

29 Replies

This has been a busy summer for me here at SWLing Post HQ. In the background, I’ve been working on a number of reviews and articles for The Spectrum Monitor and a new transceiver review for RadCom, among many other projects (including my Social DX list).

My work and family life has been very busy–no doubt some catch-up after a slower-than-normal (pandemic) year.

My listening time has been very limited and I’ve found I’ve done much less weak signal work and, instead, have been sticking with some of my staple, reliable broadcasters. I’ve been listening to many of the music programs on WRMI and of course the Voice of Greece. Mostly, I have these on in the background as I do other things around the shack.

My Yaesu FRG-7 has been piping out tunes in the shack more so than my SDRs as of late due to a recent computer upgrade (which requires numerous re-installations). There is serious appeal in being able to turn on a radio without any boot up, I must say! With that said, I’m missing my SDR time, too.

My hope is that my level of work activities will slow down a bit this fall and I’ll enjoy some proper QRN-free weak signal DXing. 🙂

How about you?

What are you tuning to these days on the dial and with what radio? Please comment!

Spread the radio love

KiwiSDR: Root access through project developer’s backdoor

8 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Franco (K4VZ) , who writes:

Just a quick note to let you and the SWLing post readers know about the news of a backdoor in the KiwiSDR software that for years “gave root to project developer”.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/for-years-a-backdoor-in-popular-kiwisdr-product-gave-root-to-project-developer/

For years, a backdoor in popular KiwiSDR product gave root to project developer

Users are rattled after learning their devices and networks were exposed.

KiwiSDR is hardware that uses a software-defined radio to monitor transmissions in a local area and stream them over the Internet. A largely hobbyist base of users does all kinds of cool things with the playing-card-sized devices. For instance, a user in Manhattan could connect one to the Internet so that people in Madrid, Spain, or Sydney, Australia, could listen to AM radio broadcasts, CB radio conversations, or even watch lightning storms in Manhattan.

On Wednesday, users learned that for years, their devices had been equipped with a backdoor that allowed the KiwiSDR creator—and possibly others—to log in to the devices with administrative system rights. The remote admin could then make configuration changes and access data not just for the KiwiSDR but in many cases to the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, or other computing devices the SDR hardware is connected to.

A big trust problem

Signs of the backdoor in the KiwiSDR date back to at least 2017. The backdoor was recently removed with no mention of the removal under unclear circumstances. But despite the removal, users remain rattled since the devices run as root on whatever computing device they’re connected to and can often access other devices on the same network.

“It’s a big trust problem,” a user with the handle xssfox told me. “I was completely unaware that there was a backdoor, and it’s hugely disappointing to see the developer adding backdoors in and actively using them without consent.” [Click here to continue reading the full article…]

Thank you for sharing this, Franco (and many other readers who’ve recently shared this article.

I’ve always been a big fan of the KiwiSDR network and the receiver so, of course, this is disappointing news. It sounds as if there’s no evidence the developer did anything nefarious through this root access backdoor, but they were also well aware it existed. That is, without question, a huge security issue.

The KiwiSDR developer comments here on the SWLing Post so my hope is that, perhaps, they can shed some light on this story in our comments section.

Spread the radio love