Radio Prague’s 2024 QSL Card Series

Radio Prague’s 2024 QSL card series will be musical – and digital

To this day, Radio Prague International has kept up the decades-long tradition of QSL cards – postcards confirming receipt of reception reports to listeners. Every year, we have created a new series of postcards to send to listeners. In 2024, there will be something else new – in addition to the traditional printed versions, we will also start producing and sending digital QSL cards.

2024 is the year of Czech music – and so is the theme for next year’s QSL card series.

With a different QSL card for every quarter, Kristýna Marková’s graphic designs will bring you images inspired by the most famous Czech classical music names – Antonín Dvo?ák, Bed?ich Smetana, Leoš Janá?ek and Ema Destinnová.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Many international radio stations, as they muted their shortwave broadcasts, also stopped issuing QSL cards. However, Radio Prague International continues to preserve this tradition.

Unfortunately, significant price hikes by the Czech postal service have forced us to make a few changes. From 2024, we will only send printed postcards to listeners who send us a printed postcard or letter themselves. Otherwise, we will send digital QSL cards to those who send us a message by email or via our web form.

We hope that our digital QSL cards will delight you as much as our printed ones have and that you will continue to be among our loyal listeners for years to come.

Click here to read the original article and to view more images at Radio Prague online.

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New RFA QSL Card Celebrating Year of the Dragon

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia, who shares the following announcement from RFA:

Dear friends,

Happy New Year! Attached is the press release for RFA’s QSL card # 84, celebrating the year of Dragon. (Click to download PDF.)

We hope you enjoy this new QSL card and we look forward to receiving your reception reports by email to qsl<at>rfa.org, or by snail mail.

Reception Reports

Radio Free Asia
2025 M. Street NW, Suite 300
Washington DC 20036
United States of America

– –
Aungthu Schlenker
Radio Free Asia

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Radio 4 Continuity Announcers

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who writes:

While setting up to record BBC Radio 4 LW for the turn of the year using the U. Twente SDR receiver, I noticed the program in the final hour before midnight: “But First This …” It is about the jobs of Radio 4 continuity announcers and is a behind the scenes look into radio continuity. Those interested in how radio production works will find it interesting. It includes discussions on the reading of the Shipping Forecast, also known as the Shipping Bulletin, and not crashing the Greenwich Time Signal (the pips). There’s quite an amusing music and poetry item about the pips. Several of the continuity announcers, some of whom also read the news, take part including Neil Nunes, who frequent listeners to the World Service will recognize.

Here is the program description from the BBC Radio 4 website:

“Continuity announcers’ voices are at the heart of Radio 4 – they introduce programmes and bring us the news. But who are they? What does it take to do their job – from introducing The Archers to reading the Shipping Forecast? And what happens on those hopefully rare occasions when things don’t go according to plan? With contributions from more announcers than ever previously spotted in one place, and a special musical performance, countdown to the new year with the BBC Radio 4 announcers.”

The program is available to listen again here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001trdd

Might be worth a mention on the SWLing Post.

All the best
— Richard

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing this, Richard!

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Shiokaze Shortwave Radio Service Faces Crisis

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia, who shares the following news from The Japan News:

Shortwave Radio for Japanese Abductees Faces Crisis

Tokyo, Dec. 31 (Jiji Press)—The Shiokaze shortwave radio service for Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea faces a crisis because it will be unable to counter jamming by Pyongyang during facility renewal work in fiscal 2024.

The situation “contradicts the government’s policy of giving top priority to the abduction issue,” said the group playing the leading role in the radio broadcasts.

Shiokaze, which means sea breeze, began broadcasting in 2005, operated mainly by the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea. It conveys messages from family members of abductees and news from Japan and abroad.

The radio is constantly hit by jamming signals from North Korea. Since 2019, Shiokaze has been conducting double broadcasting using two frequencies as a countermeasure.

Shiokaze’s transmission base is within KDDI Corp.’s Yamata transmitting station in Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, eastern Japan.

The number of transmitters at the station will be reduced by two from the current seven partly due to the aging facility. There will be a period when double broadcasting is not possible during the work.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK, which uses the KDDI station as a base for its overseas radio services, said that work related to the transmitters will last up to 10 months from the second half of fiscal 2024.

“For a while during the work, Shiokaze is expected to broadcast on one frequency,” said an official of NHK, formally called Japan Broadcasting Corp.

“We recognize that the work is necessary in order to continue the two frequency system although (Shiokaze) will be a single frequency service temporarily,” then Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a meeting of a parliamentary special panel on the abduction issue Dec. 4, 2023.

Meanwhile, a Cabinet Secretariat official expressed concern, saying that “the risk of obstruction will increase more than ever,” albeit temporarily. [Continue reading…]

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X5-Class Solar Flare is the strongest of Solar Cycle 25

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Troy Riedel, who shares the following news from Spaceweather.com:

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G2): A CME launched into space by yesterday’s X5-class solar flare (see below) *does* have an Earth-directed component. According to a NASA model, it should strike our planet on Jan. 2nd. G2-class geomagnetic storms are possible when the CME arrives. CME impact alerts: SMS Text

MAJOR X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Mere hours after emerging over the sun’s eastern limb on Dec. 31st, big sunspot AR3536 erupted, producing a major X5-class solar flare. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash:

This is the strongest flare of Solar Cycle 25 (so far) and the most powerful eruption the sun has produced since the great storms of Sept. 2017.

Radiation from the flare has caused a deep shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean: blackout map. Mariners and ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal at all frequencies below 30 MHz for more than 60 minutes after the flare’s peak (2155 UT).

Click here for more updates on Spaceweather.com.

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SolderSmoke: 7J6CBQ on Okinawa — And a Translation of a Science Fiction Novel about Ham Radio in China

7J6CBQ on Okinawa — And a Translation of a Science Fiction Novel about Ham Radio in China

The article about Sergeant Malik Pugh USMC on Okinawa brought back memories from the 1990s. David Cowhig was 73 Magazine’s Hambassador on Okinawa — I had the same “position” in the Dominican Republic. David and I were both in the Foreign Service; we joked that 73 had afforded us our only chances to be ambassadors of any kind. David’s Okinawa QSL and the opening from his initial report to 73 magazine appear above. You can see more here:

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1992-12/page/82/mode/1up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-06/page/76/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-07/page/82/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-08/page/78/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-11/page/84/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-12/page/78/mode/2up mode/2up

A couple of my own “dispatches” as Hambassdor to the Dominican Republic appear here:
https://www.gadgeteer.us/DRDISP.HTM

Back in the 90’s David sent me an old QST Magazine. I wrote about this on the SolderSmoke blog:
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2015/07/been-there-done-that-he-begged-his.html

Later, I learned about another “Hambassador” who was still active as a radio amateur: Ron Gang 4X1MK:
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2017/10/ron-gang-4x1mk-on-qso-today-podcast.html

Finally (and this is really cool): David Cowhig has been putting his language skills to good use, translating Chinese written material. He sent me his translation of the opening chapters of a Chinese science fiction novel about ham radio. Readers of the SolderSmoke Daily News will like this:

https://gaodawei.wordpress.com/2021/12/18/chinese-sf-ham-radio-web-novel-we-live-in-nanjing/

Check out this article and much more on the SolderSmoke podcast blog!

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Frans spots radios in The Royal Tenenbaums

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Frans Goddijn, who spotted the radio gear above in the The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). Can you recognize this iconic brand? How about the receiver on the lower shelf?

Thanks for the tip, Frans!

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