Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot Expands to Full Hour in April

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Beginning Sunday, April 5, Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot expands to a full hour of new episodes on Sundays from 2200-2300 UTC on WBCQ 7490 hKz and Tuesdays from 2000-2100 UTC on Channel 292 6070 kHz.  The expanded time will allow us to both explore musical cultures more deeply and play longer songs when appropriate.
The expanded program format will include a new feature, Radio Balcony, on the last Sunday (followed by Tuesday) of each month.  Radio Balcony is partially inspired by videos of our European friends singing from their balconies in these difficult times and will ask our listeners to send recorded greetings to their fellow listeners, short letters, other short audio recordings and  recommendations of songs from their own countries.  We will play or read the best of these on the air.

Ipsos survey explores Coronavirus impact on radio usage

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(Source: Inside Radio via Dennis Dura)

Here’s How Coronavirus Is Impacting Work Habits And Radio Usage.

Scores of companies across the country are encouraging their employees to work from home to help limit the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. How this is changing American work habits and their usage of AM/FM radio is the subject of a freshly fielded study from Ipsos.

Commissioned by Cumulus Media/Westwood One, the national study of 1,027 persons 18+ was conducted from March 13 -15 “While the number of businesses, venues, and locations that have closed or curtailed visitation has grown sharply even since this study was fielded just two days ago, this data serves to quantify the state of the American workforce during a period in time,” Cumulus/Westwood One Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says in a post on the “Everyone’s Listening” blog.

[…]Importantly for radio, nearly one in five (18%) heavy AM/FM radio listeners, defined as those who listen to more than 5 hours a week, say they will listen even more to broadcast radio due to the coronavirus outbreak, while 79% said about the same and only 4% indicated less.

Additionally, 20% of heavy AM/FM radio listeners say they will be listening more to news reports on AM/FM radio. “The crisis has also turned many into news fanatics,” Bouvard says. “Nearly one-third say they will be consuming more news online and news on TV.”[…]

Click here to read the full article.

AirSpy YouLoop passive magnetic loop antenna now shipping

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Michael Agner (KA3JJZ), who notes that AirSpy  now has the YouLoop passive mag loop antenna posted on their retail websites.  You can grab one for $30 – $35 US, depending on your location. That’s a fantastic deal in my book.

Click here to check out the YouLoop at Airspy.com.

Click here to check out the YouLoop at Airspy.US ($29.95 + shipping).

Click here to search for other AirSpy distributors.

Note that the YouLoop only works well with high dynamic range SDRs and receivers like the AirSpy HF+ Discovery.

Encore – Classical Music on Shortwave

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Regular Broadcast times of Encore are: 
11:00 – 12:00 UTC Saturday 6070 kHz Channel 292 to Europe – This will change to 10:00 – 11:00 UTC on 4th April
Repeated 
01:00 – 02:00 UTC Sunday 5850 kHz WRMI to the US and Canada
09:00 – 10:00 UTC Sunday 7440 kHz Channel 292 to Europe – This will change to 08:00 – 09:00 UTC on 29th March
02:00 – 03:00 UTC Monday 9455 kHz WRMI to the US and Canada
19:00 – 20:00 UTC Friday 6070 kHz Channel 292 to Europe
Our email is  encoretumbril@gmail.com. Informal reception reports as well as those requesting eQSL welcome.
The website is www.tumbril.co.uk where there are transmission times and frequencies, the playlist for the most recent programme and more information about Radio Tumbril.
This week’s programme has a horn trio by Brahms, a xylophone sonata by Thomas Pitfield, some songs – one by Strauss and another by contemporary composer Paul Mealor, some Vivaldi and Debussy and the Capriccio Italien by Tchaikovsky.
The playlist is on the website and will be updated soon after Saturday’s broadcast of the new show by Channel 292 at 11:00 UTC – but probably not until Sunday evening.
Channel 292 can be pulled live off the internet if the reception is poor in your location. Easy to find their site with a google search.
In the meantime – thank you for spreading the word about Encore – Classical Music on Shortwave on Radio Tumbril. And thank you to everyone for letting us know how well the signal is received where you live.
Brice Avery – Encore – Radio Tumbril – Scotland

Smithsonian Open Access: Take a deep radio nostalgia dive!

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“Radio owned by Herman and Minnie Roundtree” (Source: Smithsonian Open Access)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Balázs Kovács, who shares the following announcement:

[Check out the] Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.

As Balázs points out, there are hundreds of radio photos in the archive.

What a treasure trove! Since many of us are sheltering at home, it’s the perfect time to take a deep dive into the SOA archive!  Thank you for sharing!