Police search ABC Australia headquarters

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ron, who shares the following article via the BBC News:

Police have raided the Sydney headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC), in a second day of searches targeting journalists.

Officers arrived at the public broadcaster with search warrants naming two reporters and the news director. The ABC has protested over the raid.

The police action is related to articles about alleged misconduct by Australian forces in Afghanistan.

On Tuesday police searched the home of a News Corp journalist, sparking alarm.

The leading journalists’ union said the two raids represented a “disturbing pattern of assaults on Australian press freedom”. Other unions and human rights groups also condemned the actions.

According to the ABC, Wednesday’s search is about the 2017 investigative series known as The Afghan Files which “revealed allegations of unlawful killings and misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan”.

The broadcaster said the series was “based off hundreds of pages of secret Defence documents leaked to the ABC”.

The Australian Federal Police said the warrant was in relation to “allegations of publishing classified material” and that it “relates to a referral received on 11 July 2017 from the Chief of the Defence Force and the then-Acting Secretary for Defence”.

The Afghan Files were published by the ABC on 10 July 2017.

The police said Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s raids were not connected, adding: “Both however relate to separate allegations of publishing classified material, contrary to provisions of the Crimes Act 1914, which is an extremely serious matter that has the potential to undermine Australia’s national security.”

It defended its actions, saying they had “been independent and impartial at all times”.[…]

Click here to read the full article at the BBC.

Spread the radio love

Guest Post: Roseanna snags some unexpected FM DX

1 Reply

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, who shares the following guest post originally published on her blog, The Girl with the Radio:

Unexpected FM madness!

I would like tho share with you a once in a lifetime Sporadic-E event that happened to me today along with videos of the catches I received during it.

It was about 12:00 UTC (1PM local time) and I was listening to NRJ on my personal FM transmitter (106.3MHz) when all of a sudden my pop music fuzzed and turned into classical music. It was then that I knew something was happening and I didn’t want to miss it!

I jumped up, got out my phone camera and started scanning around trying to find distant FM stations and my goodness did I get some amazing catches!

There was no tropo forecast for my area nor some of the places I heard and I wasn’t prepared in the slightest so I ask for your forgiveness on the shaky unprofessional footage and I hope you enjoy watching the following catches that I received!

For those interested my setup is a Sony ST-SE570 with a “bunny ear” telescopic aerial with the ground positioned vertically and the feed positioned horizontally. I put the feed to be facing at 90 degrees East to West.

Disclaimer: the order in which these stations were received has been altered to make this blog post more fun, the times in UTC are in the video titles for those of you interested in the chronological order in which I received these stations!

First stop: Czechia!

https://youtu.be/_e1HXV87tC0

Click here to listen via YouTube.

This is an amazing catch to start us off; 10kW at 1300km with RDS!

https://youtu.be/QCewgx6ReKg

Click here to listen via YouTube.

This one is even more impressive that the last one at 5.5kW with RDS, I still am surprised at these catches watching them back!!

Next stop: Romania!

https://youtu.be/1vJQjhXPao4

Click here to listen via YouTube.

This catch is just insane. I have BBC Radio 2 on 88.1MHz and you can hear RRA and BBC R2 fighting to be heard!

https://youtu.be/LfZkQFM6f_k

Click here to listen via YouTube.

And this catch …. I have no words to describe my sheer amazement, surprise, shock and excitement hearing a station from Romania (Over 1800km / 1100 miles away) that is broadcasting at only 2kW. It is on the same frequency as France Musique broadcasting at 160kW which is much much closer; I still can’t believe I heard this at all!

After all that excitement we now stop over in Slovakia!

https://youtu.be/umw1ePAP3DM

Click here to listen via YouTube.

This is a much less insane catch compared to the last few but it is still awesome! Disclaimer: I skipped a load of fading in the recording where it fades.

https://youtu.be/5BIgcwGALhc

Click here to listen via YouTube.

And here is SRo 1 again, however this time a much lower powered transmitter compared to the last one and yet the signal is still really good and most of the RDS data was decode-able!

https://youtu.be/6oaIBSjdDsw

Click here to listen via YouTube.

Here is SRo 4, 20kW and some of the RDS decoded. an UnID was on 94.6MHz which made this quite awesome to get the RDS PI!

https://youtu.be/ubRApB68Zgc

Click here to listen via YouTube.

And for our last stop in Slovakia we meet Fun Rádio, an 18kW station with RDS received!

Our last stop on our FM journey; Hungary!

https://youtu.be/ZZUoCeNfSlY

Click here to listen via YouTube.

This is Retro Rádió a 50kW station in Hungary. It was broadcasting over BBC Radio Wiltshire and I even got RDS!

I hope you all enjoyed going on this radio tour of Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia with me, I certainly did!

Thank you ever so much for reading and watching and I hope to see you around for my next adventure!

And thank you, Roseanna, for taking us on your FM travels! Isn’t RDS an amazing tool for grabbing station IDs during these FM DX openings–? Well played! Again, many thanks as I enjoyed your FM tour of eastern Europe.

Post Readers: Check out Roseanna’s blog The Girl With the Radio!

Spread the radio love

Hamvention Highlights: The QRP Labs QSX 10 watt, general coverage, low-cost HF transceiver kit

4 Replies

Hans (G0UPL) of QRP Labs holding a QSX transceiver prototype at the 2019 Hamvention

Each year at the Dayton Hamvention I enjoy checking out the latest radio products and services. This year (2019) I found an exceptional number of innovations and will share these in Hamvention Highlights posts. If you would like to check out 2019 Hamvention Highlights as I publish them, bookmark this tag: 2019 Hamvention Highlights

The QRP Labs QSX Transceiver

Hans (G0UPL) of QRP Labs was, without a doubt, one of the most popular guys at the 2019 Hamvention — especially within the QRP community. In fact, at the Four Days In May (FDIM) vendors’ night his table was so busy I didn’t bother trying to force my way through the crowd to speak with him.

As luck would have it, our own table for ETOW was directly across from QRP Labs table at the the Greene County Fairgrounds so, in the end, I spent some quality time with Hans over the course of the Hamvention.

I’ll also make prediction: if the 10 band QSX transceiver delivers what it promises, it will be a serious disruptor in the ham radio transceiver world! This is a good thing. Why?

The QSX is a feature-packed, all-mode, high-performance, affordable, QRP transceiver.

The QSX will have a 24-bit Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) and a 24-bit Digital to Analog Converter (DAC). It will be a fully stand-alone unit and, since it’s an SDR and sports robust DSP, when connected to your PC, it will be recognized as a high-performance sound card. This equates to nearly native digital mode integration without the need for an external sound card interface.

The QSX Prototype Back Panel

The QSX Transceiver will be a through-hole kit with the surface-mounted components pre-installed on the circuit boards. This means the kit should be accessible to anyone with soldering skills.

Hans has even managed to include a mini spectrum display on the front backlit LCD panel.

The price? Around $150 US in total for the transceiver kit, 10 band filter module and enclosure. Unbelievable!

If Hans can pull this off — and I feel pretty confident he can — the QSX will set a new bar for QRP transceiver pricing and performance.

If you’d like more details about the QSX transceiver, check out the following resources sent to me by SWLing Post contributor, Pete Eaton:

Hans’ article in the Conference Proceeding (click here to download).

Power Point slides from Hans’ talk at FDIM on the QSX (click here to download PDF)

To go along with the slides the audio from his presentation is also available from Ham Radio Workbench. Talk starts at 51 minutes:

The 10 band QSX will sport a general coverage receiver and although though the modes supported currently don’t include AM, Hans plans to add AM for at least reception purposes. This could make for a high-performance stand-alone SDR field radio for HF broadcast listening.

Of course, I also see the QSX transceiver as an accessible entry radio for new ham radio operators who are nervous about forking out $800+ for a new HF transceiver.

I will certainly grab the 10 band QSX transceiver kit when it becomes available and review it here on the SWLing Post. Stay tuned!

If you would like to follow other Hamvention Highlights, bookmark the tag: 2019 Hamvention Highlights

Do you enjoy the SWLing Post?

Please consider supporting us via Patreon or our Coffee Fund!

Your support makes articles like this one possible. Thank you!

Spread the radio love

Mali shortwave relay site back on the air with CRI

3 Replies

(Source: Radio World)

China Radio International Recommits to Africa

Mali relay site near Bamako is back on air diffusing China Radio’s shortwave signal. The site carries CRI’s shortwave broadcasts for more than 20 frequency hours a day to Africa. The move has also benefited Mali’s own shortwave transmissions, which were reportedly suffering from weak signals and poor modulation. “The reactivation of the facility is in contrast to the shuttering of other shortwave sites on the continent, such as the Sentech facility in Meyerton, South Africa,” writes Hans Johnson.

Click here to read the full article at Radio World.

Spread the radio love

Radio travel: Rob enjoys a shortwave-capable rental car in Namibia

9 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Rob Gray, who writes:

I recently returned back from a three-month trip in Africa (Namibia, South Africa, and Morocco) and had a couple of shortwave-related items that you might be interested in.

The rental car in Namibia had shortwave capabilities in the in-dash radio! The rental company was oblivious to the option when I mentioned it as a huge perk, I really don’t think they understood or cared. The radio was a Sony CDX-G1200U, and while I find this radio for sale in North America, I don’t see any mention of shortwave. I suspect shortwave is either an option for foreign markets (at least Namibia in this case), or possibly activated via a modification or firmware upgrade. Perhaps any shortwave enthusiasts travelling to other regions of the world might keep an eye out for this model.

There were two ‘bands’, low (SW1) included some of the tropical bands up to 41 meters, and high (SW2) covered 31 meters through about 19 MHz or so. Decent coverage for casual mobile listening.

I found the performance of the radio quite satisfactory in Namibia, the BBC came in very well in the mornings and evenings. There was a little more on shortwave during the day in English, Channel Africa, etc., but the BBC was by far the best offering for listening.

Another equipment data point from around the world, this time in Morocco.

Several vendors in the Medina’s sold various radios (of questionable quality). The photo [above] was taken in Tetouan (which isn’t a touristy area) in March, but I did note similar for sale in Fez.

Brilliant, Rob! It sounds like you’ve visited some gorgeous parts of the world in your travels. I imagine on the long stretches of rural roads in Namibia, you could enjoy a proper low-noise environment for shortwave listening as long as the car itself didn’t produce RFI!

Post readers: Have you driven a car recently that sported a shortwave radio capabilities? Please comment!

Spread the radio love

Classical Music on Shortwave on Sunday

Mendelsons preparing to close?

2 Replies

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Eric McFadden (WD8RIF), who notes that George Thomas (W5JDX) visited the iconic surplus/parts store Mendelsons in Dayton, Ohio.

George spoke about his visit on HamNation and plans to air his tour and interview with the owner on a future episode. The owner did mention that they plan to close the store possibly within a year. Here’s the video clip from HamNation:

Click here to view on YouTube.

This would be a true loss for anyone in the Dayton area who enjoys building and making things. Mendelsons is so much more than a radio parts store–their selection is vast. In fact, that’s an understatement. It’s mind-boggling…gobsmacking!

I took a few photos inside Mendelsons in 2017 when I visited the store with friends (that’s WD8RIF in many of the shots!):

As George mentioned in the video, if you haven’t visited Mendelsons before, you do so soon. And plan to be there for multiple hours–it’s quite the pilgrimage!

Click here to visit Mendelsons online.

Spread the radio love