FTIOM & UBMP, December 22-28

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From the Isle of Music, December 22-28:
This week our special guest is Cuban jazz saxophonist Michel Herrera, who will discuss his recent album with Orquesta Aragon. AND, a Cuban Christmas surprise at the end.
The broadcasts take place:
1. For Eastern Europe but audible well beyond the target area in most of the Eastern Hemisphere (including parts of East Asia and Oceania) with 100Kw, Sunday 1500-1600 UTC on SpaceLine, 9400 KHz, from Sofia, Bulgaria (1800-1900 MSK)
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from a listening radio in the Netherlands during the broadcast at
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/?tune=9400am
2. For the Americas and parts of Europe, Tuesday 0100-0200 UTC (New UTC) on WBCQ, 7490 KHz from Monticello, ME, USA (Monday 8-9PM EST in the US).
If you don’t have a shortwave or are out of range, you can listen to a live stream from the WBCQ website here (choose 7490) http://www.wbcq.com/?page_id=7
3 & 4. For Europe and sometimes beyond, Tuesday 1900-2000 UTC and Saturday 1200-1300 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany.
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from a listening radio in Europe.
Visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/fromtheisleofmusic

Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot, December 22 and 24:
Episode 144 is our Christmas/Hannukah edition. We promise you that it will include some music you have never heard before.
The transmissions take place:
1.Sundays 2300-2330 UTC (6:00PM -6:30PM Eastern US) on WBCQ The Planet 7490 KHz from the US to the Americas and parts of Europe
If you don’t have a shortwave or are out of range, you can listen to a live stream from the WBCQ website here (choose 7490) http://www.wbcq.com/?page_id=7
2. Tuesdays 2000-2030 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany for Europe.
If you don’t have a shortwave radio or are out of range, you can listen live to an uplink from different web SDRs in Europe.
Visit our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/UncleBillsMeltingPot

Now Unblocked: Watching the new Radio Australia documentary

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Yesterday, we posted a note about the new documentary, “Australia Calling: 80 Years of International Broadcasting.” At the time, I mentioned that the video was geo-blocked–meaning, you could not watch the video outside Australia without using a VPN.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Peter Marks, who shares this great news:

I’ve corresponded with the iview team and they have un-geoblocked the video. It can be watched here:

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australia-calling-80-years-of-international-broadcasting/video/NC1940H001S00

I tested it over a VPN to Singapore and it played for me.

Thanks so much, Peter! I’ve loaded the video with no problems here in North America.

Click here to watch “Australia Calling.”

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Radio Deal: New Retekess TR608 AM/FM/SW/AIR intro price of $29.99 US shipped

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, John Palmer, who writes:

Hi Thomas,

Just noticed that Retekess has introduced a new AM/FW/SW/Airband! receiver and it’s on sale at a special introductory price ($29.99) till the end of Dec 2019.

Interesting that this one has the commercial aviation band (118-138MHz).

Click here to view on eBay.

Thanks for the tip, John!

Post Readers: Please share your review of this new portable if you grab one!

Lack of Sunspots Breaks a Space Age Record

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Another [sun] spotless day on the sun.

Spaceweather.com reports that today we surpassed the largest number of spotless days (270) of the previous 2008 Solar Minimum cycle. The current spotless streak stands at 33 days and is quite possibly on its way to surpass the previous longest streak of this minimum at 36 days.  And you have to go back to 1913 to find a year that had more spotless days (311)!

Above: The blank sun on Dec. 8, 2019. Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

The bad news: the Solar Minimum could deepen as many scientists have calculated minimum may not occur until April 2020.  You might be wondering: when is the next Solar Maximum?  That’s forecast to be July 2025.  Both the minimum & maximum forecasts have a +/- 6-month error.

How has the historic Solar Minimum impacted your radio listening?  I know it’s impacted my motivation to set-up my solar telescope for solar observation.

Guest Post by Troy Riedel

Australia Calling: ABC documentary looking at the impact of Radio Australia

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Many thanks to a number of SWLing Post contributors who contacted me about a new documentary focused on the impact of Radio Australia. Peter Marks writes:

The celebration of 80 years of international broadcasting from Australia continues. The ABC has published “Australia Calling: A look at 80 years of Radio Australia and ABC international broadcasting” today:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-16/abc-celebrating-80-years-of-international-broadcasting/11783252

And tonight there’s a documentary being shown on TV.

There’s even a story about the making of that documentary here:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/news-coverage/2019-12-16/making-australia-calling-documentary/11795134

Thank you, Peter! I just started watching the documentary via ABC’s iView. Note that the program is geo-blocked and not available outside of Australia (unless, like me, you have a good VPN). [No longer geo-blocked! See update.]

Here’s a link to the documentary on iView:

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australia-calling-80-years-of-international-broadcasting

Peter also shared a number of related stories–some of which we’ve published in the past:

Alan Roe’s updated B19 season guide to music on shortwave

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who notes:

I attach a copy of my “Music Programmes on Shortwave” PDF file for the current B-19 broadcast season which I hope you will find of interest, and for you to upload to your SWLing Post webpage if you wish.

Alan, thanks so much for keeping this excellent music guide updated each broadcast season and for sharing it here with the Post community! Being a fan of music over shortwave, I always keep a printed version of your guide at my listening post!

Click here to download a PDF copy of Alan Roe’s Music on Shortwave B-19.

Just ordered the new $149/$199 uBITX v 6.0 QRP transceiver

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Pete (WB9FLW), who notes that Ashhar Farhan (VU2ESE) has recently announced the availability of the uBITX v 6.0–as Pete notes, “just in time for the Holidays!“

Pete shared the following message from Farhan:

Here is what [the uBITx v 6.0] looks like :

And of course, you can buy it on hfsignals.com. The shipping will happen from Tuesday onwards. We have a limited supply of the first 200 boards. The rest is for after Christmas.

The most important thing about this revision is that the Radio circuitry is almost unchanged. We have incorporated the connectors on the PCBs. So, this kit needs none of the confusing soldering. You snap in the TFT Raduino onto the main board, plug the power and antenna from the back, snap on headphones, plug in the mic (supplied with the kit) and off you go!

It is offered in two kits now : The basic kit (150 USD) is without the box (like old times) but with a microphone and two acrylic templates for the front and back panels.

The Full kit (199 USD) has the box with speaker, mounting hardware etc. Both are described on the website.

Now, about the TFT display:

For those who are using the 16×2 display and you would like to upgrade, you will have to do three things:

Add a heatsink to the 7805 of the raduino

Buy [here] and hook it up as per [this article].

Grab the new Arduino sketch from https://github.com/afarhan/ubitxv6

Background:

I have been hacking away at adding a TFT display for the Arduino for sometime. Finally, I managed to do this with a really inexpensive 2.8 inch TFT display that uses a controller called the ILI9341. The display update is slow but, clever guy that I am, the display very usable. it uses the same pins that earlier connected to the 16×2 LCD display. This display is available everywhere for a few dollars.

Many thanks, Pete, for sharing this announcement. The price was simply too attractive to me, so I just purchased the full kit for $199 US. (Thanks for being the good enabler you are, Pete!)

Update – 30 May 2020: Many thanks to Armin Sander who notes that the uBITX V6 full kit price has increased to $209 US.

I’ll post an update when I receive the transceiver and assemble it. I do hope this is a workable little radio–it would be pretty amazing for newcomers to the hobby to be able to get on the HF bands for a mere $200 US. I also love the fact that this is all based on open-source, hackable technologies.