Guest Post: Indian DXer enters into Limca Book of Records

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Sandipan Basu Mallick (VU3JXD), for sharing the following guest post:

Indian DXer enters into Limca Book of Records

Jose Jacob from Hyderabad, India has collected QSL from 132 different stations of All India Radio over a period of 42 years. Radio stations ranging from Shot wave, Medium wave, FM to the latest DRM mode. In the process he has achieved the feat of creating an Indian Record of collecting maximum number of QSL of different stations of a radio broadcaster in India.

As a teenager Jose started listening to radio and started to write to stations way back in 1973, when in his school days. Few years later in 1976 he first wrote to All India Radio, when his reception report was first verified with a QSL. Over next 42 years, he has used various mediums, ranging from inland letters, post cards to emails, for sending reception reporting. Currently he has over 2500 QSL from 130 different countries, many of which left the airwaves.

Over the years, with his special interest in All India Radio, he is one of key country contributors, from India, of World Radio TV Handbook updating about All India Radio to the directory of global broadcasting.

Jose Jacob, is also a licensed amateur radio operator with call sign VU2JOS currently serving as Asst. Director at the National Institute of Amateur Radio (NIAR) www.niar.org

Jose Jacob (VU2JOS) with Certificate from Limca Book of Records

Limca Book of Records is an annual reference book published in India documenting human and natural world records. The world records achieved by humans are further categorised in education, literature, agriculture, medical science, business, sports, nature, adventure, radio, and cinema with Limca book of Records rules. (https://www.coca-colaindia.com/limca-book-of-records)

Limca Book of Records has recognized the feat as one of the Indian records in the radio category and awarded the certificate acknowledging the achievement.

QSL received in 1997 from All India Radio, Nagpur

QSL received in 1988 from All India Radio, Nagpur

QSL received in 1987 from All India Radio, Nagpur

Congratulations to Jose Jacob VU2JOS for an amazing accomplishment! Thank you for sharing this news, Sandipan!

DOJ wants RM Broadcasting to register as a foreign agent for broadcasting Sputnik Radio

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(Source: Washington Post via Mike Hansgen)

Sputnik radio, a media organization funded by the Russian government with offices around the world, broadcasts from a studio in downtown Washington blocks from the White House. It airs talk shows hosted by, among others, Lee Stranahan, a former Breitbart News reporter, and Brian Becker of the far-left ANSWER Coalition. Its website recently featured a discussion of Russia’s “Great Society” and a chat titled “Is Doing Business in Russia Really That Difficult?” The Weekly Standard once likened the experience of listening to Sputnik to “being immersed in some menacing alternate history timeline: It’s like ‘The Man in the High Castle,’ but for Cold War kids and with real-world implications.” And it has caught the ear of federal authorities.

Since U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, the Department of Justice has tried to compel Sputnik’s associates to register as foreign agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. So far, those efforts have mostly been successful: Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian news agency that funds Sputnik, has registered under FARA, as has the managing member of the company that owns 105.5 FM, one of two frequencies that Sputnik broadcasts on in Washington. (Before Sputnik, 105.5 FM played bluegrass.)

There is one holdout: Arnold Ferolito, owner of RM Broadcasting, which leases airtime to Sputnik on 1390 AM in Washington.Not only has he refused to register his company as a foreign agent, the semiretired 76-year-old Florida man is suing the Justice Department over the request. “I’m not being caught up in somebody’s agenda. I’m a business guy,” he told me. “No one gave me anything unless I fought for it. There’s a principle here. In the United States, a person should be able to do business without government interference. … It’s nuts that you have to do something like this.”

In his complaint, filed last fall in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Ferolito contends RM Broadcasting doesn’t have “any kind of joint-venture relationship whatsoever with Rossiya Segodnya,” and that the two entities are simply engaged in “an arms-length commercial business transaction.”

The Justice Department isn’t buying that. In its countersuit, it alleged that Ferolito broadcasts Sputnik news under “the direction and control of Rossiya Segodnya” and is an “information-service employee.”[…]

Click here to read full story.

CNN Travel features the abandoned Duga Radar site near Chernobyl

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(Source: CNN Travel via Heath Hall)

(CNN) — The peaceful untouched forest north of Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, is a perfect spot to enjoy the outdoors — save for one fact.

It contains the radiation-contaminated Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, established in 1986 after the world’s worst nuclear disaster sent a wave of radiation fallout across Europe.

Since 2011 it’s been a major draw for adventurous tourists, but the forests here conceal another legacy of the Cold War, with a far more sinister and mysterious reputation.

The Duga radar.

Though once a closely guarded secret, this immense structure can be seen for miles around, rearing up through the mist over the horizon — a surreal sight.

From a distance, it appears to be a gigantic wall. On close inspection, it’s an enormous, dilapidated structure made up of hundreds of huge antennas and turbines.

The Duga radar (which translates as “The Arc”) was once one of the most powerful military facilities in the Soviet Union’s communist empire.

It still stands a towering 150 meters (492 feet) high and stretches almost 700 meters in length. But, left to rot in the radioactive winds of Chernobyl, it’s now in a sad state of industrial decay.

Anyone exploring the undergrowth at its feet will stumble upon neglected vehicles, steel barrels, broken electronic devices and metallic rubbish, the remainders of the hasty evacuation shortly after the nuclear disaster.[…]

Click here to continue reading the full article and explore the photo gallery at CNN Travel.

Mesh cages to shield noisy power supplies

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, TomL, who writes:

Hi Thomas,

Stumbled onto this article while on the RTL-SDR website. Talks about shielding noisy power supplies inside a homemade wire mesh cage. It might be interesting as a weekend project. I wonder if a noisy laptop could be put inside one of these things, too?

https://macradiodiysdrsystem.home.blog/2019/02/17/the-all-new-remote-rig-part-1-1-testing-the-hf-shield/

Thanks for the tip, Tom! As this author states, it looks like it’s well worth the time and the wear and tear on your fingers to build one of this mesh cages.

TC notes differences between Kenwood TH-D74 and TH-F6A on MW/SW

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, TC, who shares the following response to Ivan’s post about the Kenwood TH-D74 on mediumwave:

A couple of years ago, I published a side-by-side comparison of the TH-F6A and the TH-D74 on YouTube comparing reception of a local AM broadcast station. The F6A was far more sensitive on the AM broadcast band than the TH-D74.

You can see the video here:

Click here to view on YouTube.

I didn’t take the internal orientation of the bars into account, but the D74 is less sensitive in pretty much any orientation compared to the older F6A.

I contacted Kenwood about the difference, and they stated something to the effect of while the TH-D74 does receive MW, it wasn’t necessarily designed for it, and thus the reception there suffers compared to the F6A.

However, the tradeoff here seems to be better shortwave reception in the TH-D74 compared to the F6A. Hook the D74 up to a large wire antenna and you can easily pull in stuff on the shortwave broadcast and ham bands, and the IF filters help quite a bit as well.

Thanks for sharing, TC! I own a few wideband handheld transceivers so I keep a short SMA “pigtail” in my EDC pack that I can use to enhance HF performance. I simply clip a 15′ wire onto the pigtail’s exposed conductor to enhance HF performance. Also, as Ivan points out, inductively pairing any of these tiny radios with a mag loop antenna will also augment performance on mediumwave.

Thanks again for sharing!

Radio Deal: Eton Executive Traveler $49.93

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Christian, who writes:

Just a note that the Eton Executive Traveller’s price has dropped to $49.93 shipped on Amazon.com. It’s the lowest price I’ve seen for this radio in a few months. Thought your readers might be interested. As I’ve said before, I think it’s a great little radio. This is Amazon, so the price can change without notice.

Thanks for the tip, Christian!

Click here to view on Amazon (affiliate link that supports the SWLing Post).

Photos from the 2019 Charlotte Hamfest

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This RS HF receiver was pristine. If I had the budget and the shack space, it would have gone back with me. See more photos in our gallery below.

Yesterday morning around 5:30 AM I started my nearly three hour pilgrimage to the 2019 Charlotte (North Carolina) Hamfest. The Charlotte Hamfest is one of the larger regional hamfests in the area–due to its central location, it attracts people from all of the surrounding states.

The Charlotte Hamfest typically falls on the heels of (or the same weekend as) the Winter SWL Fest in Pennsylvania so I usually don’t even put the dates in my calendar. Indeed, the last time I attended the Charlotte Hamfest was about twenty years ago! It was at a different location and, back then, was also very much a computer show. Today it’s almost purely radio.

Following Vlado to the hamfest site on a very foggy, rainy Saturday morning.

The Charlotte Hamfest is a Friday/Saturday event held at the Cabarrus Arena & Events Center in Concord, NC. The center is a superb hamfest venue: it’s well lit, clean, spacious and can easily house all of the vendors indoors–a huge bonus as weather was less than desirable.

My buddy, Vlado (N3CZ) reserved two vendor tables and packed it with gear to sell–I also brought along a handful of items.

I was very impressed with the turnout–indeed, it was one of the busiest regional hamfests I’ve attended in ages. I sold a couple of items and Vlado sold a lot (he also purchased a lot, but that’s another story!).

I believe I’ll start putting the Charlotte hamfest in my calendar–even though timing isn’t always convenient for me, I think it’s well worth the trip!

Kudos to the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society for putting on such a great show!

Photos

I’ve embedded over 140 photos of the Charlotte Hamfest below–click each one to enlarge. Being a lover of vintage radios, my photos feature a lot of boat anchors. Note that when possible, I try to include the price tags for each item.

Note: If you can’t view the embedded photos below in our email digest, click here to view them on the web.