Shortwave listening and everything radio including reviews, broadcasting, ham radio, field operation, DXing, maker kits, travel, emergency gear, events, and more
As an avid amateur astronomer, solar observation has been quite boring during 2018. As a shortwave radio enthusiast, the lack of solar activity has impacted that hobby as well.
Well, the catchword of the day is “surprise”!
I was alerted yesterday evening by Spaceweather.com that a large sunspot had emerged and developed into a group – with the two main sunspots’ diameter about as large as the earth.
Credit: Spaceweather.com – Sunspot group AR2720, photographed by Thierry Legault on Aug. 25th from the Saint-Véran/Astroqueyras observatory in the French Alps. An image of Earth has been inserted for scale (Link).
Another overnight email notification from Spaceweather.com stated a “surprise” G-3 Class Geomagnetic storm is underway (now!) caused by a coronal mass ejection.
Credit: Spaceweather.com – According to a NOAA computer model, almost 80 billion watts of power surged through Earth’s auroral oval during today’s geomagnetic storm (This image/forecast is updated every 30-minutes at this link).
Has this “surprise” impacted your radio weekend? I know it has impacted my astronomy weekend … I’ll be out there, soon, setting up my solar telescope to view today’s show in hydrogen-alpha!
Edit: Yes indeed, even excluding the sunspots the solar disc yielded more surface detail today via my H-alpha solar telescope than I’ve seen all year – as well as several nice solar prominences along the limb. I encourage anyone who has the proper telescope AND proper filters to take a look at ‘Ole Sol today (and hopefully for the next several days). I’ll have to check the shortwaves later.
My recording booth at Radio-Canada/CBC Québec City
Hi, folks! If you just heard me on NPR’s Weekend Edition regarding the NIST Budget cuts to WWV, WWVH, and WWVB, welcome, and stick around! This is where the SWLing Post (and other projects we work on, such as the Shortwave Archive, the Radio Spectrum Archive, and the non-profit, Ears to Our World) serve up all things shortwave. Here, we discuss both the fun (and importance) of this cool old-school medium that, remarkably enough, still has relevance even in our internet-interconnected world.
And for our regular Post readers: on Thursday afternoon, I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by Scott Simon of NPR via Radio Canada/CBC in Québec City, QC, Canada. More on that to come.
I feel especially chuffed that NPR would give the topic of WWV some exposure. This piece wasn’t so much a call to action as simply building awareness of what the shutdown of our national pacemaker––in the form of WWVB time station––might mean to the average person who has a self-setting wall clock, or watch (most of us do). (Even at NPR, they’ll be asking, Now, where did we store that stepladder?)
Or what it might mean to the shortwaves themselves, which we in North America may appreciate a source of nostalgia or entertainment––and, yes, handy for keeping time––we have to recognize that there are still pockets of our world, especially in remote, rural, and/or war-torn regions, where shortwave radio is especially vital.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following procedure for calibrating the Tecsun S-8800. Dan received this procedure from Anna at Anon-Co:
Apparently there is a “hidden function” through which you can manually calibrate the SSB frequency display. Please follow the below calibration steps to see if it helps:
1) Turn on the device and set it to USB/LSB.
2) Now press & hold the “AM NORM.” button until you see the backlight blink twice (takes about 2 seconds).
3) Now press & hold the “MEMORY” button, until a certain value is shown on the display, for instance “6829”. This example value refers to a frequency like “xxx68.29 kHz”.
4) If you noticed a frequency deviation of 0.05 kHz up/down earlier, then you can use the main tuning knob to do the calibration. In the above-mentioned example, you would turn the main tuning knob to adjust the value to “6824” or “6834”.
Wow! Thanks for sharing this Dan! That’s two posts about S-8800 hidden features in one day. A record for sure! Readers: please comment if you know of other hidden features. I’m compiling a full list.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill (WD9EQD), who writes:
I’ve owned a Tecsun S-8800 for about eight months and have come to enjoy it more all the time. It, along with my PL-880, have become my main work horses for shortwave listening.
The S-8800 is perfect on the desk connected to a wire antenna and the PL-880 is perfect for carrying around.
Since I knew of the hidden features of the PL-880, it got me thinking on whether the S-8800 had any hidden features.
A quick Google search turned up the following Web Page:
I used Google Translate to get a rough translation and then spent some time testing the features out and also just pressing and holding buttons to see if anything else showed up.
Following is what I have come up with:
(Note: some of these are in the manual)
With the radio off
Toggle Longwave on/off: With the Radio OFF, Press & Hold 2
Toggle backlight permanently on/off: With the Radio OFF, Press & Hold 3 – Note that this means the light will be on even when radio is off. While the light does go out when radio is turned off, any operation of a control will turn the backlight on and it will then stay on. Too bad they just didn’t install a slide on/off switch. Plus I know of no way to turn the backlight on permanently without the remote.
Toggle Seconds display on/off: With the Radio OFF, Press & Hold 8
Displays “0888”: Maybe this is version?: With the Radio OFF, Press & Hold “Back”
Displays all segments of display: With the Radio OFF, Press & Hold “AM NORM” – Displays all segments of display. Press & Hold again to display “H802”
With the radio on in FM mode
Displays “75US”: With the radio ON, Press & Hold 5
Squelch Setting: With the radio ON, Press & Hold 9 – Range 0-5. Use Tuning Knob to set. Press 9 again to set.
With the radio on in SW/AM mode
Toggles Extended functions on/off: With the radio ON, Press & Hold 4
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Gary DeBock, who shares the following notes and recordings from the latest Rockwork DXpedition.
Top Ten DU signals from the August 2018 Rockwork DXpedition
– Gary DeBock
Life is good– breathtaking ocean scenery, an innovative compact antenna, thunderous DU signals and even a partner (Craig Barnes) to share in the bounty. Who could ask for more?
Listed below are the Top Ten DU signals recorded during the recent Rockwork ocean cliff trip (near Manzanita, Oregon) from August 1-9, including several low-powered Kiwi stations which acted like “big guns” pretty much throughout the DXpedition. All of these were recorded with 7.5″ loopstick portables (CC Skywave SSB and XHDATA D-808) and “Airport Unfriendly” 15″ and 17″ FSL antennas (guaranteed to send TSA agents into a security alert).
531 More FM Alexandra, New Zealand, 2 kW The obscure modern rock station usually managed at least one S9 peak each morning, and was fully competitive with Kiwi co-channel PI for the first time. This TOH recording at 1300 on 8-8 demonstrates its potent capability at the cliff
531 PI Auckland, New Zealand, 5 kW Pacific island music at a huge level at 1248 on 8-7 was typical from this low band powerhouse, which was frequently in an all-Kiwi snarl with its overachieving co-channel More FM
558 Radio Fiji One Suva, Fiji, 10 kW The donated Japanese transmitter still puts out awesome signals for this native-language powerhouse, including this island music with a Song Medley ID (“Radio Fiji One, na domoiviti”) at 1:38 into this recording at 1252 on 8-1
567 RNZ National Wellington, New Zealand, 50 kW After demolition of its old tower the RNZ big gun has sometimes sounded anemic on the west coast, but certainly not at 1320 on 8-3 with Indian-accented English
585 7RN Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 10 kW The RN network Tasmanian must have somehow hacked into the Kiwi propagation pipeline at 1306 on 8-6; at the time it was much stronger than its 576 parallel
594 Star Timaru/ Wanganui, New Zealand 5 kW/ 2 kW Another Kiwi overachiever, this low powered network was socking it to the Oz big gun 3WV all week, including with this powerful Christian music // 657 at 1326 on 8-3
657 Star Wellington, Tauranga, New Zealand 50 kW/ 10 kW The flagship Star station sure was playing the part with Christian music at an overwhelming level at 1238 on 8-6, including an ID at the end of the recording
765 Radio Kahungunu Napier-Hastings, New Zealand 2.5 kW The overachieving Maori station was its usual potent self with island music and Maori chants at 1218 on 8-1; it was usually slightly stronger than its 603 parallel (Waatea)
936 Chinese Voice Auckland, New Zealand 1 kW One of the most incredible signals of the entire DXpedition– the 1 kW ethnic station pounds into the cliff at an S9 level at 1309 on 8-2– ocean cliff propagation at its finest!
1017 A3Z Nuku’alofa, Tonga 10 kW Yikes! The rejuvenated Pacific island big gun thunders into the cliff with the strongest signal I’ve ever heard recorded in North America, featuring island music at 1314 on 8-1… almost loud enough to wake up the sleeping squatters
Gary DeBock (DXing at the Rockwork ocean cliff near Manzanita, Oregon, USA with Craig Barnes from August 1-9)
Thank you for sharing those catches, Gary! It’s amazing what DX you can snag with an ultralight radio and a homebrew FSL loop antenna. Someday, I hope to join you guys on the cliff!
We are pleased to announce the release of the ExtIO plugin for the RSPduo. This release uses the latest API (v3.01) which is also being updated today. The plugin will work both in single tuner as well as dual tuner mode so multiple applications can use the same RSPduo at the same time.
The plugin installer will automatically install the Windows 3.01 API so there is no need to install it separately.
It will put the ExtIO dll into a default directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\SDRplay) and then you should copy that into your application install directory (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\HDSDR)
In order to improve the interoperability between this plugin, SDRuno and dump1090, both of those applications have been updated as well. There have been no other functional changes to those applications.
NIST has a long-standing history of providing time and frequency services through our radio stations and we appreciate that many people use these services. NIST’s WWV is the longest continuously-operating radio service in the U.S.At the same time, the proposed NIST budget for FY 2019 required difficult choices about budget priorities.
The President’s full NIST FY 2019 budget request to the Congress is available at the link below, including a brief description of why the shutdown of NIST’s time and frequency radio stations is proposed. The proposal includes shutdown of NIST’s three radio stations, WWV, WWVH, and WWVB, which communicate with consumer clocks, watches, broadcasting systems and other devices. It is important to note that no changes to NIST services have occurred, and if the proposal were to be implemented, public notice would be provided.
Also, for context, it may be helpful to view links to press releases issued in May and June 2018 by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate Committees on Appropriations about the FY2019 budget process.
Credit: Spaceweather.com – Sunspot group AR2720, photographed by Thierry Legault on Aug. 25th from the Saint-Véran/Astroqueyras observatory in the French Alps. An image of Earth has been inserted for scale (Link).
