Video Demonstration of Gary DeBock’s 3″ Baby FSL Antenna

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Gary DeBock, who shares a video of his latest Ferrite Sleeve Loop (FSL) antenna: the 3″ Baby FSL.

Gary Notes:

The new design 3 Inch (76mm) Baby FSL antenna is the smallest, most compact and lightweight of the “airport friendly” FSL’s developed here recently, but it provides a very potent inductive coupling boost for weak AM-DX signals.

This demonstration video shows its huge boost to a weak daytime DX signal from 1070-CFAX (10 kW in Victoria, BC, Canada) here in Puyallup, WA, USA:

Click here to view on YouTube.

Most impressive, Gary! You’re right: that design is compact enough that it should even fit the bill for my one-bag travel philosophy. I think I might have to build one of these!

Check out more of Gary’s adventures in Ultralight DXing, by browsing our archive.

FTIOM & UBMP, June 23-29

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From the Isle of Music, June 23-29:
No interviews this week. Instead, we listen to some selections from EGREM’s 45 D’lujo and 55 D’lujo compilation series. The 12-CD set for 55 d’lujo has over 200 songs and was awarded a special prize in Cubadisco 2019.
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) Station website: www.spaceline.bg
2. For the Americas and parts of Europe, Tuesday 0000-0100 UTC (New UTC) on WBCQ, 7490 KHz from Monticello, ME, USA (Monday 8-9PM EST in the US).
Station website: www.wbcq.com
3 & 4. For Europe and sometimes beyond, Tuesday 1900-2000 UTC and Saturday 1200-1300 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany.
Station website: www.channel292.de

Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot, June 23 and 25, 2019:
Episode 118, Electric Turkey, dives into the psychedelic music scene in Turkey in the 1970s.
1.Sundays 2200-2230 UTC (6:00PM -6:30PM Eastern US) on WBCQ The Planet 7490 KHz from the US to the Americas and parts of Europe
2. Tuesdays 2000-2030 UTC on Channel 292, 6070 KHz from Rohrbach, Germany for Europe.

June 21: Help record the 2019 BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast

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Every year, the BBC broadcasts a special program to the scientists and support staff in the British Antarctic Survey Team. The BBC plays music requests and sends special messages to the small team of 40+ located at various Antarctic research stations. Each year, the thirty minute show is guaranteed to be quirky, nostalgic, and certainly a DX-worthy catch!

After successful listener events from years past, I’m once again calling on all SWLing Post readers and shortwave radio listeners to make a short recording (say, 30-60 seconds) of the BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast today and share it here at the Post (frequencies and time below).

Halley VI: The British Antarctic Survey’s new base (Source: British Antarctic Survey)

The recording can be audio-only, or even a video taken from any recording device or smart phone. It would be helpful to have a description and/or photo of your listening environment and location, if possible. Please only submit recordings made from your location–since this is all about how you’re able to receive the broadcast at your location, we would rather not include WebSDR recordings.

Audio should be in the MP3 format and videos either hosted on YouTube or Vimeo so that I can easily embed them without having to convert and upload myself.

If you submit your recording to me, I will post it here on the SWLing Post–and insure that the British Antarctic Survey receives the post, too.  The recordings will be arranged by geographic location. Note that due to my schedule this year, it might take a few weeks before I can curate all of the recordings (the process typically takes 8+ hours!).

Frequencies

UPDATE (June 21, 2019): Broadcast frequencies have been confirmed by the BBC as 5875, 7360, and 9455 kHz.

Please note that the broadcast begins at 2130 UTC on (Friday) June 21, 2019.

The following frequencies were provided by The Bulgarian DX Blog and were used in the BBC test broadcast. Typically, the same frequencies are used during the live broadcast—we will update this post with any last-minute changes.:

2130-2145 on 5875 WOF 300 kW / 184 deg to Antarctica English-very good
2130-2145 on 5990 DHA 250 kW / 203 deg to Antarctica English-fair/good
2130-2145 on 7360 ASC 250 kW / 207 deg to Antarctica English-very good
2130-2145 on 9455 WOF 300 kW / 182 deg to Antarctica English-very good

The Midwinter broadcast is one of my favorite programs of the year. I suppose, in part, this is because it happens on June 21–the Summer/Winter solstice–which also happens to be my birthday! Woo hoo!

CW used to prove song lyrics had been lifted

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who shares this article from Mashable:

Genius is, well, genius. The company recently accused Google of lifting song lyrics from its site, reports the Wall Street Journal.

How did Genius know Google was stealing? In 2016, Genius made a few changes to the punctuation in its song lyrics. Sometimes, it used a straight apostrophe. Other times, a curly one.

Genius did this in a very specific sequence because (are you ready for this?) when “the two types of apostrophes were converted to the dots and dashes used in Morse code, they spelled out the words ‘Red Handed.'”[…]

Click here to read the full article at Mashable.

Planetary orbits may influence 11-year solar cycle

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(Image: NASA)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Van Hoy, who shares this interesting article via Space.com:

The orbits of Venus, Earth and Jupiter may explain the sun’s regular 11-year cycle, a new study suggests.

A team of researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), a research institute in Dresden, Germany, showed that the magnetic fields of those three planets influence the cycle of solar activity, resolving one of the bigger questions in solar physics.

“Everything points to a clocked process,” Frank Stefani, a researcher at HZDR and lead author of the new study, said in a statement. “What we see is complete parallelism with the planets over the course of 90 cycles.”

The researchers compared observations of solar activity — like sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections — from the last thousand years with planetary alignments in order to show that there was in fact a correlation, according to the statement.[…]

Click here to read the full article at Space.com.

RNZ: No plans to replace AM radio mast in the Cook Islands

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(Source: RNZ via Michael Bird)

The Cook Islands Investment Corporation says there are no plans to replace an AM radio mast that is to be dismantled on Rarotonga.

The mast at Matavera, built with New Zealand aid money many years ago to provide a signal to the outer islands, is rusted through in places and in danger of collapsing.

Pupils from an adjacent school have been moved to ensure their safety, while plans are made for the dismantling.

In a statement the CIIC says with the rollout of FM radio and the ability to digitally stream events of national importance, the AM signal is no longer required.[…]

Click here to download the audio.

Update: Eton Elite Satellit expected Q4 with pre-order price of $349 US

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Universal Radio has posted a product page for the new Eton Elite Satellit.

Pre-Order

As they have done in the past, Universal is offering a “pre-order” discounted price of $349.95 that will not be charged to the buyer until the unit actually ships.

Availability

Universal expects the Elite Satellit to ship sometime in the 4th Quarter of 2019.

I gather the Elite Satellit is still very much in the design and development stage, so I would even take the expected availability date with a grain of salt. Much may depend on how well the initial prototypes perform in evaluations. With that said, I’m sure Eton will do all they can to have the Elite Satellit ready for the 2019 holiday season.

Not a hoax–!

I’ve gotten a number of emails and comments from readers asking if the Elite Satellit is a hoax. I can assure you it is not. 🙂

I get why so many are skeptical, though. It’s not often that a legacy receiver–one that’s been off the market for nearly a decade–is re-introduced with an identical chassis, and with the promise of some internal upgrades. In fact, I can’t think of a time this has happened in the past.

Features and Specifications

All we know about the Elite Satellit is what is mentioned in Universal’s product description:

The Eton Elite Satellit is simply the finest full-sized portable in the world. The Elite Satellit is an elegant confluence of performance, features and capabilities. The look, feel and finish of this radio is superb. The solid, quality feel is second to none. The digitally synthesized, dual conversion shortwave tuner covers all long wave, mediums wave (AM) and shortwave frequencies. HD Radio improves audio fidelity and adds additional programming without a subscription fee. Adjacent frequency interference can be minimized or eliminated with a choice of three bandwidths [7.0, 4.0, 2.5 kHz]. The sideband selectable Synchronous AM Detector further minimizes adjacent frequency interference and reduces fading distortion of AM signals. IF Passband Tuning is yet another advanced feature that functions in AM and SSB modes to reject interference. AGC is selectable at fast or slow. High dynamic range permits the detection of weak signals in the presence of strong signals. All this coupled with great sensitivity will bring in stations from every part of the globe. Organizing your stations is facilitated by 500 user programmable presets with alpha labeling, plus 1200 user definable country memories, for a total of 1700 presets. You can tune this radio many ways such as: direct shortwave band entry, direct frequency entry, up-down tuning and scanning. Plus you can tune the bands with the good old fashioned tuning knob (that has new fashioned variable-rate tuning). There is also a dual-event programmable timer. Whether you are listening to AM, shortwave, FM or FM-HD, you will experience superior audio quality via a bridged type audio amplifier, large built in speaker and continuous bass and treble tone controls. RDS is included. Stereo line-level output is provided for recording or routing the audio into another device such as a home stereo. The absolutely stunning LCD has 4 levels of backlighting and instantly shows you the complete status of your radio.

Many receiver parameters such as AM step, FM coverage, beep, kHz/MHz entry etc., can be set to your personal taste via the preference menu. The Elite Satellit has a built in telescopic antenna for AM, shortwave and FM reception. Additionally there is a switchable antenna jack (PAL male) for an external antenna. Universal will offer antenna jack adapters.

This radio comes with a protective carry bag and AC adapter or may be operated from four D cells (not included). The Eton Elite Satellit is for world explorers who want to travel first class.

I agree with Post contributor Guy Atkins: the Elite Satellit appears to be based on the Eton E1 analog circuitry. Guy points to three clues in this recent comment:

  • Exact same three I.F. bandwidths as on the E1 (7.0, 4.0, 2.5 kHz). If this is a DSP radio, why only these three bandwidths?
  • Selectable sideband synchronous AM detector, as found in the E1. I’m not aware of any SiLabs chips that can provide *selectable* sidebands on sync AM.
  • I.F. passband shift control. Again, this is not a feature in any consumer DSP radio I know of.

Of course, all of the specifications Universal has published are “preliminary and subject to change.”

As I mentioned in a previous post, you can count on us to review the Elite Satellit as soon as it’s available.

Click here to pre-order the Eton Elite Satellit at Universal Radio.

To follow Eton Elite Satellit updates, bookmark this tag.

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