Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Zach, who notes that WLO have announced that as of 04:59 UTC on July 1, 2018, “there there will no longer be 24/7 operators on duty at the Mobile, AL stations.”
Here’s a screenshot from their announcement on Facebook:
The end of an era indeed. Thanks for the tip, Zach.
I’m happy to announce that my friend and radio producer David Goren has released the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map: a detailed interactive website exploring the dynamic pirate radio scene in Brooklyn, New York:
“In Brooklyn, when the sun goes down, pirate radio stations fire up their transmitters and take to the air, beaming transgressive, culture-bearing signals into Caribbean, Jewish and Latino neighborhoods. The Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map is an archival home for the sounds of renegade community radio at a crucial turning point in its history.”
The site includes a map and virtual radio pre-loaded with off-air recordings of dozens of pirate radio broadcasters.
Over the past few years, David has put a lot of time and research into this project and I’m pleased to see it come to fruition in such a rich format. You could spend hours exploring the sound map.
Brilliant job, David!
Click here to check out the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov (NO2CW), who writes:
Last week I took an Eton Satellit with me on a flight from Tampa, Florida to Washington DC. The radio is very light, portable and packed with features. I have used an SDR radio before for inlight FM reception where I recorded audio, but this time I decided to only count stations with an RDS lock. With so many signals battling RDS is tricky to catch as every 10 seconds or so one station comes on top of another. The flight was just short of 2 hours and I divided my logs into three 30 minute segments. Not suprisingly looking into the technicalities I noticed RDS is commonly received from stations 50 -100 kW of power and tall towers.
Interestingly signals seem to be stronger a lower altitudes. My theory is that FM broadcast antennas heavily favor gain on the horizontal plane parallel to the terrain and send as little signal as possible out into space. I overlaid my logs onto three maps and also a video:
Click here to view on YouTube.
Impressive Ivan! I’m taking a flight later this month and might even try this with the FM radio built into my Moto G6 smart phone which also includes RDS (although I doubt reception can match that of the Satellit.
This is fascinating, Ivan! Thank you for sharing.
(Source: Radio New Zealand via Richard Cuff)
There is a push in Australia to re-establish Radio Australia’s services to the Asia/Pacific region.
Supporters of RA in Australia hope people around the Pacific will join them in sending submissions to inquiries underway in Canberra.
It comes after savage cuts at RA that included shutting down shortwave transmission, which is seen as a critical service in many parts of the Pacific, particularly during natural disasters.
It has recently been reported that those transmission frequencies have been taken over by China Radio International.
Former RA journalist Sean Dorney said the group, of which he’s part, is trying to convince the Australian government to get back into that space.
“So there is a bit of concern in Canberra about this and I suppose the group that I’m part of are trying to convince the Australian government that it’s time to re-focus our attention on the broadcast to the region.”
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Al Holt, who shares the decoded SSTV image above via Twitter and notes:
A two-fer, excellent!! Here’s what I caught during its pass over Florida @ ~0914z, a 3-star pass. Had my HT on freq. but dropped it on the floor and got a burp which produced the break in the upper 1/3 of the image…Doh! -73
Ha ha! Thanks for sharing, Al! Based on such a short gap in the image, you must have recovered that HT rather quickly!
Post readers: Has anyone else decoded SSTV during an ISS pass?
In a previous post, I mentioned that I visited the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville Alabama last week (a museum I highly recommend to anyone interest in spaceflight).
While perusing numerous displays in the Saturn V Hall at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration, I noted this little radio in a case devoted to Apollo survival gear:
I found no detailed information about this survival radio at the display (not surprising), so I snapped a few photos and researched it when I got back to the hotel room that evening.
The Smithsonian Air And Space Museum was one of the few sources I found with a description of this radio:
Survival gear was provided to Apollo astronauts in the case they returned to Earth and there was a substantial delay in rescue and recovery operations. One item in the survival kit was a hand-held UHF radio. Beginning with the Apollo 12 survival kit the radio beacon was manufactured by the Cubic Corporation. It could operate either as a “beacon” or for two-way voice communications. Permanently set to operate at 243 MHz, the transceiver and its cylindrical battery pack were water-tight. It could operate in beacon mode for up to 24 hours. An extendable antenna, a second battery pack, and a spacecraft connector cable were also provided.
I love finding purpose-designed radios like the Apollo Survival Radio.
Post readers: Have you ever stumbled upon similar survival or purpose-built radios? Please comment!
