I picked the wrong time to “thin the herd”

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I had a nice phone chat with SWLing Post contributor and good friend Robert Gulley this week and discovered that, like me, he’s in the process of selling a few radios in his collection.

Robert is thinning his radio herd in order to help fund another hobby: photography. I’m minimizing my collection, on the other hand, to make room in my radio shack for a dedicated soldering station/work bench.

Other than units to evaluate and review for the Post, I’ve vowed not to acquire any more radios for the rest of this year. I’m trying to go “cold turkey” until January 1, 2019.

Turns out good ole Robert, of all people, is putting my prohibition to the test. I just found out he’s selling two radios I’ve kept in my search list.

One is the GE Super Radio II:

Robert is selling an excellent specimen. The Super Radio II is a choice model for AM DXers which is why I’ve kept an eye out for one. I’ve found a number of Super Radio I and III models locally, but not a II.

Another classic he’s selling is the RadioShack DX-440 (a.k.a. Sangean 803A):

If you’re a long-time reader of the Post you might recall that the ‘440 was my first digital portable. It was my travel companion when I lived in France during university, so I have a lot of nostalgia for this particular set. Of course, it had room-filling audio and great sensitivity and would operate for ages on batteries.

I’m going to try to look the other way, though. I hate to fall off the wagon so close to the end of the year!

Thanks a lot, Robert!!! (Ha ha!)

[If interested, here are links to Robert’s DX-440 and Super Radio II on eBay.]

Post readers: Do you have any particular radio models on your search list? Please comment!

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ARRL takes minor exception to wording of FCC Enforcement Advisory regarding uncertified two-way radios

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Eric McFadden, who shares the following ARRL response to the FCC Enforcement Advisory we posted last week. The following was published in the ARRL News:

ARRL has taken a minor exception to the wording of a September 24 FCC Enforcement Advisory pertaining to the importation, marketing and sale of VHF and UHF transceivers and is in discussion with FCC personnel to resolve the matter. The Enforcement Advisory was in response to the importation into the US of certain radio products that are not FCC certified for use in any radio service, but identified as Amateur Radio equipment.

“While much of this equipment is actually usable on Amateur bands, the radios are also capable of operation on non-amateur frequencies allocated to radio services that require the use of equipment that has been FCC-certified,” ARRL said. “Such equipment is being marketed principally to the general public via mass e-marketers and not to Amateur Radio licensees.”

[…]“In several places, the Enforcement Advisory makes the point that ‘anyone importing, advertising or selling such noncompliant devices should stop immediately, and anyone owning such devices should not use them,’” ARRL pointed out. “The Advisory broadly prohibits the ‘use’ of such radios, but our view is that there is no such prohibition relative to licensed Amateur Radio use — entirely within amateur allocations — of a radio that may be capable of operation in non-amateur spectrum, as long as it is not actually used to transmit in non-amateur spectrum.

ARRL has had extensive discussions about this issue with FCC Wireless Bureau and Enforcement Bureau staff, and those discussions are ongoing.[…]

Click here to read the full news article.

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Space Weather: Multiple coronal holes passing through the Earth-strike zone this week

FTIOM & UBMP, October 7-13

The Internet and community licenses have changed the London pirate radio scene

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Korchin (K2WNW), for sharing the following article from The New York Times:

London’s Radio Pirates Changed Music. Then Came the Internet.

LONDON — In 1993, the illegal radio broadcasters at Kool FM came up with a plan to keep the regulators from raiding their studios.

In those days, the rooftops of South and East London still bristled with unauthorized antennas. Installed by pirate radio stations on top of public housing blocks — the city’s tallest and least secure buildings — they transmitted sounds rarely heard on the BBC or commercial stations. Kool FM was at the heart of the scene, broadcasting jungle, rave, and drum and bass music from the Hackney district of East London.

All the pirates needed was a key to the building — easy to buy off a building worker or tenant — and a cheap transmitter. But they had a problem. Illegal broadcasting is, well, illegal, and, in Britain, pirates can face up to two years in prison, unlimited fines, bans from appearing on legal stations and equipment seizures.

So the pirates at Kool FM covered their studio door with concrete. To get in, they had to scale the outside of the building, jumping from balcony to balcony, said one of the station’s founders, who declined to give his real name but who broadcasts as Eastman. On a recent afternoon, he was standing outside Kool’s current studio in a warehouse on London’s outskirts. Drum and bass sounds from a D.J. called Papa G. emanated from behind the wall.

The regulators rarely bother them now, he said, and capers like the one he described are scarce. In the early 1990s, Kool “was the in thing,” said Eastman. But he estimated that Kool has lost 90 percent of its advertising revenue since its heyday. “We’re struggling because it’s hard to raise money to keep the station going.” Kool has recently rebranded as Kool London, and started focusing more on broadcasting online, though its shows still go out on the old pirate FM frequency.

Kool’s problems are part of a broader trend: Ofcom, the British communications regulator, estimated there are now just 50 pirate stations in London, down from about 100 a decade ago, and hundreds in the 1990s, when stations were constantly starting up and shutting down. Ofcom considers this good news, because illegal broadcasters could interfere with radio frequencies used by emergency services and air traffic control, a spokesman said.[…]

[T]wo things happened that changed the landscape of underground radio: first, the internet, and second, new licenses that encouraged pirates to reinvent themselves along more official lines.[…]

Continue reading the full article at The New York Times.

Stream Kool London here:

Stream Reprezent 107.3 here:

Stream Rinse FM here:

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Alex’s updated frequency charts

Peggy Sue (K5PSG) is silent key

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Image Source: PeggySueOnline.com

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Goren, who notes the passing of Peggy Sue who was the inspiration for Buddy Holly’s song. Dave notes, “Peggy Sue was a ham.”

She was indeed and her callsign was K5PSG. David shared the following article from the Lubbock-Avalanche Journal:

Peggy Sue Gerron, who will be forever remembered in association with Buddy Holly because of his song bearing her name, died early Monday at University Medical Center in Lubbock.

She was 78.

Friends in Texas and New Mexico, who particularly knew her as a ham radio enthusiast, remember how fascinated she would be in talking to people she had never met from around the world.

Doug Hutton of Lubbock, who also is an amateur radio operator, said he was one of her friends who helped her get her radio license a decade or so ago.

Bryan Edwards, now living in New Mexico after operating the business called Edwards Electronics in Lubbock, said, “Peggy Sue was always just plain good to people.”

Hutton didn’t remember Peggy Sue from high school.

“She was three years younger than I am,” he said. But he knew her later as a ham radio buff.

“For several years, we had an event every year where it would be publicized within the ham radio community so that people would get on a certain frequency and talk to Peggy Sue,” he said. “That was a great thrill to those people to talk to her.”[…]

Continue reading the full article here.