Alex’s updated frequency charts

British mast owner Arqiva on the block and attracting international attention

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dave Porter (G4OYX), who shares the following item from The Telegraph:

An array of international infrastructure investors from the US, Asia and Europe are sizing up the £6bn mobile and broadcasting mast giant Arqiva as its current owners prepare to put the company on the block.

The crucial infrastructure provider, currently owned by Macquarie and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), is being eyed by at least half a dozen buyers, City sources said.

Discussions are at a preliminary stage, with a formal process to begin in the next few weeks, but known suitors include CKI, the Hong Kong-listed holding company controlled by Asia’s richest man Li Ka-shing. […]

Continue reading at The Telegraph.

Radio Outbackistan: “the next shortwave broadcaster for rural Australia”–?

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Cartoonist George Aldridge’s take on Radio Outbackistan. (Photo Source: ABC Rural)

(Source: ABC Rural via London Shortwave)

Could Radio Outbackistan be the next shortwave broadcaster for rural Australia?

In response to the ABC abolishing its HF shortwave radio service, the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association (NTCA) president has turned to humour to propose his own broadcast alternative.

On Friday, in front of hundreds of cattle producers, Tom Stockwell addressed the association’s annual conference on the status of the beef industry, listing challenges, opportunities and grievances.

While the Bureau of Meteorology’s decision to remove the Tennant Creek weather radar and the National Broadband Network’s restrictions on download quotas for remote users were both highlighted, it was the loss of shortwave radio that Mr Stockwell took most issue with.

The NTCA has been heavily critical of the ABC for making the decision, which was made to allow for the reinvestment of funds into digital services.

Inspired by the band Roadtrippers, Mr Stockwell joked about his desire for a new broadcaster called Radio Outbackistan to fill a regional communications void.][…]

Continue reading at ABC Rural online.

Thanks for sharing London Shortwave. That gave me a much needed chuckle!

Videos of the Icom IC-R8600 in action

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Many thanks to a number of Post contributors who’ve shared a link to links to bcloyaji’s YouTube Channel where a few videos of the Icom IC-R8600 have been posted. (Thank you for your patience, as well, as I’ve been traveling and way behind on posting this!)

I’ve embedded a few videos below, but I encourage you to also check out bcloyaji’s YouTube Channel for more:

I’m looking forward to checking out the IC-R8600 at the 2017 Dayton Hamvention and even potentially reviewing it here on the SWLing Post at some point.

Any Post readers plan to purchase the IC-R8600?

Though we have no US pricing yet, I’ve been checking with Universal Radio regularly for any news.

Follow the tag IC-R8600 for updates.

Using the Sony ICF-SW7600GR with external antennas

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Steven Crawford, who writes:

As the 7600GR supplies 6v DC to the external antenna jack to power their active loop antennas there seems to be a great deal of confusion on the web about whether one can or cannot use an external antenna such as a random length of wire attached to the center tip of a barrel connector.

I have been unable to locate the blog entry but I seem to remember you discussing this in one of your posts. In it you mentioned you had built a widget that killed the voltage and allowed you to use the external antenna of your choice. I would appreciate your thoughts on a random wire to center tip antenna and details of the widget you built when you have time.

Thank you for your question, Steven. I hope a reader can help point to the post you’ve mentioned. I believe I recall reading this in a guest post–I know I’ve never used a device to kill the 6V phantom load in the antenna out jack.

I suppose I’ve (incorrectly?) assumed the Sony would only push voltage out if connected to the Sony AN-LP1 (see right).

I know I’ve used a number of antennas with the ICF-SW7600GR: long wires, the PK Loop, The EF-SWL, the NASA PA 30, and even a rather large multi-band dipole when I recorded the final broadcast of RNW. I’ve never experienced a problem, nor damaged the antenna/receiver as of yet.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Please comment!

The Bonito Boni whip: proving to be excellent portable antenna for DXing

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Hi there, if you’re a subscriber to the Oxford Shortwave Log YouTube channel, you will be aware that I have been using a Wellbrook ALA1530 H field antenna, for 15 months or so, with (at times) excellent results. A while back I was on the lookout for a second antenna, however at more than £250, I couldn’t justify purchasing a second Wellbrook. Ultimately I splashed out on the Bonito Boni whip E-field wideband active antenna (20 kHz to 300 MHz) and with a very compact form-factor suitable for DXpeditions/portable operation in general, the Boni whip definitely ticked all the boxes. Furthermore, with reasonable second and third order intercept points of +55 and +32.5 dBm respectively, the Boni whip, on paper at least, looked like a pretty good buy at around £100.

Initial testing at home confirmed, perhaps not surprisingly that the Boni whip could not match the SNR provided by the Wellbrook ALA1530 in a noisy, urban environment. However, less predictably, the Boni whip has proven to be a truly excellent antenna away from the ubiquitous blanket of ‘electrosmog’ at my QTH. Furthermore, it really is so compact, I simply leave it in the car in a small flight case, with a portable and connectors etc. for ad-hoc listening sessions. Since returning from my most recent trip to Brazil, I have had a chance to review my most recent catches with the Boni whip, some of which are realy pleasing and most definitely underline the excellent performance of this diminutive antenna. In particular, signals from Radio RB2 on 11935 kHz and Radio Aparecida on 11855 kHz, both low power Brazilian stations, are testament to how sensitive the Boni whip is in an electrically quiet environment. Check out also the quality of longwave signals from Poland and the Czech Republic – simply amazing for such a physically short antenna. Finally, there’s a personal first from Lusaka, Zambia, Voice of Hope Africa on 13680 kHz. All the more rewarding that this was actually copied in my work office!

I hope you found this article interesting. There are embedded reception videos below and text links for all, which will take you directly to the relevant video on the Oxford Shortwave Log YouTube channel. Thank you for reading/watching/listening and I wish you all excellent DX!

Click here to watch on YouTube

Clint Gouveia is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Clint actively publishes videos of his shortwave radio excursions on his YouTube channel: Oxford Shortwave Log. Clint is based in Oxfordshire, England.

1920s Radio Times magazines now available to public

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(Source: BBC Media Centre)

BBC makes 1920s Radio Times magazines available to public

The BBC is making the earliest issues of the complete Radio Times magazines publicly available online for the first time. This release is part of the BBC Genome Project – a digitised searchable database of programme listings – from 1923 to the end of 2009.

BBC programme records have been available to the public via the BBC Genome Project since October 2014. Now, users can access digitised editions of the magazines from 1923-1929. Opening up this archive means researchers will be able to make direct links between the listings in the database and the original published listings.

Early colour front covers, specially commissioned illustrations and letters from the BBC’s first radio audience form part of the content in this fascinating record of early broadcasting.

Radio Times began in 1923, a year after the British Broadcasting Company started regular broadcasts, and thus provides a valuable record of the programmes that have been broadcast over nine decades.

More than five million programme records, scanned from Radio Times magazines, form the backbone of the BBC Genome website. Now, members of the public will be able to view the 1920s listings in facsimile, as well as all the extra material contained in articles and features in the magazine that have previously been unavailable on the site.

Hilary Bishop, Archive Development Editor, says: “We are particularly pleased that it is easy for our users to flick between the listings in the database and the related text in the magazine, as well as to scroll through articles not seen previously on BBC Genome. It is part of our commitment to continually improving BBC Genome and helping to open up the BBC’s archives as much as possible.”

Radio Times in the 1920s featured regular articles by the first Director General of the BBC, Lord Reith, and the BBC’s chief engineer, Peter Eckersley, addressing topics that concerned the BBC audience of the time, such as how to choose the best ‘receiving set’ and how to prevent ‘oscillations’ over the airwaves.

Articles, cartoons and programme listings all provide an insight into the history of broadcasting and the BBC’s first listeners, while adding some context, for a modern audience, to the earliest BBC programme records. The first editions of Radio Times show a nation still enthralled by the technological wonder of the new ‘wireless’ sets.

In each edition for the first few years of publication, cartoons explored the comic possibilities of a public who still didn’t quite understand how radio worked. “Would you kindly remove your hat madam?” asks a man at a ‘wireless village concert’. Yet the performer on stage is a radio set.

As the public wrestled with their new radio antennae, legendary cartoonist W. Heath Robinson illustrated two editions with eccentric designs of aerials.

Other historical snippets include a ‘new experiment’, in 1924, to broadcast a programme from California, to London. The exercise was to be repeated in the opposite direction. “If suitable conditions exist in the atmosphere”, concludes the article, “there is no reason why the experiment should not be successful”.

You can access the digitised 1920s magazines at: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk