Can you help Paul identify this station?

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who writes:

I had a strong s9+20 signal on 9595kHz Mon Jan 9th, 2023 here in Alaska in the 1900UTC hour with nothing but a repeating loop of the same island-y like music.  The track was about 3-5 minutes long and there was no station announcements of any kind between the one repeating track. It was gone by 2000UTC. No one is listed on eibi, short-wave.info, shortwaveschedule.com or HFCC Raw data for this frequency at this time.

Who is it? It sounded too clear and good to be China, but I suppose that’s possible.

Readers: if you can help Paul, please comment!

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Born in the ER: Andrew’s portable SULA antenna

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andrew (VK2ZRK), who writes:

Just thought I would share some pics of my SULA build which I constructed in the Emergency department’s antenna building section in between catastrophies here in Australia.

I built it out of 8mm fibreglass tube from a kite supply, 8mm kite nocks, 13mm equal cross irrigation fitting and lots of double wall glue lined heat shrink. The 8mm tube with a short bit of heat shrink is a slip fit into the id of the 13mm equal cross which I secured with more heat shrink.

I then cut the frame to length allowing for the length of the kite nocks. I secured the kite nocks with more heat shrink. I then soldered the resister to 2 lengths of Davis RF 12g antenna wire and fed this through the kite nocks terminating it at the nooelec balun on the opposite side to the resistor.

I think it worked out well. It is very light. I built it to use with my SDRPlay RSPdx.

Thank you to everyone involved in the design process and for providing it to the swling.com community.

Cheers
Andrew VK2ZRK

In all the years I’ve been hosting the SWLing Post, I can safely say that we’ve never featured an antenna constructed in an Emergency Department of a hospital. Thank you, Andrew!

The feedback from the SULA antenna build has been phenomenal. The three-part series detailing the SULA antenna from concept to build was the most popular of 2022 on the SWLing Post

Thank you for sharing the photos of your antenna. What a professional job, Andrew!

Readers, if you’d like to learn more about the SULA antenna, check out this three-part series–a collaboration between the amazing Grayhat and 13dka.

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Radio Prague QSL Cards for 2023

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who shares the following announcement from Radio Prague:

Radio Prague’s QSL Cards (Radio Prague)

The three letters – QSL – constitute one of the codes originally developed in the days of the telegraph. All codes consisted of three letters beginning with “Q”. Later some of these “Q” codes were adopted by radio-telegraphists and radio listeners. QSL means “contact confirmed” or “reception confirmed”.

The expression “QSL card” or just “QSL” gradually came to be used among radio-amateurs and then more broadly as radio began to develop as a mass medium. Radio stations were keen to know how well and how far away their programmes could be heard and began to send their listeners “QSL cards” in return for reception reports. The card would include letters making up the “call sign” of the station – the system still used in the United States – or the broadcasting company’s logo or some other illustration. The card would also include a text stating the frequency and the transmitter output power, and a confirmation of when the listener heard the station.

Domestic broadcasters do not tend to use QSL cards these days, but their popularity remains among radio stations broadcasting internationally. They are still keen to know how well they can be heard in the parts of the world to which they broadcast. In the era of shortwave broadcasts Radio Prague sent out QSL cards for reception reports received. Today we also send QSL cards to those who listen to us on the internet.

https://english.radio.cz/reception-report

Click here to read the announcement at Radio Prague and view a gallery of all Radio Prague QSL cards for 2023.

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Radio Waves: RTL Ends Longwave, Ana Montes Released, Mystery Antennas Across Utah, RIP Mihail Mihailov, and Morse in Music

The Junglinster RTL longwave transmitter (via Wikimedia Commons)

Radio Waves:  Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!


RTL Ends Longwave Service (Radio World)

On 234 kHz, the new year rang in with static, not bells or fireworks. As had been announced in October, French broadcaster RTL switched off its longwave broadcasts on January 1, 2023.

Long-time RTL presenter Georges Lang marked the occasion with a bittersweet tweet: “Voilà, c’est fini… Goodbye good old Long Waves, you did a good job for a so long time. You belong now to the history of Radio-Luxembourg and RTL.”

Groupe M6, which owns the station, noted that maintaining longwave broadcasts from the Beidweiler, Luxembourg, transmission site consumed about 6,000 megawatt-hours of electricity each year, roughly equal to the average annual energy consumption of 3,000 French people. [Continue reading…]

US releases top Cuba spy Ana Belén Montes after 20 years in prison (The Guardian)

SWLing Post contributor, Ed, shares this story and notes:

Some SWLing Post readers might be interested to learn that one of the few spies ever caught in the U.S. using shortwave numbers station transmissions to receive instructions is Ana Belén Montes, who was just released from prison after serving 20 years of her 25-year sentence.

Former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, 65, freed after being found guilty of espionage in 2002

One of the highest-ranking US officials ever proven to have spied for Cuba has been released from prison early after spending more than two decades behind bars.

Ana Belén Montes pleaded guilty in 2002 to conspiracy to commit espionage after she was accused of using her leading position as a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official to leak information, including the identities of some US spies, to Havana. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison at the age of 45. Continue reading

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Carlos’ Shortwave Art and recording of China Radio International (Invasion of Brazilian Congress, January 8, 2023)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares his radio log art of a recent China Radio international broadcast.


Carlos notes:

China Radio International, news about invasion of Brazilian Congress, Presidential Palace and Supreme Court by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Shortwave frequency of 15120 kHz.

Click here to view on YouTube.

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Silent Key: Arnaldo “Arnie” Coro Antich (CO2KK), of Radio Havana Cuba, has passed away

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who shares this sad news via Horacio A. Nigro (CX3BZ):


Arnie Coro and family circa 2016 (Photo via QRZ.com)

Arnaldo Coro Antich (CO2KK) Passed Away This Morning At 80 Years Old

This morning of January 8, 2023, our colleague Arnaldo de Jesús Coro Antich (CO2KK) died in a hospital in the capital at the age of 80 due to complications from chronic illnesses he suffered.
Coro began his interest in the radio, according to what he said, from the gift of his father, a coil with a galena stone and headphones to listen to the stations. At just 12 years old, he joined the then Radio Club de Cuba, the association that at the end of the 50s brought together radio amateurs in the capital.

In 1957 he began working at CMBA Television Canal 7, owned by the Mestre brothers, where he gained a lot of knowledge.

As a journalist, he collaborated with the written press and with the radio, his greatest passion. The first one recalls his sec? tion on science in Juventud Rebelde newspaper and the articles in the magazine Juventud Técnica in which he was also one of the advisors. On the radio he was until his death a member of the team of the Radio Habana Cuba radio station and his program Dxers Unlimited, in English, which reached all corners of the planet, was highly appreciated, from where he re? ceived abundant correspondence. Many foreign colleagues knew him as Arnie Coro. He also had sections on science and technology in programs on Radio Progreso, Radio Taino and Radio Metropolitana.

Arnaldo was passionate about the dissemination of science and technology and was always aware of the latest discovery or invention to pass it on to listeners and friends.
As a professor, he also taught classes at the “Raúl Roa Kourí” Higher Institute of International Relations and at the “José Martí” International Institute of Journalism. But his teachings were not limited to the teaching scenarios, he constantly trans? mitted them to everyone.
Since its foundation in 1966, he was a member of the Cuban Radio Amateurs Federation, and an active member in technical commissions and other positions, always looking for solutions to technical problems. He founded and kept the “Rueda del Multimetro” (Net of multimeter) on the air for a long time, in which he helped to understand the technical issues of radio am? ateurs and to find solutions to the problems that numerous colleagues from the backyard and abroad consulted him.

He was an active contributor to other rounds such as the “Rueda Huracan” (Hurrican Net) and the “Encuentro Capitalino” (Capital Meeting) where he made available his knowledge about solar activity and propagation, one of his favorite topics and of which he was a true connoisseur.

Another subject to which he dedicated special interest, time and efforts was that of emergency communications by radio amateurs. His radio station was always ready to seek and share information during emergencies and disasters in our country and the region. At the time of his death he was the Emergency Coordinator for Area C of Region 2 of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU R2).

I will always appreciate our exchanges by radio or phone about extreme weather events threatening our area. Coro, who was born on July 2, 1942, received the National Radio Award in 2017.

We offer our condolences to his family on his death.

Rest in peace, friend. We will miss you.

Carlos Alberto Santamaría González (CO2JC)
Coordinador de la Red de Emergencia Nacional FRC
Coordinador de Emergencias IARU R2.FALLECIÓ ESTA MADRUGADA A LOS 80 AÑOS ARNALDO CORO ANTICH (CO2KK)
Horacio A. Nigro, CX3BZ


The following statement was posted on the RHC website:

Prominent Cuban journalist and professor Arnaldo Coro Antích passes away

Havana, January 8 (RHC)– In the early hours of this Sunday morning, the outstanding journalist and university professor Arnaldo (Arnie) Coro Antich, with a long working career in Cuban radio, passed away in Havana.

Winner of the National Radio Award 2017, Coro was born on July 2, 1942. From a very young age, he was linked to radio broadcasting. He was an expert radio amateur (his call sign: CO2KK) and a specialist in Mass Media and New Information and Communications Technologies.

He taught as Assistant Professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations of MINREX and served as Vice President of the Cuban Commission for the Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage, created by UNESCO.

Arnie Coro was the author of numerous scientific and technical publications, including the book “La Guerra Radial de Los Estados Unidos de América Contra Cuba,” published in 1984.

He was the host of the internationally-renowned radio program “Dxers Unlimited,” which he kept on-the-air for many years on the English-language broadcasts of Radio Havana Cuba. “Dxers Unlimited” was one of the most popular radio programs in English and was considered a profesional guide to shortwave listening around the world.

Arnie’s last working years were spent in Radio Habana Cuba’s English language service, a group that regrets his death and sends its condolences to his family and friends.

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A little daytime Medium Wave DXing . . .

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Let’s get one thing clear from the start: it’s all Ken Reitz’s fault. When the search for the guilty begins, the finger should point squarely at Mr. Reitz.

Who is Ken Reitz? He is the Managing Editor and Publisher of The Spectrum Monitor.  

The Spectrum Monitor is a radio hobbyist magazine available only in PDF format and can be read on any device capable of opening a PDF file. It covers virtually aspect of the radio hobby, and you can find it here: https://www.thespectrummonitor.com/ I am a subscriber, and I can heartily recommend it without reservation.

So what is it that Mr. Reitz did that set me off? Short answer: he wrote a really good article entitled “AM DX Antennas: Long Wires and Loops Big and Small.” In it, he mentioned that he could hear, from his location in Virginia, WCBS on 880 in New York City, some 300 miles away. He also mentioned that he could hear, during daylight hours, WGY in Schenectady, NY, about 400 miles distant.

WGY is a local station for me in Troy, NY, but I wondered: Could I hear WCBS in New York City? That’s nearly 150 miles from me. Hmmm.

So I started firing up various radios and radio/antenna combinations on 880 kHz. I tried my Icom IC706 MkIIIG ham transceiver, hooked to the 45-foot indoor end-fed antenna. Nothing heard.

Next, my Grundig Satellit 800 connected to its 4-foot whip antenna. I could hear WCBS barely, but with a horrible buzzing noise. Switching the Satellit 800 to the horizontal room loop antenna I could hear WCBS better, but the noise was really, really nasty.

One way to preserve domestic tranquility is to hide the MFJ Loop behind a curtain!

Then I connected the MFJ 1886 Receive Loop Antenna. Tah-dah! I could hear WCBS just fine, with some noise in the background, but “armchair copy.” The MFJ loop made a huge difference in the quality and strength of the signal. I also tried the MFJ loop with another radio I have under test (its identity to be revealed in the future) and found, while I couldn’t hear WCBS at all with the radio’s internal antenna, the 1886 made an enormous difference, pulling out a fully copyable signal with noise in the background.

Finally, I tried a couple of my portables. My Tecsun 880 could hear WCBS, but the noise level was high enough to be annoying. Finally, I tried my CCrane Skywave SSB. The Skywave did a better job of pulling the signal out of the noise. I got the same result with the CCrane Skywave SSB2. Both Skywaves were using their internal ferrite antennas. Impressive.

Bottom line, for this very small foray into daytime medium wave DXing, the MFJ-1886 Receive Loop Antenna was a powerful and useful tool, one I can easily recommend. Second, when it comes to portables, the CCrane Skywave SSB (either model) continues to show that it is “The Little Radio That Could.”

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