Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Charles, who writes:
Thomas, you might find this movie review of “The Russian Woodpecker” interesting. Looks like the film is more conspiracy than investigative reporting. Too bad. Having dealt with Woodpecker noise during my ham radio career, it would have been fun to know more about the motivation behind building that enormous OTH radar:
http://www.avclub.com/review/russian-woodpecker-offers-plenty-conspiracy-little-226743
Two weeks ago, I received a mystery package in the mail: a copy of the October 2015 issue of CQ Ham Radio magazine, sent directly from the publisher in Tokyo, Japan.
Supplement magazine shipped with the October issue.
Since I can’t speak or read Japanese, I was very confused why I would receive a copy.
Out of curiosity, last week, I opened the magazine to see what sort of articles it contained.
In short: I was very impressed. While I couldn’t read the content, of course, I was able to get an idea of the scope of this magazine–it contained numerous articles, news items, reviews and photos.
I was pleased to note a section that focused on good etiquette for amateur radio exchanges in English. After all, if you are a Japanese DXer, you will need to know enough English to log DX stations around the world as English is the staple DX language. Japanese hams are well known for their excellent on-air etiquette–ask anyone who has been on a DXpedition.
The magazine is thick, too; most of the pages are black and white news print, but there are several color/glossy sections as well. This particular issue was even mailed with a separate supplement magazine containing a history of ham radio ads throughout the years. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
Once I landed on the page above, I quickly realized why I had been sent a courtesy copy of the magazine: my SDRplay RSP review had been translated and published. It was then I remembered granting permission to have the article translated into Japanese for a ham radio magazine. I had completely forgotten!
I’m honored my review was printed in CQ ham radio, but most of all, it has been fascinating to browse through what appears to be an excellent radio publication. I offer my gratitude to the translator who took the time to edit my article.
As many of you know, I’ve been catching up on correspondence recently as the past few weeks have been quite hectic.
SWLing Post reader, Andy (G0FTD), sent the following message several weeks ago, but is still seeking help:
I came across your website recently, so good to read something dealing with proper SWLing!
Last night I set up an experiment on 279Khz.
This is because of my interest in something called QRSS beacons in amateur radio. I use the HF bands, but recently became interested in the LF bands, 136 / 475Khz amateur bands and propagation.
I thought it would be interesting to test for the times that the day / nightime occurs at LF.
To do this I decided to use 279Khz, which by rights only has 2 transmitters on them, and at a convenient distance.
The only list I have says that Belarus and Turkey operate transmitters, so in theory I should only see 2 traces on my Argo software.
But I was surprised to see 3 traces.
Two of them have about a 1Hz offset to the main one, exactly on 279Khz.
I wonder if your readers can confirm the transmitters ?
Maybe Belarus is operating two TX sites with the offset, and the other is Turkey ?
You can see that the two offset ones go QRT at the same time.
If you can help Andy, please comment. Again, Andy, apologies for the delay in posting your inquiry!
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, David LW4DAF, who shares this link from RCI news:
After seven days of walking, a group of supporters of Canada’s public broadcaster, has reached its goal on Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa.
The group calling itself “Tous Amis de Radio-Canada” is protesting the severe budgte cutbacks to the institution. They, and the English equivalent “Friends of the CBC” say the funding reductions from the federal government have resulted in severe staff reductions in the past couple of years, along with an inability to properly fulfill its role.
The group of marchers and supporters stood on Parliament Hill today after walking about 200 km to arrive in the capital on this National thanksgiving holiday to deliver a message to politicians now in the final stretch of a close federal election campaign.
The group says that Radio-Canada/CBC has always been a vital national cultural institution, and critical source of Canadian viewpoints on world affairs. It notes however, that role is increasingly more important in the light of a globalized digital world, where the voice of Canada as a producer, distributor, and aggregator of domestic and world news from a Canadian perspective, current affairs, and Canadian entertainment, is often swamped by the vastly bigger content from foreign sources.
I’m having difficulty remembering who sent me a link to the ITU Monitoring Programme, but I am most grateful.
What is the monitoring programme? Here’s the description from the ITU website:
“The objective of this monitoring programme is to identify stations whose emissions in bands between 2 850 kHz and 28 000 kHz are not in conformity with the RR and to provide administrations that do not have monitoring facilities with information for frequency management purposes.
?The Bureau prepares a publication containing spectrum monitoring information in the frequency bands between 2 850 kHz and 28 000 kHz submitted by administrations in accordance with BR Circular-letter CR/159 of 9 May 2001.”
The data can be downloaded in spreadsheet format, organized by monitoring date. It’s an amazing amount of information–a decent survey of what can be found on the bands.
A propagation poster in the foyer of RCI’s Sackville, NB, transmitter site only months before the site was closed. (Photo: Thomas Witherspoon)
Tom Laskowski, has been generously contributing a number of off-air shortwave radio recordings to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive (SRAA).
Recently, he shared a series I’m sure many of you remember. Tom writes:
“My first contribution of many recordings I have of Radio Canada International’s Shortwave Listener’s Digest hosted by Ian McFarland.”
“The first 12 1/2 minutes is Bonsoir Africa. The recording was made using a cheap GE portable. The audio quality isn’t great but it’s still very nostalgic listening to a program I recorded 34 years ago.”
This brings back many memories of one of my favorite shortwave programs–thank you, Tom!
The audio quality actually reminds me of one of my first analog portables, Tom! Nostalgia at its best.
Check out all Tom’s SRAA contributions by clicking here. While you’re at it, bookmark the SRAA!
Many thanks to SWLing Post readers, Mark and Alan, who were both recently notified by C.Crane that the CC Skywave has been updated.
Mike purchased the CC Skywave early this year after reading our review. He was disappointed to find out, though, that a local radio station (in his urban location) overloaded the Skywave’s front end, causing imaging and other problems.
Mike, along with other Skywave owners, notified C.Crane about the issue and returned their units.
C.Crane passed along this feedback to their engineers, who have updated the CC Skywave accordingly. C.Crane believes the latest production run will be immune to this sort of overloading. [Kudos to C.Crane for listening to customer feedback.]
I contacted C.Crane yesterday–they recommend ordering directly from their website to insure your unit is coming from the latest production run. It’s possible that some of their distributors could still have some of the older units in inventory for the next few weeks. At least, to be certain, you should check with the distributor directly.
To be clear, I’ve never noted the overloading issue on my Skywave, but I live in a rural area with no blowtorch stations nearby. If you live near an AM broadcaster, and are considering the CC Skywave, you should certainly purchase the updated unit.
Click here to view/purchase the CC Skywave on C.Crane’s website.
Again, many thanks to Mike and Alan for the tip!