Tag Archives: Bill Meara

From SolderSmoke: Watching Shortwave Broadcast Stations on the TinySA Spectrum Analyser

Curtain Antennas at VOA Site B: Greenville, North Carolina.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and friend, Bill Meara, from the amazing SolderSmoke podcast who shares the following post that originally appeared on the SolderSmoke Daily News:

Watching Shortwave Broadcast Stations on the TinySA Spectrum Analyser

by Bill Meara

November 18, 2022 1244 UTC. I was using a TinySA spectrum analyzer to look at noise levels on the 40 meter ham radio band. I also wanted to take a look slightly above the band (in frequency) to see Radio Marti at 7355 kHz. As I was doing this I remembered that Vatican Radio was on the air at 7305 kHz from 1230 UTC to 1245 UTC. So was just going to catch the last moments of that day’s transmissions. Sure enough, I caught it, and watched it disappear from the TinySA screen. See the video below:

Click her to view on YouTube.

Radio Marti continued on. In the morning we can hear the rooster recordings from that station. We are using it to test how well our homebrew Direct Conversion receivers avoid AM detection. In the video I mistakenly said these two transmitters were on the air with 250 megawatts. The correct power is 250 kilowatts. Both transmit from Greenville NC. I think the signal from Vatican Radio is stronger here because they are using a different antenna pattern — Radio Marti is aimed at Cuba.

This reminds me of a cool project I have not yet done: modifying the TinySA to allow the user to listen to the station: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-to-listen-with-your-tinysa.html I notice that Dean KK4DAS (my colleague in DC receiver design) was the only commenter on the blog post describing the TinySA mod. TRGHS. We need to to do this.

Here are the reports showing when Vatican Radio and Radio Marti were on the air on November 18, 2022:

Thank you for sharing this, Bill. I love it! The TinySA is such an affordable and useful workbench tool.

Post readers: If you love building things and exploring a wide range of radio projects, I highly recommend bookmarking the SolderSmoke Podcast and website.

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WU2D and “Dream” SW Receivers of the 1960s and 70s

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara, who shares this most recent post from his excellent SolderSmoke Podcast blog:

Mike WU2D Looks at the “Dream” SW Receivers of the 1960s and 70s (Video)

Wow, I really liked Mike’s walk down memory lane. I saw several of my own dream receivers:

S-38E. Indeed, this little monster did add some danger to your life. AKA “The Widow Maker,” I gave one to my cousin’s husband so he could listen to what the commies on Radio Moscow were saying. He later told me that the receiver had given him a shock. I now have TWO S-38Es in my shack (two more than I really need). I have installed isolation transformers in both of them, so they have lost the one element (danger!) that made them attractive.

HA-600A. I got this one for Christmas in 1972. The A model is MUCH better than the plain vanilla HA-600. I recently got another HA-600A and found serious deficiencies in the Product Detector. Has anyone else noticed these problems? BACKGROUND INFO AND A PLEA FOR MORE INFO HERE: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=HA-600A+Product+Detector

HQ-100. Got one in the Dominican Republic. Fixed it up, repairing damages caused by radio life in the tropics. Disabled the goofy audio amplifier circuitry. I now wonder if this receiver might benefit from the insertion of a 455 kc ceramic filter.

NC190. Wow “Cosmic Blue” Perhaps this was an early influence that led to “Juliano Blue?”

HQ-180. “18 tubes and almost as many knobs!” FB!

HRO-500. Love the dial.

Transoceanic. Never had one, but built a BFO for the Transoceanic that W8NSA took with him to SE Asia during the war.

R-390A. I don’t have a crane for the workbench.

Thanks Mike — that was a lot of fun.

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With your help, Bill would like to take a deep dive into Mailbags!

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara, from the excellent Soldersmoke Podcast, who writes:

Thomas:

A recent comment on the SS blog about the roots of our podcast got me thinking about one of our favorite segments: the Mailbag.

I know that in coming up with this segment — and its name — I was influenced by the shortwave broadcast stations I listened to as a kid.

Today I did a bit of Googling to find out which ones had Mailbags.

Turns out that the practice and the term almost certainly originated at Radio Moscow. You will find this interesting:

https://rijmenants.blogspot.com/2020/05/radio-moscow-and-cold-war.html

HCJB had DX-Party Line, but I don’t know if they had a segment called Mailbag. It may have been just one big mailbag!

Radio Romania still has one (I think). As does Radio Havana Cuba.

I saw one reference to a Canadian “Maple Leaf Mailbag” but I don’t recall ever hearing this.

Any other Mailbags out there?

73 Bill

I, too, have a lot of nostalgia for Mailbag shows. As you note, there are still quite a few on the air. Radio Romania International always comes to mind and also the many reader notes Jeff White addresses in Wavescan on WRMI. I was called out on the Maple Leaf Mailbag a number of times, but that was more than a decade ago now (wow–next year, RCI will have been off the air for a decade! Let that sink in!).

I’m sure there are many more.

SWLing Post readers: Can you please comment with any active Mailbag shows you know of currently on the shortwaves? Perhaps mention the broadcaster and program name and any of your favorites. Thank you in advance!

While you’re at it, check out the Solder Smoke podcast!

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Bill solves the CRI echo mystery

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A few days ago, I posted an article about Bill Meara (producer of the SolderSmoke Podcast) who was hearing audio echoes on his home brew regenerative receiver.

Bill has now solved this mystery (hint: it’s all about the receiver):
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2014/09/radio-china-international-echo-mystery.html

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Hearing echoes on China Radio International

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Bill Meara, producer of the popular SolderSmoke Podcast, recently recorded audio echoes on a couple of his home brew regenerative receivers. Bill posted the following video, of his regen receiver tuned to China Radio International:

After Bill measured the echo delay at .133 seconds, he believes one possibility is that they originate from a propagation opening much like Lyle recorded on a 10 meter band opening last year (click here to listen to the audio and read the post).

A few days later, Bill recorded a similar echo effect while tuned to Brother Stair (Overcomer Ministries) on a different regenerative receiver. Click here to read the post and view the video.

The fact that Bill measured a .133 second delay (the amount of time it would take for a signal to circle the globe), makes me believe he’s hearing an echo similar to Lyle. But I must admit, I’m a bit amazed that a faint AM echo could penetrate blowtorch signals like CRI and Brother Stair’s relay generate State side.

Readers: What’s going on here? Is Bill catching rare propagation openings–or perhaps ducting in the Earth’s magnetosphere and ionosphere–or is there another explanation?

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