Shortwave listening and everything radio including reviews, broadcasting, ham radio, field operation, DXing, maker kits, travel, emergency gear, events, and more
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov (NO2CW) who shares the following:
I finally got around to listening through some of the amateur radio band spectrum captures from the 2017 Solar Eclipse QSO party. I used an SDRPlay receiver with an end fed LNR antenna in portable field setting in Nashville, TN.
About 30 minutes of solar eclipse contacts and chatter:
Thank you, Ivan, for taking the time to put this video together and sharing it. The RSP did a fantastic job capturing this spectrum–I do love the SDRuno application for reviewing spectrum recordings as well. Cheers!
As I mentioned in a previous post, I recorded the entire mediumwave (AM broadcast) band from my North Carolina home with a WinRadio Excalibur on August 21 (day of the eclipse). After receiving Ivan’s message last night, I played back my recording and moved the time forward to around the moment of totality.
The mediumwave band was hopping! Several stations were competing for 1360 kHz with eclipse-enhanced propagation. There were two large signals flanking 1360 as well.
I thought I would never hear WNAH, but as I listened, their ID in CW (Morse Code) popped out of the signal mix. Here’s a short recording of the first station ID I received around 2:26 PM EDT (1826 UTC):
True: this is rough audio, but it always amazes me how CW can so effectively punch through noise. Nice touch, WNAH!
WNAH’s signal strength increased with time, but so did the competing signals on 1360 kHz. Within 10 minutes, about the time of totality in western North Carolina, WNAH was 40% stronger.
I did submit my recording and notes to WNAH last night.
Due to my schedule, I haven’t had any meaningful time to go over my eclipse spectrum recordings. Indeed, I think I’ll need several dedicated days to review them. While searching for WNAH’s signal, I could see a significant difference in propagation on the waterfall display within a 26 minute span of time:
14:15 EDT
14:41 EDT
Note that local time of totality was 14:36 EDT.
I made spectrum recordings spanning 0-2 MHz, 6-8 MHz and 13.5-15 MHz.
Post readers: Did anyone else log WNAH? Log any other shortwave or mediumwave DX? Please comment!
The Arecibo Radio Telescope, at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. At 1000 feet (305 m) across, it is the second largest dish antenna in the world. (Source: Wikipedia)
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov, who writes:
Thomas, I did not see a story on the blog about the HF atmospheric heating experiments conducted by the Arecibo observatory a couple of weeks ago.
Indeed, I did miss posting this item. The event timing conflicted with my travel schedule in a bad way. Sadly, I only had one opportunity to tune in and I did too late (by just a couple of minutes!) that day.
Did anyone else catch the on-air experiments from Arecibo?
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov (NO2CW), who writes:
My 11 year old son Tommy (N1SPY) completed a project where he compared a 1W lightbulb to a .25 W radio beacon that he put together and bet that the radio beacon can be heard around the world. I asked him to document his activities as he went along. The project took a couple of months but is now complete and we stitched together a video of his activities.
I especially like how you’ve taken time to explain the principles behind the various steps of the process. Brilliant job!
Tommy, your future videos are always welcome here. Keep up the good work and we’d love to hear how many new countries you’ve racked up on your WSPR system!
The receiver comes with its own WinTV software for tuning, scanning, watching and recording TV programs. It is one of the few USB dongle size receivers for North America’s ATSC digital TV standard. A have posted a video of my reception recordings from a roundtrip flight Miami to St Louis.
Reception from commercial airplanes is possible as far as 400 miles with the simple unobtrusive “stick” antenna.
Channel scanning is pretty slow and it is possible that by the time you detect a signal, save it, and tune to it you are 50 miles away from the point where you detected it.
Many times signals are detected but no video can be shown due to weak signal. Users in Europe may have a different experience as the availability of DVB-T USB dongles and software is much wider.
TV DX can make a coast to coast flight a much more interesting experience!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov, who shares the following:
[W]hile on a cruise ship 30 miles off the coast of Cuba (January 2017) I pointed a small active antenna towards the island and scanned for old fashioned analog TV.
The results show analog TV is alive and well in Cuba! Multiple programs on multiple channels.
From what I understand Cuba has selected the Chinese digital TV standard but using their own channel spacing so I am not aware of any receivers that can pick up Cuba’s digital TV transmissions.
I posted the YouTube video of my channel scan here:
Thomas, not sure if this is something relevant but airlines now state it is OK to use an am/fm radio on board aircraft.
Not much possibilities for AM unfortunately but on a recent flight from Ft Lauderdale to Dallas and Albuquerque I hooked up an SDRPlay receiver to a 3 inch stick antenna and recorded a few stations I was able to pick up along the way.
I did take a few more videos flying between JFK and MIA as well.
I used the following equipment:
1. 13 inch laptop that I also use for work
2. SDRPlay receiver
3. Old scanner antenna that I happened to have
4. SDRUno software to drive the radio
5. Screen recorder that comes with the Win 10 Xbox app
6. Windows movie maker to stitch the individual clips together and annotate
If needed, the size of the setup above can shrink further if a smaller laptop/tablet is used and an RTL dongle instead of SDRPlay.
You will also need to equip yourself with a window seat. Otherwise, signals are significantly weaker.
I did not place the antenna in a special position, just next to me on the seat where it could not be noticed by other passengers. I uploaded a few more videos from my weekly shuttle flights between MIA an JFK.
Ivan NO2CW
Wow! Thanks so much, for sharing this, Ivan.
I’ve always packed a simple FM-capable radio in my one, compact carry on bag and typically try a little FM DX travel while in flight. I was never aware there was a restriction on using an FM receiver in flight, but I’ve always kept my radio listening very discrete so it’s never been a problem.
I love the idea of doing in-flight FM spectrum captures! It would be fun to watch signals on the spectrum shift and change as the flight progresses. Very cool, Ivan!
Post readers: Have you ever made in-flight FM spectrum captures like Ivan? Please comment!
Spread the radio love
Please support this website by adding us to your whitelist in your ad blocker. Ads are what helps us bring you premium content! Thank you!
