Tag Archives: Mike (K8RAT)

BBC mothballs idea of forced move to digital broadcasting

1 Reply

(Source: The Telegraph via Mike Hansgen)

BBC to keep broadcasting on FM

For years fans of wireless radios have campaigned to stop the apparently inevitable march of progress as Britain prepares to switch off its crackling analogue signal and become totally digital.

But now, the BBC will announce that it has shelved plans to force listeners to replace their analogue radios with DAB sets.

In a move that will also be welcomed by the two million motorists with analogue car radios, the corporation will admit for the first time that FM broadcasts must continue to keep audiences on side as music streaming and podcasts threaten its traditional strongholds.[…]

Click here to read this article on The Telegraph (content behind paywall).

 

Spread the radio love

Kuwait updates shortwave transmitters

5 Replies

(Source: Kuwait News Agency via Mike Hansgen)

KUWAIT, March 8 (KUNA) — Minister of Information Mohammad Al-Jabri on Thursday opened a project updating shortwave transmitters from analogue to digital radio mondiale (DRM) broadcasting systems, at Kabd radio station.

This is a new achievement for the ministry to be added to a series of vital projects that aim to keep pace with the rapid technical progress around the globe, Al-Jabri told KUNA and the Kuwait TV.

Kabd station, through the new DRM system, will allow “Kuwait’s voice” to reach the entire Middle East region, Europe and Asia, he noted.

Kuwaitis have planned and supervised the project, the minister said, noting that updating the infrastructure of radio stations aims to cope with latest digital broadcasting development, the minister said.

Al-Jabri praised officials, and all the personnel at the ministry’s Engineering Affairs Sector, for their hard sincere efforts.

Click here to read the full article at the KUNA website.

Spread the radio love

The importance of community radio in Guatemala

1 Reply

(Source: Aljazeera via Mike Hansgen)

Despite the legal challenges, Indigenous communities use radio to ‘keep their language and culture alive’.

Sumpango, Guatemala – Sitting in a courtyard, wearing an indigenous huipil dress, Amanda Chiquito glows as she talks about the challenges and successes of working with the community radio station in Sumpango Sacatepequez, Guatemala.

“There is no media that represents our community,” the 25-year-old says.

“There wasn’t a media outlet that could inform us and keep our culture and language alive,” she tells Al Jazeera.

Chiquito is a reporter and radio host at Ixchel Radio, the only community station in Sumpango Sacatepequez, a small town 42km from Guatemala’s capital.

More than 95 percent of the town’s 50,000 inhabitants are indigenous, living in remote areas, where access to information and technology is limited.[…]

Click here to read the full article at Aljazeera.

Spread the radio love

FCC cracking down on Colorado pirates

14 Replies

Way High Radio’s studio.

(Source: Westword via Mike Hansgen)

Will the FCC Sink Pirate Radio in Colorado?

Word spread quickly about the mysterious unmarked black SUV parked at a highway exit just outside the town of Ward on January 24. In the self-sufficient mountain community perched at 9,500 feet, strangers always attract attention. But the strangers in the SUV weren’t just a curiosity; they were enforcement agents with the Federal Communications Commission, and they presented a real threat to a beloved community resource.

Since 1997, Ward had played host to an unlicensed FM radio station called Way High Radio. Colloquially known as “pirate” stations, radio operations such as Way High Radio are expressly forbidden by the FCC, which regulates America’s airwaves. That the station had been able to illegally broadcast from 90.5 FM for so many years was largely thanks to the isolation of the mountain town, roughly an hour-and-a-half drive from the FCC’s enforcement office in Denver.

When DJ Willy (not his real name) heard about the federal agents parked near town, he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was a moment he’d been dreading for a long time. But he’d also studied up on FCC enforcement, and knew the agents would want to catch someone actually inside the radio station’s studio, a small trailer located next to Ward’s town hall with an antenna on top and a wooden sign that proclaimed “Office of Human Rights.”[…]

Continue reading the full article at Westword.

Click here to view Way High Radio’s website.

Spread the radio love

CBC: “1940s transmitter finds new home in old jail”

1 Reply

Some of you might recall our story about this 1940s RCA transmitter–here’s is the follow-up:

(Source: CBC via Mike Hansgen)

The massive transmitter is being moved from the former RCI site to the former Dorchester jail

Bill Steele is a collector of odd things. A year ago, for example, he bought the site of the last double hanging in New Brunswick.

His latest purchase is less morbid but also a rare find: a massive 1940 shortwave transmitter that once broadcast Canada’s stories around the world.

The transmitter was installed around the end of the Second World War and used until the 1970s. The Radio Canada International site outside Sackville continued to broadcast, but the 50 kW transmitter, five metres long and 2½ metres wide, was decommissioned and used as a showpiece.

The RCI property was bought in February 2017 by Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’taqnn Inc., which had no use for the non-functioning equipment and put it up for sale.

Steele couldn’t help himself.

“I like weird and unusual stuff,” he said. “That’s why I’m putting it in my jail.”

He bought his jail — now a gym and bed and breakfast — last year as a retirement project. Guests bunk in a decommissioned jail cell.

The jail built in the 19th century was where the Bannister brothers of Berry Mills were hanged for murder in 1936, the last double hanging in the province.

Steele’s enthusiasm for historical objects is infectious even when he talks about the paperwork that comes with his latest purchase.

[…]Steele is hoping anyone with stories about the transmitter will share them with him on his Dorchester jail Facebook page, because, as Steele is the first to admit, this isn’t his area of expertise.

“I’ve never touched a shortwave radio, but look it, I’m going to have the biggest one in Canada.”

Click here to view at the CBC website.

Spread the radio love