Tag Archives: Paul Walker

Paul schedules new shortwave broadcasts via WRMI, WBCQ and Channel 292

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

I will be doing another broadcast on Shortwave and it’s going to be even bigger and better right now.

Tentatively, this is how the broadcast schedule times/frequencies work out to be:

WBCQ 5110khz and 9330khz Friday March 11th, 2016
10pm to 12midnight Eastern (which is 0300 to 0500 UTC Saturday March 12th)
WRMI 11580khz Thursday March 10th, 2016 Thursday March 10th, 2016
8pm to 10pm Eastern (which is 0100 to 0300utc on Friday March 11th)
Channel 292, 6070khz (Germany transmitter site) Friday March 110th, 2016
10pm to 12midnight UK time (which is 5pm to 7pm eastern, not that Channel 292 can be heard in the US… just giving you a frame of reference)

I am in the process of booking all this time, so something could change in terms of times/dates between now and the broadcast dates.

I’ll be doing 2 hours of rock n roll and country music .. no commercials, no pleading for money, no asking for donations.. just me, playing the music I like.. because. well I want to and I can.

I’m paying for time on all 4 of these stations out of MY OWN POCKET, again for no reason, other then I want to.

So many complain about what radio lacks, wether am, fm or sw and lament about the old days or suggest what would work today.. but want it done with other people’s money.. they won’t put up and shut up. What I do won’t change radio or make much of a difference in the grand scheme of shortwave radio, but I can have fun and share my love of radio and music with others.

I am trying to secure an hour or two on a United Kingdom area AM station as well if it is affordable and I can find one to sell me time.

Writing to you from an apartment only 500 feet from the frozen Yukon river in Alaska’s interior region.

Excellent news, Paul! Please keep us informed as I’m happy to post any updates you may have. We’ll be listening!

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Paul receives report confirmation from BBC test transmission

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

Remember the “transmission tests” from Babcock and Wooferton last summer? I finally got an email QSL…

My original email is first along with an audio sample of what I heard….

Original message sent on Tuesday, August 11, 2015:

I wanted to send you a reception report after hearing your broadcast.

“This Is A Test Transmission” on 15745khz heard at 1655UTC/11:55am Central today (08/10/2015) in Beaumont, Texas (far southeast corner of the state). This is 4 1/2 minutes, recorded until abrupt sign off in mid song.

I used a Sangean ATS909X with a PK’s Loop 6-18mhz tuneable Shortwave loop. The loop can be tuned to a certain frequency with a dial and can be rotated.

Tuning the loop to your exact frequency and orienting it in your general direction resulted in a pretty decent signal with good audio. The signal was about a 5 out of 10 with some fading, but generally pretty steady.

A link to the 4 1/2 minute audio clip is here:

Do you offer QSL’s? I would very much appreciate a QSL card or letter via regular mail if that is possible.

Warmest Regards,
Paul Walker

Fast forward to yesterday (Wednesday, January 27, 2016):

Thank you for your report and I confirm the details are correct. These transmissions were to fault-find on a 300 kW sender at the UK HF transmitter station at Woofferton.

The engineers needed a long test time as the fault was of an intermittent nature.

Babcock, Woofferton is the only remaining UK HF sender broadcast station and also is the only one with this transmission test audio and email address.

The audio is contained in a file playout system and incorporates non-copyright music and voice announcements from one of the employees at the transmitter site.

Thanks for your interest.

Dave G4OYX,

(Retired) Senior Transmitter Engineer Woofferton 1982-2012.

Very cool, Paul! And many thanks to Dave Porter for supplying Paul’s confirmation!

If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend Dave Porter’s video presentation of Woofferton on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/wooffertonuk) and this history of WOF (http://www.bbceng.info/Technical%20Reviews/technical_reviews.htm).

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An iPhone app and Paul’s secret for successful reception reports

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

Wether you do AM, shortwave, longwave, FM or something else, I think this will prove useful.

I have a pretty high return rate when submitting reception reports and asking for QSL cards/letters. I’d say my return rate is probably better than 60 percent, sometimes even 70 or 80 percent. It just depends.

But what helps me so much? EVERY reception report I email or snail mail includes an audio recording. Sometimes it’s only 30 seconds if the signal is really rough, weak or hard to pick out anything useable. Sometimes I include anywhere between 5 minutes and 30 minutes with a detailed report.

Well, how do I record? I use my smartphone! I have an iPhone 6 Plus with 128 GB of storage. iPhones record some of the best audio I’ve ever heard from a smartphone. Androids do a pretty decent job–not as good, but not bad.

The best app I’ve found for this is Voice Recorder Pro 7.

Click here to view Voice Recorder Pro 7 on iTunes.

Voice Recorder Pro 7 Screenshots

You can select the recording format (mp4, mp3 or wav), you can select the sample rate, bit rate (32kbps all the way up to 320kbps), you can select mono or stereo as well.

But where this really comes in handy? You can email the audio file to yourself or someone with the click of a button, you can upload it to a google drive, dropbox, one drive or a box cloud account. You can even have it upload to an FTP server or to your Facebook page if you want!!

The one feature I like is being able to turn audio into a YouTube video and uploading it directly! I was recording videos by holding it up to the radio’s display and while the audio was good, it wasn’t great because it was a bit further away from the speaker so I could show the S meter and frequency on the display.

So what I ended up doing is to put the phone right near the radio’s speaker and start recording… this produces better audio then a straight up video. Then you click a button after the recording is over and it generates the video frames for you, putting a picture there; you fill in the particulars of your video and it uploads it to your YouTube account.

See what I’m talking about here, by viewing my YouTube account:
https://www.youtube.com/user/OnAirDJPaulWalker

You can easily tell which videos were made by me holding up the phone to the radio’s display and which are audio only with the video generated by Voice Recorder Pro 7.

Here’s an audio only track I recorded to give you an idea how it sounds.

https://soundcloud.com/paul-walker-11/radio-mediterranne-international

I don’t recall if they have this app for Android phones, but if they don’t, there’s something similar. It’s worth investigating.

A detailed written report is one thing when requesting a QSL, but audio is indisputable and absolute confirmation of what was heard.

Many thanks for the recommendation, Paul. I use an Android phone (the Moto X 2nd generation). I’m hoping a Post reader can suggest a recording app that is equally robust.

Like you, I typically send an audio recording when submitting a reception report. It’s certainly a valuable piece of information for broadcast engineers. Thanks again!

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Paul’s SWLing videos

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

I think you and your readers might enjoy these videos.

I’ve upgraded from a Tecsun PL880 and Sangean ATS909X to a JRC NRD535D. I live in Camden, Arkansas which is in southern Arkansas, 75 minutes east of Texas and 75 minutes north of Shreveport, Louisiana

When DX’ing on shortwave, I often record a short video with my iPhone 6plus held up close to the radio so you can see the frequency and signal level meter.

I record videos anywhere between 20 seconds and 5 minutes depending on what I feel like at he moment and what I will be using the video for. Sometimes I record a shorter video to post on Facebook then record longer audio via an MP3 recorder in my phone to use in a reception report.

Sometimes I record long 3-5 minute videos and send those to the station instead.

I don’t record everything I hear but what I feel is a worthwhile catch or is interesting. My videos can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/OnAirDJPaulWalker

Thanks for sharing a link to your videos, Paul! You’ve got some good catches in your library. That JRC NRD535D is a great receiver, too–noise floor seems quite low!

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