Tag Archives: Photos

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Santa Bárbara, Honduras

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the following Photo Album guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album: Santa Bárbara, Honduras

by Don Moore

I first set foot in Latin America in January 1982 when I arrived in Tegucigalpa to begin three months of Peace Corps training. Three months later I moved to my Honduran home, the town of Santa Bárbara in the western mountains. For the next two years I worked as a teacher and resource person at the Escuela Normal Mixta de Santa Bárbara, a specialized high school that trained its students to teach primary school.

Santa Bárbara had a shortwave station, La Voz del Junco on 6075 kHz but it was rarely reported because it broadcast irregularly and was usually blocked by big international broadcasters when it was on the air. I had never heard it but I met Miguel Hasbun, the owner-manager, on my first visit to Santa Bárbara when he picked me up hitchhiking north of town. He told me that the shortwave transmitter had been broken down for a while but that he was going to fix it ‘soon’. Over the next year I kept inquiring about the shortwave and he finally did fix it. After that the station broadcast irregularly for the next year or so, mostly in the morning. I served as volunteer veri-signer and issued around fifteen QSLs. I even issued one to myself.

Santa Bárbara had one other radio station, Ondas del Ulúa on 1140 kHz medium wave (later 1150 kHz). They also announced 4770 kHz shortwave in their canned IDs and station staff assured me they would be adding shortwave “soon”. It never did happen but the WRTH did list the frequency as future plans for several years.

Audio:

Ondas del Ulúa 1982 sign-off announcement mentioning 4770 kHz.

The department of Santa Bárbara had one other radio station, Radio Luz y Vida on 1600 and 3250 kHz in the town of San Luis. The founder, manager, and veri-signer for Radio Luz y Vida was a missionary from Oklahoma named Don Moore. Needless to say, this caused a lot of confusion in the DX world as some people assumed he and I were the same person. On the map, San Luis is only about thirty kilometers from Santa Bárbara but getting there involved a five-hour journey on two buses. I only went once and the other Don Moore was out of town, so I never met him. I did meet two nurses who were working at the mission’s health clinic.

Photos

These pictures were all taken in 1982 to 1984 while I lived in Santa Bárbara [click on photos to enlarge].


La Voz del Junco’s yellow sign on main street in downtown Santa Bárbara. The small tower on the left was the corner of what had been an army post but was being used as a regional prison in the early 1980s. I once went there every day for a week to supervise student-teachers doing adult literacy classes for the inmates. It was not a pleasant place to be.


Entrance to La Voz del Junco. The girl is examining a poster for the night’s showing at the makeshift movie theater that Don Miguel operated nearby. Continue reading

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Ecos del Torbes

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the following guest post series:


Don Moore’s Photo Album

by Don Moore

Introduction

When I discovered DXing over fifty years ago I also discovered the world. Through my ears I traveled to other countries and explored other cultures. But DXing has also literally taken me places. My early interest in Latin American DXing developed into a broader interest in Latin America. That led to me joining the Peace Corps after college and working three years in Honduras. That experience furthered my interest in Latin America and I have continued to travel in the region whenever possible. For me DXing and travel were always intertwined. I’m one of a handful of hobbyists who took DXing beyond just listening and went knocking on broadcasters’ doors to visit the distant stations I heard. My ex-wife dubbed this ‘door-to-door DXing.’

To date I’ve visited over 150 radio stations in thirteen countries. A few were medium-wave or FM only, but I was always most interested in visiting broadcasters that used shortwave, either at the time of my visit or a few years before. As my station visits were primarily made in the 1980s and 1990s, almost all of the stations are long-gone from the shortwave bands. However, many are still around on medium wave and FM and often also via streaming on the Internet. As much as I miss the magic of shortwave I know that these stations reach more listeners today via streaming than they ever did with their low-powered shortwave transmitters. Honestly, I sometimes enjoy tuning them in without the fading and static of shortwave. But the memories of what shortwave once was are still there.

Photos also bring back memories. I took dozens of pictures on my station visits and enjoy scrolling through them now and then. You may have seen some of them. Many of my photos were printed with articles I wrote for various DX publications and I’ve done a few slide-shows at DX get-togethers over the years.

In this series of columns I want to share my old photos once again. If you’ve been DXing as long as I have maybe they’ll bring back memories of what you once heard. And if you haven’t been around that long you will have a better understanding of the good old days we oldtimers talk about.

Ecos Del Torbes

There is no better place to start this journey than with Ecos del Torbes. Using ten kilowatts on 4980 kHz, this Venezuelan broadcaster was possibly the most consistent station in the sixty-meter band throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. If you were DXing the tropical bands during those years you surely logged them a few times. If you were lucky you may even have heard their one kilowatt signal on 9640 kHz. They were a very good verifier and for many DXers Ecos del Torbes was among the first Latin American stations QSLed.

Just after Christmas in 1994, my then-wife, four-year-old daughter, and I flew to Mérida in western Venezuela for a family vacation. For ten days we had a great time in this Andean city and then Theresa and Rebecca returned to Iowa while I stayed another week to visit radio stations. I was also getting paid by the Voice of America to research and write a study on the media scene in Andean Venezuela. The now very-out-of-date report can be read at my Patepluma Radio website (which hasn’t been changed in over twenty years and is in need of a facelift).

In that week I visited fifteen radio stations in six towns and cities and Ecos del Torbes was the highlight. I arrived at their doorstep unannounced but was immediately treated as an important guest. I was given a great tour and even got to sit in on a live newscast to see the famous Venezuelan doorbell being used live. I was there about ninety minutes and then walked a block up the street to sister station Radio Táchira. Their facilities were smaller but that’s where the technical offices were and Chief Engineer Ivan Escobar had been told to expect me. Ivan gave me a tour and invited me to visit the Ecos del Torbes transmitter site with him in the afternoon. On the way we stopped by his house where his wife had lunch waiting for us. Visiting Ecos del Torbes was not just the highlight of this trip but ranks as one of my all-time favorite station visits. These pictures bring back many good memories.

Photos

Ecos del Torbes was located in the second floor of this building in downtown San Cristóbal. The entrance was the door on the side.

The small plaque next to the door was easy to miss. I walked right by the first time.

Edgar Fabala of the news department showed me around. Here he demonstrates the mini-xylophones that Venezuelan stations used to make the distinctive ‘doorbell’ sound that separated items in the news reports.

Announcer in the studio preparing to read the news.

The adjoining control room.

Ecos del Torbes had one of the largest record libraries in Venezuela. The LPs were color-coded by type.

Julio Achila was a control room operator who had worked at the station since it opened in 1947.

This pennant was considerably larger than the ones sent to DXers.

Sister station Radio Táchira was located a block up the street on the fourth floor of this building.

The Ecos del Torbes transmitter building.

The 50 kilowatt medium wave transmitter on 780 kHz.

Chief Engineer Ivan Escobar and Don Moore next to the 31 meter transmitter. The larger transmitter was for the well-heard 4980 kHz frequency.

The antenna array used for 4980 kHz. The medium wave tower is in the background.

Dipole antenna used for 9640 kHz.

San Cristóbal once had a third broadcaster on shortwave. Radio San Sebastian used 6070 kHz in the early 1970s. (They were not affiliated with Ecos del Torbes).

That was nearly three decades ago and a lot has changed. Ecos del Torbes and Radio Táchira have been gone from shortwave for over twenty years.

In 1995 Ecos del Torbes was at the corner of Calle 9 and Carrera 8, the same address as when I first QSLed them in 1972. Sometime since my visit they moved an outer neighborhood about two kilometers to the east. To find the new offices locate San Cristóbal on Google maps and then search for “Grupo Radial Gonzalez Lovera”. The transmitter site is still where I visited it and can be seen by plugging the coordinates “7.7885, -72.2725” into Google maps and switching to satellite view. (Ignore the picture that pops up to the side. That’s not it.) Zooming in, the medium wave tower is clearly visible but there are no signs of the old shortwave antennas. I suspect they were sold for scrap years ago. I never have found out where the Radio Táchira transmitter site was.

I’d love to go back to Venezuela someday and see some of the other cities that I used to listen to, such as Barquisimeto, Valencia, El Tigre, and Sucre. Unfortunately the political and economic situation there doesn’t look good and it doesn’t look as if it will improve any time soon. But when it does, I’ll be back.


Click here to check out all of Don Moore’s Photo Album columns. Each new article will appear on the SWLing Post home page/feed and in this link.

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A photo tour of the 2022 Shelby Hamfest

On Friday, September 2, 2022, I had just enough time in my schedule to visit the Shelby Hamfest for a couple of hours.

The Shelby Hamfest–referred to, locally, as “The Grand-Daddy of them All”–has long been regarded as one of the largest outdoor hamfests in the southeast US.

Shelby Photo Gallery

Weather was ideal for the hamfest: clear skies, sunshine and very dry. It was quite hot, though! Attendance was much lower than I’ve ever seen at the Shelby Hamfest in the past, but then again this was also my first Friday attending; typically I visit on Saturday which is historically the busiest day.

Continue reading

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Alexander shares a few photos and notes from Hamradio 2022 in Friedrichshafen

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alexander (DL4NO), who shares the following photos and notes from Friedrichshafen:


First Hamradio After Two Years

Alexander (DL4NO)

Finally the biggest amateur radio event in Europe happened again: Last weekend hams from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, GB and more gathered in Friedrichshafen. The location is quite attractive, in Germany but near Austria and Switzerland. I could not get any numbers yet. But the event was quite a bit smaller than in 2017 when I was there the last time.

As every year amateur radio societies from Europe and the ARRL had booths. The most remarkable was from the Austrian OeVSV with their own stage. They had their own, quite interesting lectures. For example Austrian Hams have used the geostationary satellite QO-100 for LoRa experiments. They are quite active with LoRa as this technology allows to transmit data quite slowly, but quite far and with a minimum of power. Their project is called MeshCom. Continue reading

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Photos from an Antique Wireless Association meeting in 2000

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David, who shares the following random photos he recently inherited and scanned. These were taken at an Antique Wireless Association meeting (AWA) from 2000. Click on images to enlarge:

Thank you for sharing these David!

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Photo emerges of Droitwich mast and LF antenna

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dave Porter, who writes:

This picture [above] has just emerged, photographer unknown but most likely a rigger from the top of one of the 700′ masts there!

This was taken at Droitwich sometime after colour photography came in (late 1960’s) and before 1986 when the four wire Tee was replaced by a new design developed by BBC Antenna Engineer Tony Preedy, G3LNP that improved upon the 11-j85 Ohms driving point impedance giving a few more ohms and less capacitive reactance for the 2 x 250kW B6042 transmitters and a greater radiation efficiency.

Tony’s present LF array does not look so symmetrical as it comprises four separate Tee wires with the drops as a square box rather than the centre-joined drops of this one.

Tony also developed a low profile Tee antenna over 3 x 17m wooden telegraph poles for MF at up to 1 kW that was used when planning restrictions were enforced. Efficiencies were up to 40% at the 1500 kHz end of the band. However, if used by birds as an overnight roost it could provoke VSWR trips on solid state transmitters, the fix was to use a sliding reduced power detector that wound down the power to a level that did not trip the VSWR monitoring. Old tube transmitters were not affected!

The operating frequency for this LF Tee was 200 kHz at that time, now the antenna is on 198 kHz

Wow–thank you, Dave, for sharing this photo. We truly appreciate your impressive knowledge of UK broadcasting and history! And, wow! The views those riggers took in!

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Massive photo galleries of the Dayton Hamvention

This is the first year I’ve missed the Dayton Hamvention since 2009. As I mentioned in a previous post–besides hanging with my friends–I really enjoy browsing the flea market and inside exhibits looking for deals and cool innovations.

In 2016, I took loads of photos of both the Hamvention Flea Market and Inside Exhibits. I did this partly thinking it would be our last year holding the Hamvention at Hara Arena (turns out, I was absolutely correct).  Post readers asked that in 2017, I take photos of the new venue at the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia, OH, so I did.

I enjoy taking and sharing these photos so much, I’ve continued to collect hundreds of photos every year since to help document how the largest ham radio gathering event changes over time.

In the flea market, I try to include price tags when possible to give our international readers an idea of how much vintage gear costs.

If you’d like to take a trip down memory lane with me, check out the linked photo galleries below:

Hamvention Photos

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015 (smaller gallery)

2014 (smaller galleries)

 


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