Tag Archives: Shortwave Radio

Introducing EARL: a rugged, solar-powered GPS and Android tablet with built-in shortwave radio

The Earl Backcountry Survival Tablet

A good friend recently introduced me to the Earl Backcountry Survival Tablet; a crowd-funded project that may very well come to fruition.

What makes this tablet really stand out are its impressive list of features which are all based on outdoor survival/adventure. Features include:

A rugged, waterproof/weatherproof body; IP67 rated!
Built-in solar panel
20 hour battery life
An E-Ink, touch sensitive display screen
An excellent GPS chipset
ANT+ and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity for devices to measure heart rate, pace and cadence
Android Beam technology
Built-in thermometer for measuring temperature, hygrometer for measuring the water density of air (humidity) with dew point, barometer for measuring air pressure and altitude and an anemometer (micro hot-wire) for measuring wind speed
A two-way radio featuring a FRS, GMRS and MURS transceiver. Earl can send secure text or voice messages via Walkie-Talkie; transmit weather, location, and route information
An eReader
A radio receiver that covers AM (medium wave), FM, LW, NOAA weather radio (North America) and Shortwave
Much more: check out the Earl project page

Of course, I’m very interested in Earl’s receiver. Not only does it cover shortwave, but it covers a very wide frequency range (2.3 – 21.85 MHz)! Most impressive.

I don’t expect Earl to be a fantastic performer on the shortwave and medium wave bands–I doubt it’ll compare to the PL-390, for example– but perhaps it will be good enough to hear the major broadcasters. An inductively coupled loop antenna may help on AM (medium-wave). A port for an external SW antenna, would be a major plus.

Better yet, with the right Android app, I bet Earl could decode VOA Radiograms on the fly. Imagine being miles away from civilization, far out of reach of 3G/4G mobile systems, yet you’d be able to receive your news on your eReader over the shortwaves.

A dream? Perhaps, but one that’s well within grasp.

Pre-ordering/Backing

At time of posting, Earl is 90% funded. You can pre-order Earl for $249 US–a 30% discount from projected retail. (A price that is only $100 more than a Sony ICF-SW7600GR.)

I just pre-ordered an Earl. I will plan to give a full review here on the SWLing Post. They expect to ship production units in August 2013. If they don’t receive funding, all pre-sales purchases will be refunded in full.

If you would like to back this project, check out Earl’s full list of features and pre-order on their website: http://www.meetearl.com/

New large portable shortwave radio in the works?

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(Source: bbs.tecsun.com.cn)

Gary writes:

It looks like a new, large portable radio — along the lines of the Redsun RP2100 — is on the way. At least this one includes a direct-entry keypad and SSB, like the RP3100 is supposed to.

http://herculodge.typepad.com/herculodge/2013/04/another-large-portable-all-band-radio-to-be-released.html

I hope they can do good QC, and keep the sample to sample variation low.

Thanks, Gary. It does look like a variation of the of the RP3100. Sounds like it’s not a Redsun product, but may have been ported from one of their engineers for JiDian. It certainly has the trademark look. If this is true, there’s a possibility that C.Crane could bring this to North America. Perhaps it’s the next radio in line to succeed the CCRadio SW? Though a great radio, the CCRadio-SW is getting a little long in the tooth.

Al Jazeera: Radio Free Sarawak offers alternative voice ahead of elections

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Clandestine station, Radio Free Sarawak, offers an alternative voice in Malaysia ahead of elections next week. For those living in remote jungle communities–places where the Internet is not readily available–Radio Free Sarawak can be heard on shortwave radio.

Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi reports from a village in Sarawak:

Added to other posts tagged: Why Shortwave Radio?

MP criticism over BBC World Service’s uncertain budget

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(Source: BBC News)

Uncertainty about the BBC World Service budget as the corporation prepares to take on full funding of the service is “unacceptable”, MPs have warned.

Foreign Office funding for the service will stop in April 2014 when it will be paid for out of the licence fee.

The Foreign Affairs Committee said the World Service could not “plan properly” because the BBC had yet to issue an operating licence to define its budget.

[…]A World Service spokesman said the change in funding next April, when it will be integrated with the BBC’s domestic news services, “provides certainty and stability”.

But the committee of MPs said it did not see how the World Service could prepare when it would not know “either the priorities, targets or characteristics which have been set for it, or its budget” until a few months before the change came into force.

[…]The committee also warned that, while it was logical to withdraw shortwave radio in dwindling markets where audiences had access to the internet and TV, such services still had a place.

“The World Service must continue to take into account significant audiences in certain parts of the world, such as rural India and Africa, who currently rely on shortwave radio,” it added.

The committee’s report, which also covers the work of the Foreign Office and the British Council, also warns that the UK risks losing credibility if more senior diplomats are not fluent in a range of languages.

Read the full article at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22208426

Thanks for the tip, Andy.

Shortwave Radio Recordings: NHK Radio Japan

Heritage Foundation: BBG isn’t listening

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(Source: Heritage Foundation)

U.S. international broadcasting strategy again landed under congressional scrutiny in Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

Representative Brad Sherman (D–CA) wanted to know why the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) ignored the congressional mandate to keep broadcasting to Pakistan in several local languages. In spite of a specific $1.5 million appropriation for broadcasting to Pakistan, everything has been cut except programming in Urdu. “You would not dream of broadcasting to Los Angeles in only one language,” said Sherman.

While Secretary of State John Kerry did not offer an explanation, the problems at the BBG cry out for a solution. The agency leadership time and time again has angered and frustrated Congress by ignoring its mandates to keep radio broadcasting lines open to areas of the world where free and dependable media do not exist. Instead, the broadcasting governors and the BBG bureaucracy are grappling with their own agenda and the impact of technological advances, with the result that the core mission gets short shrift.

In the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget request, the BBG accounts for $731 million, a not insignificant amount of funding. Yet at the same time, deep cuts in language services positions and broadcasting hours are proposed in the budget following already announced cuts resulting from sequestration.

[…]There is no doubt, though, that the BBG structure itself stands in dire need of overhaul. The nine-member, part-time board (on which the Secretary of State or his designate sits) is a poor mechanism for executive oversight of a complex broadcasting system, and board member terms are routinely allowed to expire without timely replacement. The most recent board meeting on April 12 was attended by just two board members.

A composite map of the world at night produced by NASA shows the vast areas of the globe—mainly Asia and sub-Saharan Africa—where there is no power grid to light up cities at night. Many of those areas, where reliance on Internet or television is impossible, are precisely the beneficiaries of U.S. international broadcasting. Let us not lose sight of that fact.

Read the full article on the Heritage Foundation website.

For those of you not familiar, note that the The Heritage Foundation is a US conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. whose mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”

Thanks, Ted, for the tip!

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Radio New Zealand International

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The New Zealand Bellbird (Anthornis melanura) provides the interval signal for RNZI (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

One of my favorite shortwave radio broadcasters is Radio New Zealand International. RNZI has authoritative news–with a focus on NZ and the Pacific islands–music, sports and their own unique character, though they operate on a very modest budget by international broadcasting standards.

The RNZI interval signal is charming and unmistakable: the call of the New Zealand Bellbird.

Fortunately, in the 3 hour recording of RNZI below, I caught not only the interval signal as the broadcast began, but also as it went off the air. This recording was made on March 14th 2013 starting around 8:00 UTC on 9,765 kHz. (You’ll note news of the Pope.)

Click here to download the full broadcast as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Note to SWLing Post reader, Mike:
I hope you enjoy these sounds from home!