Tag Archives: Soldersmoke

SolderSmoke: Monitoring Maritime Radio Messages with YADD

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara who shares the following article from the excellent SolderSmoke Podcast blog:

Monitoring Maritime Radio Messages with YADD

This is really cool and very easy. Easy nerd thrills.

On Friday, Steve VE7SL, put up a blog post on how we can relive the glories of our youth by monitoring HF long-distance maritime traffic. In the old days the ships were on CW and many report that it was great fun to listen to the various “fists” in action from coastal stations, and from ships on the high seas. While the CW is long gone, this maritime traffic is still on the air. Today they are using a SEL call system called Digital Selective Calling or DSC.

Happily, it is very easy to decode these transmissions. Steve recommends a program called YADD (Yet Another DSC Decoder). I downloaded it in seconds and had it installed on my computer in minutes. Next I had to find a general coverage receiver. I thought about pressing my old HQ-100 into service, or maybe even the S-38E, but a cooler head prevailed. I remembered that Farhan had given us a general coverage receiver in his uBITX transceiver. So it came off the shelf and got powered up. Around dawn on October 14, 2024 I put the receiver on 8.415 MHz LSB. I didn’t even have to do a real connection to the computer — I just put the speaker close to the mic and that was sufficient.

Boom. Soon I was getting signals from ships afloat and from coastal stations. I heard Shanghai, New Zealand, and Australia. See above. From the U.S., I heard Miami, but the most emotional for me was hearing the station at Pt. Reyes, in California. This is the station that Dick Dilman W6AWO has volunteered at for many years. FB.

Back in 2017, Steve had another post on DSC and YADD:
https://ve7sl.blogspot.com/2017/08/yadd.html

Thanks Steve!

This site explains very well what DSC is. From this I think we can see that there is nothing illegal about using YADD to monitor the DSC alerts (that are all emergency-related): https://infoshipping.tripod.com/gmdss_dsc.html

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Email prompts Bill to pull his regenerative receiver off the shelf!

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara who shares the following article from the excellent SolderSmoke Podcast blog:

2014 “Off the Shelf” Regen Comes Off the Shelf (Two Videos)

Walter KA4KXX spotted an error in the schematic of my 2014 “Off the Shelf” regen receiver: The source resistor on the MPF-102 should be 2200 ohms, not 2.7 ohms. See:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2014/09/schematic-for-off-shelf-regen.html

Walter’s e-mail caused me to take this old receiver off the shelf. In this video you can listen to it in action on the shortwave broadcast bands. In a second video I put it on the 40 meter ham band and listen to some SSB.

Read this post and more on the SolderSmoke Daily News!

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“The Intercept Watch”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara who writes:

Thomas: I found this in an old radio magazine. SWLPost is on The Intercept Watch!

Radio. July 1934

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio/30s/Radio-1934-07.pdf

73 Bill

How cool! Thank you for sharing, Bill!

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SolderSmoke: 7J6CBQ on Okinawa — And a Translation of a Science Fiction Novel about Ham Radio in China

7J6CBQ on Okinawa — And a Translation of a Science Fiction Novel about Ham Radio in China

The article about Sergeant Malik Pugh USMC on Okinawa brought back memories from the 1990s. David Cowhig was 73 Magazine’s Hambassador on Okinawa — I had the same “position” in the Dominican Republic. David and I were both in the Foreign Service; we joked that 73 had afforded us our only chances to be ambassadors of any kind. David’s Okinawa QSL and the opening from his initial report to 73 magazine appear above. You can see more here:

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1992-12/page/82/mode/1up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-06/page/76/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-07/page/82/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-08/page/78/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-11/page/84/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1993-12/page/78/mode/2up mode/2up

A couple of my own “dispatches” as Hambassdor to the Dominican Republic appear here:
https://www.gadgeteer.us/DRDISP.HTM

Back in the 90’s David sent me an old QST Magazine. I wrote about this on the SolderSmoke blog:
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2015/07/been-there-done-that-he-begged-his.html

Later, I learned about another “Hambassador” who was still active as a radio amateur: Ron Gang 4X1MK:
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2017/10/ron-gang-4x1mk-on-qso-today-podcast.html

Finally (and this is really cool): David Cowhig has been putting his language skills to good use, translating Chinese written material. He sent me his translation of the opening chapters of a Chinese science fiction novel about ham radio. Readers of the SolderSmoke Daily News will like this:

https://gaodawei.wordpress.com/2021/12/18/chinese-sf-ham-radio-web-novel-we-live-in-nanjing/

Check out this article and much more on the SolderSmoke podcast blog!

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SolderSmoke: Super Solar Storms May Not Be So Rare

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara who shares the following article from the SolderSmoke Podcast:

Super Solar Storms May Not Be So Rare

Yesterday’s Washington Post had a good story about large solar storms. We are all aware of the Carrington Event (September 1859) but there were others. The Japanese painting above depicts an event of February 4, 1872.

From the Washington Post article:

Around 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 4, 1872, the sky above Jacobabad suddenly brightened, as if a portal to heaven had opened. A passerby watched in amazement and terror, while a pet dog became motionless, then trembled. The godly glow morphed, from red to bright blue to deep violet, until morning.

Electric communication cables mysteriously glitched in the Mediterranean, around Lisbon and Gibraltar, London and India. Confused telegraph operators in Cairo reported issues in sending messages to Khartoum. One incoming message asked what was the big red glow on the horizon — a fire or a faraway explosion?

This of course reminded me of the event that I witnessed as a teenager in New York in 1972:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2009/09/carrington-flares-aurora-where-were-you.html

That post has resulted in a steady stream of comments, mostly from non-hams. Apparently people remember seeing the event, then search the web for clues as to what it was. Google brings them to that post on the SolderSmoke Daily News. The comments are usually along the lines of, “Wow! I saw it too!” Very cool.

Check out this article, the full SolderSmoke podcast, and much more on the SolderSmoke website!

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Bill’s Shortwave Listener QSL Cards

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara who shares the following article from the SolderSmoke Podcast:

Some Short-Wave Listener QSL Cards

I haven’t received many, but I always like QSL cards from shortwave listeners. Someone out there is listening!

The top one is from recent contact. It arrives from Hungary via the W2 QSL bureau. Here is Tamas HA00001:

https://www.qrzcq.com/call/HA0002SWL

https://www.c3.hu/~ha0khw/ha00001.html

The middle one is from my youth. in 1975 Nick in Moscow USSR heard my contact with OD5IO. I didn’t remember the contact with Lebanon. It turns out that the operator was K4NYY (who is now a silent key. See https://www.qrz.com/db/K4NYY/?mlab=).

The bottom one pre-dates me by more than twenty years. It comes from Berlin in 1936. W5AIR was heard working EI7F. on 20 meter CW. Does anyone have any info on this SWL?

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1971 “Hippy” Shortwave Listening

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Meara who shares this story on the SolderSmoke Podcast and notes, “With more to follow…”

From the Last Whole Earth Catalog (1971) — Short Waves — Part 1

Having recently returned from San Francisco, it seemed somehow appropriate for me to take a look into the Last Whole Earth Catalog (1971). I picked a copy of this book up some time ago. There is some radio stuff in it, a lot of it on shortwave listening. [To the right] is one article. I’ll post more in the days ahead.

It was around 1973 that I gave my cousin’s husband Mike an S38-E shortwave receiver. It is a wonder that he survived. He did report electrical shocks.

Click here to read this article and listen to the episode via the SoderSmoke website!

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