Tag Archives: Spain

Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

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

A Coruña coast

Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

by Don Moore

Some of my favorite sites to visit while traveling are historical, marine, and military museums. I’ve always been interested in those subjects and sometimes those kinds of museums have a few old radios on display. That makes a nice bonus to the visit. Last year, I spent May and June traveling all over Spain (with some short excursions into neighboring countries). One of my favorite regions was Galicia, where I stayed for five nights in the capital of A Coruña and six days in a rural village to the east. And the museums of Galicia had some of the most interesting radio-themed items I’ve ever seen.

Galicia is that small region of northwestern Spain directly north of Portugal. It was part of the Celtic world (along with Brittany in France and the British Isles) and the coastline was home to Phoenician and Greek settlements. It later came under Roman rule along with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula.

A Coruña Fishing Boats

A Coruña Fish Market

Spanish is spoken everywhere but the people are proud of their native language, Galician or Gallego. The language looks and sounds like Portuguese with a lot of Spanish influence but is actually older than either of those. Some linguists believe that Portuguese was derived from Galician.

The rugged Galician coast is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen with its numerous bays, estuaries, steep hillsides, and rocky shore. Most of Spain is arid but Galicia is one of the rainiest parts of Europe so the countryside is green and lush. And because of the neighboring cold Atlantic Ocean, temperatures remain comfortable even when the rest of Spain (and places further north) are baking in the summer heat.

A Coruña City Hall

MOON RADIO

One of the first places I visited in A Coruña was the Museo Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnología on the west side of the harbor. The very first display in the museum is a piece of radio history like no other. In the 1960s NASA set up a network of communication stations around the world to maintain constant contact with the Apollo moon missions. The primary stations were located in rural California, near Canberra in Australia, and in the little village of Fresnedillas outside Madrid. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969 Madrid was facing towards them and received the first radio transmissions from the surface of the moon. This museum has one of several redundant radio racks that were used to receive that historic broadcast.

After visiting the museum I wandered uphill to Monte de San Pedro Park, the best place in A Coruña to view the city and harbor. Those heights were also once vital to the city’s defenses and the park contains several mothballed gun turrets built in the 1930s. Continue reading →

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Radio Waves: Radio Liberty Journalist Bugged, Invisible Battle, RNZ Shortwave After Tonga Eruption, Closing Analog FM in Spain to Save Energy, and Keeping Morse Code Alive

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Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Journalist Vitaly Portnikov was found to be “eavesdropped” at his home in Lviv, – Knyazhytskyi (Espeso)

Note this article has been translated in English. Original in Ukrainian found here.

The police promptly responded to the call, but the SBU for some reason delays its response to illegal actions People’s deputy Mykola Knyazhytskyi announced this on Facebook .

“In Lviv, journalist Vitaly Portnikov, who hosts programs on Espresso and Radio Svoboda, found a eavesdropping device at home. It is a voice recorder with the ability to record for a long time. The police were called. They arrived quickly. The SBU was called. They are not going. As a member of the Verkhovna Rada, I ask the SBU to come immediately and disrupt case. We don’t know who installed this device and for what purpose: our services, foreign services or criminality,” the politician said.

Image via Espreso

Vitaly Portnikov commented on the incident for “Espresso”:

“Today, while cleaning the apartment I lived in at the end of February, when the war started, I found a recording device under the bed. The device had an inventory number. I informed the law enforcement authorities about my discovery so that they could investigate this incident.”

The journalist added that he hoped for a high-quality investigation and clarification of all the circumstances of the case:

“After my statement, the investigators of the SBU of the Lviv region conducted an inspection of the premises and seized a device that is a device for listening and recording information. I hope that the relevant structures will conduct an examination and find out by whom and why this device was placed in my apartment.”

Vitaly Portnikov is a well-known Ukrainian journalist, publicist and political commentator. Cooperates with Radio Svoboda and Espresso. On the Espresso TV channel, he creates the programs “Political Club of Vitaly Portnikov” and “Saturday Political Club”. [Click here to read the full article at Espreso.]

The Invisible Battle of the Cold War Airwaves (Bureau of Lost Culture)

This Episode explore three stories of cold war era radio in the USSR: Soviet Radio Jammers, the Russian ‘Woodpecker’ and the Soviet Radio Hooligans

[Click here to listen to the podcast via PodBean.]

We meet with Russian broadcaster Vladimir Raevsky to talk about radio jamming in cold war era Soviet Union.

As East and West super powers square up to each with nuclear weapons, a parallel invisible war is being fought in the airwaves. Continue reading →

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Video: 1954 Inauguration of REE/RNE Shortwave Radio Transmitters

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ulis Fleming (K3LU), who shares the following video via Twitter and notes:

Spain: Must see newsreel video of the 1954 inauguration of REE/RNE shortwave radio transmitters:

NOT N 604 B

Click here to watch video at the RTVE archives.

Many thanks for sharing this excellent bit of radio history, Ulis. I was just telling a friend that Radio Exterior de España still has one of the biggest signals out of Europe into North America these days on 9690 kHz.

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Changes to Radio Exterior de España shortwave frequencies

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who notes that Radio Exterior de España’s has announced winter frequency changes on their website.

David passed along an English (Google) translation of the REE notice:

Due to the winter time change, from October 29, Radio Exterior of Spain changes its emission frequencies in Short Wave.

From Monday to Friday, between 19 and 23 hours, universal time coordinated, Radio Exterior of Spain will offer its emissions in 11,685 kilohertz for West Africa and the South Atlantic. At 15,390 kilohertz for South America and the Pacific Ocean. At 9,690 kilohertz for North America and Greenland. And at 15,500 kilohertz for the Indian Ocean, Middle East and Great Sun.

On weekends, for West Africa and the South Atlantic, between 15 and 19 hours, universal time coordinated, at 17,755 kilohertz; and between 19 and 23 hours at 11,685 kilohertz.

On Saturdays and Sundays, between 15 and 23 hours, at 15,390 kilohertz for South America and the Pacific Oceans; at 9,690 kilohertz for North America and Greenland; and 15,500 kilohertz for the Indian Ocean, Middle East and Great Sun.

These are the frequency changes of the Spanish Foreign Radio Broadcast Wave emissions that will come into effect on October 30 due to the time shift to the winter.

Radio Exterior of Spain can be followed through satellite radio in all parts of the planet 24 hours a day uninterruptedly:

SES Astra 1M: frequency 11,626.5 MHz. Vertical polarization.
Hispasat 30W-5: frequency 12,015 Mhz. Vertical polarization.
Asiasat 5: frequency 3,960 Mhz. Horizontal polarization.
Eutelsat 5 West A: frequency 3,727 Mhz. Circular polarization.
Intelsat Galaxy 23: Frequency 4,191.35 Mhz. Vertical polarization.
Radio Exterior of Spain is heard on the Internet, in streaming or in the podcast of all its programming.

There are also mobile applications (link for Apple app or Android) for mobile applications, such as phones and tablets. And from any municipality and province of Spain you can enjoy, through television, Radio Exterior of Spain by DTT.

Click here to read the original notice in Spanish.

Thanks for the tip, David!

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Radio Exterior de España: new management and possible change

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SWLing Post reader, David, writes from Barcelona:

I would like to let you know that changes are coming to my country’s SW broadcast station, Radio Exterior de España.

As they say in the latest “Listeners Club” program in the English Language broadcast, new bosses have come, the situation is chaotic now, and everything now is “up in the air”.

They may simply undergo a simple schedule change, but there’s a strong possibility as well, that REE went completely off the air. I think it is news worth spreading.

Here is a link to the latest “Listeners Club”, which includes comments on the issue: http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/audios/emision-en-ingles/english-broadcast-listeners-club/2735360/

Many thanks, David. Please keep us informed if you hear any news.

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