{"id":10269,"date":"2014-07-15T13:30:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T17:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=10269"},"modified":"2014-07-15T13:30:55","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T17:30:55","slug":"recording-the-2014-world-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/recording-the-2014-world-cup-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Recording the 2014 World Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WorldCupBall-001\"<\/a>Sunday was the FIFA World Cup Final, and not only was I looking forward to the game, but (to tell the truth) I was also looking forward to recording the game via the BBC World Service for the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive<\/a>. Due to the BBC WS cuts, part of me fears\u00a0this may be a last chance to capture this\u00a0radio and sports history.<\/p>\n

If you would like to hear the recordings of the World Cup Final, skip to the bottom of this post. But if you want to know how I managed to make the recordings, and why I made the choices I did, feel free to continue reading…Warning:\u00a0full-on radio geek tech ahead!<\/p>\n

Making the recording<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had two SDRs (software defined radios) at my disposal: the Elad FDM-S2<\/a> and my trusty WinRadio Excalibur<\/a>. \u00a0To record this match, I choose to use\u00a0an SDR rather than\u00a0a tabletop receiver\u00a0for several reasons, namely:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I wanted to make a spectrum recording so that I could record more than one frequency at a time;<\/li>\n
  2. SDRs make recording radio content on the fly much easier than using a tabletop receiver, which must be connected to an external audio recorder, and I wanted\u00a0ease of use so I could enjoy the game, too.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Propagation was rather mediocre Sunday, and there were only three feasible BBC World Service English frequencies I could tune in mid-afternoon, none of which, of course, were targeting North America:<\/p>\n