{"id":34398,"date":"2018-10-09T08:10:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T12:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=34398"},"modified":"2018-10-09T08:10:34","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T12:10:34","slug":"mark-is-developing-an-alexa-skill-to-search-shortwave-broadcast-schedules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/mark-is-developing-an-alexa-skill-to-search-shortwave-broadcast-schedules\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark is developing an Alexa skill to search shortwave broadcast schedules"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’ve been an owner of the Amazon Echo<\/a>\u00a0smart speaker since it was first released and even reviewed it here on the SWLing Post <\/em>a couple years ago<\/a>. Although it’s not a perfect device–and many feel IOT products like this invade their privacy (rightfully so)–it is a nice hands-free way to call up a radio station, set a timer, get the weather, set reminders and even do a little light research.<\/p>\n

SWLing Post<\/em> contributor, Mark Hirst, decided he wanted to develop an Alexa skill to help him with shortwave radio listening. Mark writes:<\/p>\n

I’m excited to share my ‘work-in-progress’ Alexa skill for searching shortwave broadcast schedules!<\/p>\n

I’ve often stumbled over a station tuning the dial and have had to step away from the radio, grab a computer, go to a web site, type in a frequency… what a fuss – what if I could just ask my Echo dot….?<\/p>\n

Since my day job involves chat bots, machine learning, and AI, I was recently asked to look into Alexa and suddenly I had a new home project!<\/p>\n

Like they say, “the last 10% takes 90% of the time,” but it’s already functional enough to demo:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n