{"id":48918,"date":"2021-05-16T06:35:22","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T10:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=48918"},"modified":"2021-05-16T06:35:22","modified_gmt":"2021-05-16T10:35:22","slug":"guest-post-listening-to-comb-stereo-on-shortwave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/guest-post-listening-to-comb-stereo-on-shortwave\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Listening to Comb Stereo on Shortwave"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Many thanks to\u00a0SWLing Post<\/em>\u00a0contributor,\u00a0TomL<\/a>, who shares the following guest post:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Comb Stereo on Shortwave<\/h1>\n

by TomL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Comb Stereo is an old technique being implemented over shortwave by the main sound engineer (Daz) at Radio Northern Europe International (RNEI).\u00a0 It ONLY works on Comb Stereo broadcasts which currently are RNEI, This Is A Music Show (WRMI), and one of the KBC broadcasts.\u00a0 It works in real-time or for SDR recorded files, too.\u00a0 It does NOT need a special HD\/DAB+ radio.<\/p>\n

A number of pluses for Comb Stereo on shortwave compared to digital:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bandwidth is the same as mono – So the SNR should be about the same as mono.<\/p>\n

Selective fading doesn’t affect the comb bands much, so the balance is largely unaffected by selective fading notches.<\/p>\n

The Comb Stereo artifacts are much like typical music effects of echo, chorus, fast reverb or room reflections.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can read about it here on Daz’ web site: homepages.ihug.com.au\/~daz2002\/tech\/CombStereo\/<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also read Roseanna’s comment on the SLWing.com blog post: https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/rnei-now-broadcasting-in-comb-stereo\/<\/a><\/p>\n

An enhanced version is broadcast on WRMI for the RNEI time slot on Thursday morning (01:00 UTC) on 5850 kHz.\u00a0 It sounds very good and is not a pseudo-stereo like in my previous article, Music on Shortwave<\/a>.\u00a0 For one thing, pseudo stereo is not real two-channel encoding and shifts vocals to one side, depending on which channels are chosen for high and low filters, which might get annoying after awhile.\u00a0 What seems amazing to me is that I have been able apply some minor noise reduction in Audacity and the Comb Stereo stays perfectly intact.\u00a0 It also still works after converting the WAV file to MP3 and sounds much like a regular FM broadcast.\u00a0 Furthermore, it does not require a special patented transmitter or receiver chip.\u00a0 It is compatible with regular mono transmitters.<\/p>\n

If you want to try it, go to the RNEI web site; download and install the two files listed (VB Audio Cable and CombStereo Pedalboard x64):<\/p>\n

https:\/\/rnei.org\/stereo\/<\/a><\/p>\n

It is slightly tricky to setup and use or you will not hear anything (most Windows systems default to 48000 Hz these days).\u00a0 Right-click on the lower-right taskbar Sounds settings.\u00a0 Make sure to setup Properties \u2013 Advanced in both the VB-Audio Virtual Cable (Playback and Recording) and your output speakers (Playback) to 24-bit 44100 Hz processing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now run the app Pedalboard BAT file which corresponds to the broadcast you recorded (in this example \u201cStart Comb Stereo for WRMI.bat\u201d).\u00a0 Set the Options – Audio Settings:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Since the VB-Audio Virtual Cable takes over your volume output, adjust the volume of your Speakers in Windows’ Sounds \u2013 Levels (or you can adjust the volume in the sound player you are using, too):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Play the mono WAV or MP3 file and you should be hearing stereo!<\/p>\n

When you are done, close Pedalboard2 and then disable the VB-Audio Virtual Cable for Playback and Recording to get your Sounds back to normal:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I cannot demonstrate what it sounds like unless you have the VB-Audio Virtual Cable and the Comb Stereo app setup and working properly.\u00a0 Here are snippets from recent RNEI broadcasts captured by my noisy porch antenna:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Kari.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\nhttps:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Ani.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here are links to the artists’ YouTube videos for comparison:<\/p>\n

Kari Ruesl\u00e5tten – https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SFN4O3YrUG4<\/a><\/p>\n

Ani Glass – https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=T63QS9enT-A<\/a><\/p>\n

What is nice is that I can create a space-saving MP3 mono file and this setup will decode the stereo when run from the computer (sounds really nice on a stereo system with a subwoofer).\u00a0 Unlike digital, this analog-friendly stereo seems mostly immune to fading, has a minimum of digital artifacts, and will not go silent and \u201cdrop out\u201d like digital does for long, annoying periods of time.\u00a0 It is not perfect stereo but audio players with features like Stereo Widener or Windows Sonic for Headphones can overcome some limitations.\u00a0 Perhaps content providers should consider Comb Stereo for all their shortwave radio shows since it is perfectly compatible with mono AM transmissions!<\/p>\n

Enjoying the Music,<\/p>\n

TomL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to\u00a0SWLing Post\u00a0contributor,\u00a0TomL, who shares the following guest post: Comb Stereo on Shortwave by TomL Comb Stereo is an old technique being implemented over shortwave by the main sound engineer (Daz) at Radio Northern Europe International (RNEI).\u00a0 It ONLY works on Comb Stereo broadcasts which currently are RNEI, This Is A Music Show (WRMI), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[373,3194,627,3,43],"tags":[8407,4342,9276,8314,8313,7804,2579,5119],"class_list":["post-48918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-am","category-guest-posts","category-how-to","category-news","category-shortwave-radio","tag-comb-stereo","tag-guest-posts","tag-how-to-comb-stereo","tag-radio-northern-europe-international","tag-rnei","tag-roseanna","tag-shortwave-stereo","tag-toml"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-cJ0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42651,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/rnei-now-broadcasting-in-comb-stereo\/","url_meta":{"origin":48918,"position":0},"title":"RNEI now broadcasting in Comb Stereo","author":"Thomas","date":"April 3, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, who shares the following announcement from Radio Northern Europe International: Hello everyone, The show is finished, transmitter time booked and pre-processing done so it\u2019s time to announce RNEI #3 & TIAEMS April 2020 to all of you! Before we continue, we need to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Northern-Europe-Google-Earth.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Northern-Europe-Google-Earth.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Northern-Europe-Google-Earth.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Northern-Europe-Google-Earth.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":49254,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/more-comb-stereo-broadcasts-via-radio-gum-tree-june-18-25-2021\/","url_meta":{"origin":48918,"position":1},"title":"More Comb Stereo Broadcasts via Radio Gum Tree June 18 & 25, 2021","author":"Thomas","date":"June 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to\u00a0SWLing Post\u00a0contributor,\u00a0TomL, who notes: Episode 2 of Radio Gum Tree will be rebroadcast this coming Friday night June 18, 2021 at 9:45 EDT on on 5850 kHz in case anyone missed it. Episode 3 should be on June 25. You can find the program notes for these Test\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":49107,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/four-weeks-of-comb-stereo-tests-via-wrmi\/","url_meta":{"origin":48918,"position":2},"title":"Four weeks of Comb Stereo tests via WRMI!","author":"Thomas","date":"June 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, TomL, who has put together a four week series of Comb Stereo tests that will be aired on WRMI. Here's the full announcement: Starting this Saturday June 5 at 01:45-02:00 UTC (Friday 9:45pm EDT), I will be conducting a four-week series of tests using\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":43121,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/radio-northern-europe-international-update-and-may-2020-broadcast-schedule\/","url_meta":{"origin":48918,"position":3},"title":"Radio Northern Europe International update and May 2020 broadcast schedule","author":"Thomas","date":"May 2, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, who shares the following announcement from Radio Northern Europe International: Hello everyone, Last broadcast was pretty successful with many wonderful reception reports and some people sending in decodes of the stereo which is amazing to hear! A reminder to go to\u00a0https:\/\/rnei.org\/stereo\/\u00a0to learn how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/RNEI-sched.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/RNEI-sched.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/RNEI-sched.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/RNEI-sched.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":49256,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/reminder-comb-stereo-broadcast-via-radio-gum-tree-june-18-2021\/","url_meta":{"origin":48918,"position":4},"title":"Reminder: Comb Stereo Broadcast via Radio Gum Tree–June 18, 2021","author":"Thomas","date":"June 17, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A quick reminder that the rebroadcast of Radio Gum Tree Episode 2 will take place tomorrow: June 18, 2021 at 9:45 EDT (or June 19, 2021 at 01:45 UTC) on on 5850 kHz. You can find the program notes for these Test broadcasts at this web site address: www.radiogumtree.com\/?p=54 Many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/RGTmini.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":47016,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/radio-northern-europe-internationals-christmas-special-schedule\/","url_meta":{"origin":48918,"position":5},"title":"Radio Northern Europe International\u2019s Christmas Special Schedule","author":"Thomas","date":"December 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Roseanna, with\u00a0Radio Northern Europe International\u00a0who shares the following announcement: Hei all, After lots of work and careful song selection we have completed our Christmas special show for 2020 and we hope you get to hear it and love it! Musical Features: Some Norwegian cheese\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-22-at-10.01.38.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-22-at-10.01.38.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-22-at-10.01.38.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}