The SWLing Post

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Alex, who has just informed me that he’s updated his printer-friendly shortwave frequency charts for the summer broadcasting season. Alex mentions that he posted English in Europe on one A4 sheet, plus 5 A4 sheets running through the vast majority of stations that can now be heard in Europe. Note that […]

Ham Radio Outlet is currently offering the SDRplay RSP software defined receiver for $139.95 in a summer sale that is set to last until the end of August. If you’ve been considering the SDRplay RSP, this would be a great time to pull the trigger as I’ve never seen the price of the RSP below […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, John Cooper, who writes with the following request: Hello all SWLers and DXers: I have been interested and actively participating in the Shortwave hobby for almost four years now. I have not seen a DX Contest originating in the USA in those years although we have a lot of […]

I originally wrote this three-part WiFi radio primer and review series for the April, May and June issues of The Spectrum Monitor magazine. Each part of this series will be posted with the tag: WiFi Radio Primer. You can read Part 1 by clicking here and Part 2 by clicking here–I hope you enjoy Part 3 below: We’ve finally […]

(Source: 38 North via Mike Barraclough) A little after midnight, early on the morning of July 15, as most of the Korean peninsula slept, were North Korean spies up late listening to the radio? This was the big question after a strange sequence of numbers was read out on a North Korean radio station. It […]

Good Afternoon everyone, Radio Northern Ireland will be broadcasting tonight 1900UTC on 6005khz via Shortwave Service in Germany, and then followed by 15770khz via WRMI at 2100 UTC and further more on 11580khz at 0130 UTC. Our show tonight is jam packed with talking and a few special shortwave articles as well! SSTV will […]

(Source: ARRL) Let the conspiracy theories resume! Alaska’s High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) facility will reopen in 2017. The sprawling facility now is under the ownership of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and the UAF Geophysical Institute is preparing HAARP for a new sponsored research campaign that’s set to begin early next year, […]

I spent this morning doing a lot of work around our property. When it was time for a break, I turned on my trust Sony ICF-5500W and tuned to WTZQ: one of my favorite regional AM braodcasters. Though WTZQ is over 30 miles from my home, any good AM radio, like the ICF-5500W, can receive […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike Nikolich (N9OVQ), who writes: Radio Australia has been off the air all week. My buddy Ron Howard in California contacted reception.advice@abc.net.au regarding this issue, and received this response: “Thank you for your recent correspondence with regards to the Radio Australia Broadcasts on Shortwave Radio in the SW Pacific. We are currently working […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, TomL, who notes: Not sure if you had anything posted for this but I stumbled on BHI having a summer sale until August 16. So, I went onto YouTube and listened to a number of user demos and chose to buy the Compact Inline model. So, I get 10% […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Bruce Atchison, who recently shared his positive comments about the CC Skywave. Bruce writes:: This is a lot of radio for such a small size. The CC Skywave is a great travel companion because of its portability and price. Moreover, it’s rich with features. The receiver tunes in AM and […]

Hi there, great to hear this new station broadcasting from Somalia, during an early evening DX’pedition at my usual spot – a local Oxfordshire wood! Even better to hear it with just the telescopic antenna! The ICF-2001D is renown for being extremely well ‘tuned’ to it’s own telescopic and this has been demonstrated many times […]

(Source: VOA Radiogram via Richard Langley) WRMI, Radio Miami International, will showcase digital text and images via analog radio in a half-hour special broadcast to be transmitted nine times (at least), beginning Saturday, 13 August. The broadcast will mostly be in MFSK32 centered on 1500 Hz. There will also be segments in MFSK64, MFSK32 centered […]

(Source: Southgate ARC) New Scientist magazine reports the US Air Force is working on plans to improve HF radio propagation by releasing ionised gas in the upper atmosphere using a fleet of micro satellites As well as increasing the range of radio signals, the USAF says it wants to smooth out the effects of solar […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Rafael Rodríguez R., who writes with the following announcement from Bogotá, Colombia: [I would like to announce a] DX program, celebrating “International Day” from Ecos del Torbes (emblematic Venezuelan station) and also the 40th anniversary Club Diexistas de la Amistad and their program América en Antena (celebrating 26th anniversary). This will be […]

From The Isle of Music reports: Our August 16 (August 15 in the Americas on WBCQ) program marks the beginning of several weeks of Caribe Nostrum, winner of Cubadisco 2016 in the Concert and Chamber Music category and one of the two Gran Premio winners. Guido López Gavilán, the Director, will join us each week […]

A strong signal with a clear ID from Conakry, Guinea, heard in Oxford UK on 08/08/16 at 18:04 hrs UTC using my trusty Panasonic RF-B65 and a 50 metre longwire. No SYNC of course, but once again, the vintage Panasonic performs very well for this personal-first reception. I do have another recording of this station […]

Hello all, A few nights ago during great propagation in the Medium Wave band I had the opertunity to DX Radio Capital from Lima, Peru all the way to Northern Ireland. I was planning to sleep early but favourable conditions on MW prompted me to have a late night to chase DX. I have had […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who announces his next show: The next broadcast of The Classics Experience with Paul Walker is going to be the biggest yet. It’ll all take place in late August with 2 hours of rock n roll music with maybe a few country songs thrown in for good measure. The show […]

If you’ve been following the Sangean DT-160CL versus Sony SRF-39FP battery endurance test, I have some news to report: one of our competitors has finally thrown in the towel…! Yesterday, while I was on the road for about 1.5 hours, the Sangean DT-160CL at last gave up the contest. Since I was traveling at the time, I can’t say with absolute […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Benn, who writes: [Skycast (WI2XER)] is a station in the Experimental Radio Service, licensed under Part 5 of the FCC Rules. Benn provided the following details: Licensed 3 March 2016: SKYCAST SERVICES LLC WI2XER 0809-EX-PL-2015 New experimental to operate in HF bands from 13.87 MHz to 21 MHz to […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, John from VORW Radio International, who writes: [I] wanted to let you know that I will be having a special shortwave broadcast on August 10th and 11th. The broadcast will provide entertainment to listeners in Europe, Asia and North America with a mixture of good music and talk to accompany it. […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Mike Nikolich (N9OVQ), who writes: I am in the midst of downsizing and am selling my Eton E1 XM Receiver on eBay. It is gunk-free and the display works great. Here is the link: http://ebay.to/2aIEtZf Thanks, Mike. Looks like your E1 is in great shape! Click here to view on […]

It’s been one hundred nine hours since I started the Sangean DT-160CL versus Sony SRF-39FP battery endurance test and both radio are still hanging in there! Not knowing which radio will check out first, I’ve been taking them with me everywhere and have been careful to keep their settings identical the whole time. Last night, I […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tom Servo, for sharing the following review of the Sangean DT-160. His review was originally posted on the radio discussions forum: Got my Sangean DT-160 today. Thanks, Santa Claus! Initial impressions are positive, both in the build quality and performance. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it’d be, […]

Radio Northern Ireland will be broadcasting via WRMI on 9955khz at 0130 UTC on Monday. This is a regular show from Radio Northern Ireland. Jordan Heyburn from Radio Northern Ireland has made changes to his show and he has included a news segment! Jordan said “I decided to include a news segment to bring the […]

It’s been eighty seven (!!!) hours since I started the Sangean DT-160CL versus Sony SRF-39FP endurance test and both radio are still going strong. I’ve tuned both radios to my SSTran AMT3000 AM transmitter which is currently re-broadcasting the UK 1940s Radio Station on 1570 kHz. The Sangean DT-160CL still shows two of three segments on the […]

I originally wrote this three-part WiFi radio primer and review series for the April, May and June issues of The Spectrum Monitor magazine. Each part of this series will be posted with the tag: WiFi Radio Primer. You can read Part 1 by clicking here–I hope you enjoy Part 2 below: As I mentioned last week in the first […]

Sunday, August 7, 00:00 – 02:00 UTC, The Mighty KBC will broadcast on 9925 kHz for two hours: 00:00 – 01:00 UTC It’s Radio, But Not As We Know It – Dave Mason 01:00 – 02:00 UTC The Giant Jukebox – Eric van Willegen Note that for those of us in North America, the broadcasts will start […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Patrick Mason, who writes from Juneau, Alaska: I am the owner of the radio that Paul Carlson restored in the video. The serial number is 31358. I wanted to comment about a statement regarding the receiver’s sensitivity. After Paul concluded his final tune-up of the radio I can confirm […]

(Source: Southgate ARC) Many readers will remember with fond memories from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the famous offshore radio station Radio Caroline and the last ship they used to broadcast from, the MV Ross Revenge. From today, a group of amateurs from the Martello Tower Group are operating special event station GB5RC from the Ross Revenge, […]

Many thanks to Richard Cummings of the website, Cold War Radio Vignettes, who writes: [F]or your weekend reading pleasure, Part Two, in which I briefly examine the background to and excerpts from the RFE controversial broadcasts: https://coldwarradios.blogspot.de/2016/08/radio-free-europe-and-1956-hungarian_5.html Many thanks for sharing, Richard!

It’s been thirty seven hours since I started the Sangean DT-160CL versus Sony SRF-39FP endurance test and both radio are still going strong. So far, the DT-160CL’s battery indicator still shows full voltage. The SRF-39FP has no battery indicator, but through experience I know it’s nowhere close to quitting. I’ve spent some time tuning both radios […]

As is my typical style, I’ll do some DX’ing for weeks, if not a month or more before I sit down and write out logs. I focus on logging and recording first, then writing reports later as I’m worried i’ll miss something on the dials. I have a few good ones this time around, like […]

Our August 9 (August 8 in the Americas on WBCQ) program includes our final segment with María Felicia Pérez, director of Coro Exaudi, winner of the Choral Music category in Cubadisco 2016, and our other special guest will be Jazz guitarist Emiliano Martiní, who leads the Natural Trio in addition to playing with César López […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Dobosz (K8PD) who shares his review of the Kaito KA108. Paul originally wrote this for the Michigan Area Radio Enthusiasts and has kindly allowed us to post it here: Kaito KA-108 Review by Paul Dobosz (K8PD) Kaito just introduced a pocket sized DSP based MW/SW/FM receiver with some interesting features missing […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Hawkins, who comments in reply to our post about the Sangean HDR-18: Darn. Just when you thought you read a review of the latest Sangean radio another one comes out. I have yet to find a review of the Sangean HDR-16. [The] HDR-16 is a portable AM-FM HD […]

Yesterday, I received my Sangean DT-160CL–the correctional version of the DT-160–from Amazon. Even though the Amazon product page showed 5 units in stock on July 29, and though I get free two day shipping via Amazon Prime, my DT-160CL took four business days to arrive. Out of curiosity more than anything else, I asked Amazon […]

CBC Radio 1, Gander, heard in Oxford UK A really great signal from CBC Radio 1 Gander – the best I’ve ever heard on this or any other medium wave frequency, complete with a clear station ID and very much out of season so-to-speak. I can’t remember recording any Medium Wave transatlantic signal with an […]

Many of you might have noticed I’ve been absent on Facebook/Twitter , slower to correspond, and not posting quite as often this summer. Yes, you guessed it: I’ve been on the road again. Starting in mid-May, we made our annual pilgrimage to Dayton, Ohio, where we hosted an inside exhibit at the Hamvention, made some NPOTA activations, and visited the […]

Many thanks to Richard Cummings of the website, Cold War Radio Vignettes, who notes that he has posted a new article about Radio Free Europe and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (Part 1). The article spotlights Operation FOCUS, which was the combined balloon/leaflet and RFE broadcast endeavours 1954-56. Richard notes that Part 2 will be posted next week […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Ron, who shares a link to Jay Allen’s review of the Sangean HDR-18. Jay gives the HDR-18 high marks for audio fidelity, and HD radio sensitivity. He’s also impressed with its noise-free power supply. In general, HD radios fly beneath my radar–they’re not terribly useful to me in the […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who shares the following article by James Careless in Radio World Magazine. The article includes interviews with Andy Sennitt, Kim Andrew Elliott, Nigel Fry, and even yours truly. The following is a short excerpt taken from the introduction of the article: (Source: Radio World) OTTAWA, Ontario — […]

(Source: Amateur Radio Astronomy blog) Thanks to the efforts of Nathan Towne, we now have the ability to use [the SDRplay RSP] with Radio-Sky Spectrograph (RSS). […]As with RTL Bridge, a intermediary program sits between RSS and the receiver. This program was written by Nathan Towne and is named SDRPlay2RSS, not too surprisingly. This is a […]

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Scott Gamble (W5BSG), who writes: I just saw this local news post about the venue for Hamvention 2017. (Source: WDTN) XENIA, Ohio (WDTN) – Days after Hara Arena announced it will close its doors, an announcement from Greene County officials revealed that Hamvention will be held at the Greene […]

Yesterday, an SWLing Post reader contacted me with questions regarding budget antenna choices for an urban apartment. He’s about to purchase an SDR, but knows that a decent antenna capable of coping with urban radio interference is a critical component. I suggested that, since I’m no expert with urban interference, he pose his question to the SWLing Post […]

As some of the subscribers to Oxford Shortwave Log will know, I’ve been talking about building a battery pack for my Elad FDM DUO to take it out on a DXpedition. Finally, I found the time to quickly do just that with some parts that cost less than £10 – as the video below demonstrates in […]