KEN'S DX DIARY AND LOGS - FRIDAY 6th APRIL 2012

MW DXING - TERM USED LOOSELY:

Remember this term? It was once used to describe the multitude of transatlantic radio stations heard on a nightly basis on the overnight MW band from "Perseus" recordings.

I use the above phrase tongue in cheek, but in the last couple of months, dx has been a dead loss here at this qth. I seem to be getting jammed out by local qrn from somewhere, and not only on one antenna. This seemed to start in late January I think it was, when I noticed a lot of noise on the main antenna. The aerial I had in the farmers field over the winter months was also a noisy affair, and qrn levels were much higher than they were even from the aerial through the woods, which is permanent.

But even that antenna is very noisy now. I have replaced the coax along an underground stretch that was definately duff, but it has not really been beneficial, and I feel the antenna is either "not what it was" or maybe being overpowered by the dreaded QRN, giving the impression it is faulty. I can send audio down the long feeder and hear loud music at the far end. That's no problem. New earth rods etc are also installed.

One worrying thing is the local primary school, which is no more than 100 yards away. That has been received a huge renovation grant recently, and has been closed for a year or so, and the kids using a neighbouring village school. But in another neighbouring village, I have been led to believe that their primary school does not even have a blackboard. They use the latest large electronic screens nowadays, and thus I have no reason to doubt that my little local school will now be any different. They will no doubt now have the latest computer and fastest broadband capabilities to add noise to the rumble. This can only be a nightmare for a local radio enthusiast, when it comes to local QRN. And the best of it, I would be able to do little about this.

The school is due to reopen before summer reccess, or so local rumour says.

 

OLD BBC RADIO SCHOOLS PAMPHLETS:

I have done a lot of rooting around the place here, tidying up and putting all sorts of stuff that was mixed up for years, into some kind of a retrievable accessable order. This includes these little magazines that I have had since the 60's and early 1970's. They are the old school pamphlets that used to accompany radio and television shows for schools. Do the BBC produce any radio and TV shows for schools now?? There are no shows on the normal TV channels. All are taken up by crap daytime tv talk shows. So it makes me wonder. Are TV and Radio programmes for Schools a thing of the past???

You can also see from the bottom image that I have a load of NATURE STUDY pamphlets from the 1940's and 1950's, I believe they were kept by my old man. (Or maybe someone gave him them, but they were lying around the place for many many years). I had a look on ebay, but never saw any the same, and can only assume that these items are relatively rare. My local primary used to give out these booklets to pupils that might want to keep a copy, at the end of term. I always stuck my hand up. I guess I was a hoarder even back then!! I may scan and pdf a few or the old ones in the near future.

 

 

RUPERT AND HIS ITV DIGITAL CARDS:

After the so called phone hacking scandal in the UK, I watched an amazing documentary on possibly BBC4 the other night about something which always bemused me. Years ago, and maybe I am talking about the late 90's, I am unsure now, there used to be adverts all over the papers for hooky satellite cards. The codes were being broken regularly, and Sky and the terrestial digital services were forever changing their encryption systems.

The TV programme went to the extent of suggesting that the frequent code breaches of the ON Digital / ITV Digital systems was done by none other than Sky themselves, making short work of their opposition!! It was suggested that Sky were delibertaiely retrieving the codes of their opposition, and they were being distributed freely on the net, for the use of pirate card operators!!

I can remember being at the Glasgow market place (The Barras) and seeing queues waiting for their cards to be reprogrammed after a code change, which the guys sitting with the old laptops were charging a fiver a time I think!! (Bet they had a steaks and champaigne those nights)

It was quite an eyeopener of a programme. I did record it, but the disk it was on failed to finalise for some reason. It may be on again.

The ironic thing about the whole affair, is that Sky even went to the trouble of tracking down well known offshore radio personality, and Radio Nova Dublin boss, Chris Carey to New Zealand, after he escaped from an open prison, and fled to New Zealand!! He had been in the nick for selling hooky Sky cards reasonably openly from the Radio Nova base in Camberly, Surrey.

The small ad below was found in a box of junk recently, and probably from the Sunday Sport. I presume it was from the Sport as there is a big bare erse on the "back side" (bad joke) of this cutting. The Satellite magazines, such as What Satellite TV, and others like it, all carried these kind of ads at one time, before Sky managed to become established as part of the UK broadcasting system and persuaded the govenment to legislate against this type of white collar crime.

TYPICAL 90'S ADVERT SEEN IN DUBIOUS NATIONAL PAPERS LIKE THE SUNDAY SPORT

WAS THIS STORY OF DRUG KINGS ALSO CIRCULATED BY SKY I WONDER??

With regards to the phone hacking scandal in the UK. I really do not know what all the fuss is about. That was the reason that so many scanners were sold by Tandy in the 90's, to eavesdrop on the analogue mobiles around 920 and 940mhz. Remember the Diana affairs in the papers??

There were also the frequencies around 1.6mHz on the MW band that some tuners on music centres and radios would tune up to, to pick up the old round the house phones. MW dxers are well aware of these, when dxing the top end of the MW band, but rightly kept quiet about it in their local pubs, otherwise they would miss the latest local gossip!!

Frequencies around 31mHz were a favourite for a time as well.

In Scotland as listed in the Scanner books, there was a network audable around 168mHz. The old scanner used to be jam packed with these analogue frequencies.

But sadly there are barely any signals left to listen in to. Even the "Polis" have left the analogue radios for secure radios. Who can remember the broadcast band up to about 1988 or 89 still had the emergency services around 101, which you could hear clearly on a normal radio. How clever was that, when it was being allocated!!!

 

 

NEW WRTH - 1954:

I have recently found an excellent copy of the 1954 WRTH, or to be more exact, the World Radio Handbook as it was called. It is priced at 8/6, which is about 42.5p in new money. The price tag is printed, it is not a round sticker.

The book came from a seller on ebay who was none other than Jack Webster, a mw dxer and fellow Perseus owner. I never knew this at the time though. I had a wee drink on the night that the bidding was ending. I was down the pub, and asked a pal to keep an eye on it!! The book had sat at a modest sum for a while, but I was quite keen to get this one.

"Ach, stick in 20 quid max", I said to my amused pal.

Aye, the price rose to about £18.50 at the last minutes, and I got it by the skin of my teeth.

I probably would have said a tenner if I hadn't been down the pub!!

I may well make this into a pdf shortly and reproduce on here. There is only 136 pages in this early 8th edition.

There is a German company, and also NASWA in the States, offering the early WRTH collections until about 1970 on disk. This is EXTREMELY overpriced at around 100 dollars. If the price had been around twenty quid, I'm sure they would have moved a whole lot more than they have.

Now if anyone wants to make themselves a quick 20 quid, and sell me a second hand copy...... do get in touch!!!

 

 

RACAL RA17 SERIES SPOTTED:

An auld pal here in Scotland e mailed the other week about a Racal receiver spotted in a new movie, TINKER TAYLOR SOLDIER SPY. Well spotted, in the titles obviously.

 

AUDIO INDEXING UPDATE:

A lot of indexing work has went into this site this past month, and I think the initial changes are complete. Anyone that can find any broken links to files within this site, let me know. I also need to go through the links page. It's amazing how many change and vanish over a relatively short time.