| 920 | WGHQ | Kingston, NY | 
0700 01/03 (5Kw / 78w) |
Personal Firsts this month = 1 SO FAR (inc old logs) ALL TIMES
ARE IN GMT |
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LAST ENTRY OF THE MONTH: I have dug out an old gadget I got years ago from Tim B, but I don't think I have ever tried it. It looks very similar in style to the TVDX machine, the D100. So what is it?? Anyone recognise it?? For reasons best know to themselves, the manufacturers have failed to put a model on it. Serial number is 04036, written by hand. The usual bloody annoying audio jack is used for power, and as usual no polarity is given on the unit. You have to open the box and have a look, and an educated guess!!!!
WILD AND WINTERY SCOTLAND: I haven't been a walk down the beverage to fix it yet. I guess I have a tree or something through the cable due to the storm last night. Radio North in Co Donegal has been off air since around 10am yesterday due to power cuts because of the storm. I guess it was as wild and windy as it has been all winter last night, and yesterday. It is more like the last day of January than the last day of March.
CLEAN UP TIME FOR HARD DRIVE: Well it has been many weeks in coming, but today I deleted about 800 gig worth of Perseus files from the last 3 months.
Click below for a montage of stations at 0600 today, when there were some really nice signals around. Also a signal from AM then LSB of KOKC OK City, mixing with WWKB. 100325_0600_common_ids.mp3 (1,360k) 100324_0700_1520_kokc_am_then_lsb.mp3
PERSEUS INSTALL OR STANDALONE??
But time and time again, I read of dxers asking about installing, and even talking about having installed or uninstalled the software. Some dxers were even complaining because the software did not install!!! I for one prefer standalone software. It is easier to delete and keep track of. To take the Perseus SDR back to "out of the box" settings, you can do the following.
FACTORY DEFAULT SETTINGS / DELETING REGISTRY KEY: To reset the software to its factory default, you need to delete a "key" in the Windows registry as follows: 1) Close the Perseus software. 2) Type "regedit" in the Windows Start/Run menu and browse the registry tree for the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microtelecom s.r.l./perseus 3) Delete the full microtelecom folder 4) Restart the Perseus software. 5. Success can be judged if the rx starts up on defualt 20m, ie 14mHz.
These simple to follow instructions have been on this web site for at least a couple of years.
PERSEUS IS NOT A WINDOWS PCM STYLE .WAV FILE:
Again I have written about compression on this site some time back, and compared WINZIP, WINRAR, and Monkey's Audio. Monkey's Audio was by far the best piece of software for compressing the Perseus files for downloading and sharing. But it is not handy for having files on a drive compressed. There is no instant access, and anyway, in these days of cheap 1tb or even 1.5tb drives, space is not such a big deal. Not everyone is experienced either it seems on simple single channel recording from their Perseus either. Any sound recorder will do the job. There are endless numbers of them around, many freeware, many bundled with soundcards, even Nero has a bundled sound recorder. Some of the free ware stuff however has no audio level adjustments or editing facilities, to make a decent job of start and finish etc. Some even confuse backing up of a Perseus file, ie making a copy to a dvd, or a hard drive. I have heard that confused with creating a simple mp3 from a wideband recording, of 1 freq. I have started a long article about MP3 recording and the DXer, but as often happens, it is not finished. This has been started because of the lack of a basic understanding of bitrates and mp3 and wav files etc. Furthermore, how can anyone work with these big babyish icons you see in WIN7 and VISTA, and have no file extensions showing? How do you know if you have a .wav or a .mp3 or a .wma. I am not surprised people get confused, when the file extensions are all hidden by default in these operating systems. I think even Windows M.E. had file extensions hidden by default. I see too often on line, the bitrates of recordings are so poor and watery as to be not worthy of mention. With a little knowledge, you can easily produce top end MP3 files, which will not lose any of the sound quality of the original recording. I tested this theory with a hi fi buff who believed he could easily tell the difference between a CD audio, and the same file in MP3 format. Well, said I, that can only be done if you play the audio CD through the same sound source, which was a PC. And guess what. Impossible to tell the difference between a .cda and a high end MP3. So anyway, play the file you need to record, at whatever frequency, and start your sound recorder. Popular recorders are Adobe Audition, Cool Edit, Sound Forge, Nero Recorder, Soundblaster Recorder, Audacity, Goldwave, etc etc etc. Use Google. That's what it's for.
OLD RECORDINGS OF CAROLINE 6215:
I guess we all knew at the time the transmitter was on the air to pay it's way, and not just operate for sw enthusiasts farther away from the ship than the 558 service could reach. The powerful sounding signal that was relaying the Caroline 558 service would soon change to religion. That would have been the reason I recorded so much, while the going was good. The signal of Caroline on 558 was pretty poor here in Scotland, and the SW was the first time I had listenable reception for a number of years. There had been a night time service on 963 at one time as well, but that was some mix of obscure rock music and reggie, which I did not understand, nor had any desire to try. Jamming 963 it was called at one time, as well as Caroline Overdrive. The time taken to record all these old 1980's triple play reels is quite alarming, so I am trying to time it so I can keep the tapes running when I am out the shack. Some nights I have been running the tapes overnight as well, due to the length of the tracks. For the record, I only have about 40 of the triple play reels, but that equates to 160 tracks, as there are 4 tracks on each tape, all at 6.5 hours at slow speed, which most of them are recorded at, over 1000 hours!!! I have plenty of reasonable tape decks still working, but not reel to reels decks. I have one decent working machine, and wish to finish the job while it still runs smoothly.
OLD TAPES FALLING TO BITS:
GOOGLE STREET VIEWS:
OLD RECORDINGS: I have become bogged down in my old manky tapes this last few weeks, and have not done too much mw dxing. I have heard a lot of signals, but I have not been recording every day like I was in mid winter. But I have enjoyed sniffing around through the old recordings that have been gathering dust for many many years. I am sharing so much already, if you follow the download links, and there is much more to come, hopefully.
Of course, it is not every one that is interested in old recordings, but a few encouraging e mails have come in already. Thank you everyone for the support. I have found a few airchecks that I thought might be of interest to some dxers out there.
2. RADIO BUCHAREST: You can download the full unedited multi lingual version of the above, but it is some 23 meg. I am not sure all the languages broadcast, but French and Italian are amongst them I think. Haven't listened closely to the other languages. (23M)
The above link was made on a local high spot, which is still great for FM, but back in 1988 it was spectacular. I can read from my logs that at the end of 1988 I spent quite a bit of time up the hill with the receivers, recording clips of the last gasps of the Irish pirates. It was a very different FM band (and mw) on 1st January 1989, when all the stations had gone, bar Radio Dublin and Radio Star Country.
CAROLINE FILES ADDED: I have added some Radio Caroline recordings from mainly around 1983, when the Ross Revenge arrived in the North Sea. There are quite a number of hours of Dixie Peach, who was never one of the guys I enjoyed, but the signals were always better at the timeslot he was given up in Scotland, many hundreds of miles from the ship. There are also other files to have a look at.
RADIO NOVA RECORDINGS ADDED: After a few weeks work, copying old manky tapes, I have now redone the Nova download page. There must be about 56 hours of new material there now, as well as some long recordings from GH from 1983. Check the page below. There will be a similar update to the offshore radio collections over the weekend, which is mainly the 1980's Caroline.
WAPI 1070 - BIRMINGHAM ALABAMA: This station heard again today at 0400.
OLD RADIO RECORDINGS AGAIN: Isn't it great that these days we are all aware that an mp3 copy is exactly the same file as the 100th generation copy. Isn't it great that if I wanted to record from the radio today, I set my record software on the PC and press go. In 6 hours time, I stop and save. Voila - 6 hours of station xxxx. Most people will listen on FM these days to what little radio they listen to. Few use AM. There is little left worth recording, but sometimes there are the surprises. But anyway, if I want a few hours recorded from AM radio, I set up the receiver as best as possible, and press record. I have in the past apologised for the quality of some of the old MW recordings I have shared on line. I did not have the best recording gear in those days. I did not always use the best quality radio available for recording. I did not always have a clue what I was doing, and often changed antennas and tuned up and down in the middle of a recording. Too often that good recording which I thought I had on an old tape turns out to be of poor quality, but of course it is a sample of what we used to listen to all those years ago. Not only that, we were happy with the signal levels and noise from televisions, and fluorecent lamps etc. Remember how the night time reception of Radio Luxembourg left it's mark on the transistor radio generation. Radio Luxembourg was a megawatt giant as far as signal strength went, but at night the reception on the humble transistor was prone to fades and distortion. This of course is still true to this day, for although the hits are long gone, the relays of China Radio at night, and Radio Korea, come from the old 208 transmitter. The same story of distortion went for Caroline or Nova etc. Long distance night time AM does fade and phase and distort. So when I tried to apologise for a night time AM recording of Caroline to a Dutch chap I think from the Offshore Download Club, I was told that it was just the way that night time AM signals were, and I was still to copy the recording. It may be a unique recording, and the only one from that day. We just can't take our modern PC and best communications receiver with the best audio to the Essex Coast, or the Dutch Coast and re record hours on end of our favourite offshore station of the 1970's. We can't take a hard disk and PERSEUS SDR to record the whole MW band from 1974 unfortunately. We have to archive the material that is left and still available if we want to preserve radio history. I was recently sent a box of old tapes from a friend in Norway. This was a shoe box size, of many old recordings. As I began to play them back, I noticed one or two things. Svenn has had EXACTLY the same problems as I had with various equipment back through the years. I heard CW coming through one of his recordings, and some are plagued by QRN, and night time reception. The recordings, although unique in their own right, are very similar to my own!! Also in the box, are copies of tapes that came from possibly Anoraks Ireland. In the early days, Tony at Anoraks Ireland also had many recordings which were of questionable quality. Many FM recordings sounded like very flat AM. So even people who were selling tapes, did not have pro equipment to work with in those days. Domestic equipment was expensive. Having one decent cassette deck was a big deal in those days, far less two, that could be connected up to copy tapes direct. How times have changed, with the market flooded with gadgets that can play FM quality music etc. What would the web and ipod generation think of a weak AM signal from many miles away now???
HISTORIC AUSTRIAN TOWERS BLOWN UP: The 15m documentary about the blowing up of the radio towers of the ORF MW services on 1476 and 585 was shown on TW1 TV on satellite. Again, I must try and find the video conversion software I had on the last PC, and try and create an AVI file. The programme is well worth the watching, even though it is in German. Watch this space. See below for another recording of Blue Danube Radio.
NOSTALGIC RECORDINGS ON LINE AGAIN: 1. In the archives here, I have come across another recording of Blue Danube Radio, this time closing down, on the week before their first birthday programme, on 23rd August 1980. The old 600kW transmitter in Austria was putting a superb signal here in Scotland at the time. 2. I found a rather basic offshore radio history feature on AWR via Sines. Remember this was never missed on a Sunday morning, where possible, with the dx programme at 0930 GMT. 3. This strange station used to be heard on 6666khz, in SS broadcasting I am led to believe from the States, into Cuba. So it is really an American pirate I suppose, with the Claundestine banner. Remember the others. LV CID (6305), Radio Caiman (75?? maybe), Radio Impacto (5035). I should have recordings of them all, and I believe I have a reel with quite a long recording of Radio Impacto from Costa Rica was it. 4. Two separate articles from Media Network, Dutch station Radio Nederland's long gone dx programme. First clip about Radio Nova, and the second clip about Sky Movies being launched free to air!!!! Changed days!!! Incidentally Davie H on the Skype chat gave me a link to the Media Network new archive. Great work, whoever is doing this. And the 30m shows are archived at a decent bit rate, 256k!! I can't grumble about that!!!! That makes the programmes about 56 meg each. Check the archive out at: http://jonathanmarks.libsyn.com
6. A surprisingly strong LASER 558 sign off at 0100 from 1984, also recorded here, and a couple of airchecks of Charlie Wolf. I am many hundreds of miles from where the ship was, and Laser was not particularly reliable for most of it's life, up here in Scotland.
850609_0915_9670_awr_offshore_history_only_c90_1160_kb.mp3 (4,920k) 870709_0215_6666_lv_alpha_66_good_c90_1236_kb.mp3 (1,401k) 880610_media_network_article_on_sat_radio_inc_nova.mp3 (2,992k) 880610_media_network_article_on_sky_movies_launch_free.mp3 (1,807k) 840717_0050_0100_558_laser_charlie_wolf_s_off_airchecks_c90_908_kb.mp3 (1,333k)
I will have to remember to include links to these nostalgic recordings in the audio section of this web site.
NEW NOVA AND CAROLINE RECORDINGS ON LINE VERY SOON: I should have some new recordings on line over the weekend of Nova and Caroline. Watch this space.
IS GOOGLE PICKING UP A LOAD OF CRAP THESE DAYS?? I have recently recorded my reception of the test broadcast from EXIDY 738 from 1984. This was a one time only transmission with 50kW, and Nova boss Chris Carey was going to split the channels, and keep Nova on 10kW, and have EXIDY on 50kW!! If memory serves, there was too much breakthrough at the site. Studios were at the transmitter site. In the end it was a one station only AM service, NOVA, with the 50kW. But my point is, I thought I may search for EXIDY 738 on google. Top of the list came some crap phone ringtone company, which lists EXIDY on the web as a recording. Who wants a 45 minute AM ringtone for their phone? Does every mp3 on the web get tracked by these ringtone companies? There was a box with links to other Tony Allan shows listed on the web, as telephone ring tones!!! Imagine someone downloading a weak signal from one of my mw dx files as a ring tone... lol What's the point!!! Is it google who are tracking this stuff, for their ads?? Maybe. I recently watched the show, The Price of Free Internet. It was basically all about Google and their advertising policies. Very interesting.
PERSEUS HOWLING NO MORE: I have become impressed again at the work some guys have put into an autohotkeys script. Thank you fellows. Last night, I noticed "Ferdinand" had put up a script, that included a very very useful work around for the failings of the Perseus playback bar. This keyboard use, not only prevents the howling in the playback bar, but also prevents the sticking that also happens frequently, if only a few miliseconds are selected by mistake. For about 18 months there seems to have been some reluctance to try and repair a bug in the playback bar of the Perseus. Imagine buying a top of the range car, but the garage refuse for 18 months to put a bolt in the back bumper which is trailing noisily along the road!! And the problem is it is a special fitting bolt that only the manufacturer can supply. Considering that the reason for buying a Perseus for a MW or tropical band dxer is exclusively for the unique record/ playback function, it is unfortunate that the bugs in that playback facility have never been addressed. I would expect many users bought their perseus for the same reasons, the record facility. I can not speak for hams, as although I have a call, MM0HSV, I see no benefit at all in using Perseus in conjunction with a tranceiver. BUT..I only use the ham set for chatting to some old friends on top band, nothing more complicated than that!! Anyway, the script, called "PerseusKeyboard_2_10_alpha.ahk" allows users to simply use the keyboard for a number of simple functions. The more I use this, the more I like it. But the main task of playback is taken care of, by simply using the tab button for forward, and shift/tab to reverse, whatever number of seconds is specified. I found 20 seconds, the default, a little too long, and reduced forward and backward steps to about 10 seconds to try. 5 seconds turned out to be too short. The NUMPAD "+" and "-" switch from USB / LSB, and "A" back to AM. Again, very fast and useful. z = next wav file in the series. (What a shame it can not sniff out previous file names in a series of files) AUTOHOTKEYS users who have the software installed for their overnight recordings need do nothing other than download and copy into the Persuus folder, the script file. Then simply start the script, as you would your timer .ahk files. The .ahk file is no more than a small text file, editable in notepad or better still, notepad plus, etc etc. NB: You still have the freedom of your mouse and original operations of the Perseus, even when the script is running!!
I have copied the "help" text below, to show exactly what a powerful little script this really is.
Small
AutoHotkey script to use the arrow keys, letters and numbers in the
Perseus receiver software (by Nico Palermo) Right
arrow = Equ. to the mouseWheel down Down
arrow = Decrease span (wider traces on the waterfall) Tab =
Jump forwards in the PLAYBACK bar by the specified number of seconds
Remarks
to the PLAYBACK supporting features:
(C)
Laurent Haas - F6FVY - Nov 2008 (f6fvy _at_ free.fr)
WGHQ KINGSTON, NY - 920: A personal first on the 1st of the month here. WGHQ Kingston, of course running only 78watts (yea right), Hudson Valley's Talk stn. 0700 on 920. It is nice to have these stations that pres have "faults" with the automated switch over to night time QRP, as it gives a chance for other DX to come through. I don't really like to see the self rightous dxers elsewhere on the web, making a public spectacle of themselves by bemoaning these little errors in the automated power down set up (or whatever we like to call it..lol). Some even write to complain. As I said, it gives distant dxers the chance to hear something new, even if it is only for a few days here and there, or even one day. I am convinced the log of 580 Traverse City was of full 50kW at the time I heard it, just last week. It was absolutely hammering in over CFRA, common Canadian East Coaster. Long may engineers have to soak test transmitters in the middle of the night!!!!!
ROLF HARRIS AGAIN: The Cuban warbler, that sounds like Rolf Harris on his wobble board, has been noted again here in Europe. 930 as well as 730 have been heard in recent days. I don't really keep an accurate listing of these logs, as there are never any IDs as such, only the noise!! I don't recall if 730 was one of the frequencies we heard before or not. (I don't know if Rolf is known outside of the UK and Australia, but he has been an entertainer and artist for years and years, and comes up with some of the strangest of things to make a tune from!!)
A FEW OTHER NOTES: I haven't listed logs for a while, as I have not really had the list logs in my log book to begin with. I am hearing TADX every night with ease, but recently every day seemed to be the same. Same stations on the same frequencies regular as clockwork. Maybe as stated here before, I have had a long hard dx season, and need a break? Maybe not. But there are sometimes surprises, maybe only on one frequency, while the rest are common signals. Today's surprises were 790 WTNY,
Watertown, NY 0700 with a fair peak
SATELLITE NOTES: Remember anyone with FTA satellite receivers, there is some kind of documentary on Austrian TV channel TW1, in German obviously. This was the channel that covered the demolition of ORF 1476 and 585 towers last week. The trailer for the programme showed guys with explosives up tall towers, and I have to assume that it is a show about the destruction of the towers. Times will be 1 hour less for GMT time. The live coverage camera work was pretty bad, in fact it was like a security camera. Maybe the documentary will have some nice footage of the old Blue Danube Radio tower. 19 deg E, Astra, 12663H, 22.000, and I think it is 5/6. I see the programme BISAMBERG in the EPG from 1844 - 1900 Austrian time today, which is 1744GMT.
SKY CLOSE DOWN CHANNEL 5 ON FTA SATELLITE CARDS: Sky or Channel 5 or whoever in the UK have shut off their customers who paid a one off payment of £20 for a free to air card. Stations at the time that were soft encrypted were BBC, ITV, CH 4 and CH5. The terrestial main channels. One by one, the broadcasters came out of their encryption deal, and broadcast totally free to air. BBC first, then ITV, followed by CH4. Only CH5 has remained encrypted, and requiring a free to air card. But the so called one off payment has been changed. Goal posts moved again by Sky no doubt. Now they are demanding another one off payment it seems!!!! For what? Channel 5, Five US, and Fiver, as well as Sky 3, and seemingly a couple of regional areas of ITV and Channel 4 may be effected. What is the point of all the carry on, and software changes, for FTA terrestial channels?? As it happens, viewers can find channel 5 free to air on satellite at the following freq. Just add channels. 10.773 H 22.0 5/6 - No card required!!!!
FOR THE ITV REGIONAL CHANNELS: 10758 V 22000 5/6 10832 H 22000 5/6 10891 H 22000 5/6 10905 V 22.000 5/6 (Channel Is, Grampian, STV, UTV)
Sadly, there is no sign of RTE becoming free to air on satellite for viewers in the UK. Sad really they should be so selfish, when even the BBC is in the clear for viewers in Ireland!!
This web site is worth a look: http://www.satandpcguy.com/Site/extra_secret_frequencies_channels_sky.php
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