Messages

16

General Radio Discussion / Re: Require FM radios in phones?

« on: August 21, 2010, 2242 UTC »

Flawed argument - they somehow reason that adding FM tuners to phones would have anything to do with music.  I can't recall the last time I turned on an FM radio and heard anything other than pointless DJ blather and ads.  Hell, for that matter, I just about can't remember the last time I turned on an FM radio out of anything other than the sake of curiosity.

It was probably back when I was living in DC and needed local traffic conditions......because my satellite radio subscription had lapsed and I couldn't get the local info there.

17

Equipment / Re: Grundig to come out with update for the S350 called the S450DLX

« on: August 18, 2010, 0354 UTC »

I think it's a device that lets you tune in radio broadcasts that haven't happened yet.

Does anyone know where I can log my reception report of next week's WEAK show?  I'm going to have really great reception for that one.

18

Utility / Re: UNID, possibly HAARP 6920-6922 kHz

« on: August 15, 2010, 2038 UTC »

Well gee, SW-J...

Next you'll be telling us that HAARP isn't responsible for global warming, UFO sightings, whale beachings, cattle mutilations, the Taos Hum, ghost hauntings, alien abductions, learning disabilities, or cancer! 



EDIT to add:  Oh yeah - the lack of sunspots, too.  Heard that one the other day on the repeater; supposedly, the HAARP emissions are leaving the ionosphere via the magnetic pole, looping back around to the sun's pole, and somehow interfering with the processes that create sunspots.  I've got to give them points for creativity on that one.

19

General Radio Discussion / Re: Islands of Resistance

« on: August 06, 2010, 1519 UTC »

That depends - does it come with at least part of the Strategic Poutine Reserve too?

Off in a different forum, we've got a well-developed "friendly rivalry" with our posters from 'Canuckistan'.

20

General Radio Discussion / Re: Online radio magazine

« on: August 04, 2010, 1304 UTC »

There are lots of seemingly "backwards" areas like that - Where you would expect high-speed availability, there is nothing, and you can get fiber to the house out in the middle of nowhere.

It apparently has a lot to do with how well the local phone company has been dealing with steadily (and unsteadily) increasing demand over the years.  With the relatively sudden (but still predicted) explosion in broadband, a lot of providers in urbanized areas were caught completely off-guard, because they hadn't paid any attention to upcoming technology and spent all of their resources on the old, antiquated systems that had been sufficient for so long.  Out in rural areas however, with relatively little in the way of "plant" facilities to keep running, a lot of small-time telcos found themselves able to provide high-speed access to their entire user base just by using some of their previously-excess capacity and upgrading a few of the outlying runs.

When I was living in Dallas and plugging along with a fidgety dial-up connection that rarely topped out 28K, the little crap-town I had lived in in Arizona was delivering partial T-1 to the doorstep, just because they could. 

21

North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6925 USB(?)

« on: August 01, 2010, 1318 UTC »

13:15 UTC
6925 USB(?)
Just barely hearing music with female vocals peeking through the static here - maybe a 222.

I can't make anything out other than to tell that there's something there; maybe someone else will have a better read, though.
13:22 - Catching some thready wisps of "Sister Christian" from out of the hash
13:23 - Song sounds familiar, but can't ID it other than "that 'Oooh-ooh-ooh-ooh' song"
13:26 - ID - might possibly have been Ga-Ga?
13:27 - female vocals - "Slow Hand"?
13:43 - Still going - I'm pretty sure it's "Spill the Wine" in there
13:51 - SSTV - not enough there to get a lock on, even with manual start and some extra persuasion.

22

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Voice of KAOS with another station 6.925

« on: July 31, 2010, 0118 UTC »

It's kind of hard to tell as I'm not getting the other station very clearly, but it seems that I am getting spread from that signal all the way down at 6925.  Ouch.

EDIT to add:  KAOS went off the air, but I now have another signal on 6925, which is also losing to the extra-wide signal further up the band.  I tried tuning said wide signal, but could not get it well enough to do the job.  I think only part of it is the signal strength and propagation; I just can't tune it very well, possibly due to the nature of the signal and its spread on the band.

23

North American Shortwave Pirate / Voice of KAOS with another station 6.925

« on: July 31, 2010, 0023 UTC »

Voice of KAOS 6925
Mentioned Arlington Cemetary, played "I Love Rock and Roll", but hard to make out, as there is another station also on frequency at slightly lower strength obscuring most of it.
Signal sounds good, and I would probably be able to receive either of them individually, but with both on top of each other it's kind of a mess.

Location: upstate South Carolina
Radio: IC-718
Antenna: 400-foot wire @40 ft

24

General Radio Discussion / Re: Off-the-grid communications

« on: July 28, 2010, 2202 UTC »

Ah, right - now that you mention it, I do recall reading somewhere about some of the tricky business that went into obscuring the design of the grenade transmitter (it was a long time ago, and I was working the midnight shift, so memory wasn't exactly my strong suit at the time).  I remember being impressed at things like discreetly bypassed componentry, disguised components, etc.  To a point, I can understand wanting to avoid direct cloning of a design, though on the other hand it sort of works against the whole "free radio" thing in a way.

Everyone's got their own approach, I suppose...

25

General Radio Discussion / Re: Off-the-grid communications

« on: July 28, 2010, 1859 UTC »

I've seen at least a few sites that purport to have the schematics of a grenade transmitter, though I haven't really taken a good look at any of them, and certainly haven't compared their contents.  Since original grenades are so scarce, maybe they had built one from one of these reverse-engineered sets of plans and, since the schematics were touted as being those of the grenade, they called it a grenade transmitter.  Similar to the way that someone would call a transmitter a corsair, or a mighty-mite, based on the label of the design that they built their unit from, or the way that people will refer to a modified or cloned antenna as a G5RV or hamstick dipole based on the original specs even though strictly speaking, that isn't exactly what it is.  Or, for that matter, how xerox, coke, or cuisinart are used to refer to items in their particular class, even though they actually represent just one part of that group.

...or maybe they _do_ have one of the original grenades.  I don't know enough about it (or the presentation in question) to say.

26

Other / Re: Random bursts

« on: July 25, 2010, 2220 UTC »

The sound from 0:45 to 1:02 in [this video clip] is what I get (got) booming in here all the time.  The super-slow one at the end of his recording is new to me.  Most of the time it would just be clusters of two to four different speeds, sometimes just one at a time, and rarely a "full diagnostic run" of every flavor that they had from one end to the other.

27

Other / Re: Random bursts

« on: July 25, 2010, 2210 UTC »

Now THOSE are what I'm used to hearing!

Up until a couple of months ago, I could hardly tune the 6900s without hearing those things everywhere, from a slow "whoop-whoop-whoop", to a fast "brzbrzbrbrzbrz!"  They are often (usually?) prefaced by a trio of beeps, and can come singly or in clusters of different speeds.  On occasion, I have heard a whole series of them in increasing speed, one right after the other.

I figured that it was OTH radar, especially since my wire tends towards a north-south pattern, and they frequently swamp reception of other signals completely, so I figured that they had a ton of power behind them.

I have noticed a dropoff in these buzzes/sweeps at my QTH, however.  I assume that they're still going on, but at different frequencies owing to seasonal changes in the ionosphere.  Either that, or those same changes have altered the skip zone so that I'm now in a null instead.

28

Spy Numbers / Re: High Frequency Global Communications System

« on: July 23, 2010, 1537 UTC »

Sounds like yours are much more intelligible than the ones I receive here. 
On your recording, you have one transmitter that is clearly dominant, with the other one being a weak echo.  Here in upstate NC, on a wire with a predominantly north-south pattern, I usually receive two strong signals with very similar strengths, making them somewhat difficult to read at times.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/78607374b381097a/

29

General Radio Discussion / Re: Request for high-quality recording of WWV/WWVH tsunami warning test

« on: July 22, 2010, 2256 UTC »

Wow.  It's like receiving emergency instructions from Charlie Brown's teacher.

30

General Radio Discussion / Re: Request for high-quality recording of WWV/WWVH tsunami warning test

« on: July 22, 2010, 2145 UTC »

Someone got a copy of said crappy audio to share?
I'm curious not only about the audio, but the contents of the test.