29746
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: XLR8 6925u 001+ 12-14-2012
« on: December 14, 2012, 1348 UTC »
SDR catch. Very nice signal here, with low noise conditions. ID at 0010z.
Shortwave Pirate Radio In North America And Around The World, And Other Signals That Go Bump In The Night
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29747
Utility / Re: Greenland 518 kHz NAVTEX Dec 13, 2012 0520Z
« on: December 14, 2012, 1330 UTC »
I copied Prescott, ON this morning at 1313z. Not nearly as exciting as Greenland, but I was happy because I finally tracked down the source of a giant S9 QRM signal right smack on 518 kHz. The bad news is that it is the Pride of China power supply for my 10 MHz GPS reference. So it looks like I'll need to find another one to use.
29748
Other / Re: Any ideas what this could have been?
« on: December 14, 2012, 1102 UTC »
Yes Token, 9050 was used by the ditters.
29749
General Radio Discussion / Re: Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight; Comet Wirtanen may add sparks
« on: December 13, 2012, 2215 UTC »
Meteor hunting on Dec. 13-14 is a no-lose proposition because, as Cooke points out, even if the new shower is a dud, the Geminids should be great. With no glaring Moon to spoil the show, observers in rural areas should be able to see as many as 120 Geminid meteors every hour. The best time to look is during the dark hours before sunrise on Friday, Dec. 14th.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/11dec_newshower/
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/11dec_newshower/
29750
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Rave On Radio 6925USB *0231-0317* 13Dec12
« on: December 13, 2012, 1247 UTC »
SDR catch, a very nice signal from Rave on Radio, about S5 to S6, but extremely low noise made it easy to hear.
29751
Utility / Re: Greenland 518 kHz NAVTEX Dec 12, 2012 0520Z
« on: December 13, 2012, 1157 UTC »
Awesome catch!
29752
General Radio Discussion / North Korea Satellite Launch
« on: December 13, 2012, 0046 UTC »
North Korea successfully launched a rocket yesterday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to opponents.
North Korea said the satellite would be broadcasting a mixture of songs in praise of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and telemetry. The frequency was given as 470 MHz.
North Korea said the satellite would be broadcasting a mixture of songs in praise of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and telemetry. The frequency was given as 470 MHz.
29753
General Radio Discussion / A New Tool for Secret Agents—And the Rest of Us
« on: December 12, 2012, 1444 UTC »
It sounds interesting, but I'm leery about anything useful coming out of Caltech.
http://www.caltech.edu/content/new-tool-secret-agents-and-rest-us
PASADENA, Calif.—A secret agent is racing against time. He knows a bomb is nearby. He rounds a corner, spots a pile of suspicious boxes in the alleyway, and pulls out his cell phone. As he scans it over the packages, their contents appear onscreen. In the nick of time, his handy smartphone application reveals an explosive device, and the agent saves the day.
Sound far-fetched? In fact it is a real possibility, thanks to tiny inexpensive silicon microchips developed by a pair of electrical engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The chips generate and radiate high-frequency electromagnetic waves, called terahertz (THz) waves, that fall into a largely untapped region of the electromagnetic spectrum—between microwaves and far-infrared radiation—and that can penetrate a host of materials without the ionizing damage of X-rays.
When incorporated into handheld devices, the new microchips could enable a broad range of applications in fields ranging from homeland security to wireless communications to health care, and even touchless gaming. In the future, the technology may lead to noninvasive cancer diagnosis, among other applications.
"Using the same low-cost, integrated-circuit technology that's used to make the microchips found in our cell phones and notepads today, we have made a silicon chip that can operate at nearly 300 times their speed," says Ali Hajimiri, the Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. "These chips will enable a new generation of extremely versatile sensors."
Hajimiri and postdoctoral scholar Kaushik Sengupta (PhD '12) describe the work in the December issue of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
Researchers have long touted the potential of the terahertz frequency range, from 0.3 to 3 THz, for scanning and imaging. Such electromagnetic waves can easily penetrate packaging materials and render image details in high resolution, and can also detect the chemical fingerprints of pharmaceutical drugs, biological weapons, or illegal drugs or explosives. However, most existing terahertz systems involve bulky and expensive laser setups that sometimes require exceptionally low temperatures. The potential of terahertz imaging and scanning has gone untapped because of the lack of compact, low-cost technology that can operate in the frequency range.
To finally realize the promise of terahertz waves, Hajimiri and Sengupta used complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, technology, which is commonly used to make the microchips in everyday electronic devices, to design silicon chips with fully integrated functionalities and that operate at terahertz frequencies—but fit on a fingertip.
"This extraordinary level of creativity, which has enabled imaging in the terahertz frequency range, is very much in line with Caltech's long tradition of innovation in the area of CMOS technology," says Ares Rosakis, chair of Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science. "Caltech engineers, like Ali Hajimiri, truly work in an interdisciplinary way to push the boundaries of what is possible."
The new chips boast signals more than a thousand times stronger than existing approaches, and emanate terahertz signals that can be dynamically programmed to point in a specified direction, making them the world's first integrated terahertz scanning arrays.
Using the scanner, the researchers can reveal a razor blade hidden within a piece of plastic, for example, or determine the fat content of chicken tissue. "We are not just talking about a potential. We have actually demonstrated that this works," says Hajimiri. "The first time we saw the actual images, it took our breath away."
Hajimiri and Sengupta had to overcome multiple hurdles to translate CMOS technology into workable terahertz chips—including the fact that silicon chips are simply not designed to operate at terahertz frequencies. In fact, every transistor has a frequency, known as the cut-off frequency, above which it fails to amplify a signal—and no standard transistors can amplify signals in the terahertz range.
To work around the cut-off-frequency problem, the researchers harnessed the collective strength of many transistors operating in unison. If multiple elements are operated at the right times at the right frequencies, their power can be combined, boosting the strength of the collective signal.
"We came up with a way of operating transistors above their cut-off frequencies," explains Sengupta. "We are about 40 or 50 percent above the cut-off frequencies, and yet we are able to generate a lot of power and detect it because of our novel methodologies."
"Traditionally, people have tried to make these technologies work at very high frequencies, with large elements producing the power. Think of these as elephants," says Hajimiri. "Nowadays we can make a very large number of transistors that individually are not very powerful, but when combined and working in unison, can do a lot more. If these elements are synchronized—like an army of ants—they can do everything that the elephant does and then some."
The researchers also figured out how to radiate, or transmit, the terahertz signal once it has been produced. At such high frequencies, a wire cannot be used, and traditional antennas at the microchip scale are inefficient. What they came up with instead was a way to turn the whole silicon chip into an antenna. Again, they went with a distributed approach, incorporating many small metal segments onto the chip that can all be operated at a certain time and strength to radiate the signal en masse.
"We had to take a step back and ask, 'Can we do this in a different way?'" says Sengupta. "Our chips are an example of the kind of innovations that can be unearthed if we blur the partitions between traditional ways of thinking about integrated circuits, electromagnetics, antennae, and the applied sciences. It is a holistic solution."
The paper is titled "A 0.28 THz Power-Generation and Beam-Steering Array in CMOS Based on Distributed Active Radiators." IBM helped with chip fabrication for this work.
http://www.caltech.edu/content/new-tool-secret-agents-and-rest-us
PASADENA, Calif.—A secret agent is racing against time. He knows a bomb is nearby. He rounds a corner, spots a pile of suspicious boxes in the alleyway, and pulls out his cell phone. As he scans it over the packages, their contents appear onscreen. In the nick of time, his handy smartphone application reveals an explosive device, and the agent saves the day.
Sound far-fetched? In fact it is a real possibility, thanks to tiny inexpensive silicon microchips developed by a pair of electrical engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The chips generate and radiate high-frequency electromagnetic waves, called terahertz (THz) waves, that fall into a largely untapped region of the electromagnetic spectrum—between microwaves and far-infrared radiation—and that can penetrate a host of materials without the ionizing damage of X-rays.
When incorporated into handheld devices, the new microchips could enable a broad range of applications in fields ranging from homeland security to wireless communications to health care, and even touchless gaming. In the future, the technology may lead to noninvasive cancer diagnosis, among other applications.
"Using the same low-cost, integrated-circuit technology that's used to make the microchips found in our cell phones and notepads today, we have made a silicon chip that can operate at nearly 300 times their speed," says Ali Hajimiri, the Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. "These chips will enable a new generation of extremely versatile sensors."
Hajimiri and postdoctoral scholar Kaushik Sengupta (PhD '12) describe the work in the December issue of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
Researchers have long touted the potential of the terahertz frequency range, from 0.3 to 3 THz, for scanning and imaging. Such electromagnetic waves can easily penetrate packaging materials and render image details in high resolution, and can also detect the chemical fingerprints of pharmaceutical drugs, biological weapons, or illegal drugs or explosives. However, most existing terahertz systems involve bulky and expensive laser setups that sometimes require exceptionally low temperatures. The potential of terahertz imaging and scanning has gone untapped because of the lack of compact, low-cost technology that can operate in the frequency range.
To finally realize the promise of terahertz waves, Hajimiri and Sengupta used complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, technology, which is commonly used to make the microchips in everyday electronic devices, to design silicon chips with fully integrated functionalities and that operate at terahertz frequencies—but fit on a fingertip.
"This extraordinary level of creativity, which has enabled imaging in the terahertz frequency range, is very much in line with Caltech's long tradition of innovation in the area of CMOS technology," says Ares Rosakis, chair of Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science. "Caltech engineers, like Ali Hajimiri, truly work in an interdisciplinary way to push the boundaries of what is possible."
The new chips boast signals more than a thousand times stronger than existing approaches, and emanate terahertz signals that can be dynamically programmed to point in a specified direction, making them the world's first integrated terahertz scanning arrays.
Using the scanner, the researchers can reveal a razor blade hidden within a piece of plastic, for example, or determine the fat content of chicken tissue. "We are not just talking about a potential. We have actually demonstrated that this works," says Hajimiri. "The first time we saw the actual images, it took our breath away."
Hajimiri and Sengupta had to overcome multiple hurdles to translate CMOS technology into workable terahertz chips—including the fact that silicon chips are simply not designed to operate at terahertz frequencies. In fact, every transistor has a frequency, known as the cut-off frequency, above which it fails to amplify a signal—and no standard transistors can amplify signals in the terahertz range.
To work around the cut-off-frequency problem, the researchers harnessed the collective strength of many transistors operating in unison. If multiple elements are operated at the right times at the right frequencies, their power can be combined, boosting the strength of the collective signal.
"We came up with a way of operating transistors above their cut-off frequencies," explains Sengupta. "We are about 40 or 50 percent above the cut-off frequencies, and yet we are able to generate a lot of power and detect it because of our novel methodologies."
"Traditionally, people have tried to make these technologies work at very high frequencies, with large elements producing the power. Think of these as elephants," says Hajimiri. "Nowadays we can make a very large number of transistors that individually are not very powerful, but when combined and working in unison, can do a lot more. If these elements are synchronized—like an army of ants—they can do everything that the elephant does and then some."
The researchers also figured out how to radiate, or transmit, the terahertz signal once it has been produced. At such high frequencies, a wire cannot be used, and traditional antennas at the microchip scale are inefficient. What they came up with instead was a way to turn the whole silicon chip into an antenna. Again, they went with a distributed approach, incorporating many small metal segments onto the chip that can all be operated at a certain time and strength to radiate the signal en masse.
"We had to take a step back and ask, 'Can we do this in a different way?'" says Sengupta. "Our chips are an example of the kind of innovations that can be unearthed if we blur the partitions between traditional ways of thinking about integrated circuits, electromagnetics, antennae, and the applied sciences. It is a holistic solution."
The paper is titled "A 0.28 THz Power-Generation and Beam-Steering Array in CMOS Based on Distributed Active Radiators." IBM helped with chip fabrication for this work.
29754
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: 6935 AM 0102
« on: December 12, 2012, 1439 UTC »
I had it here as well, talk about a New Year's Eve party in Minneapolis at 0217z. Pretty nice signal. S7 to S8 on peaks.
At 0221 the URL mnenergy.com was given, they seem to stream electronic dance music, as DimBulb mentioned.
At 0221 the URL mnenergy.com was given, they seem to stream electronic dance music, as DimBulb mentioned.
29755
General Radio Discussion / Our current solar cycle 24 – still in a slump – solar max reached?
« on: December 11, 2012, 2030 UTC »
NOAA’s SWPC recently updated their solar metrics graphs, and it seems to me like we may have topped out for solar cycle 24. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of resurgence in any of the three metrics. Granted one month does not a cycle make, but it has been over a year now since the peak of about 95 SSN in October 2011, and there has been nothing similar since. Unlike the big swings of last solar max around 2000-2001, there’s very little variance in the signals of the present, demonstrating that the volatility expected during solar max just isn’t there.
Another indicator that we are at solar max is that the polar magnetic fields are about to flip, as tracked in this graphic from Dr. Leif Svalgaard. Click image to enlarge:
Full article: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/10/solar-cycle-24-still-in-a-slump/
Another indicator that we are at solar max is that the polar magnetic fields are about to flip, as tracked in this graphic from Dr. Leif Svalgaard. Click image to enlarge:
Full article: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/10/solar-cycle-24-still-in-a-slump/
29756
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: 0214z 6925 AM unID
« on: December 11, 2012, 1246 UTC »
SDR catch. Carrier came on at 0210z, I started to hear music around 0214z. Some peaks to S6. Off at 0233z.
29757
North American Shortwave Pirate / WBNY 6849.7 AM 2328 UTC 10 Dec
« on: December 10, 2012, 2341 UTC »
Some peaks to S7, mostly S3 to S4. A bit of pescadore QRM also.
29758
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 6925 (mode?) 05:59z-06:43z 12-10-12
« on: December 10, 2012, 1856 UTC »
SDR catch. Somewhat the opposite of Sealord's reception. It started off with an S6 signal (which was still quite good due to the low noise levels) that got stronger as the broadcast went on. Peaks to S9 around 0608z,and continued excellent until 0644 sign off. No ID heard.
29759
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Insane Radio SSTV 6925AM 0134/0136UTC 10Dec12
« on: December 10, 2012, 1833 UTC »
SSTV copied here, about the same quality as jFarley's.
Very nice signal and good audio from Insane Radio. Thanks for the show!
Very nice signal and good audio from Insane Radio. Thanks for the show!
29760
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: 0125z 6925 USB WPOD
« on: December 10, 2012, 1823 UTC »
SDR recording catch here. Not much above the noise floor.
