Messages

406

General Radio Discussion / Re: Any pirate activity heard on the 11M Int BC Band?

« on: November 18, 2022, 0121 UTC »

As it turns out, way back in ancient history before many of you were born, someone was busted while operating HF mobile in motion. I don't have all the details and even if I did, I wouldn't repeat them without permission.

Found it: https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,6490.0.html

In 1991 (I believe), a guy was relaying Voice of Laryngitis programs on 15050 kHz (I think) while driving through the Midwest. This was a clear freq that was occasionally used by pirates (in other words, he wasn't QRMing the USAF and this wasn't a primary pirate freq, like 6925 is now). But they set up a roadblock on I-70 and busted him near Denver.

Oh, very good.

Most of the details agree with my recollection but I seem to remember it being several years before 1991 because of where I was and what I was doing when I heard about it, but I will leave the details up to Andrew.

In any case, it demonstrates the "long arms" they had in those days and that they can find you even if you are moving, if they really want to. They are likely too overstretched with priorities elsewhere these days though.

407

General Radio Discussion / Re: KiwiSDR discontinued

« on: November 17, 2022, 0459 UTC »

If you go far enough back you can find where some old chicom general is giving a speech where he says Taiwan is only the stepping off point for invasions of Australia and the US and subsequent colonisation. If accurate, the world economy is inconsequential to that end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The opinion of one PLA general does not a policy make.

408

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID Hawaiian Numbers Station 6950 USB 2123 UTC 16 Nov 2022

« on: November 17, 2022, 0422 UTC »

EDIT: I guess I'm not sure how to post pictures yet, but the table is at this link! https://imgur.com/a/5z91oUZ

This works in Firefox for Windoze and perhaps on other platforms:

1) Right click on the image in imgur.

2) Select "Copy Image Link"


3) Back over here in HFU, use the image icon to select generate the HTML code for an image link ( img and /img with brackets around them ) and paste the link you just copied in 2) between them.

409

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID Hawaiian Numbers Station 6950 USB 2123 UTC 16 Nov 2022

« on: November 17, 2022, 0157 UTC »

Obviously sending coded messages to the Hawaiian sleeper cells.

410

General Radio Discussion / Re: RTL to end longwave broadcasts by new year (Radio World)

« on: November 12, 2022, 0852 UTC »

France and Luxembourg border each other and the two countries are closely intertwined but it's a little funny to me that they are doing this under the guise of  sobriété énergétique but the transmitter is another country and not in France.

Perhaps the site gets its electricity from France and not from Belgium or Germany.

411

General Radio Discussion / Re: KiwiSDR discontinued

« on: November 12, 2022, 0844 UTC »

I recently read a news article stating that much of the world's high tech chips are made by one company in Taiwan, and that any crisis (or war) would curtail production of something like 50-90% of the chips that our tech depends on worldwide. How much does that figure in?

A lot. This is what I was alluding to here:

As for the economics, they are making it more competitive to do it in the US but a large part of that calculation is a) the more defensive posture that the US government is taking toward the PRC, making it more difficult to do business with them on grounds of national security (I believe that the concerns are well-founded) and b) the PRC threatening the entire world's supply of electronics by taking a more aggressive stance toward Taiwan. I don't see a) and b) changing anytime soon though so it's not a bad investment.

I scanned through the article but there isn't anything new to me in there. TSMC has hoovered up a lot of the business by being a good vendor. (I've worked with them.) Their next largest competitor in the foundry space (Global Foundries, "GF") isn't nearly the same size. Having that much business concentrated in one company on one island always concerned me and I'm obviously not the only one.

My opinion is that the PRC would be very stupid to disrupt the world economy in this manner. You see how the war in Ukraine has caused hunger and disruption to grain supplies around the world. Now imagine the disruption if the PRC shut down Taiwan. It would be far worse than what has happened to grain.

The PRC knows this, they see what has happened to grain, they see the ill will that has caused and they are already not fully on board with Mr. Putin's folly at the moment anyway.

But, I dunno. Maybe they have some magic plan to make it all work, or so they think. You see how ruthless they are in enforcing their zero-COVID policy on their own people.  I would expect nothing less in the cruelty department if they took over Taiwan too.

/end of rant

412

General Radio Discussion / Re: WTWW QRT?

« on: November 12, 2022, 0804 UTC »

I used to upload them for friends after group rides, but quit doing that after YouTube and Facebook either muted or banned my videos because of copyrighted music that was audible in the background,

Oh yes. You're not the only one getting hit by this sort of thing. It cuts right across everything on Youtube.

413

SDR - Software Defined Radio / Re: Exasperating ergonomics of Kiwi SDR

« on: November 12, 2022, 0754 UTC »

I suppose they could code the interface to recognize when you are on a mobile device and give you a different interface screen…

Unfortunately the kiwiSDR user interface does have a separate mobile interface because that would be very useful here. In contrast, some of the WebSDR receivers have mobile interfaces (e.g., Twente).

However, the Kiwi GUI does recognize "mobile gestures" on my iPhone. For example, you can tune the receiver by using a two-finger swipe left (decrease frequency) or right (increase) while over the waterfall. (One finger swipe does something else.) Zooming in and out is accomplished by the usual two-finger "spread" and "regroup" that is probably familiar to most smart phone users.

414

SDR - Software Defined Radio / Re: KFS omni kiwi sdr "Masking" USAF global HF Frequency??

« on: November 12, 2022, 0646 UTC »

What's amazing to me is russia allows kiwis in the first place, considering their soviet past. Never in a million years thought I'd see the day when anyone in the world can tune in to a sdr located in russia or warsaw pact country. Back in the day we had to ring them ruskiis with listening posts and pray for good conditions, now an hf rx in moscow be tuned by any browser anywhere on earth.

I hear you. I wondered if the Russians and the Chinese block SDR feeds from receivers outside their borders but then I would see a lot of users with IP addresses in Russia and China using Kiwis.

I always thought this was surprising given that the Chinese block Facebook, for example. On the other hand, SW radio isn't a mass medium anymore.

415

Longwave Loggings / Re: 252 khz AM 26 OCT. 2022 1:30 UTC...

« on: November 12, 2022, 0624 UTC »

Definately Algeria. The alternative on that frequency is RTE (Ireland) but they wouldn't be speaking French and their signal isn't nearly what Algeria puts out.

416

Amateur Radio / Re: Snotty Hams? Oh yeah...

« on: November 12, 2022, 0605 UTC »

Yes, it took me some time out of radio (decades) and then coming back to it to realize there are a fair number of assholes in the hobby.

Everybody? No, absolutely not. But a nerdy hobby dominated by old white men is going to have a bunch of people with sticks up their butts and low social skills, for sure.

Two of my observations:

1) There are a large quantity of hams that think that because they know Ohm's Law that this qualifies them to be experts on every technical topic under the sun. It doesn't. I say that as a person with a graduate degree in EE who has decades of professional experience and actually has to know what I'm talking about (otherwise I get fired) as opposed to some random clown you meet on 2 meters. As a ham friend who is also a senior member of the IEEE and a published author in his field of expertise said to me years ago, "Many hams think they are experts on everything but the reality is that they don't know shit."

2)

The other thing that I´ve run into is Big-Gun snobbery. Ya know... Those folks with several Icom IC-7851´s, +100ft towers, multi-acreage arrays, broadcast quality audio processing, legal 1.5kW power all the time, etc.

Exactly this. Then they have the gall to rag on people who do FT8 or SOTA or VHF because they are not "he man" enough. You hear this a lot on the SSB DX windows. Guys whining because they blew $50k on a station and they have only two stations to talk to. That's not my (our) problem, dude, and don't blame anyone else on your unexpected free time and lack of QSOs. It's also elitist: "You can't play with us unless you blow $50k on a station."

Ham radio is dying and attitudes like this are not welcoming to younger people, who largely don't have that kind of money and the land for three 150-foot towers with stacked monobanders on each.

But that's what you get with a bunch of men whose tower height is inversely proportional to their amount of self-esteem.

417

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 4030 USB 0345 UTC 12 NOV 2022

« on: November 12, 2022, 0359 UTC »

Off at 0356 (approximately)

418

North American Shortwave Pirate / WPAR 4035 USB 0350 UTC 12 November 2022

« on: November 12, 2022, 0355 UTC »

"Whiskey Papa Alpha Romeo. Saying happy Veteran's Day and reminding you that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." in a loop.

419

North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6950 USB 0244 UTC 12 NOV 2022

« on: November 12, 2022, 0244 UTC »

Started up as soon as B-Side Radio closed down.
0250 - Off?

420

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: B-Side Radio 6935 AM 0135 UTC 12 NOV 2022

« on: November 12, 2022, 0224 UTC »

Actually frequency 6934.700 kHz.

Are you sure about that? I have them on 6934.98 on two SDRs with good GPS acquisition.