Messages

1

Equipment / Re: IC-7300 as a SWL receiver

« on: August 26, 2025, 1332 UTC »

At the Tokyo Ham Fair last week, Icom announced the IC7300 MK2.  There are some significant improvements.

 https://www.icomjapan.com/data/IC-7300MK2_Prerelease.pdf

2

Huh? / Re: Starlink outage 7/24/2025, but mainstream media didn't really pick-up on it.

« on: July 26, 2025, 1030 UTC »

I got caught up in this too.

Starlink has many micro outages that are hard to notice, but this extended outage was very visible.  I still had a 4G backup source to fall back on and I think I am going to add some better antennas to it for the future.  I love Starlink for the most part, but as complicated as the system is, it doesn’t take much to disrupt it.

3

General Radio Discussion / FCC down to two commissioners

« on: June 05, 2025, 1213 UTC »

https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/headlines/simington-and-starks-will-both-leave-fcc-this-week?

4

Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: Tunnel Radio: How Signals Reach Drivers Underground? RW rip...

« on: May 12, 2025, 2249 UTC »

Check this out, what a coincidence, wasn't even looking and just happened to see it..

TUNNEL RADIO MODEL TR-PS-28A WIRLESS RADIO, VAC AND BATTERY OPERATED, NO MIC
https://www.ebay.com/itm/224330410702
$135.96
What strikes me is that he calls it "wireless", not sure where he got that from

There plenty more pictures but neither
them nor the description tells me nothing other than the battery works and I found no other info on it elsewhere. Any idea exactly what this is?:

This looks to be just a power supply and a battery.  I imagine the transmitter was in a separate box….which is where the left hand cable  went.

5

General Radio Discussion / Re: Good old days

« on: March 07, 2025, 0028 UTC »

Back in the seventies, several of us teenage SWLs visited a older guy near Baltimore.  He brought out an old wire (yes, wire not magnetic tape) recorder and played SW station IDs from the thirties and forties.  Wow.  I was floored at the exotic DX and the fact that the signals sounded so good.  Sure wish I had a mp3 of it today!

It never occurred to me that the stuff I heard every day back then would be similarly “exotic” one day, as SW broadcasters shut down.  Now I wish I had made my own recordings during the seventies.

6

General Radio Discussion / Re: "This site can't be reached" very often : are you also experiencing that ?

« on: March 04, 2025, 1059 UTC »

Could this be a DNS problem?

7

Equipment / Re: vertical or horizontal for sw pirate radio?

« on: March 01, 2025, 1454 UTC »

On SW, polarization gets mixed up after reflections off the ground and ionosphere, so you never know what to expect.  Consideration of whether an antenna is vertically or horizontally polarized is overcome by the question of what kind of gain pattern the antenna has.

On VHF, propagation is usually line of site so the polarization of the receiver and transmit antennas is of more concern.  If cross polarized, you can suffer more than 20 dB of loss, but that is only if you are perfectly cross polarized.  If you installed a beam at a 45 degree angle, you would only be down by 3 dB for horizontally or vertically polarized signals.

Even at VHF you can see reflections off of objects like buildings so the polarization you receive may or may not be what was transmitted.

8

General Radio Discussion / Re: Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland ‘was loaded with spying equ

« on: February 01, 2025, 1445 UTC »

Estlink2 is a HVDC power cable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estlink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Estlink_2_incident

9

General Radio Discussion / Re: Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland ‘was loaded with spying equ

« on: January 31, 2025, 1438 UTC »

The picture here is more like what I would have expected.

https://lieber.westpoint.edu/baltic-sea-cable-cuts-ship-interdiction-c-lion1-incident/

This photo isn’t labeled as to what it actually is of, but it is illustrative of what damage might look like.

Remember that they don’t have to actually sever the cable.  All they need to do is breach it to seawater and there will probably be arcing.

10

General Radio Discussion / Re: Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland ‘was loaded with spying equ

« on: January 31, 2025, 1417 UTC »

I am not sure that the photo you are referring to is the actual break.

I don’t think they have shown a picture of the cable damaged in the latest incident.  I believe the photos shown were from an earlier incident.

It is possible the photos we have seen are from a piece of the cable that was cut out to facilitate repairs.  We may be seeing an end the repair crew cut with a saw.

If the ship had a cutting device of some sort, can you imagine the arc explosion when you cut through and shorted the cable with your cutting device?  I would expect to find the device arc welded to the remenants of the cable.

11

General Radio Discussion / Re: Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland ‘was loaded with spying equ

« on: January 30, 2025, 1417 UTC »

Or this scene from the Battleship movie?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AJKah6-YCY

Yeah, it doesn’t work like that.  No anchor could handle the momentum of a ship underway like that.  Standard practice is to come to all stop prior to deploying an anchor.  After deploying you would back astern to set the anchor.


Back in my active duty days I learned that it wasn’t so much the flukes of the anchor digging into the sea bed that held a ship in place as it was the weight of the chain deployed.  Not all anchors have flukes.  Submarines have mushroom anchors for instance.

Losing an anchor or dragging is not unheard of.  When anchored we were required to regularly take fixes on our position to ensure we weren’t slipping.

Surface ship anchors are visible so if they had a special anchor to cut cables, it would be apparent.

12

22 Meter Band HiFER Beacons / KEPR 13564.29 kHz 1332Z

« on: January 28, 2025, 1333 UTC »

Weak, fading in and out.

Rcvr: KiwiSDR, Northern VA, longwire antenna

13

The RF Workbench / MPJA closing

« on: January 02, 2025, 1803 UTC »

I often buy electronic parts from Marlin P. Jones & Associates in Florida (www.mpja.com)

Lately I have noticed them closing out more and more of their inventory and offering significant discounts (currently at 20%) on other stock.

I checked with them and they confirmed they are planning on closing sometime in 2025.  Sales have dropped, possibly due to hobbyists buying direct from China.

They join a growing list of companies that cater to the hobby and have shut down in the past few years, including All Electronics, Fair Radio, and Universal Radio.

14

General Radio Discussion / Re: Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland ‘was loaded with spying equ

« on: December 31, 2024, 1625 UTC »

I am surprised by how clean the cut is.  It is as if it was sheared rather than torn.  Maybe a specially shaped anchor?

One of the locals provided the answer.  The picture of the severed cable is from a different event in July 2024 where a defect in the cable was repaired.  The Daily Mail used the older picture but didn’t clarify that this picture was not from the December event.

https://news.err.ee/1609560733/estlink-2-suspected-fault-location-on-the-bottom-of-the-gulf-of-finland

15

General Radio Discussion / Re: Russia-linked cable-cutting tanker seized by Finland ‘was loaded with spying equ

« on: December 31, 2024, 1513 UTC »

I am surprised by how clean the cut is.  It is as if it was sheared rather than torn.  Maybe a specially shaped anchor?