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Messages - thecolonel

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1
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Radio Progreso ----> Caribbean
« on: March 11, 2022, 0158 UTC »
Radio Progreso Noted in South Central Indiana USA near Ohio River with SINPO of 44444 on 4765 khz with musical selections and a signal level on Yaesu FT-1000MP of S9+10 with moderate fading in and out at 0155 UTC on March 10, 2022.

Listening Post Here

Yaesu FT-1000MP
Yaesu FRG-100B
Icom IC-718
Alinco DX-70TH
Nooelec Ham It Up
Various USB SDR Radios

QTH: Corydon, IN
Antenna: 150ft Longwire at 20 feet

2
Amateur Radio / Re: Project 775
« on: October 19, 2019, 0556 UTC »
That was an excellent radio for the 1990s time period that it was produced and it cost a pretty penny back then from what I recall. It was in the range of your Yaesu FT-1000D type of transceivers or the equivalent of buying a couple of FT-1000 MP transceivers. I didn't have one at the time as I was as poor as a church mouse but I did have plenty of opportunities to work people that did on my entry level FT 840 etc which was a well known rig for that time as well and relatively inexpensive at about $750 USD around 1997 or so. Then over the next few years I was able to do much better financially and moved up to IC-746 and Kenwood TS-570D and IC-746 PRO etc before I sold a few of them off and bought some other equipment. The IC 746 and the PRO model was a fine radio but the problem was when the LCD screen went out it was about a 400 dollar repair at the time and I didn't think I was technically savvy at the time enough to actually fix it back into perfect working order. I was more of an operator then versus more of a technician now which came with age and experience.

Icom had a lot of nice and semi basic radios going back to that time period such as the IC-738, 728, 729 etc and they weren't horribly expensive its just that I seemed to gravitate to Yaesu gear and such in the mid 1990s plus I had and still have a working FRG-100B that was one of my first REAL radios after I got a real job and bought more than the few portables I had for most of the 1990s. However, I still like playing with portables or just taking my Eton Executive Elite or my Tecsun PL 880 to the park with me when I go to exercise and take a small 20 to 30 foot roll of automotive wire for use as an antenna which is still fun listening at times.

3
Amateur Radio / Re: 3840 khz Bootlegger Net & Jammers (LSB) 05:30 UTC
« on: October 19, 2019, 0545 UTC »
Riley Hollingsworth was a bit of a stabilizing influence but even he couldn't totally clean up the mess on 75 meters and 20 meters because he was still dealing with the aforementioned characters along with Glenn B who was running a daily news net on 14.275 and breaking various FCC rules. Laura Smith didn't really fare any better and if she is still in the fray she has done next to nothing on 3.840 and thereabouts. Some other frequencies that were wild back in the day was 3843, 3853, 3865 but many of those participants and others are gone now as well or well advanced in age since most of them were in their 40s and 50s during the 1980s and 1990s.

As far as the current crop goes, its been a problem going on several years with that frequency of 3.843 and there seems to be a bunch of largely Western US stations mostly in the 6 and 7 call areas that are usually cussing each other out. At least one good thing comes out of that is that as long as they all get drunk and stupid they can stay on there and make a mess of one frequency instead of the whole band. That gives real amateur operators that take their privileges seriously the rest of the area from 3600 to 4000 and use it accordingly without needing to get involved with the 3843 mess.

Every once in a while the FCC sends out a nice big fine to someone that is flagrantly violating the rules and regulations but even so there are far more rulebreakers than US Marshals to collect the equipment with FCC agents so they send out NALs first and then might take action later. Much of the time they don't collect on the NAL because of the operator pleading poverty or its not always worth the hassle or trouble or the courts etc. The Feces aka FCC is much more interested in chasing down FM pirates in various states that often aren't a major problem only with the exception of they cut into the profit margins of the local government approved stations and we all know that IHeart media and Clear Channel, Entercomm, Cumulus, Emmis and the like. That's generally the only real reason the Feces goes after FM pirates unless they are running a dirty signal and throwing spurious emissions into the FM band and Air Band from 108 to 137 Mhz.

4
Amateur Radio / Re: 3840 khz Bootlegger Net & Jammers (LSB) 05:30 UTC
« on: October 19, 2019, 0531 UTC »
This crap has been part of the amateur radio subculture for as long as I can remember which is the 1980s when I started listening to shortwave radio and by extension amateur radio. This goes back actually further into the 1970s but I was only a young snot back then when there was a fair share of lids and assorted morons on HF from what I have been told. I came to age around the time that the famous 3894.5/3898/3901/14313 khz radio wars were going strong during the late 1980s early 1990s or at least to where I was getting close to graduating HS etc. I remember the first time hearing this crap was on a DX-440 Radio Shack receiver aka Sangean ATS-803 build with a Rat Shack label on it.

Back in those days you had Big "Al" Abernethy K4OKA versus "Porkbutt" Rich Whiten that had daily and nightly disputes on the middle of the 75 meter band around 3894.5 to 3901 with the poor guys on 3898 in the middle. Actually some of the material that people came up with actually quite funny including the famous "Porkbutt" song or Rich Whiten in response referring to the guys on 3894.5 as White Trash in America home of losers, boozers, bigots, etc. This also carried onto the 14.313 frequency on the 20 meter band back then and some of those alligators are still around although many of them have passed on and a new crop of lesser intelligent cretins took over. I won't name any names of the current morons but its some of the same old cast like Dumb Donnie, Jimmy O'Brainless, Fred, Detective Tom the ex-cop that got a big fine back a couple of years ago and others.

The old 3894.5/390/14313 had people like Rambo Dan, Porkbutt, Oris, Gerry, Pigpen Pete, Rube and Bill Irwin who got busted by the FCC for jamming under the moniker Raincoat Charlie, etc and then the other side was Airplane Bob TR, Jimmy Dale Polly Parrot, Billy Jack, Dumb Donnie, Jimmy O'Brainless Frankie the unlicensed operator, Big Al (his grandfather) who gave him the equipment to jam. It was a cacophony of jamming in double sideband since K4OKA opened up his FT-1000 MP and was using as much as 10,000 watts to beam his Porkbutt song all over 75 meters along with music, jamming tapes, rants, and various participants going at each other.

So in essence nothing has really changed only participants and maybe worse language than what was heard during the 1980s to mid 2000s on 75 meters and by extension 20 meters. In fact, now I think its actually spread more since 7200 khz is sometimes a real foul place to hang out along with the 3840 groups and of course 14.313 still has some of the same morons or new ones coming to age and most of them are retiring or getting older with more time on their hands to stir the pot.

If you had been there in the 1988 to 2005 time frame you would have been amazed at the trouble these guys in many cases went to in order to jam and create mayhem on 75 meters. It did finally calm down some when K4OKA got off the air and Porkbutt WB2OTK turned in his license but eventually even the miscreants came back and of course the rantings of an unnamed Western Canada stations on 20 meters contributed to the problem.

5
MW Loggings / Re: Chinese stations
« on: October 19, 2019, 0457 UTC »
Laos is even a difficult catch using an SDR Receiver in somewhere like Hanoi or Shenzhen even on 6130 at times. Hanoi usually can pick up 567 KHZ though via MW during local evenings but forget elsewhere as the Chinese powerhouse transmitters dominate South China and Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

If you are looking for the Phillipines try 12010, 15640 and 17820 or thereabouts around 0200 UTC which would be about 12pm or 1pm Australia Eastern Time.

6
It's quite too bad that the ABC/Radio Australia doesn't come back on the air using some of their old sites in Shepparton and such since it was easy to hear RA on various frequencies all over the SW bands. Now its the province of China to have 400 different transmitters or so it seems on the middle and upper SW bands from 31 meters up to 16 meters. Its quite apparent listening to SE Asia and Australia SDR that China pretty much has a near monopoly on the airwaves in that area of the world.

7
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: 5010KHz Radio National, Madagascar
« on: October 19, 2019, 0442 UTC »
Radio National is very audible on the TWR SDR Radio located in Southern Africa on 5010 about that time of 1700 hours UTC. However, even using that SDR from less than 1000-2000 km away you can often hear AIR underneath the transmission. There is quite a bit of AIR frequency activity on 60 meters around 4800 khz, 4810 and other places up and down the band. The same goes for China Tibet Broadcasting Service on 4905 khz about 1700 UTC and 4920 in parallel as well as 6200 all of which might be copied in New South Wales and the rest of the Australian continent and most of SE Asia.

8
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Voice of Korea - transmitters
« on: October 19, 2019, 0438 UTC »
It's also interesting to listen to the Voice of Korea on one of the SDR receivers in Japan or East Asia/Siberia during those transmissions. It's quite often that you will hear either what appears to be feedback in the audio or what appears to be an echo as if there are two transmitters operating on the same frequency but slightly off in their timing. I don't know if anyone else has noticed such but I've done a few SDR recordings from the East Asia SDR receivers and it seems there's some sort of echo or audio issue on the same frequencies. Try 13760 khz, 15180 khz, 15245 khz and others around the East Asia daylight time of 2200 UTC to about 0900 UTC.

I found it to happen here and there but not real bad unlike the garbage audio that came out of Radio Cairo on 9900 or the new 31 meter frequencies I heard while back. For a while they did improve the overmodulated audio then it was like it was back to the old days. I wish my local nearby 5000 watt AM station would figure out that overmodulated audio sounds like garbage in general.

9
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Radio Guinée 9650 AM 2320 UTC 9 Oct 2019
« on: October 19, 2019, 0432 UTC »
They are quite well heard in Europe especially in the 2000 UTC to 2330 UTC time frame and of course since it would be close to midnight local time it seems that a lot of African stations do shut down around that time period. Congo Brazzaville when heard via SDR usually out of Southern Africa or Europe seems to shut down about 1800 or 1900 UTC on 6115 when they are operation. Used to be able to hear them gangbusters in the Eastern North America at one time on 4765 with 500 UTC sign on during the 1990s and early 2000s but that frequency has been inactive for years. Too bad as well because they had interesting music and drums being played. From my old shortwave log books they were also on 9610 khz at one time probably back in the 1980s or so but that is probably another transmitter either destroyed in war or cannibalized for parts for the other ones.

10
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: RNZI 5945 am 0817 utc 12 Oct 2019
« on: October 19, 2019, 0425 UTC »
Been hearing a lot of RNZI around 0900 UTC and up until around 1000 UTC after which they seem to disappear into the ether or another frequency.

11
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: SOH tent. 6230 AM 2140 UTC 13 Oct 2019
« on: October 19, 2019, 0424 UTC »
Interesting from Poland, I sometimes tune in via SDR radio into places like Shenzhen or Hanoi, Vietnam and often hear them on the 19m and 16 m about 2300 UTC and thereafter during what would be daylight times in China and most of East Asia.

12
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: CFRX Toronto
« on: October 19, 2019, 0421 UTC »
I've been hearing them a lot in the mornings in the 1000 UTC to 1200 UTC time frame as well on 6070 khz with the usual morning radio drive time/news format.

13
Shortwave Broadcast / Re: Day time DX tips please
« on: October 19, 2019, 0419 UTC »
Seems that there has been decent amount of activity on 25 meter band during the day while anything 15 Mhz and up has been kind of lousy. Although I do hear the BBC service mostly beaming to Africa around 1700 UTC many times and thereabouts. The VOA is also on the upper part of the 19 meter band at 15580 as well as Radio Habana Cuba on 15140 Khz. The best thing I can say is to see how WWV is coming into your area to see if the conditions are decent enough to permit some sort of decent reception. Seems I've also been occasionally hearing some activity at 15435 which I presume is something from Saudi Arabia.

Also, its finally getting more fall like here in the Ohio Valley instead the near 90 degree temperatures we had only a couple of weeks ago. AM Broadcast band at night has been excellent and even during the day its been much improved over the summer months with a lot of stations 100 to 250 miles away starting to come in pretty well.

I would also mention that there has been a lot of activity in the mid afternoon to evening time frame in the 31 meter and 25 meter band. See if you can catch REE Radio Exterior Espana on 9690 which has a pretty good signal here during the late afternoon evening frame. Also around I think I heard the Voice of Turkey on 9830 khz recently in that same window of the late afternoon evening. 11820 khz on the 25 meter band is the Broadcasting System of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is referred to as Saudi Radio these days as well as some station probably broadcasting to Yemen and the Middle East more than likely from Saudi Arabia.

The best thing is to try to get some wire up in the air and another thing away from other electronics such as LED/LCD televisions, monitors and even my supposedly trusty laptop has a power supply issue that causes massive buzzing so its time for a different charger or some other measures.

14
Heard at 400 UTC with Ozzy Osborne "Crazy Train" followed by Clever Name Radio name and testing announcement then signing off at 404 UTC on 6925 USB with a 57 to 59 signal

15
Wolverine Radio with more music from 0030 until 0133 then towards the sign off with the usual SSTV transmission.

Signal peaking at S9+20-25 at the end of transmission on 6950 USB. Excellent show with high quality audio and clarity.


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