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Topics - Zoidberg

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76
North American Shortwave Pirate / Red Mercury Labs 6925 USB
« on: August 12, 2012, 0438 UTC »
8/12/12, 6925 USB, 0355z: Waylon Jennings "Good Hearted Woman", Jimmy Buffett "A Pirate Looks At 40"
0410z: Cold Play
0433z: Lincolnshire Poacher theme
0436z: SSTV, no copy here
0437z: Red Mercury Labs ID

Some odd choppy artifacts in audio, hard to describe due to heavy QRN.  Not sure whether these were all RML, but sounded like it via east coast web tuner.

77
North American Shortwave Pirate / Eccentric Shortwave 6930
« on: August 07, 2012, 0744 UTC »
8/7/12, 6930, 0735z: Right after Blue Ocean Radio, another station with some jazzy music, then bluegrass version of "Sympathy For The Devil".  Not sure if Eccentric Shortwave on after QSO with BOR a little while ago.

78
General Radio Discussion / Beware the crapware
« on: August 06, 2012, 0022 UTC »
Heads up and beware - some formerly trustworthy sites hosting free/shareware software are bundling more malware with their downloads.  I'm not talking about torrents for pirated software or sketchy sites.  I'm talking about reputable free software or shareware/donation ware hosted on sites that for many years were considered trustworthy.  >:(

Generally these are opt-out installations - pre-checked by default so you have to uncheck them manually.  So watch every pop-up box *very* carefully during the installation process.  These are sneaky bastards and it's easy to overlook the fine print and pre-checked box giving permission to install the crapware.

After going years with any malware problems on my older PCs (WinXP and earlier) I've encountered two in just a few months with my new Win7 PCs, both obtain from formerly reliable sites/hosts that appear to have sold out against the best interests of potential customers:

  • Babylon toolbar - a pesky but fairly innocuous toolbar and browser search redirect;
  • Fun Moods & Fun Dial - potentially more hazardous toolbar/browser search redirect and dialer.
  • Irfanview - probably a false positive but be cautious anyway.

Regarding Babylon, Fun Moods and Fun Dial, there are plenty of specific complaints and recommended solutions already online so I'll just summarize my experiences.  These aren't viruses, but they are bad pookie.  Fun Moods/Dial in particular crosses the line from toolbar adware to scamware.

After getting a new Windows 7 PC this year I wanted to add some old favorite programs: the PIRCH98 chat client, which I've used for years on Starchat; and Audiograbber, a CD ripping program that's also very handy for off-air radio recordings.  I'd downloaded and installed both several years ago without incident on my older Win98 and WinXP machines.

The first incident occurred a few months ago after downloading and installing PIRCH98, an old school, low resource and very good IRC client that's unfortunately no longer supported.  Offhand I don't recall which site I downloaded it from - it may have been oldversion.com, but I can't find my notes from that incident.  My brain was on autopilot when I installed it and didn't notice the word "Babylon" until I'd already confirmed the installation.  Sure enough, it redirected Firefox from Google to Babylon search by default.  Babylon isn't inherently evil - it offers an English-to-Hebrew and Hebrew-English translator among other features, so it might be useful to some folks.  But the way it's marketed and installed as a redirect puts it into the crapware category.

Fortunately Babylon was relatively easy to uninstall - again, you'll find instructions online.  

Last night I decided to install Audiograbber on my new laptop.  It's readily available via the programmer's own site and I'd installed it on the new desktop earlier this year without any problems.  Unfortunately it appears that since then the downloader has been bundled with Fun Moods/Fun Dial crapware.  Since the site used to be trustworthy I just zipped through the installation steps on autopilot and barely noticed a new pre-checked box giving permission to install the crapware.  My mistake.  But this was a really crappy thing for the developer and site owner to do and I will no longer recommend Audiograbber even tho' it's an excellent program.  I'm hoping this was not intentional by the developer and perhaps he farmed out the hosting to another party that was responsible for bundling the malware.

Long story short, Fun Moods/Fun Dialer is the sneakiest bastard I've encountered since 2005 when I had to detox a relative's then-new WinXP machine.  And I was surprised to see dialer malware in 2012 - last time I saw one of those was in the early 2000s.

Fun Moods/Fun Dial will hijack every browser installed on your PC - IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.  Even Babylon didn't do that.  The usual uninstall procedures will not be effective because "Fun" buries itself in the registry and reinstalls every time you reboot.  Removing it from the browser is only a temporary fix.

Fortunately Malwarebytes dug "Fun" out of the registry.  Unfortunately the freebie version of Malwarebytes didn't play nice with my Lenovo laptop and wouldn't allow a proper reboot.  Eventually I had to uninstall Malwarebytes and use a restore point to a couple of days ago.  No great loss and I didn't lose any data.  This problem with Malwarebytes seems to be an isolated incident - I'd used it successfully on my Acer desktop.  I'll shoot a question to Malwarebytes and see what they say.  It seems to be a good anti-malware utility, certainly better than McAfee which itself has gotten closer to crapware with endless nag screens.

The Irfanview issue was puzzling.  I've used this popular free/share/donorware image utility for years without incident.  But recently various anti-malware programs have flagged the installer as being suspicious.

Anyway, be very careful, even with programs and sites that used to be trustworthy.  (Note to self: Don't go on autopilot during the installation process!)

Updated 8/11/12 with a few relevant article links:

"The Download.com Debacle: What CNET Needs to Do to Make it Right"

"CNet's Download.com secretly installs adware with open/free downloads"

"Popular network tool Nmap in CNET security brouhaha"

79
8/3/12, 6930 USB, 0412z: Been listening for awhile, just started punching through well enough to copy ID for Cool AM being relayed by Blue Ocean Radio.
0422z: CCR "Long As I Can See The Light", Grand Funk "Inside Looking Out"
0445z: Uriah Heep "Stealin'"
0449z: Led Zep doing Ed Wood's favorite song "Cashmere"  ;)

Rough copy via east coast SDR.  Fansome layer seems to be thinning out after 0400z, conditions improving.

80
7/29/12, 6925 AM
0148z: Cee-Lo "F**k You" song mixed in with another rock song I can't ID, plus a clear Northwoods Radio voice and CW IDs.
0157z: "Black Is Black" Los Bravos, bits of various songs, Kinks "You Really Got Me", Beatles "Hippy Hippy Shake" Roy Orbison "Pretty Woman", still not sure which station I'm hearing, seems to be AM mode.
0233z: Captain Morgan Shortwave ID's after long set of bluesy tunes.  Good signal to east coast web tuner.
0236z: Not sure if still Captain Morgan - 6925 AM back up with Ten Years After "I'd Love To Change The World", then off, no ID heard.

81
North American Shortwave Pirate / Unid playing Blink 182
« on: July 15, 2012, 0437 UTC »
7/15/12, 6925 LSB, approx 0420z: Tuned in to hear Blink 182 "What's My Age Again?", followed by air checks and QSO with other op, shout-out to Red Mercury Labs.  Sounds like might have been Turtlehead Radio, but not sure.

82
North American Shortwave Pirate / Unid 6930 USB
« on: July 11, 2012, 0223 UTC »
7/11/12, 6930 USB, 0215z: Music and voice just barely audible through heavy local noise and t-storm QRN, only able to copy a bit of lyrics that sounded like "...fire in the sky..."

83
North American Shortwave Pirate / Blue Ocean Radio 6925 USB
« on: July 06, 2012, 0449 UTC »
7/6/12, 6925 USB, 0445z: Long John Baldry "Stormy Monday" and more blues.  ID confirmed via IRC.
0453z: Sounds like "I'd Rather Go Blind", not sure which version, maybe Etta James (nope, Koko Taylor)?
0503z: Blue Ocean Radio ID
0509z: Sheryl Crow "Can't Cry Anymore".  Also hearing odd moaning sound effects, which BOR op says isn't him.  Not sure if deliberate QRM or some sorta ute I haven't heard before.  Same sound effects audible on home receiver.
0514z: Sarah Maclachlan "Arms of an Angel"
0517z: "People Get Ready" - odd QRM still just audible beneath BOR, sounds somewhat digitalish.
0521z: k.d. lang "Constant Craving"
0530z: Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams" (moaning noises stopped)

Good via western North American remote tuners, just barely audible here at home via the indoor rx/antenna.  The odd moaning/digitalish QRM was audible via two or three different remotes, and via my own home receiver.

A couple of years ago I recorded a similar digitalish sounding howling/moaning noise with a comb filter type effect, near 6915 and elsewhere on the funny bands.  Seemed to be some sort of official data/ute comms, not necessarily deliberate QRM.

Off-air recording from around 0515z, with odd noises audible in background.

84
7/3/12, 6925 USB, 0045z: Right now, intermittent CW and "Hello, Itasca" voice transmissions for this annual show.  Only fair at the moment, hopefully will improve.
0059z: CW again, signal improving.
0100z: Woman's voice "...on the hour and half hour on 3105..."?  Rough copy due to heavy local RFI, but signal improving overall.
0108z: Woman's voice again calling Itasca, "KHAQQ out".
0111z: Man's voice replying, NRUI calling KHAQQ with weather report.
0116z: KHAQQ calling Itasca, "I am approximately 300 miles out..."
0120z: Woman's voice "I am approximately 100 miles out" after CW, followed by man's voice reply "We cannot take a bearing on you on this frequency... please transmit your signal on 500 kilocycles..."
0124z: Slight signal shift/drift from around 6924.9 to 6925 plus change.  CW peaking S5 here (with my receiver attenuator on to reduce local RFI).
0126z: Uh-oh, Amelia sounding panicky.  Pull up, Amelia, pull up!

85
6/27/12, 6925 AM: Since approx 0100z hearing continuous rhythmic/dance club mostly instrumental music.  Rough conditions but audio seems very good during signal peaks - good thump in the bass and percussion, no audible distortion.
0154z: Pretty sure I heard an ID for Liquid Radio, and audio clip from Terminator ("He will not stop, ever!")
SINPO=33333, choppy static crashes, frequent QRM from various utes/data and pesque chatter.

86
6/25/12, 6940 AM, 0240z: Just barely audible through heavy QRN and QRM from adjacent ute/data, enough to copy IDs but not enough to identify any material.  Via east coast web tuner.

87
North American Shortwave Pirate / Rave On Radio 6925 USB
« on: June 25, 2012, 0234 UTC »
6/25/12, 6925 USB, 0220z: Bob Dylan "Hurricane", Rave On Radio ID.  Rough copy through heavy static crashes.

No criticism of the op - or Bob Dylan - intended, but check out the *real* story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.  If every radio and TV station did that, they'd never again play the misguided propaganda song and movie.  If Dylan and Denzel Washington valued their credibility they'd ask that the song and movie never be aired again.  On the other hand, maybe it's no worse than The Ballad of Jesse James and any other murder ballad, so what the heck...  ::)

Please 'scuse my sermonizing.  I was an amateur boxer and boxing fan when that song and Carter's autobiography came out.  I read it and fell for it too, until finding out later about the real guy.  Good fighter, though - KO'd the great Emile Griffith.  But not the victim of society he was portrayed to be.

88
Shortwave Broadcast / WBCQ 5110 Area 51
« on: June 24, 2012, 0032 UTC »
6/23/12, 2330z, 5110 AM: Timtron show, followed at 0001z by what sounded like WBNY relay - confusing program due to heavy echo/reverb and strong QRM from utility/data signal just below 5110.  Something about "I'm Commander Bunny" and "pirate whore of 2011"?  Only material I could ID clearly was opening with Collective Soul "Heaven Let Your Light Shine Down" and Doors "Roadhouse", with WBNY ID and QSL offer.  "You're listening to the Commander Bunny pirate whore of 2011 victory show"?  "Commander Bunny... crybaby power... gone completely insane... no original programs..."
0027z: Lumpy Gravy show, much more intelligible than 0001-0026z program.  Signal or propagation seemed to improve.

Unfortunately QRM from a powerful utility/data signal just below 5110 kHz makes clear copy very difficult.  It interferes with AM sync and ECSS lock, so the only way to listen without interference is in USB.

89
North American Shortwave Pirate / Unid 6925
« on: June 03, 2012, 0210 UTC »
6/3/12, 6925, 0150z: Eclectic mix of rock music, only able to recognize B-52s.  Fair signal at home via indoor antenna.

90
North American Shortwave Pirate / Radio True North 6940 AM
« on: June 02, 2012, 0441 UTC »
6/2/12, 6940 AM, 0440z: U2 "I Will Follow", Radio True North ID, Avril Lavigne "Sk8er Boi".
Fair to good via western remote tuner, just a carrier at home.
0447z: RTN op live on mic, mentioned trying to find requested song for the turntable, spinning vinyl tonight.
0448z: Information Society "What's On Your Mind" (sounds like Pure Energy mix)
0508z: "I Feel Love", the late great Donna Summer, very good signal via Alberta remote tuner

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