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61

Shortwave Broadcast / Radio Exterior Espaņa, 17855 AM, 12 AUG 2024, 1500 UTC

« on: August 12, 2023, 1511 UTC »

They're covering a La Liga game so I think the transmitters may have gotten a boost in power. SIO 233 on my MLA-30 antenna. Typically this is weaker at this time of day, though conditions have been better recently. Suprisingly they're airing Real Sociedad vs Girona. Most of the time these are matches featuring either Barcelona or Real Madrid, that league's marquee teams.

1505 GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLL! For Real Sociedad.

62

Software / A few observations about SDRconnect preview

« on: August 11, 2023, 1627 UTC »

Yesterday (8/10) SDRplay released their new software for their "RSP" line of SDR's, which has been in development for years. I want to say that they first teased SDRuno 2.0 (as they originally were planning a major upgrade, not an entirely new app) way back in 2018, but that's just going by memory, but the thing I remember for sure was that they promised it would be cross platform and not just for Windows based PC's. So this has been a long time coming.

As is usual with SDRplay, they aren't saying much about where they're going with this or what an official SDRconnect 1.0 is going to have (and not have). But the preview edition is there to install and play with and I've been running it for about a day with my RSPdx SDR.

When you first launch it, you might be forgiven if its appearance reminds you a great deal of SDRsharp. It has a similar dark color scheme, a similar layout, and a similar way of having sidebars and control windows appear and disappear. Right now they seem to have made things very simple so gone are a lot of seemingly hundreds of settings you can play with in SDRuno. I for one didn't use many of them, and really am enjoying the relative simplicity where it seems like they focused on including the most used controls. However, one thing that currently seems to be gone are the adjustable notch filters. That's a huge thing, especially for someone like me who lives in the city and has all kinds of little annoying spikes all over the band. It's one thing I'm pretty certain will be in the full version when that's ready.

I'll briefly touch on the layout. It's quite intuitive with buttons that have labels that make sense (e.g. the gearwheel for settings) but will also have popups telling you what they are when you hover the mouse over them. There's a button that toggles a sidebar, which contains four rows of controls which then can expand or contract with a click. This is where most of the controls live. One thing of note is something labeled only as audio limiter with only on or off as the possible settings - if there's a way to adjust it I haven't found that yet. I find it must be on, otherwise it outputs an enormous roar of noise that's just intolerable.

One of the positives is that it can run a very wide spectrum (up to 10 MHz) with ease. SDRuno always struggled with that, and in general I got used to going with a maximum of 2 MHz at any time. But, as with SDRuno, the wider the setting, the harder it is to pick out individual signals. You can just click on them though and adjust the frequency if you're slightly off. But that leads to two major criticisms that I hope will be changed.

One is that the display colors are very dark, and right now you have fewer settings to adjust them. There's no contrast setting, for example, just visual gain. The other is that there's no way to key in a frequency. You have to hover your mouse over the numerals and scroll. Even the up and down buttons on your keyboard do nothing. Good luck to those who only have a trackpad to work with.

When you first launch it, it defaults to AGC and there another setting engaged which locked IF gain after you turned off AGC. I can't remember what it was, but those are things I like to control myself. It can overload and give you spurs galore all over the band if you're not careful (though again I'm in the city and not terribly far from a couple of different 10k AM transmitters), but they're easily adjusted. I think this is a big improvement over SDRuno.

Right now, there's a bug where if you close the app and relaunch it later, it won't be on the same frequency as the one you left. It's usually not far off but it's a bit annoying. The app has to be properly closed for settings to be remembered - if it crashes then it will be whatever it was the last time it closed properly. But that's to be expected.

Right now none of the SDRuno plugins work with SDRconnect, but they have a plan to get those working. I don't know how that affects third party plugins though, as they advise anyone with questions about those contact those developers rather than SDRplay.

I've got a lot more to do but thought I'd share some first impressions.

63

Software / SDRconnect preview now available for SDRplay devices (except the original RSP1)

« on: August 10, 2023, 1559 UTC »

Check out the videos at SDRplay's youtube channel. Some are general for the app, some are specific for the different platforms:
https://www.youtube.com/@SDRplayRSP/videos

Download page:
https://www.sdrplay.com/sdrconnect/

Edit, I updated the subject heading because I previously and erroneously said "12 bit devices," but it sounds like the RSP2 and RSP2 pro are compatible with SDRconnect, and only the very first RSP (later rebranded RSP1, distinct from the RSP1a) isn't.

64

Shortwave Broadcast / RRI, German language service, 11620 kHz AM, 07 AUG 2023, 0600 UTC

« on: August 07, 2023, 0602 UTC »

Interesting to copy given both RRI's recent cutbacks and the fact that Eibi lists this particular broadcast as being DRM, not AM as is being aired at this time. Rough signal but RRI interval heard just before the hour and German language clearly being spoken which matches the listing. SIO 222.

65

Shortwave Broadcast / Ifrikya FM, 9470 kHz, 07 AUG 2023, 0552 UTC

« on: August 07, 2023, 0558 UTC »

Copied for just a few minutes before it went QRT at 0555 UTC, playing music that didn't seem to be going anywhere so it possibly was an interval like the one VOT uses. First time catching this station as I was just scanning the bands. The time was just past greyline for the tx location, not sure if that gave it any boost or not. SIO 333.

66

Spy Numbers / V07 "Spanish Lady" 13978 USB 0700 UTC 30 JUL 2023

« on: July 30, 2023, 1720 UTC »

Null message. Repeated at 0720 on 13378 USB, but not at 0740 on 12178. Signal was SIO 333, and 232 for 0720 tx. Next Sunday is August so we should see a new schedule, possibly an earlier time.

931 931 931 000

67

QSLs Received / Wild Mountain Radio eQSL

« on: July 30, 2023, 1706 UTC »

Thanks for the nice eQSL! 

68

North American Shortwave Pirate / Two Dog Radio 6925 USB 0244 UTC 30 JUL 2023

« on: July 30, 2023, 0244 UTC »

Harsh music, SIO 333
0246 "Assimilate" Skinny Puppy
0252 "Prophecy" Front Line Assembly (for about half a minute) then apparently QRT at 0253 Just a glitch. There was a tuneup signal then it came back on
0308 Two Dog Radio ID into next song
0400 Two Dog Radio ID and good night
0401 QRT

69

North American Shortwave Pirate / Sycko Radio 6950 AM 0200 UTC 30 JUL 2023

« on: July 30, 2023, 0204 UTC »

0200 weak station, can't really discern much of what's being transmitted.
0205 better signal at Elida OH kiwi SDR, kinda spacy music
0319 still on, sounds a bit better, techno kinda synth music.
0320 QRT
0323 seems to be back

70

North American Shortwave Pirate / Wolverine Radio 6960 USB 2359 UTC 29 JUL 2023

« on: July 29, 2023, 2359 UTC »

Listening on Elida OH kiwi SDR, SIO 555 despite some static crashing

2359 Testing 1 2 3
0000 Wolverine Radio ID into "It Looks Like Love" Abe Lyman's California Orchestra
0003 "The Way You Look Tonight" Billie Holiday (guess the theme of the show is "LOOK")
0006 "Oh! Look at Me Now" Helen Forrest & Benny Goodman
0009 Wolverine ID into "Look What Baby's Got For You" Baby Dee
0011 "Hey Good Lookin'" Hank Williams
0014 "Stop, Look and Listen" Patsy Cline
0016 Wolverine ID
0017 "Fine Lookin' Woman (Take 1)" B.B. King
0019 "You Should Have Seen the Way He Looked At Me" The Dixie Cups
0021 "I'm Looking Through You" The Beatles
0024 Wolverine ID into "Look Through Any Window" The Hollies
0026 "Look Out Cleveland" The Band
0029 "Look Into the Sun" Jethro Tull
0033 Wolverine ID into "Lookin' Out My Back Door" Creedence Clearwater Revival
0036 "Look At You Look At Me" Dave Mason
0044 "Lookin' At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)" The Beach Boys
0046 Wolverine ID into "(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night" Tom Waits
0049 "Look Sharp!" Joe Jackson
0053 "Looking For Love" The Cars
0056 Wolverine ID
0057 "Look at Little Sister" Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
0100 "Look Who's Dancing" Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers
0103 "Mama, Take a Look At Me Now" The Stone Coyotes
0107 echoey Wolverine ID into SSTV


Thanks for the show. Signal eventually came up at my home QTH but was about SIO 222 at best here. All reporting and SSTV are from Elida OH kiwi SDR.

71

North American Shortwave Pirate / Wild Mountain Radio 6935 USB 2339 UTC 29 JUL 2023

« on: July 29, 2023, 2340 UTC »

2339 music, SIO 333 at Elida OH kiwi SDR
2341 OM gave ID but I couldn't understand it. Updating subject heading based on KMD3HR's report.
2348 heard email which I copied as: shortwavemaildrop at gmail dot com
2349 next song, folk like with OM singer (per Shazam it's "Oh! The Mountains" Penny Davies & Roger Ilott)
2354 Station ID and email
2355 "After the Rain" Bruce Cockburn
2359 QRT

72

North American Shortwave Pirate / 77LJS 6930 USB 2210 UTC 29 JUL 2023

« on: July 29, 2023, 2211 UTC »

Listening to music via Elida OH SDR. Sounds like big band stuff. SIO 333

73

North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6870 AM 0546 UTC 06 JUL 2023

« on: July 06, 2023, 0547 UTC »

0546 Music, SIO 333 in Colorado.
0559 still on, no ID as of yet. Music has all been techno/instrumental. Carrier is centered approx. 6869.91 kHz.
0613 now playing bluegrass music
0617 now hip hop (for lack of a better descriptor) with OM vocalist that appears to be in a language other than English, couldn't begin to guess what it might be. Actually it is English, am able to make out some words, but vocalist has strong accent.

74

North American Shortwave Pirate / Thunder Chicken Radio 6950 USB 2358 UTC 19 MAY 2023

« on: May 19, 2023, 2359 UTC »

Noisy, low signal. Can only tell some music is being played there.
0029 SSTV went out but I couldn't decode it
0031 sounds of low laughter then off the air

75

Spy Numbers / XPA2, 13376 USB, 16 MAY 2023, 2100 UTC

« on: May 16, 2023, 2112 UTC »

Good signal into Colorado today. I may post a recording later. Using Rivet build 90, I got the following decode (null message):

02224 00001 00000 34654

It's been a while since I got Rivet to work well but I know the 00001 00000 part is standard with null messages, so I'll trust that the first and last number groups are as well.