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Author Topic: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC  (Read 2929 times)

Offline EliteData

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careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« on: August 17, 2016, 0214 UTC »
nothing new to report than the frequent idiots that cannot properly operate and maintain a high power broadcast transmitter.
completely overmodulated with splatter extending up to 50Khz that can typically be heard at 9915Khz and 10015Khz (see screen shot), unreal.
i just dont understand why they even bother.
its just a true waste of electricity, tubes and airwaves lol
edit: the shadow line in the center white spectrum display was set to 5Khz to give a perspective
« Last Edit: August 17, 2016, 0251 UTC by EliteData »

Offline dxace1

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Re: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2016, 0244 UTC »
It will go down in shortwave history as one of the most bizarre things
ever -- Radio Cairo's inability, year after year, to get its act together,
even while assuming that it still has an overseas audience....
Dan in Potomac, MD (USA)  eQSL to:  dxace1@gmail.com

Receivers: Skanti R-8001, WJ 8718AMFP/8711A/8709/8712P, JRC NRD-630/301A/93, NRD-505/545/515, Drake R8/8B/SPR-4/R-7A, RFT EKD-515, ITT MacKay 3041A, McKay Dymek DR33-C6, AEG 1800/3, Racal RA-1792, Cubic 3280/2400, R&S EK-056/070/085/896/200, ICOM 71A/8500/8600/9000, Elad DuoR, AOR 7030, Lowe HF-250, Ten Tec RX-350, Yaesu FRG-8800/100, Collilns 51S-1

Offline Pigmeat

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Re: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2016, 1144 UTC »
I actually heard fairly clear decently modulated audio from Cairo earlier this year. My left arm went numb I was so shocked. A once in a lifetime event like that popping up out of the blue could kill a man.

Two of my earliest memories of shortwave involved R. Cairo and R. Havana. Castro and Nasser would go off on these hour's long speeches. With the time difference between where I lived and Egypt, Nasser would be droning towards the end of his daily rant when you tuned by in the early evening and be getting wound up good just before lunch the next day. He must have had a "piss boy" with a chamber pot in the studio with him as he never stopped.

Offline jFarley

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Re: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2016, 1346 UTC »
As for bizarre broadcasts in SW history, my vote for #1 goes to Radio Uganda.  IIRC, in the summer - 1980 - following the deposition of Idi Amin, the nightly NA Service from RU began to soften up and air more Western-friendly programming.  This was a nightly broadcast from 0300-0400z (?) near the top of the 19M band (15350?), from the relatively new 250kW Soroti plant.  This transmitter put massive signals into NA, but as the inmates seemed to be running the asylum, it also put massive spurs all across the band (and beyond) due to extreme over-modulation.

The programming was exceptionally queer.  After a brief segment of Ugandan news, an album was tracked, and this generally consisted of very distorted mx from the Pointer Sisters, James Brown, or the Bee Gees, all of whom were heavy in the nightly album rotation.  They seemed to have a fondness for the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, and I also seem to recall that the musical fare for one show was Los Bravos "Black Is Black" repeated over and over again for greater than 40 minutes.

It was a nightly train wreck, and I wish that the logbook from those years hadn't been destroyed in a flood.

In all fairness to RU, they did get it right on one night that I know of.  Towards the end of the summer, a 5 song set of East African mx was aired; signal and modulation quality was excellent, and I was able to get a nice cassette recording of the show.  What I heard here immediately sparked my interest in African mx, and was a turning point in my musical tastes.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2016, 1458 UTC by jFarley »
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Offline dxace1

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Re: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2016, 1521 UTC »
I hope all of us who still have cassettes and reels of tape from our years of
DXing have transferred them to digital.  Anyone who doesn't have the capability
to do that, please do let me know as I have reel-to-reel, cassette, MD and solid
state capabilities here and can transfer recordings for a nominal fee.
Dan in Potomac, MD (USA)  eQSL to:  dxace1@gmail.com

Receivers: Skanti R-8001, WJ 8718AMFP/8711A/8709/8712P, JRC NRD-630/301A/93, NRD-505/545/515, Drake R8/8B/SPR-4/R-7A, RFT EKD-515, ITT MacKay 3041A, McKay Dymek DR33-C6, AEG 1800/3, Racal RA-1792, Cubic 3280/2400, R&S EK-056/070/085/896/200, ICOM 71A/8500/8600/9000, Elad DuoR, AOR 7030, Lowe HF-250, Ten Tec RX-350, Yaesu FRG-8800/100, Collilns 51S-1

Offline Rizla

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Re: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2016, 1410 UTC »
I'd like to second that dxace. I have 15, 7.5., 3 3/4, 1 7/6 speeds on 1/4" tape, but  the 15 is half-track and some of the old stuff is mono, so it gets tricky. The only possible answer is re-hab of more beautiful, wrecked old machines.  :)  I have a Sony "portable" from 1971 but it doesn't do 15 ips, of course, but who aside from radio stations recorded stuff that speed? I have great stuff from Katrina days (ham radio) on Reel to Reel, must fish it out when I have time.
QTH: Sonoran Desert, AZ. Kenwood TS-820S, FT-891, Tecsun 880, neophyte in a forest of antenna wire.

Offline Chanter

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Re: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2016, 0053 UTC »
Hmmmmm.  I may have to take someone up on their tape-to-digital transferring capabilities.  I've got many, many cassettes I'd love to keep the contents of, and zilch when it comes to ability to shift them to a newer format.  They're nearly all recorded on four sides, not just two, if that'd cause anyone a problem.  I had a habit of recording radio programming on the usual one and two, then using sides three and four for live, unscripted recordings of teenage adventures a la summer camp and similar.  Heh.  Sometimes, sides one and two would bleed through to three and four, which was flipping annoying in the extreme.  Still is.  I wonder if there's a way to digitally clean that up. 

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Offline EliteData

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Re: careless idiots at 9965Khz AM 8/17/16 0206 UTC
« Reply #7 on: August 21, 2016, 0905 UTC »
Hmmmmm.  I may have to take someone up on their tape-to-digital transferring capabilities.  I've got many, many cassettes I'd love to keep the contents of, and zilch when it comes to ability to shift them to a newer format.  They're nearly all recorded on four sides, not just two, if that'd cause anyone a problem.  I had a habit of recording radio programming on the usual one and two, then using sides three and four for live, unscripted recordings of teenage adventures a la summer camp and similar.  Heh.  Sometimes, sides one and two would bleed through to three and four, which was flipping annoying in the extreme.  Still is.  I wonder if there's a way to digitally clean that up. 


i would suggest the transfer of any analog medium take place on very high quality professional grade playback equipment and that the transfer to the digital medium take place "as is" in plain vanilla format but at the highest lossless bitrate possible (FLAC is an excellent choice), you want to preserve everything.
this plain vanilla format will be your digital master that you can make digital working copies from.
you can then use your digital working copy to make edits, apply any noise reduction or sound enhancements as necessary.
the problem is locating high quality professional grade analog playback equipment at a reasonable price.
you dont want to use a $100 cassette deck to make your digital master from and it doesnt make sense to spend hundreds of dollars on equipment to preserve a few hours of media content.
there is a market out there for digital transfer, just finding the one that does it at a professional grade level is difficult since most use cheap grade analog equipment for playback.