June, Frogs, and The End Of The Rock And Radio Age

JUNE = BLAH

It's already closing in on the end of June, and half way through the year 2018. Who would know it? The weather around here has been ranging from sunny and warm, to sort of a blah weather -- 68 degrees F and cloudy or rain.

Which is how the rest of things have been the past couple months, more or less blah.

An attempt to load an MP4 video/sound file of frogs chirping onto Blogger, but it doesn't seem to be working. :-(

EDIT TO ADD: It appears the sound file works after all! Wonders never cease!

FROGS AT NIGHT

The frogs were chirping and croaking a lot at night all during the month of May, which was very cool to hear. I often ride the local bike trail at night, and it passes two very large frog ponds, so during frog season it can get kind of loud. It always brings a smile to my face because here in Western Washington we don't have many night noises like you have in the Eastern part of the US -- no fields full of crickets, forests full of insect noises, and the like.

Here if you hear a sound in the woods or fields it's either a rare danger (like a coyote or a cougar growling), or a rare owl hooting (and it's sort of rare to hear one of them). Or -- if it's April or May, you will hear frogs happily croaking and chirping away from a nearby pond or puddle.

The frogs sound so exuberant, and they sound so HAPPY. It's very cool to hear their noises at night, It's a bit comforting to hear -- the noises of life in a dark world.

IN OTHER NEWS

Lately, MW DXing has been a bust overall. This past Winter was a terrible MW DX season. That's two horrible DX seasons in a row.

I didn't listen to the AM band all that much, aside from a couple standby stations I listen to late nights while writing fiction. Shortwave has been mostly dead. Bands that used to be littered with 15-20 stations are fortunate to have 2 or 3, and it's mostly the US domestic stations, including Radio Marti, or Cuba. The SW ham bands -- which I frequently monitor -- have been hit or miss for listening. Even the CW sections of the ham bands (the Morse Code sections, usually the lowest frequencies of any particular ham band) have been hit and miss.

KGRG-1, 1330 AM in the south county area of Seattle, plays lots of Old School Grunge and Alternative music. They are online also. 

ROCK MUSIC IS DYING, IT'S JUST A FACT -- and COUNTRY MUSIC IS NEXT

FM of course is boring for me since the local rock station on 98.9 MHz went country (our other rock station, 99.9 MHz, is OK but play too much 70's rock for my taste).

And it's odd: country music is turning into a version of pop and urban music. I've heard some new country songs that are all electronic beats, without even a guitar in it. Rock music, as we all know, has been slowly disappearing from the public's consciousness. It is turning into a niche genre -- an anachronism of the past. I predict that within 15 years Country music will disappear too. It will be a niche genre of music that you will only hear on public radio stations once or twice a weekend on specialty shows.

My Facebook feed has become less political lately, thankfully. Now it's mostly rock videos and cat videos, which is fine with me. The rock videos I see in my feed are mostly those from the grunge age: 1989-1996 or so. I've also been checking out a lot of nu-metal videos on YouTube. I especially liked the nu-metal era.

I joined a 'Seattle Grunge' FB group that is quite fun, in a way, because a lot of music and memories are shared -- but it's also a bit depressing, as so many of the Seattle grunge singers have died, either through overdose or suicide. It seems the 1990's was the last gasp for rock music, which ended with the tail end of the Nu-Metal / Rap-Rock boom in 1999-2005 or so. Since then there have been some good rock acts (Mastodon, Shinedown, PopEvil, Greta Van Fleet, etc,), but I think rock is in its death throes. It's no fault of the current rock acts -- it's a result of two generations of people to whom rock is an old, archaic music... a quaint vestige of a former century.

It's very sad to see it go. I am a rock muso and I was in two garage bands that went nowhere, but we sure had a lot of fun going there! I also recorded two rock CDs that never sold, but most of it is on Soundcloud for anyone who wants to give it a listen.

https://soundcloud.com/chriscampbellrock

Either way, the world is changing, and the rock music many of us grew up with, dreamed with, raged with, and played with is now passing away into the vast static we call time.

1955-2005 -- Rock music had a pretty good run, when you think about it. A fifty year run. It was a good kick in the ass for radio and music. Now we have Justin Bieber.

Now -- don't get me wrong. I actually like one of his songs. "All Around The World" was actually pretty cool for electronic pop music. It came out in 2012, the year the world was supposed to end, but didn't. Anyway, I won't begrudge Justin Bieber like so many do. There's room for anybody in music. It's just too bad that rock is fading away. Instead of the Beatles and the Stones, or Nirvana and Soundgarden, we get Mr. Bieber and Taylor Swift. Is that a great thing? I'll let the reader judge.

THE DEATH OF THE ELECTRIC GUITAR

Guitars. Man, how much guitar playing was a big part of life! I have several of them, some of which I've posted on this blog over the past couple years since 2014. Guitars are on the way out. Can you believe it? Well, I can. Gibson Guitars is thinking about bankruptcy as guitar sales have slumped. A prominent national guitar and music store is also reportedly seeing sales slump -- of guitars, basses, amps, and drum kits.

See -- no one plays real guitars anymore. It's all hip-hop beats and DJs. Keyboards you plug into your computer. Virtual instruments, on a computer, making virtual music. Just like what they use to make the latest version of "Country" music.

Guitars will always be with us -- after all, there are still oboe players and bassoon players, and those instruments were really hip in 1759. But they are niche instruments now, played only by a few aficionados worldwide.

Add to those ranks the electric guitar. That once cool, hot, musical instrument -- as it has been since at least the mid 1950's -- the instrument used by such greats as Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, and Kurt Cobain -- is slowly dying. The notion of a company like Gibson going bankrupt? In 1979 that sort of statement would have been heresy.

Now? It's apparently becoming reality.

Me playing my favorite guitar, some time after the turn of the century. 2005? I don't recall.

DRUMS, TOO

I was doing some research online last week, and drummers are slowly disappearing. It's all electronic now. You just program the computer to do it. In the 1980's the appearance of the electronic drumset was a godsend to solo musicians, and some of the electronic drumkits -- the Linn in particular -- sounded quite cool. I love my Alesis drum box. Without it I wouldn't have been able to record much of my music.

But if one wants to play in a band, you want a real drummer. You know -- a human with hands and feet and a drum kit. A real guy -- not some digits floating around inside a computer somewhere. Well, those guys are disappearing along with guitar sales. It's just a case of technology trumping all of us, I guess. It's the future, and we're seeing it happen.

I recently walked into a large music store. The name is unimportant: if I mentioned it, any guitar, bass, keyboard, or drum aficionado would know it instantly. The inside of the store used to be noisy -- it didn't matter which night of the week. You'd hear two to three guitar players trying out new guitars and amps, often just for the heck of it. Some of them would be showing off their chops. In the drum room you'd hear the ka-thump of drums and ker-ash of cymbals.

Invariably, the noises -- the cacophony of various musos wailing away -- would be part of the experience. In fact, a local drummer used to imitate an afternoon or evening at the store by doing sloppy rolls on the drums while shouting into the mike "Guitars! Line 5! Guitars! Line 5!" (imitating the sound of the intercom).

However, when I visited -- it was the first time in probably 6 months, as I already am maxed out on instruments -- it was dead in there. It was like a slow night at a shoe store.

I bought my red celluloid Fender thin guitar picks and walked around. There were maybe five people on the guitar and amp sales floor when 15 years ago there would have been 15 or 20 or so. It was really sad. It's possible it was just a poor night. Was it evidence of dipping interest in guitars and rock instruments? Who knows.

Will guitar players and drummers completely be wiped out off the Earth? No -- please see my note on oboes and bassoons earlier in this post. There will always be guitars and drums. You just won't be hearing them on the radio, because there won't be any radio to hear them on.

THE WHITE CHRISTMAS WILL HAVE TO WAIT

Anyway, I haven't posted here because there hasn't been all that much going on to write about. My once-promised Christmas posting -- we actually had a White Christmas in 2017 -- will have to wait until later in the year, when it fits the season. I had a ton of pictures but just didn't have the impetus to post them here, or anywhere.

I am also working on a couple radio reviews, for what it's worth. But they will come in time. I just have to be enthused enough about radio to finish them. And I'm not enthused about radio. MW is slowly dying, FM is boring as hell, and SW is dead -- along with rock music, electric guitars, and a few other things, it seems that everything I love is dying or dead.

Until then, seeyas next blog post.
:-)
CC 6-11-2018 & Aug. 15th 2018.

Powersound Pickups -- the Ibanez pickups everyone loves to hate

I have never been an equipment snob.

I've never been particularly impressed with popular, name brand equipment, whether in my radio hobby, or in my music hobby. It's just not a part of who I am. I have always had the belief that you can make do with moderate equipment -- you just learn to work with it.

I've especially applied this notion to guitars.

I've heard a lot of crap music being made on Gibsons and Fenders, even ones equipped with name-brand aftermarket pickups like Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, and EMG. For example, half the mediocre hair bands from the 1980's used excellent, high tech, high dollar equipment, but not all of their music has stood the test of time. The good hair bands (and there were a few -- Ratt being one of them) used high tech guitars also... but that's beside the point. The high tech didn't make the music good -- the musicians playing the guitars did.

Eddie Van Halen revolutionised music with a throw-together guitar and there is a suspicion that the pickup installed in the guitar he used on the first Van Halen album was a Mighty Mite (apparently a budget aftermarket pickup company), albeit modified. I rest my case.

Another example is the blues guitar players from the 1930's through the 1950's, some of whom had cheaper guitars. Now that dry thump sound of plywood acoustics is sought after by some acoustic blues players. And famous slide guitarist Ry Cooder's favorite guitar is a Teisco (a cheap Japanese brand from the 1970's -- they weren't bad guitars; sometimes all they needed were minor modifications and they would play quite well).

My favorite guitar -- a Daimaru. Probably made at the same factory in Japan that made Teiscos. Rebuilt, Decca pickup covers removed, bobbins painted black. (EDIT: I since have learned, after playing this guitar for more than two decades, that it is a SAKAI.).

It's just a fact that you can make good sounding music on second or third rate equipment -- it's just a matter of getting the best from it.

Recently I received a free guitar. An Ibanez Gio. Ibanez make good guitars, and the Gio series is their budget line. Evenso, it is well made. The neck is thin and easy to play, the frets are awesome and the fit and finish is good on the guitar. The tuners are a budget variety, but they hold tune well and I oil them about once a month with light oil, which helps them tune smoother and will probably extend their life by a decade or so. Some day I may put some Gotohs on it but that day is a long way off...

The guitar is a pleasant color -- a purplish shade of metallic red with maroon overtones that I believe Ibanez calls "Magenta Crush."

My Gio is a GRX40, a 'superstrat' copy with a volume and tone control, a 5 way switch, two single coil pickups and a humbucker in the bridge position. The pickups are Powersound pickups, which -- if you go by what is said on the internet -- are terrible pickups. I disagree.

From the first time I started to play the Gio, I had to adjust it to my playing. The low E bridge saddle needed to be filed shorter to intonate and resonate well on low D (I have the guitar tuned to D-standard). I filed the bottoms of the height adjustment screws flatter to give the saddles more positive contact with the bridge plate; I filed the tops of the adjustment screws down a little to keep them from digging into my hand while playing; I had to lower the slots on the nut to get the lower register chords to intonate better (I press rather hard on the strings). I tightened the tremolo springs all the way down to bring out the sustain of the guitar. It sings.

Then there were the pickups. The single coil Powersounds had a scooped quality -- they are very clear, with lots of treble, adequate bass, and have very high definition. Some guys on the 'net dislike Powersound single coils because they "don't have character." I've found they have their own sort of character, and it's a bright sort of neutral, but very usable and very musical sound.  I can get a close tone to 70's guitarist Robin Trower's strat tone with them (backing off the volume and treble a bit, and running it through a Boss phaser and Boss DS-1 distortion box, with the DS-1's tone control turned to the left), and I can get a good, clear, jazzy tone out of the single coils also -- which especially shines through when using effects boxes, like phaser, chorus, and echo.

Pinch harmonics work well with the pickups -- the definition and treble response brings them out easily. You can 'pinch' whole chords and they will ring and shimmer nicely.

When running the guitar through effects boxes the definition that the Powersound single coils exhibit works well -- sometimes with effects a guitar's sound can get muddied, but it isn't so with the pickups on my Gio. With the Powersounds, the almost transparent nature of the pickups -- even when distorted -- makes the effects really sing out, especially modulation and delay effects like chorus and phaser.

A close up of the Powersound humbucker in my GRX-40 Ibby Gio. I keep it at least 4-5mm from the strings. It seems to work best that way.

The Powersound humbucker is a different story. It is a Super Distortion clone with a ceramic magnet, and has fairly high output -- it breaks up very quickly and easily. It took a bit for me to get used to it, as my other humbucker equipped guitars are bluesy sounding rock guitars with moderately high output that have a different 'breaking up' point. The Powersound humbucker has more of an 80's metal sound. I found it works well through effects, and has definition and clarity, but it's anything but bluesy. It will roar, but it doesn't really 'sing' unless you really pick hard, or pick very softly.... It sounds great when you pick softly, and sounds good full-out -- but there is a very thin threshold between the two that takes getting used to.

I found that it mixed well with the other two pickups, not overpowering them. Backing it up from the strings cleared up the tone a lot. I have my Powersound humbucker about 4-5 mm from the strings. Any closer, it breaks up too quickly, making it less usable for anything but just full-out 80's metal sounds.

An old color pic I took of my Ibanez Gio GRX-40 -- it has a non-standard Magenta Crush color and was made in China in 2000, when Nu-Metal was king, Van Halen's sound was still sought after by everybody, and high output on bargain pickups was the way to go.

Still, even after backing the pickup away from the strings, the Powersound humbucker just wasn't something I wanted to use a lot. Then two things happened: I got into some of the chorus/echo guitar music of the 80's, where the guitars aren't so distorted, and I discovered a distorted guitar sound that this Powersound humbucker imitated quite well: that of a 70's Flying V.

As for the first discovery, I found that by playing with the amp on a cleaner setting, the pickup has a good tone, especially through a chorus and delay. Pinch harmonics really sing and warble. The pickup responds to differences in attack quite well. You can get that 80's humbucker / chorus / delay sound fairly accurately. You can pick very lightly and the clean tones sing out really well, if you have a good amp with some compression built in.

The Powersound humbucker's more neutral sounding tone highlights the effects really well.

If you pick harder, you get an 80's metal/rock tone rather easily also.

TRY ROLLING BACK ON THE VOLUME AND TONE A BIT

I also found that if the volume control is dialed back to around 6 or 7, and the tone is rolled off a bit, the humbucker sounds bluesier. There still is enough definition and bite to cut through a dirt box or gain channel on your amplifier.

The other discovery -- the Flying V imitation -- that happened by accident.

Now, Flying V's are cool looking guitars. But every recording I've heard of one sounded rather thin -- like a humbucker without much wood around it: which, actually is the case with a V. There isn't much wood around the pickups themselves. Compared to a Les Paul or even an SG, Flying V's sound kinda flat.

STEVE LOVE AND THE STORIES, AND A FLYING V

One of my favorite bands from the 1970's was a band most people haven't heard of: Ian Lloyd and the Stories. They had a hit song called Brother Louie, an R&B pop track, but their albums sounded like a different band entirely. They had songs that were almost baroque rock, and other songs that were progressive space rock. The guitar player for the Stories was a lesser known but accomplished player named Steve Love. He played in the Stories, and then left the Stories and played with Jobriath, an up and coming glam rocker from New York City who never quite made it. After his stint with Jobriath, Steve Love faded into obscurity.

Steve Love played a Flying V, apparently (at least according to a video I've seen of him) with a Super Distortion bridge pickup installed.

One day I was listening to the Stories' song "Please Please", one in which Steve Love has some key guitar parts. And there it was: that sound. A thinnish, but intense, steely tone. A sound that was ice-cold, but biting and snarly. Anything but bluesy, but still cool. Even though it wasn't a sound I would seek out, it was one I liked hearing.

Ian Lloyd & The Stories' 'Please Please'. Steve Love's Super Distortion equipped Flying V can be heard in this track. The Stories unfortunately didn't hit it very big in the US, aside from one single that didn't sound much like the band actually sounded.

Another Stories track where Steve Love's Flying V is prominent during the choruses.

The opening track off of Ian Lloyd & The Stories' excellent 1973 album, Travelling Underground, a hard rock / prog tinged song called Bridges. Steve Love's guitar lines can be heard throughout. Steve Love didn't play a ton of power chords, but his playing consisted of a lot of set runs and some solos, all of which had a steely sound that my Powersound pickups reminded me of. And this begs the question: where is Steve Love now? No one seems to know.

I realised that Steve Love's guitar sounded just like the humbucker on my Gio. I strapped on my guitar and played along with the CD. The tone was quite similar. Remarkably similar. It gave me a new appreciation for the "cheap" Powersound humbucker equipped on my guitar. It was a sound I probably wouldn't seek out, but it was still very usable. And different from my other guitars.

An Ibanez 882 with Matao Strat guts -- I built it myself. One of my best sounding guitars. Basically, a thrift store and Radio Shack parts special. Cheap can sound good.

I guess my purpose for writing this tome is that while some musos knock certain instruments, I think you can get a decent tone out of almost ANY instrument. Every instrument, just like every person, has a unique voice, and you just have to find it and work with it. It may not be your cup of tea -- the steelish snarl of a V isn't my favorite guitar voicing -- but it can be usable, and even something you can work with, and you can grow to like it enough to express yourself with it.

You can even write songs around it.

So whenever I want a thinnish, steely snarl like a 70's Flying V, I know where to go to get that sound: the Powersound humbucker on my Ibby Gio.

PICKUP SPECS, For Those Interested:

Recently a reader asked me about the specs on my Powersounds -- something I left out of the article. Being that I never have taken the pickups out, or taken the pickguard off the guitar to look at the backs of the pickups, all I have to go on is the Ibanez Fandom Wiki, which is probably fairly accurate. 

The two single coils are PSND5's (or PSNDS's), with Alnico 5 magnets and 5.20 ohm DC resistance each. The Humbucker is a PSND2, the white, uncovered model with 14.10 ohms of DC resistance and a ceramic magnet.

Here's a link to the Ibanez Fandom Wiki page on the Powersounds. There really isn't a ton of info on these pickups otherwise.:

Powersound pickups | Ibanez Wiki | Fandom


Addendum, 7-1-2018:
After some experimentation lately, I discovered an easy way to eke a little more tone out of my Ibby's Powersound Humbucker. It's a device that most guitarists have in their arsenal -- a distortion or boost box with an active tone control.

My Boss DS-1 does the trick very nicely. Boss DS-1's (their famous orange pedal used by Kurt Cobain among others) are fairly ubiquitous, and usually aren't expensive. I've had mine since the 1990's. The tone control can act like a treble or midrange boost, as well as smooth out the distortion by cutting highs and emphasizing the bass tones.

I've found that even just using the DS-1 alone can add a little extra color to the humbucker's tone.

For those who would like more tone from their Powersound humbuckers, experiment with whatever distortion or overdrive box you might have in your guitar arsenal. Most of them have an active tone control of some sort. It can be a very useful tool for livening up and coloring your tone, and it's cheaper than replacing the pickup itself -- you just plug the box in between your guitar and your amp.

Addendum, 3-21-2021: SLIDE on a Powersound Humbucker:

Over the past several months I've changed the set-up on my GRX-40 Gio to fit Open G tuning, because I needed a backup slide guitar, and because I realise I can do more with Open G on my Gio than Drop C tuning, which is where I had the guitar for about a year. Consequently, I discovered that the Powersound humbucker sounds very good with a slide. When I started playing slide on the Gio using the humbucker, it sounded like a different pickup.

So another option for Powersound humbucker guitar owners is to try slide. Keep the pickup 4-5 mm away from the strings (my humbucker is 5 mm from the strings on each side). Use the volume and tone controls to adjust for bluesy tones. Crank your amp or dirt box to fit. The pickup has enough treble that you can back off on the controls and bring out more of a blues tone from it. Experiment.

ADDENDUM, 3-27-2023: Back off on the Volume Control!:

When I was really into Robin Trower's music in 2011-2012, I looked him up on the internet. One thing he said was he always cranked his amps, and backed off on his volume and tone controls to get a smooth, bluesier sound out of his Strats.

I have found -- since writing this article -- that backing off on the Volume control on my Powersound-equipped GIO does roughly the same thing. It tames the treble, but also makes the pickups react more like blues pickups. It helps if you have a good gain channel on your amp, or even if you use a dirt box or two. I run my GIO (and my other guitars) into a combination of Boss Blues Driver BD-2 > Boss SD-1. And adjust the dirt box controls to taste. 

I have found that backing the Volume control to around 6 or 7 seems to mellow the PS humbucker pickup a bit. It works really good with my slide. And the single coils also mellow a bit -- they sound bluesier.

You can always crank it up for really loud chords and the like. Experiment.

I have added a paragraph to the article about rolling back the Volume and Tone. I had been doing this for a long time -- I just forgot to include it in the article.

Some day when I figure out how to get a decent video recording, and clean up my music room to where it's at least remotely presentable, I may try to put up a demo on my blog. 

I also just added Ian Lloyd & The Stories' song Please Please to this blog post, something I didn't know how to do when I wrote this article. The Stories stuff is well worth checking out on the 'Tube. There are even some live tracks that show what the band were capable of.

ADDENDUM, August 5th, 2023: 

I recently was able to talk with a guitarist, Richie Ranno on a YouTube thread. Mr. Ranno was the lead guitar player in the 1970's hard rock band Starz -- he played a Strat with a humbucker -- one of the first prominent guitarists to do so. I asked him about Steve Love, the Stories' guitar player I talk about in this article. Ranno played guitar in the Stories after Steve Love left. Mr. Ranno said that nobody seems to know what happened to Steve Love. Steve Love just disappeared. He also said that Steve Love may have used a stage name -- that his last name was different from 'Love'.

I also added a small bit to one of the pics' captions (where I added that I keep my Powersound humbucker at least 4-5mm from the strings), and bolded that in the body of the story, because I still think that keeping the pickups farther from the strings makes them sound better.

So far, this article is the one on my blog that has gotten the most readers -- just shy of 7000 readers to date. Thank you all for checking in. :-) 

And if anyone has any info on Steve Love, please leave it in the comments.

And check out the Starz! There are several vids on YT with them playing. Here is one of them. The guy with the white Superstrat is Richie Ranno (it's an older Fender with a humbucker -- Ranno had a guitar shop customize it in the early 1970's). He's a great player. Peace. C.C.

ADDENDUM, April 9th, 2024:

A reader asked me about the model numbers of my Powersounds, and I had to look it up. I figured the article probably needed that info, so I tacked it onto the bottom of the article. PSND2, PSND5 -- that sort of thing. Somehow, I neglected to do so when writing the article. Well, the info is there now. Better late than never, hey? :-)

ART BELL -- The Storyteller of the Radio Night-Time

It was a windy evening. The power was out. I was living alone, and was hungry, so I used my fireplace to make some tea, and then boiled some ramen soup with vegetables in it. It was the early 1990's, and I had just rediscovered long distance MW/AM radio listening. I think I had just got my new, black plastic GE Superadio 3, which was a good radio for hearing stations all over the Western US. Being that the radio would run for days on a set of D cells, I switched it on as I sipped my tea and boiled my soup -- the fire being the only heat, and the radio providing the only sound in the house. My cat was probably asleep on the couch nearby.

The fire was low, and I had a few candles going. The windstorm had mostly passed, but I could still hear the wind blowing in the chimney during the infrequent gusts. Sometimes a gust would cause the fire to flare up and smoke with a haunting whistle.

As I ate, and drank my tea, I had my GE Superadio on the nearby table. I was sitting, watching the flames glow on the presto-log fire, and listened to stories of UFO's, strange flying objects going in and out of Area 51, grey aliens who referred to humans as 'soul containers', and a warning about the terrors of the horrible 'black box'. It was spooky talk for a powerless, windy evening. The guy being interviewed was a man named John Lear. The interviewer? Well, he was an overnight talk host, whose show I had just discovered.

Art Bell was on the radio.

Art Bell was a famous night time radio host here in the United States. He started out on a station out of Nevada, which was audible up and down the Great Basin, and by the time I discovered his show in the early 1990's he was on a network of maybe 20-30 stations throughout the West. As the decade wore on, Art managed to become a nationwide, nighttime phenomenon -- his show adding stations by the hundreds.

He always interviewed people who were experts in the strange and the wonderful. His show was known for the paranormal, but he sometimes had other people interviewed as well. Sometimes famous musicians would call in -- guys like Willie Nelson or other similar singers, who told Art how they would listen to his show on their tour buses as they drove through the night. It was a fascinating slice of offbeat Americana -- sort of like the modern version of the storyteller bards that told haunting stories about heroes and fairies over the peat fires in the Irish countrysides at night.

That was the feeling I got that particular windy night listening to Art Bell's show on my Superadio.

His show concentrated mostly on the subject of UFO's and the bizarre, but he also hosted interviews with people like Catholic priest and exorcist Malachi Martin, reverse speech expert David Oates, and physicist Michio Kaku. One of the highlights of his show was the annual "Ghost To Ghost" segment that took place every Halloween, when people would call in with their ghost stories, many of which were quite telling. Art's show provided for some of the most fascinating listening on the radio -- always at night -- and the show spawned several imitators -- some which survived, and others which came and went rather quickly.

His show was highly listened to by people like myself, who worked overnights for several years. For millions, his show was prime entertainment -- the ghostly, often humorous, and never boring overnight companion.

Art's show lasted until the early 2000's, when certain issues arose and he had to quit broadcasting. His legacy, Coast To Coast AM, continues to this day across the US every night on several hundred stations, seven nights a week, hosted primarily by George Noory.

Art Bell died inexplicably on Friday night, April 13th. It was a shock to me, as I thought he was doing well with his young wife and child. He was only 72.

RIP Art Bell. Your stories will never be forgotten. By now you probably know the solutions to all the mysteries your show explored. May you always be at peace.

Here's hoping all my readers worldwide are doing well. Until next time, Peace. CC 4-18-2018

How to change the SANGEAN PR-D5's MW/AM band channel spacing from 10 khz to 9 khz -- or vice versa

The Sangean PR-D5 is a popular AM-FM Stereo mini-boombox radio that runs on 6 C cell batteries and is an excellent performer on MW/AM especially.  I've had mine for several years and have had no issues with mine -- except a couple very minor ones I have talked about in several posts here on my blog. One issue was easily solved by unplugging the power cord and removing the batteries for a half minute or so, the other issue was easily solved by inserting plastic shims into the battery compartment.

Other guys I have talked to on the internet have had no issues whatsoever with their PR-D5's -- one guy has two of them, another lives in Hawaii and has heard the Eastern states of America along with several Asian stations on his PR-D5 -- all with no other antenna but the one inside the radio.

They're very good MW/AM radios, and sound great on FM, too. An excellent buy.

MW/AM CHANNEL SPACING -- A READER WANTS TO KNOW HOW TO CHANGE IT

Recently a reader asked me about the Sangean PR-D5. He apparently was having an issue whenever he replaced the batteries -- the AM band would revert to 9 kHz spacing for some reason. This has never happened on my radio -- I have it usually set to 10 kHz MW/AM spacing, and leave it that way.

And it stays that way, unless I change it. But this reader's PR-D5 apparently changes to 9 kHz now and then when he swaps out the batteries.

For those who aren't aware, the MW/AM broadcast band uses 10 kHz channels in the US, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. I think Greenland also uses 10 kHz spacing between MW/AM radio channels.

In the rest of the world the spacing is 9 kHz. With old analog radios, spacing wasn't an issue -- you just turned the dial until you got to the next radio station. With digitally tuned radios, you often have to set the spacing to either 10 kHz or 9 kHz (with some radios you can set it to 1 kHz and you tune up the band very slowly that way).

The SANGEAN PR-D5 will tune the MW/AM band in 10 kHz or 9 kHz increments. The hitch is that you have to set the channel spacing in the radio if -- when you get it out of the box -- it is set to the wrong MW channel spacing for your part of the world.

Now, in the manual it tells us how to switch the radio between 10 kHz and 9 kHz spacing. But lots of times, we lose the manual, right?

There may be others out there in the internet universe who perhaps forgot how to change channel spacing on their PR-D5's (and related radios -- I think many of the new Sangean AM-FM's have similar firmware). This post is aimed to help. :-)

HERE IT IS: STEP BY STEP

So -- HERE'S HOW TO SWITCH YOUR PR-D5 FROM 10 KHZ TO 9 KHZ, AND VICE VERSA.

First: turn the radio OFF.

When you first press the STEP/BAND button -- with the radio off -- this appears on your PR-D5's readout. Keep holding the button down.

After turning the radio OFF, press the "STEP/BAND" button in the top center of the radio, and hold it down for several seconds. A 'VERS P.05" (or some other similar number) will appear. Keep holding the button down. Then it will beep.

Now -- press the "STEP/BAND" button again. You'll get the CLOCK setting, it will say either "24 HOUR" or "12 HOUR" (this tells the radio how to show the time).

Press the "STEP/BAND" button again.

Now the LCD readout will say either "AM 10 kHz " or " AM 9 KHZ" -- whether it shows 10 kHz or 9 kHz depends on where the radio is set when you start this process. Turn the tuner button up or down until the step you want shows up in the LCD readout -- whether 9 kHz or 10 kHz.

When the kHz step you want shows up on the LCD readout, PRESS IN ON THE TUNER BUTTON.

This will set the MW/AM step to either 9 kHz or 10 kHz, whichever one you selected.

Your PR-D5's LCD readout will now look like " --:-- ". 

You're done.

Let go of the buttons on the radio, and within a second or two the LCD readout will darken.

Now you can turn on your PR-D5 and it should tune the AM band in 10 kHz steps, or 9 kHz steps, depending on whichever step sequence you prefer.

When you change the channel spacing from 10 kHz to 9 kHz and back again, you will lose your 5 AM band memories. It will reset to the default memories, which are 5 different channels spread across the AM band. But the memories in the PR-D5 are easy enough to re-set: Tune to the channel you want, press a memory location button until you hear a beep, and it's set.

I sometimes switch my PR-D5 to 9 kHz when I want to hear stations from Asia, which rarely come in here at my location. In fact, as I type this, I have been hearing long slow fades of what sounds like some Asian speech, although it is unidentifiable, on 1566 kHz. On 1570 it was just a weak heterodyne. 1566 is the clearest 9 kHz channel here in my area of Western Washington. There is a powerful station in Korea that is 250,000 watts, where I have heard audio at least twice.

Another DXer in another part of Washington State has heard this station more than a couple of times.

In other news, we've had a rainy, grey, moderate Winter for the most part here in the Seattle area. We had maybe 8-10 nights and mornings this Winter where it was freezing or below freezing, but most of it so far has been around 40-50F -- pretty moderate for Winter.

We had a White Christmas this year: extremely rare for Western Washington state. It started snowing during the afternoon on Christmas Eve, and snowed late in the evening, up until early Christmas Morning. It was a magical feeling to see the snow fall on Christmas Morning. Considering some of the other things that were going on in my life at the time, it was sorely needed. 

I will post some Christmas pictures later this week.

Hope all are having a good February.

CC 2-18-2018

Radio Shack 200629 Synthesized World Receiver -- how to quickly fix a feedback and whistling noise issue

The Radio Shack 200629 "PLL Synthesized World Receiver", with a Panasonic external SW antenna. The silver plug is a mono-to-stereo adaptor, which seems to be needed with at least some of these radios.

I bought one of these marvels about five years ago (in 2013), when Radio Shack had them on sale. Radio Shack calls them the "PLL Synthesized SW Receiver", and colloquially they have been referred to as the "Radio Shack World Receiver", "Radio Shack Synthesized World Receiver", or by the catalog number 200629.

It's basically a new Sangean ATS-505 in a black cabinet, and with the Radio Shack badge. The audio chip is different, with a little bit more output. The tuning has no chuffing. But basically it's an ATS-505 with Radio Shack's name on it.

They're great radios. Unfortunately, Radio Shack is online only, and doesn't sell these 200629 World Receivers anymore, and Sangean unfortunately no longer makes ATS-505's. But if you find one for sale online, they are very good radios.

But there is one minor issue -- at least with mine. The issue I experienced may not be present on all of these radios. It's possible it is just a glitch with mine. But in case anyone else who has one of these radios encounters feedback when using an external SW antenna, I found a way to defeat it.

FEEDBACK AND OSCILLATION USING THE EXTERNAL ANTENNA

I hadn't used my Radio Shack 200629 / ATS-505 in maybe a year. I just lost interest in Shortwave, and had other radios that I used in my radio hobby. Seeing it on the shelf one day, I pulled it out, plugged in some batteries, and plugged in my 25 foot indoor wire antenna (which ends in a mono mini-plug).

I noticed weird sounds on the SW stations -- almost a swishing sound, like there was frequency instability. When I switched the sensitivity switch from 'DX' to 'LOCAL' it went away somewhat.

When I pulled out the headphones I noticed my Radio Shack World Receiver began acting like a theramin whenever I moved my hand close to the radio. Weird. Obviously, there was some sort of internal oscillation going on in the radio, that was caused in some way by the external antenna, and was abated somewhat by having the headphones plugged in.

It took several days of staring at a schematic and experimenting with the radio to find out that the problem was simple: the SW External Antenna jack is a stereo jack.

When I plugged the mono antenna plug all the way into the stereo EXT Antenna jack -- that was when I got the feedback.

I tried plugging my antenna plug in PART WAY, so it wasn't all the way in. No feedback, no swoosh noises, no theremin sounds.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

I then found a mini mono-to-stereo adapter out of my parts box, and plugged my antenna plug into the adapter, and then plugged the adapter into the radio. It works on SW perfectly.

SIMPLE SOLUTION: USE A STEREO ANTENNA PLUG, OR MONO-TO-STEREO ADAPTER

The 200629 does not like mono antenna plugs in the stereo antenna jack. A mono plug will cause at least some of these radios to feedback somehow, and if you aren't using headphones you'll find the radio acts like a theremin.

Whether Sangean-branded ATS-505's have this issue, I don't know. I know that the audio chip on the 200629 is different from the one used in ATS-505's -- at least the ATS-505's that were first produced. It is more powerful than the audio chips in older 505's. But the IF chip is the same, the FM front end chip is the same, and I'm guessing the rest of the basic circuitry is the same.

The EXT Antenna jack is wired stereo apparently to take the internal, whip antenna out of the picture. The radio is a fairly high gain radio on SW -- it has an FET RF amp and several FET stages of IF amplification and filtering that it doesn't have on MW and LW. Although I am a neophyte at reading schematics, it seems the whip antenna is connected to the RF amp with less resistance, and plugging in the EXT antenna with a stereo plug switches the whip antenna off, and increases the resistance somewhat.

So using a mono EXT antenna plug into the stereo jack somehow overloads the front end of the SW part of the radio. Voila! Oscillation.

USING A STEREO ANTENNA PLUG OR A MONO-TO-STEREO ADAPTER = HAPPY RADIO

Either way, if you use a mono EXT antenna plug on a Radio Shack World Receiver, you can get oscillation, feedback, and theremin like hand capacitance effects, especially without headphones plugged into the radio.

Use a stereo plug, or a mono-to-stereo adapter, or if you have to, just engage the mono plug enough to where it is halfway seated -- that also works. Then you can spend time DXing with your 200629 / ATS-505 without extra oscillation and theremin-like stuff going on. :-)

So if you have a Radio Shack PLL World Receiver 200629, and you have weird oscillations when using an external antenna, make sure to use a stereo input jack, or -- better yet -- a mono-to-stereo adapter.

You can also just clip an external wire antenna to the 200629's whip antenna. The connection to the radio's circuitry is more or less the same. I've never had whistling issues clipping my indoor wire to the whip antenna, though.

Not all Radio Shack 200629's may have this issue. I really don't know. My radio works normally otherwise, and with the adapter, it's working well with the external antenna now.

I will probably post an article on the radio itself soon.

Until then, hope those of you in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying the last of Winter, and Winter DX season.

SOME DECENT CATCHES ON SHORTWAVE

MW has been fair-to-middling here at my location recently, but a few early mornings I've heard some decent catches on the 49 and 41 shortwave meter bands -- including the BBC in Urdu, Pashto and Dari towards South Asia on 7485 and 7465 khz, broadcasting from Kranji, Singapore -- both catches I heard on the 200629 Radio Shack radio with a 25 ft (10 meter) indoor wire, a few mornings ago around 1500-1600 UTC.

Lately shortwave propagation conditions have been mostly mediocre, but there have been a few mornings that the pipeline to Asia has been open, and that was one of those mornings. :-)

CC 2-9-2018

 

ADDENDUM, August 31st, 2023: 

After having to repair the connection between my whip antenna and the 200629's main PCB, I took a second look at the 200629's schematic diagram and the way the EXT antenna jack is wired. I'm not sure if it's a stereo jack or not, but the stereo plug did help when I used an external wire with the radio.

Then I lost the mono-to-stereo adapter. So I started clipping the 10 meter / 25 ft. indoor wire to the whip. That worked great. Then it started cutting out. I took the back off. The whip is connected to the PCB with this little prong device, and it's one of Sangean's weak points, they made connections like this with some of their other radios, and those connections would eventually get wiggy. My DX-390 needed hard wiring, and so did my DX-440.

Now it looks like my ATS-505/200629 needs its whip hard wired to the PCB as well. Live and learn. :-)

The EXT jack still acts odd if the mono plug is pushed all the way in. I think that either a) my previous conclusion in this article is correct -- it's a stereo jack (it just doesn't say so in the manual!), or b) my EXT antenna jack is defective. 

After I fix and hard wire the whip antenna connection, I may write up another article on the 200629 and the antenna issue.

And, just in case any new 200629 owners are reading this article by chance and wondering about a loud whine on 9820 kHz, yes, there is a 'Birdie' in the middle of the 31 Meter band, on 9820 kHz. Birdies are fairly normal on PLL radios. Luckily for SWLs there aren't many of them. 

And all this said, I still think the 200629 / ATS-505 is a terrific SWL and MW DX radio. Great sound through headphones. Enjoy. C.C.

ADDENDUM, June 12th, 2024: I made a couple minor edits, including adding a line stating that if you clip the wire antenna to the whip, using an alligator clip, you don't get the whistling / oscillating issues -- at least I haven't in the 2 years I've just been using my wire antenna that way -- clipping it to the whip antenna. Looking at the schematic, there may be an internal wiring connection that makes the radio dislike mono plugs in the EXT antenna jack. But right now, that's just a guess. 

TL;DR: just clip your wire antenna to the whip. :-)

HALLOWEEN and FALL pictures 2017

One of my Halloween Jack O' Lanterns this year.

Now that it is almost Christmas, it's time to put up a few Halloween and Fall pictures. :-)

Halloween is my favorite holiday... It surpasses Christmas because one doesn't have to have a lot of family ties, or close family to enjoy it. All you have to do is either hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, or carve a pumpkin or two, and you are an active participant. Or you can dress up and hit the bar and mingle a bit with other partiers.

With Christmas, it's not easy if you have no close family. There isn't much of a way to celebrate. Christmas was a lot more fun for me in the past. Today? Not so much.

So, to commemorate this most recent happy Halloween holiday, here are a few pictures, which I took of my own decorations, as well as a few decorations from houses in nearby areas:

One house in the area had a Pumpkin Tree!

A couple houses had cool looking blow-up decorations in their yards.

This house had lots of cool looking Jack O' Lanterns.

Another place had some really cool blow-up decorations for the Trick-or-Treaters.

A happy looking Pumpkin Man.

A local thrift store had a lot of cool Halloween stuff for sale.

This Halloween was a decent one. There were more trick or treaters than usual. I put up my usual pumpkins and scary things. This Fall was also a decent one. I took a few pics with both of my cameras. Now that Fall is gone, I will have to take some Winter pictures, but the problem of course is that Winter here in Seattle means clouds and rain. We rarely get snow, and even frost is kind of rare.

I used the same hanging spooky decorations as last Halloween -- this year they looked a little better for some reason.

My mini-graveyard looked decent this Halloween.

Another of my carved Jack O' Lanterns.

Mickey Mouse lit up the window, as he did last year.

The moon looked very spooky the night of Halloween, which was very fitting!

I also took a few pictures of fall leaves, although the best colors came out when it was rainy out. :-(

The first leaves of fall -- Cottonwood leaves turned yellow.

A Hawthorn tree chock full of berries late in September.

The Cedar River surrounded by subtle Autumn colors.

The Cedar River Trail had Autumn leaves, but it was not quite as colorful as previous years.

A frog pond surrounded by Autumn colors.

As it is now Winter, it is now DX season for those of us who tune the late night AM/MW band. I haven't heard many new stations, and some nights have been only fair for DXing (distance listening), considering that it is near Solstice and the sunspots are low. There have been a few surprises, though: a few nights ago I heard XEW, on 900 KHz, fading up and then fading out, on my Panasonic RF-B45, using a loop to enhance the signal.

It's always cool to hear a station from that deep in Mexico. The last time I heard one was on my Sanyo Boombox in 2011-2012, a station on 1500 Khz. I used a loop to bring it in more clearly, but it was even audible on my boombox without the external loop helping the signal.

Because it's Lille Julafton -- the day before Christmas Eve -- I have to have at least one Christmassy picture on here. This is my only new tree ornament this year: I put it on my outdoor Christmas tree, a hawthorn I always light up and put ornaments on.

Here's hoping you have (or have had) a great Christmas, Weinacht, Jul, Hannukah, Solstice, or whatever holiday you celebrate during the this time of year.

I will try to get some pictures that fit the Christmas holiday soon.
C.C. 12-20-2017 and 12-23-2017