From last year's attempt to close the Trail completely, to this year's "Recreate Responsibly". Progress?
Earlier this evening I took a spin around the Shortwave radio dial, before I took a spin on my trusty, Japanese-made, Zebra-Kenko, purple 10-speed bicycle.
Both events gave me a picture of what may be the 'new normal' -- the second 'spin' being the more positive of the two.
As I rode my bike, the sun was starting to set, but it was warm out, about 68 degrees (around 15C). It was nice out -- there were still some clouds in the sky, but it had been a pleasant day.
When I rode my bike down the trail to a nearby park there was a Softball game in session: two teams of regular folks, wearing team T-shirts, pitching, batting and hitting bright fluorescent green softballs. I saw a few extremely high, foul balls being hit, and a few base runs.
An amateur Softball game taking place. One year ago, all Softball games were banned, because of the Corona lockdowns.
No one was wearing masks, and there was no social distancing. I am guessing that most, if not all of the players, who looked to be in their 30s, were vaccinated. Of course, I didn't ask. But it would have been a natural conclusion to reach. As the players played ball, a few spectators (family, mostly) watched, some of them eating and drinking refreshments -- there were some chips and donuts sitting out on one of the nearby tables. Some kids were drawing figures on the concrete by the bleachers, using colored chalk.
It was really nice seeing a Softball game, and seeing people enjoying themselves. Last year at this time, the parks were closed to all sports, and everyone was under lockdown. This year? It's feeling more 'normal'.
I am due for my second corona vaccine shot this week. Two weeks later, technically, I will be 'fully vaccinated', whatever that means.
I stopped by an old 100 year-old bridge abutment, which used to support a box-girder bridge. The bridge was torn down in the mid-2000's, so now the concrete abutment (to the right side of this pic) is just a massive 'boulder' near a swimming hole. Across the river some people have their bonfire pit. Sometimes in summer one can see them all sitting around the fire.
The swimming hole. I don't know if it is used much, but it's 3-4 feet deep, about right for a short swim in the summer when the water gets warmer. And there's a nice rock to use to climb into the water.
My own life, personally, hasn't been affected that much by coronavirus, as I live alone, and work in a small office with just one other person. I don't go out to pubs normally, and shopping has just been for necessities once a week or so -- and it's been that way for the past three years, as I was caring for a relative.
Maybe once or twice a month I get a latte at a Starbucks or other espresso stand somewhere. Sometimes I get a burger at a fast food, drive-in window.
So my life hasn't been personally messed up by coronavirus. And luckily, I haven't caught it. I am not saying this to gloat, by the way. Roughly half of my readers are overseas, and that includes countries which are having severe troubles with Covid-19. My thoughts and prayers go your way. We are all in this together as human beings. We have survived pandemics before. Hopefully enough vaccines will become available that everyone will be able to receive one.
That said -- I'm looking forwards to normalcy here in my region of Washington state. It's nice to see people play a game of Softball or Cricket (which I used to see played in the same park). It's nice to be able to go to a karaoke pub, or a music venue (what few music venues there are left in Seattle, and it's not many -- they were decimated long before coronavirus hit). It'll be nice to go down to the lake and fish for yellow perch with my cheap looking, thrift-store fishing pole -- or swim, or just sightsee, and not worry about a virus. Hopefully, that can happen.
So, during my bike ride this evening, I had a small taste of that sense of 'normalcy'. It was nice.
...AND TAKING A SPIN ON THE RADIO DIAL
Also this evening, I took a spin on my radio dial, and I also had a small taste of the future of Shortwave Radio -- what I fear may be the new 'normal' on the High-Frequency airwaves.
Now, as some of you may know, I posted an article a couple weeks ago on Shortwave Radio, which was subtitled "Get 'Em While You Can," meaning: get those SW radio stations logged, recorded, etc., while they're still out there.
There was a reason for that subtitle -- the reason being that Shortwave Radio, as a broadcasting medium, is dying. It's on its last legs. Part of it is stations not making enough money, or not getting enough government backing. So there are stations cutting hours, and some are going off the air.
The bigger part of it is sunspots, which make the Shortwave radio spectrum work well.
Now, I hang out at several radio forums, including some inhabited by ham radio guys, MW DXers and SWLs, and right now some of them are talking sunspots. There are even pictures of the new activity on the surface of the sun. This is supposed to mean that things are slowly getting back to 'normal' on the Shortwave bands, which include some of the most important ham radio bands (10 meters, 12 meters, 15 meters, 17 meters, 20 meters, 40 meters, and 80 meters).
I've monitored the SW bands ever since I was a kid. I've monitored the SW amateur ("ham") radio bands during much of that same period. I've monitored SW during the peaks of solar cycles and the bottoms of solar cycles -- and never, in my life, have I seen such abysmal SW conditions as I have the past 4-5 years.
The 19 meter SW broadcast band (15000-15400 Khz) is a good example. Solar cycle in, solar cycle out, in the past there was always activity on the 19 meter band -- usually during the afternoon. Even when the solar cycles were down, there would be a few stations present during the late afternoons -- Radio Moscow, France, the BBC, VOA to Africa and Asia, Deutsche Welle, Radio Canada, Cuba, etc. The 19 meter band was the highest frequency SW broadcast band that was reasonably dependable, year round, even when the sunspots were down.
Over the past 4-5 years, I often don't even hear WWV on 15 Mhz. And that's with a better radio than I had in 1985 or 1996, when there were dips in the solar cycle, but WWV on 15 Mhz was still generally a regular, no matter what time of the year, no matter whether the sunspots were up or down. Even during those dips in sunspots, the 19 meter band had many more signals than it does now, and WWV would be audible almost 90% of the time.
In the past, even during the bottoms of sunspot cycles, 25 meters and 31 meters were both slammed with signals. Not so recently.
Back in 1996 I was able to hear Radio Turkey (on 31 meters) all night on a radio like this, and 60-100 ft (20-30 meters) of wire. That was even during the bottom of Solar Cycle 22! Over the past four years, the Voice of Greece -- another high-powered station located in the same region of the world, broadcasting on roughly the same beam (towards the EU and ultimately the US), which used to be audible nightly 8-9 years ago -- is mostly MIA. It's at least one indication that Solar activity isn't exactly up to snuff.
Earlier this evening, when I took my spin around the 31, 25, and 19 meter bands, I heard a total of 15 stations, and just over half of them were unreadable -- just traces of audio, where you can't ID the language the person is speaking, or ID the music. Some stations were just signals with no audio heard.
LA VOZ MISSIONARIA!
Now -- I did catch La Voz Missionaria on 9665 Khz, coming in from Brazil -- I could identify the Brazilian Portuguese the guy was speaking. That was cool. There were deep fades, but I could ID the Portuguese language. I have heard this station a few times over the past couple years, usually unreadable, and 'in the mud', but about 8-9 years ago I could pick it up fairly regularly (usually on my Panasonic RF-B45 and 25 ft. indoor wire), and I could hear the preachers talking in Portuguese, and some praise music. I do not understand more than a couple words of Portuguese, but I can ID the language very well as I have heard it on the SW band so much.
La Voz Missionaria play a lot of Brazilian Christian praise music, and you will also hear preaching in Portuguese -- if you know Spanish (a related Romance Language) you'll be able to pick out the words "Senhor" (Lord), "Deus" (God), "Biblia" (Bible), and other Christian terms, which are similar to the Spanish ones.
Here is La Voz Missionaria's radio website link. It's all in Portuguese, but has some phrases about the station that should be understandable to someone who has taken Spanish. I give these folks credit for staying on the air, especially on the Shortwaves!:
Quem Somos - Rádio Voz Missionária (radiovozmissionaria.com.br)
The antennas and studios of La Voz Missionaria, a Brazilian station located in the city of Camboriu in the southern state of Santa Catarina. La Voz Missionaria broadcasts to the poorer regions of NE Brazil, particularly the Sertao. (Photo courtesy of La Voz Missionaria's website).
La Voz Missionaria is apparently part of a greater Christian ministry that reaches out to the poorer Brazilians in the NE of Brazil -- the Sertao (a dry region where a lot of poor people live) and the regions around the Rio San Francisco, which -- at least according to my Brazil tour and picture book -- has an economy that varies, naturally affecting the lives of the people.
The station itself is located in Camboriu, Santa Catarina state -- a small city just inland from a resort beach city called Balneares Camboriu, which apparently is popular with European, South American, and even North American tourists. For those who are savvy with your geography, Camboriu is just north of the bigger, resort city of Florianopolis (which appears on most world atlases and globes, and is easy to bring up on Bing or Google maps).
Camboriu apparently has a great climate -- an average temperature of 60-70 degrees F (15C-20C) year 'round. :-)
Voz Missionaria's website has a few videos and other information about what they do. With all the negatives we SWLs often hear about the SW medium ("it's useless", "no one listens to Shortwave"), it's refreshing to see an organization of any type using SW to reach people with a message and some entertainment (Voz Missionaria plays music, too).
Speaking of Brazil, earlier this evening I also logged Radio Nacional da Amazonica on 11780 Khz, with an S3-S4 signal but very low modulation. They usually have very clear audio when I hear them. But I think there may be something haywire with their equipment. But they were indeed on the air. That was cool
But otherwise, aside from Cuba and US Domestic broadcasters, the SW bands I tuned across were DEAD.
I can appreciate the enthusiasm of the radio hobbyists who are trumpeting the start of "Solar Cycle 25" (actually there have been millions of solar cycles -- there's only been 24 recent cycles that we humans have tracked since we had the technology to do so), saying we're going to get back to awesome conditions again within a year or two.
I am more guarded. This last solar dip was horrible. It may have been an anomaly. After all, I am not a solar scientist. But what if it isn't an anomaly? After all, solar scientists told us that the last solar cycle, number 24 (which went from 2009 until this past year), was the weakest in a century -- as shown in this NASA graph released in 2014:
A Solar Cycle graph, courtesy of NASA, showing the past three Solar Cycles. Notice that each one has lower peaks, with "Cycle 24" having half the sunspots of "Cycle 22". Some solar scientists think this trend may continue through the next cycle, Solar Cycle 25. If current radio propagation conditions are any indication, they may be right.
That's why I encourage those of you readers who are radio hobbyists -- Get 'Em While You Can. Stations may be going off the air due to demographics, governmental budgets, church and ministry budgets, and the like. Even those stations with programming you dislike, give them a listen. Because I would wager that in ten years, very few, if any of them, will be on the air, and your SW radio will be a cool looking paperweight or static receiver.
...AND MORSE CODE CAN HELP
I also encourage my fellow SW radio hobbyists to monitor the ham bands, and try to learn Morse Code, even if it's just the basics. The ham bands haven't been exactly crawling with signals the past few years, and any ham will tell you that probably half of the licensed amateurs in the US are inactive -- and undoubtedly moreso because of the miserable conditions over the past several years.
Some of them will come back on the air, and the ham bands will see some more activity from the years 2022-2026. I've found that even when the sideband portions of the ham bands are inactive, the Morse Code sections of the ham bands (CW, as it's called officially) are often fairly, or somewhat, active with signals. These "CW" sections of the ham bands are the lowest portions of the SW ham bands (3500-3700 khz, 7000-7150 khz, 10100-10150 khz, 14000-14100 khz, and 21000-21150 khz seem to have the most CW activity).
Usually, once you learn enough code, you can at least ID the call letters of most of the guys sending a CQ. It helps that when the ham guys send CQ, they repeat it over and over, along with their callsign. This gives the beginning code learner a chance to get the letters down and ID the station.
Being able to read at least basic Morse Code gives you more to listen to when you're tuning around. Sometimes the SW broadcast bands will be MIA and the nearby ham bands will still have some activity.
Just food for thought.
I am still editing my article on the Grundig G2, which needed some pics of the menus and the like (my camera, for some reason, had trouble capturing pics of them, possibly due to the brightness of the G2's LCD display). I hope to get that article up on that fun little radio before June is out.
I'm closing this post with a pic of my cat Boots. I had him from 1996 until 2004, when a coyote killed him by the side of the street. He was a talkative character. I still miss him. I had a dream about him a couple nights ago, hence me pulling up this particular cat pic. If you live in coyote country, folks, please keep your cats inside.
Until later, my friends, Peace.
C.C., June 15th, 2021.
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