A pic of my little pal Squeakers from 2018? I'm not sure. She was telling me that my guitar amp was now her chair. I still miss that cat.
Just a note to say hello again. I am not sure how long this new, cell system-based internet connection will hold up. Understandably, I do not trust tech companies. But so far it seems to work. It's a wireless internet company, and the modem is a fancy one.
Right now I'm also having to clear a lot of files off my computer, to make space for the endless, resource hogging updates, which seem to increase if you have faster internet.
Isn't tech fun?
I just noticed that my last blog post had no title. Which is weird, because the first thing I did while writing it was typing in a title up at the top of the page. The title obviously did not save. That is how undependable my internet connection was. I have since corrected it. It has a title now.
Nothing else is going on here. My Fuji Camera -- the one that fixed itself -- broke again. I put new batteries in it -- brand new, fresh AA's -- and it turned on and then froze. Once again, I have a Fuji camera that won't take pictures and is frozen with the lens extended, immobile. It's too bad, because it took great pictures. My trusty Nikon L32 still works. I just put a new SD card in it, so I hope to take some pics again soon.
The weather is slowly getting warmer. The trees still have not greened out fully on the hills. Usually they're green by April 5th, but the last few years -- as I've said on this blog several times now -- the trees have been late. Of course, being an SWL and MW radio DXer, I'm intrigued by the possibility of a possible effect of the Solar Cycles on plant growth. I found an article a few years ago that suggested that Solar Cycles influence plant growth -- it was a university study from the 1970's, that showed a correlation between Solar Maximums and higher crop yields. A recent search on UV and plant growth brings up a few, hard to read articles that are somewhat inconclusive. Here is one of them.:
If UV affects plant growth, then perhaps the Sun's gradually and slightly diminishing UV output (UVA and UVB -- UVC, which is eUV, is absorbed by the ionosphere) may be part of the reason the trees have been late since 2017. Or it could also be something else that is completely unrelated to Solar activity. Correlation (late trees / Solar eUV diminishing) does not always equal causation.
Either way, I just hope that before the ionosphere dives to the bottom on us, there are a few more months of good conditions for SWL's and Long Distance MW listeners and DXers.
I have plans to put up a longer, outdoor antenna this Spring or Summer. It's just a matter of deciding where to put the wire, as I have plenty of wire. It will be temporary, but hopefully it will help as the Solar Minimum increases. I have good radios. Just need a bigger antenna to make up for what the Ionosphere isn't giving me. :-)
I'm closing this with a video, by the Australian, 70's glam rock band Hush. Hush were very popular in the mid-1970's Oz glam rock scene. I first heard them on Radio Australia, on 5995 kHz, around 2 a.m. in the morning my time. Radio Australia's Countdown program, hosted by Glynnis Dixon, played all the Oz bands from that scene -- AC/DC, Hush, Supernaut, Skyhooks, Sherbet, Dragon, Ted Mulry's Gang, the Angels, Redhouse, Pussyfoot, Air Supply, and a few others I've forgotten.
It was a great period for rock music. The ABC TV show Countdown sort of caused the entire Oz scene to explode, and Radio Australia's own Countdown show was an offshoot of that. Radio Australia's Countdown show had a lot of listeners in India and South Asia, as they'd write letters to Glynnis Dixon, asking her questions and making requests.
It was really fun listening, all on my transistor multiband AM-FM-SW radio and 60 feet (20 meters) of wire going from my bedroom window to the back fence.
This is just a note to say hello again and I'm doing OK. I haven't posted anything in the past week or more for a couple reasons.
The first reason is the most important one. My internet and DSL connection has been spotty lately. I've had about 80 to 100 cut-offs over the past three weeks, where the DSL cuts off (and the internet along with it), and this is after I've had at least 7 tech visits -- to my house, the pedestal outside, and even the main pedestal in the middle of the neighborhood -- over the past 2-3 years.
The techs will sometimes try to install a new connector in my house's junction box, and claim it will solve the problems, because it has 'filters' in it. It doesn't fix anything. The company's AI bot / customer service reps will try to troubleshoot the line from their end -- it never fixes anything. Even a new drop line from the pole and pedestal outside to my house didn't improve anything for longer than a month.
The issue seems to be the phone company's infrastructure is decaying, and they aren't doing enough to keep it in good repair. The fact that much of their wiring is underground, and impossible to service, probably doesn't help. But I have friends who have cable and their internet connection also cuts off from time to time. Not as much as what I'm seeing, though.
I suppose 5G wireless is the only way to go?
Meanwhile, the pricing for my internet services has gone up by over 50 percent in the past 10 years, while the services I pay for have nosedived. I started getting outages right after the Pandemic hit, and it only got worse after that. I have written about this in blog articles before -- it's just that over the past month it's to the point that it's almost impossible to use the internet for longer than 15 minutes to an hour without it cutting off again.
So I'm going to be changing internet service providers over the next couple of weeks. I don't really have any faith in internet providers, being that my experience with internet companies has been so abysmal. But we'll see.
But when you have internet cut-offs and slowdowns, it doesn't make it easy to publish a blog, shop online, or do other things that have become necessary for modern day living.
NUCLEAR WINTER SHORTWAVE RADIO CONDITIONS
Otherwise, life has been fairly normal. The ionosphere appears to have entered Solar Minimum mode, being that the SW bands have been mostly dead here where I live. I know that in the Eastern section of the US and Canada there still is some SW activity, but here in the NW and regions north of 47 Degrees latitude it's already Solar Minimum.
This morning when I tuned every SWBC and HF ham radio band they were all dead, dead, dead, except for two weak conversations on 17 Meters and a couple SW stations that were barely readable in the 31 and 21 Meter band (Marti, Radyo Pilipinas, North Korea, and CNR-1). 40, 20, 41, 25, 19, 15, 12 and 10 Meters were all dead.
That's the shakes, though. I am going to rig up a longer antenna, and I will run it outdoors, and see if that helps. My indoor antenna worked great during the early 2010's, and it was working well during the 'Peak' SW conditions in Summer and Fall of 2024, when I was hearing bicycle ham radio guys from Blackpool, UK and hams from the Orkneys, Pitcairn, Rarotonga, and similar places.
So it's not my antenna that is the issue. The ionosphere is fading. It is what it is.
My health is OK, my cat is doing OK. The weather is getting better. It's 75 degrees F outside right now. The trees are late, of course. They always used to be green by April 5th. Now they're just starting to bud in the hills. They'll probably be two weeks late, as it's been since 2018. Whether this is related to the reduced solar activity since the 1990's is a good question. It's probably due to other, meteorological factors.
But I'm still alive and kicking. I'm still playing the bagpipes, nearly every day. I still ride my bike at night, or in early mornings. I still work out with weights most days.
Life goes on.
Until next time, my friends.
Peace.
C.C., April 6th, 2026.
NOTE, April 11th, 2026.:
I originally put a title on this blog note, and it didn't save. That's because the internet was so bad. So I've just titled it. Hopefully the internet will be more dependable with a new service. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.
My Christmas Star, my paper star lantern, from 2016, which I think I got in 2012 or 2013. I saw it at Bartell's, a local drug store that had a really nice, holiday gifty section. Bartell's was sold to a national chain about 6 years ago and now they're all closed down. It's just the way of the world. But the paper star lantern still brightens up my window every Christmas season.
As I write this, it is Christmas Eve. Just around midnight.
I am listening to the Vatican Christmas Day mass, ritual and celebration, which is being broadcast on local Catholic radio station KBLE 1050 AM. Last year I was able to hear it broadcast on shortwave station Radio Marti, in the 41 Meter Band -- which was really cool to hear -- but Marti either isn't on the air at these hours anymore, or the Shortwave ionospheric conditions are horrible -- probably both.
That dud we SWL's know as Solar Cycle #25 is slipping into the morass of static and weak signals, accented here and there by some RFI.... I predicted long ago that this Solar Cycle would be an overall dud, and it turned out to be a dud compared to previous cycles, and the fact that Christmas Eve presented an nearly blank SW band is in indicator of it. Cycle #25 had a few bright spots -- Summer 2024 being one of them. Then, a never ending series of mediocre to fair SW conditions and solar storms, including SW blackouts.
But there's no need to dwell on that -- it is what it is. :-)
Back to Christmas, hey?
I slept in greatly this Christmas Eve, as is often my custom, being a night-owl, and I switched on my radio and had my coffee, and -- to my chagrin -- found that the Shortwave band was mostly dead. The utility stations that are always present were missing, and the HF ham bands were dead, except for one group of Northern California hams on 3900 kHz, and one weak CW QSO in the 40 Meter ham band. The Shortwave bands were MIA, except for three weak, barely readable signals from US domestic stations WRMI, WWCR, and WTWW.
None of them had any Christmas like programming. I then tuned to the AM band, listened to the end of the California-Hawaii college football game, and tuned to 1480 kHz, and heard Christmas music coming out of California's KEJB, Eureka.
Then I got up.
I tuned the kitchen radio to one of the two local Catholic stations, because usually one or both of them will broadcast the major masses out of the Vatican -- Easter and Christmas. This year it was just KBLE that was broadcasting the Christmas Day mass. So I left it on as I made another cup of coffee and as the Christmas Mass music filled the room I fired up my bagpipes.
My outdoor Christmas lights, 2016 or so.
I finally got my third Surefire-brand, synthetic chanter reed set up to where it works really well, and I worked up a pipe version of Silent Nighta couple weeks ago, and it sounds really good on the pipes. I also practiced The First Noel, a version I worked up in 2016 or so. I was going to play them out on the street around 10 p.m., when it's quiet, and maybe some of the neighbors would hear them, maybe they wouldn't. Didn't matter. It was something I wanted to do. I played on Christmas Eve about 6 years ago, and no one complained.
So I warmed up the reed by about 5 minutes of playing, and went outside. The pipes worked excellently. This 'third' reed I've got is louder than my #1 reed, and much quieter than my harder reed (#2) -- I can play it without needing earplugs. As soon as I finished the Christmas Carols on my pipes, I went inside. I made a cup of tea. I was going to call my Aunt, and play the Carols for her. I then warmed up the pipes again, and suddenly the reed sputtered and a bunch of liquid spilled out of the bottom of my chanter.
It was bagpipe bag seasoning. Seasoning is a mixture of Murphy's Oil Soap, Glycerine, and a tiny bit of Pine Sol (which kills bacteria and mold) that I add to the bag in small amounts about once every month or so. It keeps the leather conditioned, and kills any mildew or bacteria. Sometimes after putting it in, the remainder of it decides to leave the bag -- through my reed and chanter. Oh well. It never damages anything, it's just a little messy when it happens. So I cleaned it all up.
Then I called my Aunt and played the two Christmas Carols for her on the phone. The pipes worked well. It was fun to play them on Christmas, being that I got them Christmas morning, 1981.
When I got off the phone with my aunt, I then came upstairs. And here I am, listening to the end of the Vatican Christmas Mass.
Me, Christmas Eve, 2016. I look about the same. I don't have any new pics because my camera's SD card is full, and I need to get a new SD card. I still have the Elf Hat, which I got at the Dollar store that year.
Now they are about to start playing the Mass all over again. I'm not Catholic, but I enjoy hearing the music of the rituals, especially the Christmas ones.
I'm not much of a Christmas celebrant anymore. It brings back too many memories. But I try to take the holiday for what it is, because that's all you can do.
Going through my old pics, I found this pic of my little Squeakers, two weeks after I got her in 2010. How time flies. See you on the other side, my little pal.
With that, I am going to feed Bear the Cat, who is getting really friendly now. Then I'll go out on a bike ride around the neighborhood, to ensure that the streets are safe for Santa Claus. Who knows? Perhaps I'll see good ol' St. Nick land on someone's roof with his sleigh and reindeer!
I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas, and a safe holiday season.
CJVB 1470, a long time Chinese language broadcaster out of Vancouver, BC Canada, is going off the air. Its owner, Fairchild Radio (Vancouver FM) Ltd, which also runs an FM station out of Vancouver (CHKG-FM), is pulling the plug on CJVB and they're going to be FM only. The switching off of CJVB appears slated for March.
The CRTC (Canada's communications arm, which regulates Radio there) has approved the shutting down of CJVB.
The reasons for the shut down are decreased revenue, and increased costs -- an issue that is hitting most Radio stations in the US and Canada -- whether FM or AM.
Fairchild, in a request sent to the CRTC in June, stated that "both the stations have experienced decreased advertising and airtime brokerage sales," and that "the operating costs for the two stations [CJVB and CHKG-FM] continue to increase and that the stations have sustained significant losses for several years."
Furthermore, Fairchild said that the two stations, AM and FM, had "incurred significant economic losses for the past five years, and that it expects this trend to continue in the foreseeable future."
It looks like the Pandemic economy hurt CJVB and it's FM sister station, just as it's slammed a lot of radio stations since 2020.
Fairchild said they would transfer a block of Chinese programming to CHKG after CJVB is pulled off the air, and that the block of Chinese language programming would be from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
It's a sad case but increasingly common in Radio, and not just AM. As I've posted in several articles over the past two to three years, it's not just AM stations going off the air, but also some FM's are seeing their plugs pulled also. It's because of the reasons that Fairchild told the CRTC -- decreased revenues, and increasing costs.
Even highly rated, local NPR station KUOW-FM had to cut some staff last year because of increased costs. They had record donations, and increased revenues, but the increasing costs outweighed the increase in revenues.
CJVB has always been a barn burner signal here in Seattle. Vancouver is just 130 or so air miles north of us, and CJVB has had a really good signal, with their transmitters not too far from the water in Richmond, BC.
Now it appears that KELA, Centralia, WA -- just 100 miles south of me -- will dominate the 1470 frequency in the NW US and SW Canada, once CJVB is switched off. CJVB is due to have its license revoked on March 6th, 2026.
The first time I noticed CJVB was when I got my Sanyo Boombox for Christmas, in 1982.It was my first FM Stereo radio, and the AM side was a good performer. Not only did I discover New Wave music (on the former 'The Wave' KYYX 96 FM) I rediscovered AM Band DXing, and CJVB was hard to 'null' to hear other stations on 1470. They were easy to ID because of the Chinese language programming, and Chinese (or any other Asian language) programming was rare to hear on the radio -- AM or FM -- in the 1980's.
So CJVB really stuck out on the AM band at night.
Now, obviously, after CJVB goes off the air early next year, nulling that signal won't be an issue.
It's too bad, because recently they've been playing a lot of cool Asian rock and pop music at night. I recently heard a song sung by a guy in Chinese, which sounded like a pop-rock song from 2000 or 2001, complete with a lead guitar that sounded like it was right from that era (an Alice In Chains style wah-wah).
Looks like there's just 2-3 more months to hear it before it's off the airwaves.
And so it goes. So long, CJVB. You had a good run.
That's about it for now. Life has gone normally. I've been having some internet issues, and the repair people never seem to really fix them 100%. It's frustrating. The internet cuts out, even though the connection is good. I think it might be my router, but the repair people said they think it's still good. I'm beginning to doubt their expertise or credibility anymore.
Other than that, my new cat, now named 'Bear', is finally getting used to me. She waits by the door to her room for me to go in and feed her and pet her. I'm still leaving her in my upstairs bathroom so she has her own space. With cats, change = bad. So I give her her own space, and in a month or so I'll see if she comes out and checks out the rest of the house.
GETTING A QODOSEN DX-286
I also got a new radio, a Qodosen DX-286, which a lot of people rave about. I got it on my late father's 100th birthday, December 10th. Dad was the one who got me into radio, and into listening to SW radio and long distance MW radio. He taught me that the key to hearing distant stations was to 'tune slowly, and listen carefully', something I'm sure he learned from his father, my grandfather, who built radios, including a tube shortwave radio.
The DX-286 has an NXP, TEF chip in it, that is the same type of chip used in the Sony XDR's that were popular with FM DXers in the 2000's and 2010's. The TEF chips are also used in car dash radio systems, and the chips are known for excellent reception, both on FM, AM, and SW.
My first impression with the DX-286 is that it's very good on MW and SW. It picks up MW as good as my Sony XDR does -- very clear reception, and the AGC is tight, without pumping. I'm still putting the DX-286 through its paces. So far, I think it's a good radio, well worth the money.
ONE WATT AUDIO CHIP, GOOD RECEPTION OVERALL
It has a rep for eating batteries -- but the audio chip puts out ONE WATT. That's a lot of audio power, and it takes a lot of juice to drive a ONE WATT AF chip. So if you want to increase time between charges when using a DX-286, use headphones, or keep that volume down. :-)
Good clear audio on this radio, though. I'm impressed.
SOME 'TIC' NOISES, that disappear when you use a LOOP
There is only one minor glitch I've found with the DX-286. The radio puts out two 'ticks' per second, which are audible on 810, 820 and some lower channels on the AM band. I think it has something to do with the clock function for the microprocessor. My Grundig G2 has the same issue, except it receives the 'ticks' on a lot more channels.
The DX-286 only get these 'tick' noises on headphones. Not on the speaker. Which leads me to believe that the radio's headphone amp is near a clock function of some sort (the DX-286 has two audio amp chips -- the one watt chip for the speaker and a lower wattage chip that drives the headphones).
The happy part of this is that when I use an external loop on MW, the tick noises disappear from 810, 820, etc. So the issue really doesn't bother me.
....IN OTHER LIFE
Aside from all that -- all is about as well as it can be. If I don't post another article before then, Merry Christmas to all my readers, wherever you are.
My family won't be having a get-together for this Christmas, so I will celebrate alone, just me and my cat. I'll probably play Silent Night and The First Noel on my bagpipes, outside, for the neighbors, and maybe write a Christmas-themed fiction tale.
The famous Hollywood Sign, a US national landmark.
(photo courtesy Wikipedia)
When I was growing up, the influence of Hollywood, and Los Angeles, was everywhere. Every movie was made in Hollywood. Most of the music -- more than half of it, probably -- was recorded in Los Angeles, with some of the recording studios in Hollywood. The Rolling Stones 60's albums that weren't recorded in London (at Olympic Studios), for example, were recorded in Hollywood studios like Sunset Sound and Goldstar, where the famous, sunshiny, 60's music from Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys to nearly every folk rock pop hit from that era -- were all recorded.
Van Halen's albums were recorded there, at Sunset Sound. Kiss recorded in or near Hollywood. Guns 'N' Roses recorded their first album near Hollywood, and were part of the Hollywood metal scene in the 80's. Tons of vital rock and pop songs were recorded in the Hollywood studios.
From the 1960's through the 2000's most of the popular Rock music was recorded in LA. Even Nirvana's breakthrough album, Nevermind, was recorded in or near Hollywood. A lot of Nu-Metal acts I loved in the 2000's -- from Korn to Coal Chamber to Engines of Aggression to Buckcherry to Limp Bizkit -- were either part of the Los Angeles scene, or recorded there.
Most, if not all, of the movies I enjoyed were Hollywood productions. As a child of the 70's and 80's, TV was all Hollywood. In the 1980's and early 90's, I was an aspiring musician. To me -- as it was to most musicians in Seattle during those times -- Los Angeles was where you made it big. That was because Los Angeles (Hollywood) was THE center of Rock and pop music.
A view of Los Angeles from behind the Hollywood sign. Looks like paradise, doesn't it. Balmy weather all year long, and look at all those nice houses. Way off in the distance is downtown LA, and off the picture, to the right, are the beaches. But the mainstay industry of the Los Angeles region -- the entertainment industry -- is taking a big, big hit. Will it recover, or will AI do it all in?
(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)
But now there is a big problem. Hollywood is DEAD.
There have been some videos on YouTube, put there by podcasters who know the industry, who are talking about the fact that Hollywood is dying -- the famous movie and TV production studios have vacant lots and empty soundstages. Actors and all the other people who were part of the industry are unemployed, or only working part time, having to travel to other places to do their job. They're hurting for money.
There have been reports that box office revenues are at record lows. New 'blockbuster' movies aren't busting the block anymore. Something is awry here.
This chart, obtained from The-Numbers dot com, is pretty informative. On the left column, you'll see that in 2025 the Movie Industry sold roughly half the box office tickets it sold in 2005. In the third column, where the numbers account for inflation, you can see that in 2025 the Movie Industry made roughly half the box office receipts it made in 2005.
If the chart is hard to read, it can be right clicked and displayed in a new tab or window. (chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
Looking at ticket sales stats and box office revenues over the past 20 years, the US movie industry is not only seeing nearly half the theatre audience it had in 2005, it is also making roughly half of what it made in 2005, when accounting for inflation. Now, it's not easy to find complete reports, which include streaming movie revenues, which might make the two figures more even, but a 50% cut at the box office from 2001 to 2025 is fairly telling.
Think about it. In just twenty years, the movie theatres have half the viewers and half the revenues they had in 2005.
This chart shows the Movie Industry's box office receipts, year by year (red line) and number of tickets sold per year (blue line) since 1995, which was 30 years ago. As you can see, the number of tickets sold started declining in 2004, took a deep dive during Covid, and is lower than it probably was in the 1980's (off the chart).
Correspondingly, the amount of revenue per ticket increased, starting in 2005. But if you account for inflation (see previous chart), the Industry's ticket revenues started flatlining in 2013, and making less money after that.
(chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
The numbers indicated that the monster of entertainment we used to call Hollywood -- and Los Angeles -- is fading.
This leaves the question: What went wrong?
It turns out that a combination of factors killed Hollywood. Poor governance by California and LA politicians -- high taxes, prohibitively high permit fees for location shoots. The fires did not help any. The strikes did not help any. California's tax policies moving parts of the industry to places like Texas and Georgia did not help any. Covid definitely did not help any.
On the other hand, the movies coming out of Hollywood haven't exactly been earthshaking. The trend of constant sequels, comic-book remakes, bland plots or non-stop superhero drivel hasn't exactly made people want to go to the theatre to pay $20 for tickets and another $20 for popcorn and a drink. They stay home and stream -- which makes Hollywood less money.
Most of these factors leading to Hollywood's decline are mentioned by the movers and shakers in the videos I have linked here.
Brian Entin's interesting vid on Hollywood turning into a Ghost Town, which includes an interview with Mel Gibson about Hollywood dying.
Mel Gibson, who made his first big movie in Melbourne in 1979 ('Mad Max'), and came to the US after The Road Warrior hit in 1981, has been either starring in movies, or making his own movies, for over 40 years. He knows a bit about Hollywood.
In his view, bad government, Covid, strikes, fires, the incredibly high cost of living in California, the incredibly high cost of doing business in California -- and other factors -- all have combined to turn Hollywood into a ghost town, which is how he describes it.
In an interview with podcaster Brian Entin, Mel Gibson said it was cheaper to fly an entire movie production to Bulgaria for three days, film some scenes there -- and the cost, including housing and transportation -- was less than it would be for shooting the same scene for one day in Los Angeles.
Everything is so expensive in LA, Gibson says. Even the cost of an apple in LA is so much higher than it is in Rome or Bulgaria.
Looking at the footage in Brian Entin's excellent video on the death of Hollywood drives Mel's point home -- Hollywood is indeed becoming a ghost town. Entin shows scenes of empty parking lots. Empty buildings. Soundstages with no activity -- no people.
It's all DEAD.
For those who work in Hollywood, it's a personal disaster. For those of us who grew up on Hollywood movies and music, it's heartbreaking.
But it's the new reality.
And this leads to the question: will it ever come back? My conclusion is that it never will. I now will tell you why.
This is a video by the Film Threat podcast on Hollywood dying. It concentrates on LA's Hollywood job losses. Over 20% job loss in just a year... a year that was supposed to be make-or-break for Hollywood.
The video I discuss below, which was a roundtable of FilmThreat industry experts, did not show up in the Blogger search function. Here is a link that that video.:
THEY ALL TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING EXCEPT the INTERNET and A.I.
In both of the videos I have linked above, there are two things that none of these movers and shakers have mentioned -- two factors that are systemic, and are killing the audio and video entertainment industry -- and one of those factors will kill it off: the death of physical entertainment media (DVD's, CD's), and AI.
First off, the death of physical media sales -- i.e. VHS tapes, DVD's, cassettes and CD sales -- is an important factor affecting Hollywood, because the death of DVD sales removed a massive revenue stream that propped up the movie and recording industries, and gave music and movie producers more money to work with -- more money to take chances on new artists, new scripts, new song and movie ideas. The billions of dollars that came in from CD sales allowed record companies to invest in new artists. DVD sales did the same for movie companies.
The movie industry, like the music industry, openly embraced streaming, without ensuring that DVD or video download SALES would be included in the contracts for licensing. Instead of ensuring that the video-file equivalent of the DVD would be a vital part of movie consumption, the movie industry agreed to the online streaming model, where there is no sale, and the revenues are based on declining box office receipts and abysmally low streaming revenues.
From what I've read, some movie companies rush their products to the streaming services, which undercuts any theatre revenues or whatever remaining DVD sales there may be -- killing off, or choking off two revenue streams.
The music industry did the same thing in 2001 when it embraced MP3 singles as being the only revenue model, and later on the music industry also embraced streaming, letting the revenues dwindle further in the process. They allowed the CD and the MP3 album to be killed off, replacing it with streamed 'album-equivalent-units', which bring in much less revenue.
This lack of sales of the movie or album has stifled creativity, because there is less revenue to invest in new artists or movie products.
Here is an example of how physical album sales helped propel a genre to dominance: Nirvana in 1991.
Nirvana only became massive because of the Nevermind album, which was an example of a record company taking a chance on a small-city (i.e. Seattle) alternative band, a band that as late as 1990 only alt rock and punk rock fans knew about. Once Geffen Records dumped money into recording and production, there was a sellable product, with all this money behind it to push it to radio and MTV.
The money that was used to front the recording, album cover, CD manufacturing; the video production costs, the merch, and the promotion posters and cardboard, record store promotion kiosks -- it all came from other artists' hit album sales.
Other albums that the recording company had in its roster had provided the revenues that were used to record, produce, and promote Nevermind to be the smash hit that it came to be.
Today there are no album sales. Streaming revenues are incredibly low. A million selling CD single in 2001 brought in over $5 million in revenue. A million plays of a single song on streaming platforms today will bring in $4000.
In 2001, a million selling CD album brought in about $18 million. Today, an "Album-Equivalent-Unit' getting one million plays will bring in about $48,000.
Get the picture? There is a lot less money in streaming -- both in music streaming, and in movie streaming. The death of physical media sales killed off a LOT of revenue, not only for the music industry, but the movie industry also. Actor and filmmaker Matt Damon discussed this in an interview several years ago. He said that in the 2000's, a movie producer could take a chance, because if the movie stiffed in the movie theatres, they could always count on DVD sales, and DVD rentals (which brought in more than streaming).
Damon insisted that killing the DVD killed off a lot of revenue, and was one reason that movies are so cookie cutter today -- the studios have less money available to take chances.
So the death of physical media sales (DVD's, CD's) has drastically affected Hollywood. One of the media experts in the second video I linked does talk about how the internet, and Tik-Tok, has changed media consumption, and that is a similar problem for Hollywood, being that the more hours you're watching clips on Tik-Tok, that's less time you're watching Hollywood productions.
But amazingly, none of these experts mentioned the death of the DVD as being one major factor in Hollywood's decline.
A.I. -- THE FINAL NAIL IN HOLLYWOOD'S COFFIN
AI is the 900-pound gorilla in the room that neither Mel Gibson, nor the experts in the second video address when discussing what is happening to Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. Only one of the experts in the second video alluded to AI being in the future, in passing, where he mentioned that people may soon be able to use prompts to order up their own AI movie, on their phone or laptop.
The reality is that AI is not just going to be a trend. It is going to replace all other forms of audio and visual entertainment. Anyone who has seen the rapid improvement in AI video over the past two years can see that it's not going to go away. It's only going to get better in quality. Right now, the best AI out there can create high quality 10 minute clips. Soon enough -- maybe 5 years or so -- it will be able to create movie-length videos that you won't be able to tell from the movies Hollywood is producing now.
Right now AI is only starting to kill off other entertainment forms. In 20 years it will have finished the job. In the rest of this article I will tell you why.
First, let's look at how things used to be. Then we'll look at how they are now.
It used to be that actors, writers, and musicians would go to Los Angeles to try to make it big. When I still had my rock and roll dreams in the 80's and 90's, Los Angeles was always the place I figured I'd have to go to make it.
Why Los Angeles? Because all of the movie studios, TV studios, and recording studios were there. After all, it's HOLLYWOOD, and all the entertainment industries interconnect there.
And because of LA being so big, so diverse, and such a media center -- after all, it's the number two city in the United States -- it is a natural magnet for movie and music star wannabes. And with the great weather, and the beaches, and the sunshine -- it's naturally a place everyone wants to go.
Of course, music and movies often go hand in hand, as do music and TV. And all the entertainment forms converge together in Hollywood. Music stars used to make music videos -- often, those videos were made by people who were from the movie industry. As late as the 2010's, many music videos looked like full-on Hollywood productions.
This is because they actually were full-on Hollywood productions. Here is an example, which I've used in an earlier article 2 years ago -- Selena Gomez's video for her excellent pop song A Year Without Rain (2010), which looks like a Hollywood movie production.
The video for Selena Gomez's 2010 Top 40 pop hit A Year Without Rain. Look at the direction; the widescreen, high resolution; the breathtaking cinematography; look at how perfect everything is. Not only is it a great song -- but there was a lot of money put into this video. ...Money that the music industry lacks today.
As you can tell, the cinematography is perfect. Selena's hair is perfect. Her makeup is perfect. Every movement of her dress is perfect. The sweeping vista shots in the widescreen video look like big-movie cinematography. It's all that way by design.
It has Hollywood written all over it. There was a LOT of money expended to make the video, and the pop track wasn't even a top ten hit. It was a great song, but didn't top the charts.
But look at all the money that went into that video!
Today, most of a video like that would be AI. In fact, in maybe ten years the entirety of such a video -- including the singer, music production and songwriting -- will all be AI.
This is how far we've progressed in just 15 years. From awesome pop hits, sung by real singers, written by real songwriters, and played by real musicians, to everything being done by a computer app.
What does this mean for Hollywood? It means 'it's dead, Jim.'
One reason that Hollywood was such an important place was because it was a LOCATION where everyone involved in music, movies, TV, and other audio-visual entertainment lived or travelled to get albums recorded, videos filmed, movies produced. To record an album, you could do it in Seattle, but the big production albums were finished and mastered in Los Angeles -- because that's where the big name producers were based. That was where the record companies were based. That's where the videos were made for most rock and pop hits.
With AI, none of that is needed. It all can be done via the internet, and in the future, it will all be done on your phone, on your AI app.
At the same time, we've seen the Tik-Tok effect, where there are no big singing stars anymore, and there are really no big movie stars anymore -- the internet has democratized and nichefied audio and video entertainment so much that the days of the mass media star are drawing to a close.
And AI will kill that off, too. Just give it time.
A.I. WILL ALSO REPLACE THE AUTHOR
I'll close this article off with a more personal take. As many of you may know, I've written books and published them on Amazon. Consequently, I frequent some forums for eBook authors, and a couple subreddits (on Reddit) where eBook authors hang out.
The vast majority of them are willingly blinded to the disaster that is coming down the pike. They really think that AI will have no effect whatsoever on the eBook publishing business.
"Readers will always want to read books by real human authors," they invariably say. "AI writing is trash, no one will read it," they invariably say. "Books are different from video and music," they invariably say.
They are blind, blind, blind.
First off, I have read some of the AI produced fiction recently. Sure, some of it is trashy writing. AI is nothing like Melville, Dickens or Shelley in its ability to turn out literature -- not yet. It hasn't even reached Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Robert Ruark or George Orwell level of writing skills yet.
But at the same time, most modern fiction is pulp fiction, or a variety of it, and I can't see where AI fiction is much different from any drugstore pulp novel writing. Are there glitches and some issues with the stories? Sure. But any glitches will undoubtedly be smoothed out and fixed as the AI-writing models are streamlined. Another issue is that the average eBook fiction author today reads fiction differently from the way the average consumer reads it. I've seen a lot of top selling books that weren't anything close to what I'd call literary in nature.
But they sell. And so will AI fiction, eventually.
Also, these AI detractors aren't keeping track of the trend in book consumption. Younger demos do not read books the same way that GenXer's, older Millennials, and Boomers did. They read less books, and buy fewer books than their older counterparts did.
Younger people are also much more open to new technology, and especially more open to new entertainment technology. That includes AI fiction writing, as well as AI videos, AI produced music, and the like.
If you are an eBook author and you think AI isn't going to eventually replace you, you are being willfully ignorant, friend. It's going to take over everything, and it's just a matter of time.
There will always be human written books, just as there will always be real music made by real people on real instruments. There will always be real people taking real photos on real cameras.
They just won't be making much, if any, money doing it.
BREAKING RUST: THE FUTURE IS NOW
Just recently, a new wrinkle in the AI factor has surfaced: a mysterious AI country singer named Breaking Rust topped the Country Digital Song Sales chart on Billboard. It's had 4 million streams on Spotify and 11 million streams on YouTube (according to CBS News).
Sounds like Gospel tinged Country to me. Not too different in tone from Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road', which was a smash just before Corona hit. 'Walk My Walk' has had 4 million streams on Spotify. That means it's made the creators (whoever they are) somewhere around $16,000.
If you listen toBreaking Rust,it sounds just like modern day country -- the words, of course are cliche. So are the words in most modern country songs -- I hear a lot of country while scanning the AM band at night, and the lyrics are almost non-stop cliches. The Breaking Rust singer sounds like a soulful white guy, or a black American gospel singer with a country-tinged accent.
Now, the fact that this track topped the MP3 Download Sales chart isn't necessarily a harbinger for the end of all musicians. But it shows exactly what AI is capable of doing. And if you listen to the track, it's not much different from what you might hear on the radio today, production and content-wise.
This is the future folks. We're already in it.
MY ONLY VISIT TO HOLLYWOOD
After viewing the first two videos I linked above, and writing this article, I have to admit that it's very saddening what has happened to Hollywood, and the entertainment industry in general.
I only have been to Hollywood once. It was during a road trip I took, by car, with a former girlfriend. We drove from Seattle to New Orleans and back. The furthest east we made it was Pass Christian, Mississippi, where my ex and I waded in the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. I clearly recall the heat of the sun, the calming feel of the warm water, and hearing and seeing the flying fishes flip away in front of us as we were nearly waist deep in the water. It is one of my fondest memories. I was truly happy.
On the way back home from New Orleans, we went through Los Angeles. That night, we stopped in Hollywood. Sunset and Vine. I got out of the car, and walked up and down the block, and we both got a can of soda at a corner market.
So this is Hollywood, I thought to myself. On one hand, Sunset Boulevard reminded me of First Avenue in Seattle, a key thoroughfare that used to be a combination of Skid Row and culture central -- it ran from the touristy Pioneer Square district, pass several adult video arcades and pawn shops and music stores, to the famous Pike Place Market. Sunset reminded me slightly of this combination of run down and upscale.
On the other hand, my heart was pounding, because I was there -- at the center of the universe -- Sunset and Vine!
We drove west on Sunset, before heading north, and back to Interstate 5, so we could make our way back home.
Looking south from Sunset as we were driving towards the hills, you could see this vast panorama of lights to the south of us -- Beverly Hills, and the western part of LA that is the 'Los Angeles' that always makes it in the movies. In fact, the view reminded me of the sweeping vista one can see in the 2000's movie Crash, which features LA, with all of its diversity, glamour, and its hope, and also its underbelly. There is a sweeping vista in that movie that looked identical to the grand view I saw driving west on Sunset.
It was my only foray into Hollywood, but one I'll never forget.
Hollywood is that magical place that now is facing a declining future. Hollywood the neighborhood will always exist. I'm sure that there will always be entertainment in some form happening there, and being produced there.
But the glamour days are over. AI is going to kill it all off.
I'll be glad if that doesn't happen that way, but I don't think I'm wrong. AI is changing everything, folks, and we're in for a wild ride.
My last thoughts are a bit historical, I suppose. Hollywood as we still know it is only about 100 years old. The movie industry, which had been previously based out of New Jersey, moved west to Los Angeles in the 1920's -- just 100 years ago. 100 years is a long time for a single location like Hollywood to be the center of the entertainment universe.
It was a good run.
IN OTHER LIFE....
In other life, it's been going normally. I'm still sorting out some finances left over from my mother's passing, and I'm still riding my bike at night, playing guitar and working on my bagpipes, so I can play them for the family at Thanksgiving. The temperatures have been moderate for November, which is refreshing. When I ride my bike at night, it feels like Spring.
I just got some new, plastic/synthetic Surefire brand chanter reeds for my bagpipes, and they work really well. There are four different strengths, and I ordered one of each, to figure out which strength reed works the best.
I also have a new cat. She's a grey tabby, 8-9 years old. I'm the third owner. The former owner couldn't keep her anymore. She was almost headed to be euthanized. She is now in my upstairs bathroom, which is heated -- and it's her own space.
She still isn't sure of me. Hisses a lot -- it's because she's scared. Cats don't like change. I'm using food as a weapon -- getting her to get to know me, because I'm the human putting the food in the dish. She still hisses a bit, but is meowing more and hissing less.
I don't have any pics because both my phone and camera's memories are full and I need to clear them to take more pics. She looks a bit like my Fluffamuffins did, my little grey cat that died just over a year and a half ago. Here is a pic of Fluffy as a reminder of what she looked like.:
Fluffy, a.k.a. Fluffamuffins, when a kitten, in 2011. My new cat looks incredibly like her.
As you can tell, I was working on my Superadio some time before or after I took this pic. Fluffy just made herself at home on the table.
I think I'll call the new cat Princess, because she's a shelter cat that's on her third (or fourth?) owner since she was at a Lompoc, California animal shelter in 2017.
The 40-Year Anniversary Logo of KSKO-FM, McGrath, Alaska, a rural Public Radio station that will see drastic budget cuts thanks to the defunding of the US's Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
As many Radio hobbyists, Radio Industry employees, and others who follow the Radio business are aware, Public Radio in the US has come under fire -- by the present Administration, as well as conservatives in the US Congress.
In fact, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a governmental entity set up by Congress in 1967 to fund Public Radio and TV stations in the US, has been defunded.
The reasoning for the Defunding of CPB, of course, appears to be purely political. Detractors insist that CPB, and Public Radio in general, is 'biased' in news reporting, and shouldn't be funded by the US government.
As someone who listened to NPR 24/7 when my ill mother was staying with me for over a year, I can't say I heard a ton of bias on NPR, and I tend to be a slightly right-leaning centrist, politically. In fact, most of the programs weren't political or News oriented at all.
There are also a few in Radio who say that the "government shouldn't be funding stations that compete with commercial radio stations." That argument is almost laughable. The audiences for NPR and Public Radio are different from the commercial radio audience that wants to hear the latest country, AC, or pop/hip-hop hits. Also, in many areas, the Public Radio station may be the only non-music station in the market -- so the 'government-sponsored competition' argument doesn't really hold water.
And if you have a conservative talk station, trust me -- NPR isn't taking your audience away. It's a completely different audience from yours.
NPR has its issues, sure. There have been articles about them, including one written by a veteran journalist who worked at NPR for well over a decade.
But Public Radio is a LOT more than NPR. Public Radio is every state's own network (if they have one), and it is every Public Radio station in every small burg in the rural US which may be well served with Country and Religious radio stations, but underserved by News Radio stations. In many of these areas, the Public Radio station is the only Radio news that the people have access to.
This CPB Defunding action has put hundreds, if not thousands, of small public radio stations in rural areas of the US, including remote areas of Alaska -- and rural areas of states like Montana, Oregon, Minnesota, and other sparsely populated areas -- in jeopardy. Many small public radio stations in rural areas, along with smaller college stations, depend on the CPB funding for a significant amount of their operations.
Because of the CPB cuts, many smaller stations will go off the air. The people who run and operate KSKO-FM, McGrath, Alaska -- their logo is up top in this article -- think they may end up going off the air eventually because of the CPB budget cuts.
Here is a Guardian article on another small, rural Alaska public radio station, KSDP, located in Sand Point, Alaska -- a small town in the Aleutian Islands, not too far from the Alaska Peninsula, maybe 800 miles or more west of Anchorage.:
Now, you would think that Radio people would be concerned about this, wouldn't you? After all, the funding cuts are not just an attack on Public Radio-- they are an attack on Radio itself. Take, for example, the small rural Oregon city, Burns. Burns is a town of around 3000 people, located in the High Desert region in Eastern Oregon -- it's all sagebrush and cattle country.
The only radio station in Burns that has any news coverage is the Oregon Public Radio station there. The other 10 stations audible in Burns are Country (one of them a rimshot FM from John Day, 50 miles away), AC, and half of the Burns-area FM's are religious FM translators. OBP, which runs KOBN-FM, Burns' Public Radio outlet and its only news station, is going to see some budget cuts because of the CPB defunding.
CPB cuts will also affect JPR -- Jefferson Public Radio -- which has a network of stations in mostly rural, low population Southern Oregon and Northern California, with many of those stations serving isolated areas with no news or public information radio station outside of the Public Radio outlet.
Burns, Oregon, a small cow-town in the High Desert in Eastern Oregon. It's a small city that survives on the traffic from US 20, a few large ranches, a few nearby farms, and it used to have a lumber mill. There is also a nearby Paiute Indian Reservation. Burns is small, but it's the only town and commercial center within 100 square miles of sagebrush, greasewood, and cattle ranching country.
When I was a kid, we passed through there, driving US Highway 20. Several hundred miles to each side of Burns was miles and miles of nothing but broad vistas of dry dirt and sagebrush, with red lightning occurring sometimes during the late afternoons. Burns has only one radio station that has extensive news coverage -- KOBN-FM, 90.1 on the FM dial. That station is part of the Oregon Public Radio network. CPB cuts could adversely affect small town OPB outlets like KOBN.
It's almost as if the powers that be think that people in small cities like Burns don't count.
So you would think that when you go onto a Radio forum, or any of a number of "Radio" based social media subreddits and Facebook groups, that the vast majority of posters on those sites and threads would be angry at the cuts to Public Radio funding, right?
After all, they KNOW that such cuts may cause Radio stations in some regions to disappear, which is bad for Radio. You would think that Radio people would dislike that idea, right?
Not necessarily. With a considerable number of radio people, t's actually the opposite. It turns out that A LOT of Radio people do NOT support Public Radio, if the relative orgy of joy, from many sectors, over the shutting down of CPB is any indication.
Some may allow speech to be stifled if you speak out in favor of Public Radio. Show too much support for CPB and Public Radio online, and you could get temporarily banned on radio forums.
More on that later.
SHUTTING DOWN CPB + A NEW, TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT BILL = SAVINGS.
YEAH. RIGHT.
The fact is that we have a government in the US right now that doesn't want to spend a couple hundred million dollars on Public Radio, but at the same time has passed a large spending bill that could jack up the national deficit by a Trillion.
The consequences of this defunding of CPB is that small Public Radio stations like Alaska's KSKO, a small FM out of McGrath, in rural western Alaska, may end up going off the air because without the CPB funding the station will run out of money. Undoubtedly the small Public Radio FM in Burns, Oregon (KOBN) will have funding troubles as well. Burns' small community of townspeople, small business owners, Native Americans, and ranchers will be hard pressed to come up with the funds to keep KOBN on the air.
And many in Radio think that's fine. They don't care about Radio listeners in rural areas and Indian Reservations, or Native Americans in rural Alaska.
This is an example of one reason that Radio is in decline. Radio people are shooting their own industry -- and their own hobby -- in the foot. Too many Radio people do not believe in Radio anymore.
BAN ME? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH
Now onto another media in decline: Radio forums. I was recently 'Banned', for a week, from a Radio forum -- one that I used to go to regularly -- basically because I was showing a lot of support for Public Radio, and it looks like someone I may have been arguing with didn't like it, and they may have reported me to the moderators for something I did NOT do -- 'personal attacks'. There also may have been a complaint that the discussion was too 'political'.
I never attack people personally when discussing stuff on the internet. I may attack the position, but I never attack the person. First off -- attacking the person is pointless. Secondly, I'm just not wired that way. Meanwhile, another guy on the thread -- who did actually attack me -- did not get banned. That didn't make sense.
As for the discussion being 'political' -- News Flash: when the Government Defunds Public Radio merely because of government and party politics, that's Political.You can't discuss it without it getting Political.
It's an example of the sort of 'moderation' that just drives people away from a website.
And being that traffic to that site (and others) has declined over the 12 years I was an active member there, driving people away is just not a great idea. I've seen declines in other radio and hobby forum activity as well. It seems that forums in general are in decline.
Some of this decline in radio forum (and other hobby forum) traffic is undoubtedly due to social media taking the attention of Radio people. But when a moderator 'Bans' you for 'Personal Attacks' that you didn't make, that ultimately becomes a problem.
Not for me -- but for the radio forum. Because other users can see how things turned out. If you are a site owner, and your moderation is not even-handed, you're just telling long-term participants to go elsewhere. And that is not a good thing if forums in general are declining in activity.
Forum site operators: When you treat your regular posters poorly, they're going to go elsewhere. I don't mean to sound like a dick about it, but it's just fact.
Reddit and FB have tons of alternative options. The internet is a vast place with infinite competition.
Bye Bye.
SOME GOOD RADIO FORUMS I GO TO
I want to make clear that the vast majority of the Radio forums and sites I have mentioned on this blog since 2015 are very good ones.
These forums and sites are ones like RadioReference,HFUnderground, and the Antique Radio Forum are very good sites, with a lot of good people, and they seem to be very fairly run. I recommend those sites to any Radio fan or DXer. There are subreddits like the ShortwavePlus subreddit that are also very good.
A few older sites, like the BCBLogger / Shortwave Logbook site, and the old AM-DX site, got shut down because the owners either lost interest or didn't want to spend the money on the sites anymore. Any time a forum or radio site disappears, the DX Radio hobby is less for it..... One less place to go to share DX loggings with other DXers.
However, forums need to pay attention to how they run their sites, if what I just experienced is any indication. There are plenty of alternatives if someone jacks you around -- you just go elsewhere. Which is what I have done.
WEEK LONG BAN? NOPE.
Like I said, the 'ban' I received was for a week. Or so that website thinks. But they are in error.
I've banned that site from my computer forever.
The Fourth Of July this year was better than the Fourth Of July last year -- when I took this picture. A neighbor shot off some safe-and-sane fireworks for his young son, and we had fund talking and I enjoyed seeing the small street display. Some other neighbors further down the street were also shooting off fountains and safe and sane fireworks on the pavement as well. Every single firework is banned in my city, no matter how safe it truly is. It's what happens when the 'Karens' of the world seem to be running it. But sometimes, just sometimes, common sense prevails for a few hours, so small kids can have good memories, of times spent with Dad, that they'll keep with them forever.
IN OTHER LIFE....
I've been trying to enjoy the better weather here in Seattleland, and I'm missing my cats. All of them died, at the beginning of June. Racofrats got sick and died within 2 days, and my outdoor kitty, Tigger, disappeared and I never found him. He always stayed right on the porch. Something happened, and I don't know what. Tigger was 18 years old.
I still have been SWLing, DXing, etc. Mostly checking out the HF ham radio bands, and sometimes the SWBC bands. I haven't been MW DXing at all the past several months. The ionospheric conditions have been more or less mediocre since December or January (see my previous blog article "Solar Cycle 25 Is A Dud" for an explanation of why that probably is), but there have been some bright spots here and there where European and Latin American ham stations are audible on either 20 Meters SSB or 20 Meters CW.
The bands up above 20 Meters have been invariably DEAD. 40 Meters still has a variety of activity, depending on the evening.
THE MYSTERIOUS 'A' BEACON
One of the more interesting new signals on 40 Meters is a new, apparently unlicensed experimental CW beacon on 7259 kHz, which I call the 'A' Beacon. It's a continuous 'A' sent in marginally executed Morse Code, and it starts coming in when darkness hits, and sometimes gets very strong during the night -- sometimes slamming my Yaesu FRG-7 at S4 (out of 5) signal strengths.
It fades out as last as mid to late morning. I've talked to a couple guys on the ShortwavePlus subreddit, and so far we aren't sure where this mysterious 'A' Beacon could be located.
A couple DXers out of California (on HFUnderground) have been reporting the 'A' Beacon since early June, and their signal reports seem to be really good -- so the 'A' Beacon was probably set up, somewhere in the Western US, at the beginning of June, and it probably has a decent dipole antenna at least.
So, if you are anywhere in the Western US and Canada -- or even elsewhere -- set the controls of your SW spaceship for 7259, put on the headphones, and listen. During the early morning hours sometimes a Broadcast station out of China on 7260 interferes with the 'A' Beacon -- that's when you get creative -- use a narrower bandwidth (my new Tecsun PL-330 will go down to 500 Hz bandwidth), or tune to USB and tune upwards towards the CW beacon's 'lower sideband'.
UPDATE: August, 2025: At least one poster at the HFU forum says the 'A' beacon may be a ham radio operator who put up the beacon to drive away some other hams from the 7259 frequency -- apparently there is a dispute of some sort. The 'A' beacon does seem to come and go a bit sporadically.
Unlicensed Morse Code Beacons are a fun aspect to the Shortwave hobby. There is one CW Beacon I tune into regularly, to see if it's there -- the Desert Whooper on 4096 kHz. I tune into it using LSB and the 'Whoops' sound really cool that way. The Desert Whooper usually is in the static, but when the ionosphere is cooperating it can hit my radios with S2 or S2+ signals.
Here is a listing of these unlicensed, low power CW Beacons on the HFUnderground site.:
Not only are there strange, unlicensed Morse Code 'beacons' on the SW bands, there also are other oddities, mysterious signals sent for minutes at a time, in Morse Code, and usually these are long series of numbers, or alphanumeric characters.
Some of these CW/Morse Code numbers stations have been IDed as Russian and other military stations. Others? No one really knows for sure.
Now the Morse Code used in these signals isn't super fast. I can read Morse Code between 5 and 7 words per minute, which is very slow. But it's fast enough to ID a station or to at least ID the nature of the station.
And Wednesday evening, July 23rd (July 24th, 0347 UTC), I was tuning my trusty Tecsun PL-330 up the bands and I stumbled upon a weak, but readable, Morse Code station on 13202 kHz, sending a long series of numbers, with a couple letters (mainly T and E) thrown in here and there. I copied a few strings of numbers: .5582498866....T U 7195...777... There were some periods of fading where I couldn't read the numbers. Finally, around.353 UTC / 8:53 p.m. Local time, the station ended with a "T E T".
Then there was nothing but static. It was just a random, chance reception of a Shortwave mystery.
It's just another case of 'you never know what you'll hear' on Shortwave.
And with that, my friends, stay cool, and
Peace.
C.C., draft finished Friday night, July 26th, 2025.
Posted Monday night, August 25th, 2025.
I sat on this post for over three weeks, because of the section about my debacle with the radio forum I no longer go to anymore. I wanted to take time and cool off, and then edit it down. I also had to find and remove some links on a few of my blog articles.
The debacle was an education, for me, in what can go wrong with an internet website. There are numerous alternatives out there, all competing for screen and device time. Just like in the Radio industry in general. All that competition for your audience.
No website or forum has a monopoly. The internet is the definition of infinite competition.
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