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.
My hawthorn "Christmas" (outdoor) tree from 2019. The string of lights burned out, and I didn't put up the ornaments this year because without lights no one would see them. In the stores this season the lights were mostly white, and overpriced. But as you can see in this pic, the ornaments looked nice when the lights worked.
It's ironic: LEDs were supposed to drop in price, save electricity, and also last forever.
LOL.
As I write this, it is 12:04 a.m., Christmas morning. I just spent 8 to 9 minutes on the phone hearing the same, annoying and lame recording on the local pizza delivery store's phone system on perpetual repeat -- after which I hung up. I'll get some pizza another time.
The last time I ordered pizza it was a bewildering look into the New World of internet commerce, a world where you order first, and then you find out what you are getting and what you are going to pay for it.
The store -- which shall go unnamed -- has a website, with a "menu". Of course, the "menu" isn't like a real menu you get when you go to a restaurant, or see when you use a drive-thru window. Clicking on the item on this menu doesn't give you the ingredients or the price. It just places an order, so you're basically ordering in the blind. Awesome.
You wonder just what are these folks thinking? Last time, when I ordered by phone, it wasn't all that much better: it was $102 for 2 large pizzas, a small one, and some pizza bread. Delivery charge was $8, and then the local and state governments get their ten bucks.
Even more awesome. But, I'll admit -- the pizza itself was excellent. So there's that. :-)
Such is the state of business and commerce in the United States during the internet age.
But I digress.
These happy little guys decorated my yard from 2009, when I got them, until 2019, when I stopped putting them outside. I figured they were too vulnerable to theft. One can't, and shouldn't, live in fear, but one can't, and shouldn't, be stupid about things, either.
DANCING AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE
Right now it's Christmas, that time when all families gather around the Christmas tree, sing songs, marvel at the gaily wrapped presents beneath the tree's sweet and spicy, fir and pine scented boughs, ooh and aah at all of the beautiful ornaments, and then they all have dinner together, and maybe play a board game or card game before -- or after -- exchanging gifts.
Of course, there are candles above the fireplace, elves and Santas on the windowsills, and a big, beautiful wreath on the front door, perhaps made with real holly, and decorated with ornaments, too.
Yeah, right. For many of us, it's a lonely time. I am not afraid to admit it, especially as I've said before on this blog that most of my family is gone. It's just the way it is. I guess I should feel blessed that I am the survivor, and I am indeed thankful for that. But it makes it rather difficult to get all excited and yippity-yappity about yet one more holiday that seems like another Day Of The Dead, because most of them are. Christmas is a time when I have to block out the memories of the past holidays where family members were still very much alive and things were well. Otherwise, it becomes a time of sadness.
Santa and a Snowman decoration, looking cheery in the night.
Even the religious aspect of the Christmas holiday feels lost on me. It's hard to feel happy about Christ's birth when the greater world out there seems to be ripping apart with war, pandemics, people hating each other for what name they circle on a ballot, and other, similar stuff. I have several Bibles, but the only book in them I can read anymore is Solomon's Ecclesiastes -- the most realistic book of them all. Solomon, who lived quite a life, pulled no punches. Nearly all of what he said in that short book says all that needs to be said: Life Is Short.
So, anyway, I'm not celebrating.
I pet my cat, play my guitar, ride my bike, and do some writing. That is adequate.
Santa Mickey looks out on the 33F weather on Christmas Eve.
THE END OF THE YEAR, HOLIDAY SEASON
Overall, though, I'm doing as well as can be expected. My health is OK. I'm OK mentally and emotionally as well. But on holidays? Aside from Halloween, which is a time to connect with neighbors, I don't celebrate anymore, really. I don't imitate celebration with alcohol, either, as I stopped drinking alcohol in 2011, when I decided to concentrate on taking care of my health.
A pic of several boxes of Christmas holiday tea, most of which are not available in local stores anymore at Christmas season. Eggnogg'n is still apparently available online -- but they removed the Sledding Penguins cartoon on the cover. :-(
Who doesn't like seeing Sledding Penguins?
As a half-Canadian, whose grandmother taught me to drink "Red Rose" brand black tea, I drink Tea instead. This evening? It's Christmas Tea. It's actually quite good. It's one of those boxes of special tea that sometimes are available every Christmas season -- until the stores around here quit stocking them. Bigelow's "Egg Noggin'" tea -- the box with the happy, sledding penguins on it -- is one of those brands. For maybe 8 years it would be available in the stores every Christmas season, and it was excellent tea. I would buy several boxes every Christmas season.
Then they got rid of the sledding, cartoon penguins on the cover and stopped selling it in the stores. The Stash brand Christmas Tea (Holiday Chai) I'm drinking now is the same situation -- I bought the couple boxes of it in 2009 or 2010 so. It's not available in local stores anymore, except online only.
Great tea. Big seller. No longer available in the stores. You see a pattern there?
So, you eventually buy it online, or you learn to make your own. Just add vanilla, maple, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and maybe some other spices. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Another cheery display, with a Christmas dog, Candy-Canes, and a small Santa on the chimney!
SHORTWAVE RADIO ON CHRISTMAS EVE = THDDDDT
Anyway, I started this Christmas Eve late in the morning, just before noon, as I'd gotten home late from my aunt's place. My aunt (my late mother's sister) and my uncle have a big family, and there were a lot of them at her house on the night of the 23rd. I played my bagpipes for them, and also was able to reconnect with some second cousins (all Millennials and great people, including a couple veterans) and that was really quite cool. A couple of them are into the same style of music I'm into -- hard rock, metal, and Nu-Metal.
So we talked a little Slipknot, Korn, and Linkin Park.
After I got home I fed my cat and then went to bed. I slept maybe 10-11 hours.
When I woke up just before noon, I switched on my radio -- my Realistic DX-390 -- to tune around and see what was on the Shortwave bands, because -- as those of my readers who are radio aficionados know by now -- Shortwave is hoppin', because we're reaching the "Peak" of the current Solar Cycle. I then switched over to my DX-398, which has a bit more 'pull' on SW signals, especially on sideband.
It was El Deado.
This neighbor went all out. Brightening up the neighborhood.
Another view. Obviously, this neighbor likes Christmas!
It shouldn't have been, of course. After all, on the ham radio sites all of the guys with the massive G5RV's, 4 element Yagis and other big antennas with eight-foot ground rods and baluns; with their fancy Icoms and Kenwoods and the latest crap to go along with them, are all raving about how great this Sunspot Cycle is. Because, you know, they contacted someone in the EU a couple times and another guy in Japan, so obviously that means that shortwave conditions are awesome.
So, why do the bands seem so dead, when compared with 11-12 years ago? Especially on a holiday? Usually, holidays are times when the hams get on the air -- usually before or after their family functions. Sure, a lot of hams have other things to do on a holiday, but a lot of hams like to get on their radios on a holiday, too. I've heard a lot of hams on the air on 20 Meters and 40 Meters during holidays in the past.
On Christmas Eve in 2014 I heard "Santa Claus" on my DX-398. This Christmas Eve I was treated to mostly static on mostly empty ham radio and SWBC channels.
YES, VIRGINIA -- SANTA WAS ON 20 METERS ONCE. FROM FINLAND
In 2014 or so, I tuned into the 20 Meter Ham Band on Christmas Eve afternoon. And Santa Claus was talking to little kids from Northern Finland (I think he was in Oulu). "Santa", a ham, would get other hams to get little kids on the mic, and "Santa" would talk to them. And one little girl in Chicago said "I love you, Santa!"
I'll never forget hearing that. I can hear it right now, in my head -- the memory of it was so striking.
The rest of the 20 Meter band was packed that Christmas Eve afternoon, too.
This Christmas Eve, just after noontime, it was DEAD. There were maybe 2-3 QSOs (conversations) on sideband, and maybe two of them on CW (Morse Code) -- on 20 meters, which is the most popular ham band. 40 Meters was completely dead. 12 meters had one or two conversations -- which was cool to hear, as 12 Meters seems to be a fun ham band. The fading was rather severe, but I did hear a guy in Arizona talking to a guy in Colorado.
The CB band, which usually is crammed full of signals when propagation is good, was relatively sparse. The strongest signal was from a jammer, some guy who was trying to fry his CB radio's final transistors playing the same echoed snippet continuously for over half an hour.
Even the Outband (27415-27600 kHz or so) was mostly free of signals. In 2012 27455 would have had numerous Latin Americans from various countries in Central and South America, all saying "Hola Once!" ('Once' is the word for 'eleven', as in 11 Meters), in Spanish, with most of them readable most of the time. This time around? There were just 3-4 Mexican-accented (Spanish language) guys, with a handful of unreadable, weak signal Spanish Outbanders underneath.
And this is the PEAK of Solar Cycle #25?
After tuning around, and noticing that the 25 and 21 Meter Shortwave broadcast bands were just as mediocre and mostly clear of signals, I switched the radio off. So much for the PEAK solar conditions.
Anyway, that was my introduction to Christmas Eve.
The Moon was nearly full this Christmas Eve, and the photo -- which I took with my Nikon L32 -- came out OK also. Night setting, telephoto slightly engaged.
Later on, I went for a bike ride and took a few pictures of some of the local Christmas lights, which was fun. Here and there you could tell that people were having family dinners, but a lot of the other houses looked buttoned up and quiet, as if the inhabitants were in my own situation -- facing the holiday alone.
So right now I'm going to check on my cat, and go for another bike ride before the temps drop below freezing. Last night -- the night of the 23rd (known as Lille Julafton in Scandinavia) -- it got down to 25F. I think that's minus 6 Centigrade. A bit cold. When I went out to get my mail from the mailbox my shoes were slipping on the black ice. So, last night I decided not to ride my bike before retiring... No point is risking a bicycle mishap on black ice. We don't get black ice all that often around here. But I wasn't about to risk a spill at midnight.
But so far this evening, it's a hair warmer -- around 32-33F, and no black ice. So I'll ride, then I'll make a cup of black tea, and I'll spice it up myself. Gotta have spiced tea. After all, it's Christmas.
My own take on Christmas. I left two of my electric Jack O' Lanterns out. The other ones had burnt out lights. These two just keep on chuggin'. As for the Jack O' Lanterns? Why not? It's just another holiday, after all.
And then I'll do some fiction writing after posting this article. In fiction writing, I can make up all sorts of stuff about holidays. I can create a scene where everything's awesome -- the tree is magnificent, and when you switch off the room lights the multi-colored twinklies from the tree fill the room with all sorts of reds, greens, and blue colors; and all 100 small, shiny, glass ornaments make it look like the tree is loaded with light.
When you write fiction you can make up stuff like this, and make it seem real. You can recreate all the good stuff that used to happen when you were a kid, and if you're good enough at describing it, it can become real to the reader. I suppose that is part of what makes those of us, who can, write fiction. We design, with words, the world we want to live in. It's an escape for the writer as much as it is an escape for the reader.
I hope everyone has a good holiday. If you don't do Christmas -- and that is understandable -- I hope you're doing OK. Keep the head up. Every day above ground is a good day. That was my grandfather's philosophy on life. I think it fits.
I'll close this with the US 1960's rock group The Byrds' Turn, Turn, Turn. The song was written by folksinger Pete Seeger, and The Byrds souped it up a bit. It's from 1965, and it was a #1 hit. The song is a take on the book of Ecclesiastes, mentioned previously. There is a cool stereo version of Turn, Turn, Turn that I managed to copy from where I used to work, but it's not on YouTube.
And here is Eight Miles High. The massive hit that never happened, because some influential radio programmers thought it was about drugs, when it was actually about the Byrds' first foray to the UK, where they weren't treated all that well. So, many radio stations in the US did not play it. On both of these tracks (like most Byrds' tracks), Roger McGuinn's Rickenbacker, electric 12-String guitar is heavily compressed, which gives it an extra shimmer to the sound of it on the record. Gene Clark helped write this song -- he came up with the title. I think it's the last Byrds track he sang on before leaving the group.:
Fun fact: the 12-String electric guitar parts during the verses were recorded backwards.
Listen closely. You'll hear it. You read about it here first, too, as I've never read anywhere else that the 12-String was recorded that way.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Peace.
C.C., 24th of December, 2023. I dug up a few of the boxes of Eggnogg'n Tea, and two other Christmas Tea flavors, and took a pic, and added it on January 3rd. Eggnogg'n Tea -- it's great, if you can get it. :-)
