A blast from the past -- a pumpkin I carved for Halloween, 2010!
This was the first or second time I used a stencil I had bought with some pumpkin carving tools at a local box store. A moon and stars -- and if you look at the Jack O' Lantern at an angle, it's also a face.
Today, as I start this article, it is All Soul's Day, November 2nd, and it's rainy out. Not too cold, but dreary weather, which matches the month, being that November is the shittiest month of the year.
Two nights ago it was Halloween. I had 15 Jack O' Lanterns out, so the front of my house and drive looked fairly cheery. I got about 11-12 trick-or-treaters -- three groups of them -- who braved the light rain and I gave them all extra candy, being that I had a couple bags of it.
I also played my bagpipes outside after the first group of trick-or-treaters left. The new reed I had in my pipe chanter held up really well, and I'm finally getting used to the easier air pressure needed to play the instrument. I played the closest thing I know that sounds 'spooky', a tune called The Dark Island. I don't know if anyone heard it, being that there were few trick-or-treaters out on the streets of my neighborhood, and it was drizzling.
Here is a piper who calls herself the Dark Isle Bagpiper, playing The Dark Island. She adds some Irish trills and plays the tune slightly differently from the way I learned it, but the basic tune is the same. She is playing this tune in Greenland, although she is based out of LA. The Dark Isle Bagpiper has played pipes on several TV shows. If you check out her vids on YT, she plays a lot of really good slow airs, and other tunes, too.
I also was fighting off a cold, so when the night was done I took some extra zinc and echinacea, and spent some time clearing files off my laptop computer before I went to bed. I've found that extra sleep helps kill colds. The zinc tabs help, too.
WRESTLING WITH CONSTANT UPDATES
My computer is over 8 years old, and it needs a lot of older files removed, because the hard drive is getting full -- not just full from my files over the years, but the endless plethora of mostly useless, bloatware updates all have been gradually filling my hard drive with their code.
For the life of me, with all the gigabytes of updates that slam my computer a few times a month, nothing seems to run better. All those 'improvements' never really improve anything. Some of the updates were AI-related programs I didn't ask for, and don't want on my computer because they just take up resources and I never use them.
They always say the updates are for security, but do you really need to slam someone's computer with multiple gigabytes of updates over a period of several months, just for security? How many gigabytes does it take to make a program, app, or OS 'secure'?
Oftentimes, when the updates are kicking in, my computer slows down. I'll hear my hard drive being slammed. In fact, I just heard my hard drive being slammed as I was typing this sentence, and -- looking at Task Manager -- it was another bunch of bloatware updates trying to cram into my laptop.
I'll spend several hours removing files onto a USB drive, and soon enough, the various, bloatware updates will fill it right back up. So far over the past several days, I've cleared off over 2-3 gigabytes of space, only to see it quickly filled by update bullshit.
It's maddening. And it isn't just the company that made the OS. Both browsers push their updates, and a PDF reader's updates slow my computer to a crawl when they kick in. I'm figuring out how to stop all updating, because frankly I don't think they make the computer any more secure, and they definitely don't improve anything.
So it's been an ongoing fight with the software companies, whose 'business model' seems to be to piss off as many people as possible.
NO REAL PLANS, EXCEPT GET THROUGH NOVEMBER
As for the rest of this month, I really don't plan on doing much aside from continuing to straighten out finances and get through November, which is a cold, rainy, dreary month. And, frankly, Novembers are months where people in my family, extended family, and several of my cats have died. Not good overall.
CQ Magazine's DX 'Zones', which ham radio operators use during the big radio contests.
DX HAS BEEN TOUCH AND GO...
On the radio and DX side of things, the ionosphere has been touch and go lately. The past couple days have been mediocre, and the week or two before that, there were a few good mornings and nights to switch on the radio and tune around.
A couple weekends ago, there was a ham radio contest, the biggest contest of the year, the CQWW contest, where ham radio operators all over the world try to contact as many other hams as possible, in as many ham radio 'zones' as possible.
I tuned in during the morning after it started, and the HF ham bands were quite lively. Even 15 Meters had a considerable amount of activity, which was a pleasant surprise. 15 Meters used to be a popular ham band. I recall hearing LOTS of activity on 15 Meters during the summer afternoons in the early 1980's. That's when I heard A7XB out of Qatar. But ever since the last Solar Cycle died off in late 2017, 15 Meters has never been the same. Most afternoons I'd tune it in during the peak year last year, 15 Meters was like 12 Meters -- mostly a ghost town.
Even 20 Meters is not what it used to be. Every Saturday afternoon 20 Meters used to be wall to wall CW and SSB signals, invariably, with most of them splattering on each other. This recent CQWW contest was the first time I've heard 20 Meters so packed in ages. It reminded me of how the band used to be on a typical weekend afternoon.
It was refreshing.
WHEN SW SCHEDULES CHANGE OVER, YOU GET CREATIVE
This is also the time of the year when SW DXers have to be creative when figuring out what they are hearing. Most SW broadcasts anymore are in non-English languages, so even if you can ID the language, it doesn't necessarily follow that you can understand what's being said. So you have to listen to the TYPE of broadcasts, and tone of it. Does it sound like news? A feature? An interview? Does the programming match the BBC, or CNR-1, or NHK?
And the online SW schedules are a bit off, because it takes some time for their creators to compile the new broadcast information, because the end of October is when SW stations all change their schedules.
So, you get creative. The other morning, I heard Japanese on 7380 kHz (at 0522 UTC), that sounded like NHK. But neither EiBi or Short-wave.info had ANY Japanese programming listed that frequency and hour. I was sure it was NHK in Japanese, but had no schedule info to back up my suspicion.
So I went to Short-wave.info and used the 'Any Station' dropdown and 'Japanese language' dropdown, and I found out that NHK had a regular broadcast in Japanese to SE Asia during that hour. They had moved their frequency lower to the 41 Meter Band from the 25 and 21 Meter Bands because the 41 Meter band is more of a Winter SW band.
Remember, SW listeners -- there are ways to find out what you're hearing, even if the SW lists online are getting out of date. ID the language. LISTEN to the programming, even if you do not know the language! Does it sound like CNR-!? Does it sound like the BBC? Does it sound like NHK?
A lot of American SWL's bitch and gripe about most SW being in non-English languages. But griping about most SW being non-English is backwards thinking. A lot of the non-English programming is pretty cool to listen to -- and even if you don't understand the language, it doesn't mean you can't ID the station or the program.
I've learned to ID non-English languages, and find it challenging. I also have learned that a lot of the non-English stations play really cool music -- music I'd never hear on US radio. Japan has some really cool soft pop-rock hits from the 70's that NHK plays. I've heard some great K-pop on KBS World Radio.CRI plays some great music, too. And a lot of SWL's poke fun at Radio North Korea, but the music they play is interesting, and very well made -- their musicians are excellent.
I've heard really cool stuff on CNR-1. They have kids' programming over the weekend mornings (evenings, China time). Imagine that: a radio company that cares enough about kids to program a radio show for them. Doesn't happen here in the US or Canada. The last radio company that catered to kids -- Radio Disney -- pulled the plug completely in 2019.
But CNR-1, China's national broadcaster, that has numerous transmitters on SW, has a radio play or storytelling episode for kids that you can hear during the mornings, US time, every weekend.
American DXers and SWLs, open your ears!
MORE MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS NEAR THE 40 METER BAND
The only other radio 'catches' of note have been mystery carriers -- dead signals that have appeared over several nights just below the 40 Meter Ham band.
I've logged a dead carrier at 7000 kHz over several nights and mornings, and others have shown up on 6988 kHz, 6938 kHz, and more recently, 6979 kHz.
What the purpose of these dead carriers -- if any -- happens to be is a good question. No one in the SWL community seems to know. The dead carriers don't get mentioned much online, but there have been some SWL's on HFU (HFUnderground) who have logged them.
I also heard a single letter beacon on 7057 kHz, a continuous 'F' being sent, and it was very weak in strength. I haven't heard it since. Most 'single letter beacons', which are continuous repetitions of the same letter in Morse Code, are associated with the Russian military, particularly the Russian Navy, and their frequencies are well known, and appear in many SW lists. But this 'F' beacon on 7057 is a mystery.
There are a lot of such strange oddities in the SW bands. You just have to tune around and listen to catch them.
MYSTERY RANCHERO MUSIC ON 1560 kHz
One other 'mystery' signal wasn't as bizarre as a Morse Code blipping away in the ether, or a dead signal, but I heard a mystery ranchero music station on 1560 kHz last night (the night of the 3rd) beaming mostly North-South.
Usually on 1560 I hear a mix of just two stations -- KNZR Bakersfield, which is a news-talk station that comes in with varying strengths, and KVAN, Tri-Cities WA, which is a Spanish language religious station. This station was neither.
The only ranchero station on 1560 is a daytimer, KIQS, Willow, California -- but when I checked their stream, it was not the same music as what I was hearing on the radio. And KVAN does NOT play ranchero, nor do they have rapidfire announcements and advertisements.
A view from Interstate 5 not too far from Montague, California. Much of the far north of California looks like this -- green and golden ranch country.
pic courtesy Dreamstime
MONTAGUE, CALIFORNIA CHECKS IN ON LONGWAVE
Last but not least, the past few evenings I've gotten really decent catches of a Longwave beacon out of Northern California -- MOG, out of Montague, a small town not too far from Yreka, which is the first city you hit on I-5 after crossing the Oregon/California border.
I recently got an XHDATA D808, and it's great on Longwave. It's possibly my best Longwave radio. That said, there isn't much on Longwave anymore -- the few aeronautical beacons are disappearing. The maritime Longwave beacons disappeared years ago.
But it's great to hear MOG, beeping away.
Well, that's about it for now. I'll close this article with another old Halloween pic. I couldn't take any on my phone or camera because their memories are also full and need to be cleared.
My Radio Shack 200629, which I recently re-batteried, and did some SW DXing with. The Radio Shack 200629, which is Radio Shack's badged version of the Sangean ATS505, is a good radio for MW DXing, FM, and SW listening and DXing. It has great sound through headphones, and the SSB is easy to use on it, too.
This morning while I was tuning the 40 Meter ham band, and below (where I heard some Indonesian ham pirates chanting for a short period on 6965 kHz), I came across a strong CW (Morse Code) signal.
SLOPPY HAMS SEND SLOPPY MORSE CODE
Like a lot of CW you hear, it was fast, and sloppy. It seems that a lot of hams love to send faster than their ability to send clean, often with use of paddles and the like -- running characters together, and ensuring that their dits and dahs are similar.... That sort of thing.
This signal was like that, except the characters were so convoluted it was hard to tell one from the other. For a while I thought it was Japanese code, but it was too sloppy to tell, and it was around 18 wpm or so. Long, continuous CW gibberish.... Minutes worth.
The signal was S4 out of 5, and had a polar flutter or warble to it at times, indicating that it may have been skirting the auroral radio zone, which may or may not have indicated a signal from Asia somewhere, despite how strong it was.
I first heard it on 7041 at 1431 UTC. Then I heard the same exact CW on 7048, at 1437 UTC. It was definitely NOT a QSO. There was no change, like you hear when hams are talking to each other in CW. It was a continuous blather of CW gibberish, all sent around 18 wpm in slop code.
When I checked later, it was at 7062 kHz, same strength, same characteristics.
Then it switched OFF, right at 1500 UTC. It was as if someone pulled the plug.
It started up again at 1502 UTC 1 kHz up, at 7063 kHz. Then, at 1510 UTC, it instantly flipped to 7062, as if someone bumped the tuner knob on the transmitter.
Then it stopped abruptly at 1530 UTC. Then it was back on again, on 7063 kHz.
I checked a few minutes later, and it was now on 7062 again, still S4, still with the 18 wpm, continuous CW gibberish, with the same slight flutter to the signal.
I then switched off the radio, as I had some other things to do. When I checked the 40M frequencies later around 1737 UTC, the 40M band was MIA.
I had heard this gibberish CW on four radios -- Radio Shack 200629, Tecsun PL330, and DX-394, and even my DX-398. So it wasn't overloading on my radio. Same indoor, 25-30 ft wire.
I have no idea what it was. Some ham had his keyer set to gibberish and had his rig on by accident? Cat bumped against the tuner knob, changing the frequency? Somebody's kid playing a joke on dad's ham rig? Some Japanese ham had a bit too much sake? The signal may have favored Asia but at S4 out of 5 it was a bit strong for Asia at that time in the morning. So, who knows what it was?
You never know what you're going to hear on the 40M band.
A GRAB BAG OF SW SIGNALS
The 40 Meter ham band has a tradition of having odd signals. During many early mornings one can hear Indonesian ham pirates in the lowest sections of the bands. On 7200 kHz on some evenings, you can hear a lot of yelling, swearing music being played, etc. There is the 'A' Beacon that appeared for several nights on 7259 kHz, which would be sent continuously until being shut off abruptly around 2 a.m. or so Pacific time, as if someone pulled a switch.
I've heard repeating sentences in Morse Code (CW) sent on 7260 or thereabouts, addressing a ham operator, and insulting him at the same time. This CW message would sometimes be shut off, as if someone flipped a switch.
For a few months, on and off, a mysterious carrier appeared on 6988 kHz, which another SWL monitored for a while and saw a few equally mysterious data bursts occurring.
The 40 Meter Ham band is sort of unique in that it's usually active at night, and can be worldwide in reach. It's a fun band to monitor, because you get CW, SSB, and even broadcast stations, along with mysterious signals and ham pirates -- all in the same swatch of frequencies between 7000 and 7300 kHz. If you go down towards 6900 kHz you can sometimes hear pirate radio stations at night.
It's an interesting chunk of radio spectrum to listen to.
There is an international organization of ham radio operators who monitor the bands and check for illegal intruders. I'm not sure if they've heard the CW gibberish I talked about earlier in this article, or other anomalies like the 'A' Beacon, but they do register a LOT of different anomalies and mystery signals, as well as known intruders. Here is a link to a PDF report by the IARU.
Not all the IARU 'regions' have reporting. But a perusal through this document will show that there is a LOT of strangeness that goes on in the SW Ham bands.
The weather here has been moderate, and variable. This morning there was a very, very light rain. The overnights have been in the 40's F, which is between 4-5C. Daytimes are between 68-75F (15-20C or so).
I've been playing my bagpipes a lot, trying to get the ability back again. It's taken more work than I thought it would. The year of not playing, and the 8 years of playing a very easy reed before that, weakened my lip muscles, and my diaphragm and left arm as well.
It's coming back, but it's been a frustrating, slow process. When the lips start to give out, the fingers mess up. If the diaphragm isn't pushing the air enough, the fingers mess up. When you have to push more air into an instrument than you're used to, you get oxygen depletion, and the fingers mess up...
You get the idea.
I'm also getting the place ready for my favorite holiday, Halloween. I've already got a few electric Jack O' Lanterns out above my garage door. I hope to have all of my electric Jack O' Lanterns working, outside and glowing ahead of the holiday this year.
That's about it for now.
Peace.
C.C., Sept. 29th, 2025.
ADDENDUM, October 16th, 2025:
I heard this mystery CW / Morse Code signal once again, yesterday morning, the morning of the 15th here in Washington state. I was tuning my brand new XHDATA D808 to the 40 Meter ham band and heard this super-fast, Morse Code gibberish on 7044 kHz at 1527 UTC, which is 8:27 a.m. Pacific time.
At 1530 UTC, it flipped off mid-sentence, and when I tuned around, I found it right away just two kHz down, on 7042 kHz. Like last time, on Sept. 29th, it was as if someone just flipped a switch from 7044 to 7042 kHz. Both times -- Sept. 29th and Oct. 15th -- it had flipped 2 kHz away right at 1530 UTC.
In the background was a lot of continuous, propagating OTHR (Over The Horizon Radar, which sounds like digital pulses).
Then, at 1550 UTC, the gibberish CW signal FLIPPED BACK UP TO 7044 kHz. This is the same time in UTC that the CW signal flipped back up in frequency last time.
Last night, an SWL who frequents one of the Shortwave subreddits logged a similar signal in the 19 Meter SW band. There was speculation that it was Russian Military, or Russian Navy CW, which often is sent ultra fast and sometimes appears anywhere on the SW spectrum.
But that was just speculation.
I know that there is a Cyrillic version of the Morse Code, but this CW I heard was so fast and continuous that I couldn't decipher any characters, much less read any of it.
Obviously, it's a definite Shortwave mystery.
C.C.
ADDENDUM, April 22nd, 2026.:
I have since learned that these mystery CW signals are actually a Russian version of FSK -- Radioteletype -- with each component about 7 kHz apart, hence the two frequencies coming in with the same or similar CW sounds, simultaneously (for example, 7041 and 7048 kHz are 7 kHz apart). The characters are not CW / Morse Code. They sound like a strange version of it, but it's a strange form of RTTY. So, I suppose this mystery is mostly solved. Online sources, and other SWL's on social media, say this Russian FSK comes from a military station in the Crimea. However, there have been some nights, or mornings, over the past several months where I've heard two of these transmissions (on 4 different frequencies) with different signal strengths, and one of the signals is always very strong -- telling me it may be from the Russian Far East somewhere, perhaps Vladivostok or Petropavlovsk.
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.
A pic of my Radio Shack DX-394, when I was tuned to a mystery, RTTY signal on 14002 kHz (the readout on USB on a DX-394 reads 1 kHz low -- so '14000.8' = 14002, roughly) (Readout on LSB is pretty accurate, within 50-100 Hz).
The past few evenings and mornings I've been tuning my Radio Shack DX-394 into the Shortwave ham bands. The DX-394 is a pretty good radio if you live in a low signals area, as I do. I got my DX-394 a long time ago -- in 1998. It was made in March of 1997, about a year before they discontinued the DX-394.
That said, at least three times I've noticed this strange, noise anomaly just outside the top edge of the 20 Meter Ham Band. I also recently noticed the same -- or similar -- anomaly at least once in the middle of the 10 Meter Ham Band. The noise propagates, and there is some fading, which indicates it probably isn't local RFI -- although I won't rule that out, as I'm not necessarily an RFI expert (RFI is Radio Frequency Interference, for those of you who aren't SW Radio aficionados). Interference from your neighbor's house isn't going to fade from S0.5 to S4 and back down again, irregularly.
First I noticed this anomaly on 14356 kHz, just over a week ago. The second frequency where I heard it was 28191 kHz, and there the noise/signal was definitely fading, from S4 down to S0 and back up again, and it wasn't regular in its fading pattern. Ten minutes later when I checked for it, it was gone.
It's one of those mystery noises we Shortwave and Ham Listeners encounter when we tune the bands. Sometimes it can be a noise from your electronics in your home, or your neighbor's home, or even somewhere in your neighborhood. Some radios have internal noises that can interfere with genuine signals coming over the atmosphere. Some noises -- like Over The Horizon Radar (called 'OTHR' by SWL's) -- can have distant sources (like China, Russia, or the US) and be intermittent, and they do not always sound the same. They can sound like pulsing noises, or even buzzing noises -- as OTHR can be sent with different numbers of signal pulses per second.
There are also noises on the Shortwave bands that may be military or scientific in origin -- and there are SW enthusiasts who spend a lot of time trying to ID or track them.
I'm not one of those people. I can ID most of the sounds I heard on the Ham Bands (CW, USB/LSB, FT8, Olivia, RTTY, etc.), and I can ID the sound of an OTHR (usually), and I can ID coastal CODAR noises (which sound like sweeping noises that often cover wide swaths of the SW spectrum; it is used to measure ocean waves near the coastline), and a lot of RFI I can ID, but I can't always ID the stranger noises I hear on HF and SW.
UNIDENTIFIED JET NOISE -- PHASING AND PROPAGATING on 14356 kHz
And this is one of those occasions. It is a roaring, phasing, propagating 'jet noise'. It sometimes appears just above the 20 Meter Ham band. I asked a Radio forum about this -- I posted a question about the mystery noise on the HF Underground, an excellent forum for anyone who is a Radio hobbyist, DX'er, SWL, or SW anomaly enthusiast. One of the guys who responded asked if I had any recordings. I had made two recordings, taken from my phone -- so they sound tinny. The two clips, sounding as they do, are the best I've got. Being that I couldn't post them on the HFU site, and that I don't have a YouTube, I figured I'd post the clips here, for what it's worth.
Here's a link to HFU, for those interested. If you like SW or Radio DXing at all, there will probably be something of interest here on this site. The HFU Wiki also has a lot of info on the stranger stations and noises you'll often hear. I found out about the Desert Whooper using the Wiki on this site (as well as a thread dedicated to that cool sounding, 4096 kHz, mini-beacon).:
So, here are the clips of the 'Jet Noise', centered on 14356-14357 kHz, the first of which I took after 2 a.m. Pacific Time, about a week ago, on July 19th, UTC. This signal was fairly wide, ranging about 3-5 kHz each side of 14356 kHz. That is why on one clip the readout says 14356, the other says 14355 -- the signal is fairly wide in spectrum.
'Jet' noise, Radio Shack DX-394 + 25 ft. indoor wire, 14357 kHz, 0916 UTC (2:16 a.m. Pacific). July 19th, 2024.
'Jet noise', 14356 kHz, Radio Shack DX-394 (+ 25 ft., indoor, second story wire), July 17th, 2024, 11:05 p.m. Pacific, 0605 UTC.
A MYSTERY RTTY TRANSMISSION ON 14001 kHz
Here is another recording, that I took this morning, when I was tuning the high HF ham bands on my DX-394 again. This was in the 20 Meter Ham band -- some RTTY (Radioteletype / FSK sounds) at 14001-14002 kHz. I first noticed it around 1418 UTC (7:18 a.m. Pacific Time). It was propagating, and a weak signal, less than S1 on a scale of S1-S5. It was getting stronger and weaker as I listened to it. It was weaker when I checked it again at 1438 UTC. I did get a phone recording of it, so I am posting it here. As for the frequency being reported as 14001-14002, I never know exactly where to zero the signal, and even if I did, I can't read it anyway....
UNID RTTY/FSK, weak, inside the lowest reaches of the 20 Meter Ham Band, Radio Shack DX-394 + 25 ft. indoor, 2nd story wire; July 24th, 2024, 7:08 a.m. Pacific, 1408 UTC.
The reason this is interesting is because RTTY and FSK (Frequency Shift Keying, which is a term that covers all sorts of RTTY style modes) aren't allowed (or just aren't done) in the lowest part of the 20 Meter Ham band. Two to three weeks ago I heard a very loud RTTY / FSK station on this same exact frequency, around 2 a.m. my time, 0900+ UTC. Another DXer said he had logged that station also, and he believed it was some sort of 'intruder', which can happen in the Shortwave ham bands.
Being that the propagation would probably favor either the Western half of the US, or Asia, my guess is that this RTTY intruder may be Asian in origin, but that is just a guess. The times I've heard it, there usually is some Asian activity either on the 20 Meter ham band, or the SWBC bands are open to Asia.
These "intruder" stations can be fascinating to hear, be they ham pirates (illegal stations using the ham bands), or government and military agencies, and the like. The most famous intruders are the mysterious "Lima Pirates", operators who chant together on the airwaves (it's a type of game, actually), in the lower reaches of the 40 Meter Ham Band. I wrote about them in an article last month, which you can read here. The article also has some pretty good YouTube sound recordings of them.:
There are plenty of mysteries and anomalies that occur in the Shortwave spectrum. A lot of the strange sounding signals are explainable by those in the know. There are SWL's who thrive on recording and ID'ing these signals, usually lumped under the term "Utility Signals", because they serve a purpose other than entertainment -- they are military, aeronautical, scientific, or maritime transmissions.
Often you need special equipment to ID or otherwise decipher these signals, and many -- because of their military and governmental nature -- are not decipherable at all, but the experts usually can ID the type and mode of signal they are.
For the rest of us? You just learn to track them by ear and log them down. :-)
FIRING UP MY YAESU FRG-7!
Well, that's the latest Shortwave goings-on that have been happening here at my location. I still have an article on the DX-394 in the works, and I've also started one on my venerable 1979 Yaesu FRG-7, which I recently fired up again after years just sitting in the corner of my DX room.
After exercising the controls to clear the dust and oxidation from them, the radio worked perfectly! I am working on an article about it that I will post in a couple weeks. Here are two vid clips, one of an Indonesian ham sending Morse Code in the lower reaches of the 20 Meter Ham Band, and another clip of China Radio International's broadcast in Turkish.
This morning had a couple surprises. First off, the 40 Meter Band was mostly dead, except for some Californians talking on LSB on 7199 and 7185 kHz. 40 Meters is usually fairly open to Asia in the early mornings here.
The logo of a Brunei ham I heard earlier this morning on my DX-394, on 14013 kHz. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a recording of him. He sent good, clean CW/Morse code, and had a good, S1-S2, mostly readable signal. A little later I heard YB0E_T contacting US hams in CW also on 14013 kHz.
On 20 Meters, though, I heard the Indonesian ham, and a different guy contacting US and other hams in Morse Code, and he was in Brunei, sending Code on 14005 kHz. For those who aren't geographically savvy, Brunei Darussalam is a small, independent country on the northwest coast of Borneo, surrounded by Sarawak, East Malaysia. I looked up the ham after I logged his callsign, V85NPV, and V85NPV builds all of his own radios. Quite good, obviously, with electronics!
Here is a link to his QRZ page, where there are pics of all the radios he has built from plans, and from scratch.:
This following clip is of the Indonesian ham sending Morse Code early this morning. His call was YB0E_T (because of his fast sending speed and the fading I couldn't ID the entire call accurately) and he was looking for contacts with US stations. He had a solid CW signal both on my DX-394 and FRG-7, and got a few contacts, mainly from Californians. Here you can hear him sending "CQ USA". As you can tell, the FRG-7 is a great receiver for CW, although the bandwidth can be a bit wide for separating out signals. This particular a.m., there wasn't a ton of activity in that part of the 20 Meter Band to have to separate signals, though.:
Indonesian ham YB0E_T sending "CQ USA" in CW/Morse code. Approx. 14013 kHz, FRG-7, 25 ft indoor wire. After 1410 UTC.
This is a recording of China Radio International broadcasting to Turkey and the EU in Turkish. The location of the transmitter is probably Kunming, in Yunnan province in south central China. The frequency is 13710 kHz in the 21 Meter Band, and the time I heard this was 1504 UTC (9:04 a.m., Pacific Time):
Well, that's about all for this time around.
Until next installment,
Peace.
C.C. July 24th, 2024.
ADDENDUM, September 17th, 2024:
I neglected to update this article after a guy on HFU -- Thomas in Germany -- listened to my MP4 vid clips on here, and he said it sounded like a STANAG mode used by military (probably from an Australian military transmitter, at Humpty Doo, in northern Australia). The STANAG in question may be STANAG4285.
There are a lot of modes used by military operations, and STANAG is one of them. I'd heard of STANAG, but never learned to identify it. Apparently buried in the jet noise is a form of digital transmission.
Humpty Doo would fit, propagation-wise, as the time I heard the transmission was when the 20 Meter Band was open to Asia and Oceania.
Here's the link to the HFU thread I made about the 'Jet Noise'.:
The Esperanto flag -- representing the Esperanto language, and the people all over the World who speak it. Esperanto is an international language that was constructed in what is now Poland, in the 1880's. It was intended as an easy-to-learn, second language to unite people all over the world.
Flag courtesy of Wikipedia, flag illustrated by Richard H. Geoghegan
Last weekend -- Saturday a.m. to be precise -- I awoke early., around 7:30 a.m. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I did the next best thing -- I switched on my Radio Shack 200629 AM-FM-SW-LW radio, clipped my indoor wire antenna to the whip, and tuned around the Shortwave bands to see if there was anything on, while I sipped some tea.
I started by checking out the 20 Meter ham band, and heard a few contacts, both on Sideband and CW (Morse Code), including a couple hams from California (N6PF calling CQ CW, and K6MRC talking to some guy in New Zealand I couldn't hear).
Then I tuned to the 25 Meter SW Broadcast band, and heard North Korea in English on 11710 kHz, and NHK Japan broadcasting to South Asia in Hindi on 11655 -- NHK was a weak, semi-readable signal. The language was muddled up by the fading that I wasn't sure what it was, and I had to look it up.
My trusty Radio Shack 200629, which I use nearly every morning or evening to DX the Shortwaves, and often the MW/AM band as well. It has great sound on headphones, with the tone control being very useful in either enhancing the audio or reducing interference. I recently fixed the connection between the whip antenna and the radio's main PCB board, and the radio has worked like a gem ever since.
The North Korean broadcast was fairly loud, with no distortion at the transmitter. They must have fixed it, as it was a good clean signal. Once again, the North Korean music was unique. Every time I hear North Korea I listen to the bass guitar player, because he's really good. I have no idea what bass he's playing -- it sounds like a Fender Precision, but I don't know if they have those in North Korea. I also am not sure if it's one particular bass player I hear in the music played on the Voice Of Korea, or if it's several.
And, of course, there isn't any info available on North Korean musicians on the internet, aside from the Wiki article, which does name some of them, but one is never sure if the list is current or not. And there definitely is no information on the type of equipment the players use.
The bass guitar is pretty prominent in the mix on nearly every pop-style track that is played on the Voice of Korea. I think it's mainly one particular bassist, because there apparently are only one or two official radio music ensembles in the country.
I call the guy the James Jamerson of North Korea.
After listening to that a while, I tuned my Radio Shack 200629 further up the band, and heard NHK Japan broadcasting to SE Asia in Japanese on 11815, and some Korean language on 11985, which was probably Radio Free Asia being transmitted from the island of Tinian, in the Marianas.
I switched radios to my XHDATA D-328 (+wire antenna) for a bit and heard China Radio International broadcasting to Europe in Turkish, from Kashgar, on 13710 kHz in the 21 Meter Band (around 1605 UTC). I heard Russian language (including the Russian words "radist'" and "pobachiti") on 13650 (around 1555 UTC), which apparently was NHK World Radio Japan broadcasting to European Russia from a transmitter in the United Arab Emirates.
STRANGE SPEECH IN THE 21 METER BAND
I switched back to my 200629 radio and then tuned in to a fairly strong signal on 13670 kHz. I couldn't tell what language woman announcer was speaking. By now it was just after 1700 UTC. The signal was S4-S5 overall, but the fades were deep enough to make the unidentified language appear murky sounding and mysterious. In the background, some Chinese sounding, easy listening instrumental music was playing, so I figured it had to be China Radio International -- but what was this unusual language I was hearing?
It sounded a lot like some sort of accented Spanish.... And sometimes it sounded almost like Lithuanian, too, because of the word endings on many of the words.
For a while I thought it was indeed heavily accented Spanish. But if it was CRI, the language probably wouldn't be accented, as most of CRI's announcers are very close to native speakers in accent.
Some of the words seemed to fit Spanish.... But there were other words and pronunciations that were nothing like Spanish, and nothing like Italian or Romanian, either. There were some odd sounds, and bizarre sounding word endings (many with the endings "-yi" and "-oyi", along with words that didn't seem to fit any language I either was acquainted with or had heard much. Some of the consonants sounded Portuguese or Italian.
I finally had to look up the information on the broadcast on my EiBi text file, which lists SW broadcasts by frequency, station, time in UTC, target area, and language.
It was China Radio International, all right. Broadcasting to Europe, from Beijing.... In Esperanto!
Now, I've heard of Esperanto before. It's a language that was put together by an enterprising guy who wanted to create an easy-to-learn secondary language that he hoped would be a language of international commerce, and also bring people together around Europe -- and the greater world.
I knew very little about Esperanto, although I was introduced to the concept when I was a kid. I had gotten a science fiction pulp magazine that always featured stories by different authors, and this edition of the magazine had international writers in it -- Soviet, German, French, and even Esperanto writers. I don't remember much about the Esperanto author's story, but there was a little bit of dialogue in Esperanto -- the space people in the tale apparently spoke the language. Cu vi Esperanton? said one character to another in the story ("do you speak Esperanto?"). Apparently, the space people (or time travellers?) in the story were able to speak it.
It's all I remember of the story, and until recently it was all I knew about Esperanto.
But I'd never actually heard Esperanto -- until last weekend. It's an interesting language.
SO, WHAT EXACTLY IS ESPERANTO, ANYWAY?
It turns out that the man who developed Esperanto -- a Jewish opthamologist named L.L. Zamenhof -- knew several languages, as he lived in Poland -- when it was still a part of Czarist Russia. The city he lived in -- Bialystok -- had four main ethnic and language groups -- Poles, Jews, Germans and Russians -- and the four groups apparently didn't get along. Mr. Zamenhof thought that a common, neutral language would help groups like the four peoples in his region get along.
So he created Esperanto out of Spanish, French, Italian, German, Yiddish, Greek, Polish and Russian, and bits and pieces of other languages, trying to make one that would have at least some commonality with the languages that most groups in Europe would be acquainted with. The language gained interest, although it apparently had a connection with leftist politics, so some countries frowned on Esperanto's use in the early 20th Century. Most Esperanto speakers are in the northern and central EU, parts of Brazil and Uruguay, the Far East, and the Eastern US. The number of Esperanto speakers seems to vary according to studied estimate, ranging somewhere in the tens of thousands worldwide.
Here is the Wiki on the Esperanto language. The story is fascinating, really.:
As mentioned, there is a lot of information on Esperanto in the Wiki on Wikipedia. But if you want to actually hear it, and you have a Shortwave radio, you may be able to hear it on China Radio International on 13670 kHz between 1700-1800 UTC, when they beam the program to the EU. If I can hear it here in the PNW US on my limited radio equipment (it came in well on my XHDATA D-328 and 25 ft. indoor antenna), radio listeners in the EU, the Eastern US and Canada, and other parts of the world should be able to pick it up.
CRI also has other broadcasts in Esperanto, on 7265 (1930 UTC), 7300 (2200 UTC), 9440 (1300 UTC), 9745 (1930 UTC), 9880 (2200 UTC), 11635 (1100 UTC), 11650 (1300 & 1700 UTC), and 15110 (1100 UTC) along with the broadcast I heard on 13670 at 1700 UTC.
Of course, many of these broadcasts may be aimed at different parts of the world. Most seem to be aimed in the direction of the EU, with one broadcast possibly aimed at Siberia or North America. Radio Habana Cuba also has Esperanto broadcasts on 6000 kHz (0700 UTC), 11760 (1500 UTC) and 15140 kHz at 1500 UTC. I have not heard any of those broadcasts yet, though.
You can see the schedules by using the drop downs on the handy Shortwave schedule website, Short-wave.info.:
I've been able to pick up the CRI broadcasts in Esperanto on 13670 on my Tecsun PL-398just off the whip, so the signal definitely gets out from Kashgar. If you're in the EU or North America it's definitely worth trying.
Lately I've been doing a lot of SW listening to my XHDATA D-328, clipping my 25 ft / 8 meter indoor wire to the whip, and hearing the world with it. Through headphones the radio has a good, clear, and rich sound, and it performs as well as my other radios on SW and FM (no stereo on FM, though). It seems to roughly match my Tecsun PL-398 in performance, with what sounds like 2.5 kHz bandwidth in selectivity (as opposed to the 2 and 3 kHz bandwidth on the Tecsun).
For just $15 USD, the XHDATA D-328 is a little marvel. And lately, because I'm short on AA batteries, the rechargeable BL-5C battery in the XHDATA has become a very handy feature. :-) The BL-5C lasts maybe a month with daily use. When it gets weak, the D-328's reception weakens, the tuning may not 'latch onto' very weak signals adequately, and the volume also noticeably decreases. It recharges in maybe 2.5 hours, using the radio's charging system.
As for the analog dial, I've been able to ID most SW stations just using this radio and my EiBi text file, being that the SW bands are not super crowded, and a lot of the stronger stations are fairly easy to ID as I've heard them previously. The past few mornings I've heard a lot of stations beaming to and from Asia on this radio. I'm quite impressed.
....AND ESPERANTO MUSIC
While I was listening to their Esperanto program, and taking in the language, CRI played two pop songs -- one of them sounding like a Brazilian jazz-pop piece, and the other one sounding like a 1970's or 1980's pop track, and I think at least one of them was sung in Esperanto.
I'm certain there can't be a ton of Esperanto singing musicians in the world, so hearing those songs is probably a rarity.
It's just another one of those fascinating Shortwave adventures. Like I've said before on this blog -- you never know exactly what you will hear when you tune the SW radio bands.
Since that first reception of CRI in Esperanto on 13670, I've heard the program two more times, and the last time -- Tuesday a.m., June 4th -- it came in SIO445, with just a little fading. This time the woman was talking in Esperanto about Chinese languages and dialects (or at least it seemed she was talking about that, from the few words I understood, including "Chiniyo" and "lingvo" -- 'China' and 'language' in Esperanto), and she was talking over a soft piano solo piece. Then CRI played three pop and folk/pop songs, presumably sung in Esperanto, followed by a couple announcements in Esperanto by a man and a woman. The man finished the broadcast by saying "Dankon", which is apparently "thank you" in Esperanto.
It was cool to hear.
THE 21 METER BAND AND 19 METER BAND WERE DELIVERING
Nearby, on 13760 kHz were two separate broadcasts to the EU in English after 1800 UTC -- North Korea and China Radio International were both battling it out. It's surprising that both of these stations would choose the same frequency, target area, and time slot for their English broadcasts. On 13810 CRI was broadcasting a lot of soft music towards the EU, especially Germany, after 1800 UTC. I've only heard music broadcast by CRI in this time slot, never any talk in German. The music is generally easy listening instrumentals, sometimes with vocals, too.
The 21 Meter Band has been fairly hopping the past couple weeks during the mornings here, after a few years where I didn't hear much on it. Most of what I heard is Asia, along with a very weak Radio Marti low in the band.
The 19 Meter band has been delivering broadcasts to and from Asia during the mornings lately also. although Tuesday a.m. I also heard three religious stations broadcasting to India from Madagascar and the Philippines, and from China to the EU and Mideast.
MIZORAM STATE, ONCE AGAIN!
Around 1523 UTC, on 15605 kHz, I heard Adventist World Radio broadcasting (from Madagascar) to Mizoram State, India, in the Mizo language, which has around 700,000 speakers. I wrote an article previously about Reach Beyond Australia broadcasting to Mizoram State's 40K~ speakers of Nga La. Here was another case of a religious broadcaster reaching out to a small language group -- in this case, a language spoken by just 700K people in a fairly remote area of India. For the first few minutes I heard a man talking in a language I definitely didn't understand, and then there was a pop-like hymn performed by a few singers and a small band, followed by a woman talking, and then another music piece.
I obviously had to look up the schedule to see which station and language I was actually listening to. I used EiBi, which I keep as a text file on my tablet computer.
EiBi's Shortwave schedules can be found here. I use the frequency listing text file.:
Earlier, around 1440 UTC, I heard Trans World Radio broadcasting to Northern India and Pakistan in the Urdu language on 15440 kHz. They played a couple different musical pieces sung by a man and a woman, in South Asian music scales, and the music included tablas and accordions, along with a sitar and some unison string ensembles. TWR's transmitters were in Madagascar. The signals were fairly readable, SIO 252 on both my Radio Shack 200629 and XHDATA D-328 (I switched between the two to save the AA batteries on my 200629 -- the XHDATA has a rechargeable BL-5C battery). The XHDATA, with its DSP, also sometimes brought in the signal a little more readably.
In the same hour, Radio Vaticana broadcast to India on 15490 kHz in Hindustani, Tamil, and Malayam (and possibly the Kannada language also), the signal making its way to my radios from the transmitter in the Philippines, signal strength SIO 353. They also played some South Asian music that sounded similar to 'movie music'. The Tamil language was interesting to hear, as the broadcast was fairly clear in reception. Tamil sounds slightly like the other South Asian languages to the American ear, although you don't hear the word "hai" (= "be" or "is" in English). The vowel sounds are similar to Hindustani languages, though. During some of the talks, I heard the announcers mention "Francis" a lot (Pope Francis, most probably).
On 15250, around 1550 UTC, I heard a strong broadcast in English, with two men speaking in US accents discussing China's economy, and issues that China has with the US, as well as what the commentators called the gradual "de-dollarization" of the World economy. This was China Radio International's broadcast to the EU in English, from Kashgar. The program cut off abruptly, mid-sentence, at 1557 UTC. Then it immediately continued on CRI's English service to the Middle East, that transmission originating in Urumchi. I heard all this on my Tecsun PL-398 and XHDATA D-328 with my indoor wire antenna.
On 15550 kHz, from 1505 UTC onwards, I heard Radio Tamazuj broadcasting in Sudanese Arabic to the Sudan, from Madagascar. The signal strength was SIO 252. It sounded like a newscast by two people. Later on, there was a lot of talk mentioning "Sudan" and "Khartoum." I heard this mostly on my XHDATA D-328 with the indoor wire antenna.
These were just a few of the stations I heard in just a couple hours drinking some tea and coffee and tuning around on three of my radios. I used the XHDATA a lot because it's fun to see what it will pull in -- and also, I am short on AA's, so I don't want to use the ones up in my Radio Shack 200629,Tecsun, and Panasonic more quickly than necessary.
I never used to be a fan of rechargeable batteries. But I guess I'm slowly coming around. The BL-5C's are decent batteries. They seem to last a while in my XHDATA D-328 and Grundig G2.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST, RTTY ON 14001-14002 kHz -- an INTRUDER?
Over the past several weeks I've noticed a fairly strong RTTY (or other FSK / Frequency Shift Keying) station on 14001, or very close to that (two of the BFO/SSB/CW radios I use most often do not show frequencies less than 1 kHz increments -- my most accurate one has dead batteries right now).
From what I understand, RTTY isn't part of any country's 20 Meter Ham band plan in this part of the 20 Meter band. Yet this station seems to be there most mornings, sometimes at S4 or S5 signals, and the signal propagates, indicating that it is hundreds of miles away.
I heard it on the 26th of May at 0811 UTC; the 28th of May at 0914 UTC and afterwards; May 31st at 1113 UTC (14001 or 14002 kHz on my Radio Shack 200629; the station was very weak that a.m.); June 1st at 1506 UTC (14002~ kHz); June 2nd at 1858 UTC (signal was S2 that morning); on June 3rd it was MIA; and June 4th I heard it at 14002~ kHz at S3, at 1632 UTC. Earlier in the week the signals were more like S4 and S5. Earlier today it was MIA, as was most activity on the 20 Meter Band this a.m.
I'm guessing this station might be a military station somewhere in the Pacific region, or maybe Asia somewhere -- this is because of the propagation pattern, which seems to favor the Asia-Pacific region between 0800-1800 UTC at my location.
Internet searches on this mysterious transmission come up with nothing. Looking at some of the IARU intrusion reports I can't see an RTTY station reported being that low in the 20 Meter ham band. An Irish ham who monitors the 20 Meter band for intruders (for the IARU) noticed RTTY / FSK transmissions on 14005 kHz, at least once during the same time of the day I've heard them (1200 UTC on March 11th of this year, and "other days as well"; he called the signals "strong and persistent"), but he's in Ireland, and I'm in the NW US hearing something similar at least 3 kHz lower -- I'm certain I'm hearing it around 14001-14002 kHz.
It's just another one of those Shortwave mysteries, I guess.
The QSL card / information card on the mysterious, low power Beacon station the "Desert Whooper".
Courtesy the HFUnderground 'High Frequency Beacon" Wiki
A MYSTERIOUS, 'WHOOPING' SOUND ON SHORTWAVE --
possibly the 'DESERT WHOOPER'!
In one of my last articles -- the one on the Indonesian, chanting "Lima Pirates" -- I mentioned some of the mysteries on SW that can be heard -- one of them being unlicensed 'beacons'. These stations are small operations, usually placed in remote locations (like the SW US desert), and they are solar powered. At night they transmit various noises on the SW band -- some of these beacons transmit an Identifier in Morse Code, and some others can transmit strange, pitch shifting sounds. One of them transmits what can only be called "whoop" noises.
This "whooping", low-power beacon transmitter -- apparently located in the SW US desert somewhere -- is known as the Desert Whooper.
I heard this 'whooping' last night, on 4096 kHz, using the SSB/BFO on my Radio Shack 200629 (+ 25 ft. wire), just after midnight, local time (0740-0745 UTC). After a few minutes it seemed to put out a "W" and a few other letters or characters in Morse Code, but the fading made it impossible to read the other characters. The signal overall was very weak (less than S1 on a scale of S1-S5), but the whooping was quite audible. It sounded pretty cool. There may have been another beacon in there somewhere, but I only heard the 'whooping' noises and the "W".
Apparently there are a few similar, low power beacons located around 4096 kHz, most of them putting out Morse Code 'dits' or 'dashes'. The beacon chasers give them nicknames. The HF Underground website has an article on them here.:
Here is a YouTube vid posted in 2020 of the Desert Whooper. When I heard it, it sounded a bit similar, although my reception was much, much weaker. This was recorded from California, a lot closer to the location where this small, low power Beacon is located.:
Like I've said, the HF/SW spectrum has a lot of mysterious sounds. You never know what you will hear!
HEARING THE WORLD, JUST FROM YOUR CHAIR
For those of you readers who aren't into radio distance listening, I hope this article gives you an idea of what's out there, bouncing off the ionosphere, from places like Kashgar, Urumchi, Beijing, Shaanxi province, other provinces in China, Madagascar, the Philippines, North Korea, Botswana (VOA broadcasts to Africa from there), Japan, Taiwan, and other places in the world. It's like travelling all over the planet and not leaving your chair. And hearing the signals bounce off the ionosphere is really cool. You can literally hear the distance.
IN CLOSING, SOME ESPERANTO MUSIC...
I'll close this with three tracks I found in Esperanto, as examples of the language. I hadn't heard of any of these artists, nor had I heard them on CRI -- I just did a search for music in Esperanto and they came up. The first one seems to have an anti-war message, the second one sounds Brazilian -- the third one, maybe Brazilian also? As I mentioned, there are Esperanto speakers in Brazil and Uruguay, so a Brazilian sounding Esperanto artist would be plausible.
This track is more Brazilian sounding, a song that seems to be about peace? It's by a singer named Daniel Haddad.:
This track has flutes, acoustic guitars, and various percussion. No idea what it's about. The words are printed onscreen, though.... I think the singer and musicians are Brazilian.:
This next track is also Brazilian, associated with the Brazilian Esperanto league. The singer is Merlin. It's an electronic pop track. Lyrics are there to read -- although, if you're like me, you have little, if any idea, what they are saying.:
It seems that a lot of Esperanto enthusiasts are in the Southern states of Brazil.
I've always found languages fascinating. I can read English (obviously), Norwegian (maybe 80%), Swedish (maybe 70%?), some German, a lot of Spanish, a little bit of Russian, a few words and phrases in Ukrainian, little bit of Dutch and Afrikaans, some Danish, and bits and pieces of other languages here and there. So this Esperanto thing is fascinating to me. I probably won't be trying to learn Esperanto because right now I'm trying to get German down better....
Anyway, with this, I'm going to sign off for right now.
I have a couple other articles I'm still working on, which I will probably post later in the month.
Until next time, my friends, 'dankon' (Esperanto for 'thank you'), and
Peace.
C.C., June 5th, 2024
Edited the title & article on June 6th, as I had misread the schedule and thought the CRI Esperanto broadcast was from Kashgar -- it actually is from Beijing transmitters.
