My Realistic DX-350A, which for a few years in the 2010's was my mainstay MW DX radio, in front of my Crate loop I made in 2011. I still DX with the DX-350A maybe once or twice a month.... Radios are meant to be played.
Dear Readers: Here is a blog article I'd forgotten about -- I wrote it after a flurry of MW Auroral DX, where the ionosphere makes MW distance listening interesting by boosting signals from Southern US regions. Sorry for the delay, but here 'tis.
Recently, as even non-radio hobbyists know, we've had a flurry of Auroral activity in the Northern Hemisphere (where there was any in the Southern Hemisphere I don't know -- it obviously didn't make the news here).
When there is Auroral activity, sometimes the Northern Lights show up as far south as the northern tier of US states. And the Shortwave and Mediumwave radio bands are affected as well. The extra solar radiation zaps the ionosphere and makes it absorb radio signals instead of reflect them back to Earth.
The overall effects of an Aurora can vary -- usually there are 'radio blackouts' (as just described). You'll hear distant signals on the SW or MW bands get weaker and weaker as the Aurora hits -- or you'll turn on your radio one night and there's nothing but grainy sounding static.
This happened recently. About three nights ago I turned on my Realistic DX-394 and tuned the SW ham bands. There was very low activity, and as I was tuning through the 40 Meter ham band, any and all signals just faded down to nothing. It was the same thing with the 30M ham band, and the 20M ham band.
The Shortwave broadcast bands were mostly dead. 49 Meters had non-existent audio for WRMI, WWCR, and Radio Marti was barely audible in the grainy static. A couple other stations that are usually on during the evening -- Radio Educacion on 6185 kHz, and Nikkei 1 and 2 on 6055 and 6115, were extremely weak carriers that even the BFO barely made audible -- you had to listen for them.
MW was like a poor summer night.
Then, after a day or so, the Aurora dissipated. When that happens, often it's a fun time to DX the AM band, because here in the PNW US that means that California, Nevada, and sometimes Mexican radio stations will show up!
On the night of the 14th, it was exactly that way. Some Northwest mainstays like KOAC 550 (Corvallis Oregon), KXTG 750 (Portland, Oregon), CBK 540 (Saskatchewan), KONA 610 (Pasco, Washington), and other regional stations were completely gone, replaced by other weaker signals from further south, or just static.
KXTG 750 was missing -- 750 kHz was just static. KOAC 550 (normally always dominant on 550) was gone, replaced by a very weak KARI Blaine WA (about 150 miles north of me), and
The next night, the AM band returned at least partly to normal. KOAC 550 was in with Oregon Public Radio news, but conditions overall were a little different from normal. Some regular stations weren't in well, and I heard a few California stations much, much better than normally!
On 1270 kHz, I heard KXBX Lakeport, California with Classic Hits, and I also heard KBZZ Reno with Classic Rock and a full, "92.5 The Hawk!" ID! (Actually, they're called "The Hog"). I haven't heard KBZZ since it was a sports station back in the early 2010's! I also heard KEAR 610, a religious station out of San Francisco that plays soft music and hymns at night, and KLBS Los Banos, California, was in on 1270 also! They have Portuguese language talk and music, serving the Portuguese speaking people in the San Joaquin Valley of Central California.
A pic of my Sangean PR-D5 during better days, when I was Solar Eclipse DXing in August, 2017.
MORE ADVENTURES WITH MY SANGEAN PR-D5
As many of you may know, I have one of these Sangean radios that are known for being really good on MW/AM. Sangean PR-D5's are like mini-boomboxes, which also have an AUX IN so you can plug your phone or tablet into the jack and listen to streaming in stereo. I used to listen to Norway's NRK Norske Folkemusikk channel all the time on my PR-D5 that way.
I also discovered a button pressing glitch that seemed to occur on my PR-D5 after the radio had been powered up for several months. It seemed that the constant powering of the radio -- which kept the microprocessor working in the background, waiting for the Power button to be pressed -- would cause the microprocessor's firmware to read the buttons oddly.
For example, I'd have to press the Power button several times to get the radio to recognise that I was pressing it. Sometimes I'd press a button and an entirely different function would occur (like I would press a memory channel button and the PR-D5 would switch from AM to FM instead).
I discovered the fix out of frustration. I pulled the batteries, and pulled the plug from the AC wall adaptor, and reset the radio that way.
The re-set worked. The radio's buttons started working normally. A few years later, sometimes the re-set wouldn't completely work. I found that pressing the Power button after de-powering the radio did the trick.
I wrote an article about this button issue in 2017 or so. Here is a link to that article, where I go into more detail about it. Other PR-D5 owners who had the issue also found that the re-set fixed their radios.:
Recently, that hasn't been working 100%. I finally resorted to spraying contact cleaner down the side of all the buttons a couple times, working them after each spray. I wiped the excess off the front of the radio with a paper towel.
Presto! The radio acts like new again.
It appears that if your PR-D5 has been sitting, unused, for several months (I hadn't used my radio in probably a year, using my Superadios in my writing Den instead), the buttons can either oxidise, or they need to otherwise be exercised to work properly again.
NOW, these fixes may work on many of the Sangean AM-FM only radios. I have experienced these button glitches with my PR-D5, PR-D14, PR-D18, and a couple times my PR-D4W even acted up. It's obvious that something in their firmware can develop these button glitches over time.
The buttons are fine, the radio circuits and 'brain' are all fine, it's just that the firmware will act up if it sees continuous power for too long.
And the buttons themselves either need exercising (i.e., actual use) or they may need a shot of contact cleaner down the side of the buttons now and then.And periodically re-setting your radio (depowering it completely, letting it sit for 15 seconds or so, and maybe pressing the power button to clear the residual charge in the microprocessor) is probably a good idea, too.
This was another article sitting dormant, that I had forgotten I had written. So here it is, nearly two months late. Better late than never.
I still am finishing the article on the mediocre Solar Cycle 25. I have been sitting on that one for almost a year. Here it is, December, during a 'peak year', and the SW DX conditions are mostly crap and MW DX conditions aren't anything like they were in 2011-2014.
So, it's time to publish that article, being that my assessments of Solar Cycle 25 turned out to be very accurate.
A vid clip of my Radio Shack 200629 receiving Australian ham VK1A, working US stations from his location just outside Brisbane, Queensland, during the CQ World Wide contest, the night of Oct. 26th, 2024 (Oct. 27th UTC). The ID of VK1A is right near the end of the clip.
Over this past weekend, there has been a 'contest' on the Shortwave Ham bands. These contests have been around for ages -- the bigger ones usually happen two or three times a year, where you'll tune the ham bands and they will actually be crowded with signals, with hams eagerly trying to contact as many other hams as possible
When I was younger, I would buy CQ Magazine periodically. It's a magazine dedicated to the ham hobby. There are articles on how to improve your antennas, and there would be schematic diagrams of projects hams and other radio hobbyists could build. And there would be articles on DXpeditions (where a team of hams will transmit from some rare island out in the ocean somewhere), and also the results of contests.
A QSL Card for Qatar ham station A7XB, a station I heard on 15 Meters long ago, on my Yaesu FRG-7 and 80-100 ft. outdoor wire antenna. It was my most memorable DX catch. I had tuned into a couple guys -- with American accents -- talking. The signals were weak. The one guy seemed to be in Qatar and the other guy had an unusual DX call -- maybe Indonesia or Afghanistan? I don't remember, and I never got his call right. He might have been part of the US diplomatic mission in one of those countries. When A7XB mentioned his callsign, and spelled out his location ("Q-A-T-A-R"), suddenly there was a churning barrelhouse of signals -- all these 10's or hundreds of hams trying to contact him to get Qatar in their logs. I never did find out who the ham actually was, and never heard him again. Even DX Callbooks didn't show up anything. This QSL Card I found on E-Bay, by chance last year, is the only verification I've got for a very rare reception.
One year there was a big article on a guy in Belgium who won the CQ Worldwide DX contest -- I don't remember which year, it was probably in the 1980s. There was a pic of him, sitting proud in front of his several, large and expensive ham radio rigs, and also some pics of his antennas, which -- if I remember correctly -- were very impressive.
Now, this weekend a similar contest is taking place, on sideband. So, for the first time in recent memory, the ham bands are fairly close to packed with all sorts of SSB signals -- it's just like it would be on a typical Saturday afternoon on 20 Meters back in the 80s-00's when the bands were always packed. Not so much anymore -- crap propagation and inactive hams, as well as those running the clown car noises on FT8 have made the bands more spare.
But, this weekend, the bands are very busy.
A map of CQ Magazine's 'DX Zones', with the 'Zones' being designated by the people at CQ Magazine, which sponsors the Contest. During the Contest, individual hams (or teams, in a club) try to get as many contacts as possible, from as many of these 'DX Zones' as possible.
Last night I decided to tune around. 20 Meters, of course, was dead except for one guy calling CQ Contest from the Netherlands -- PJ2T, on 14318. He was alone on the SSB section of the 20 Meter band. And although I could hear him readably on my 24 ft. indoor wire and DX-394, he had no takers, except one American ham, K3DXX.
So I tuned down to the 40 Meter ham band. I had a lot more luck. The band was packed. I logged Brazil, Japan, Barbados, Mali, a bunch of hams from all over the US, and -- at least for a while -- I thought I logged Heard Island!
HEARD ISLAND? NO.... NOT REALLY
Heard Island is a remote island that is south of Kerguelen (the Antipodes of WA state, the exact opposite side of the world), which means it's out in the middle of frozen nowhere in the Southern Indian Ocean. So, why did I think I heard Heard Island? Because the guy in Australia, VK1A, had a web page that indicated that he was transmitting from Heard Island [please see screenshot of the page below].
Here you can see what threw me off: the unusual VK1 ham prefix (Australian prefixes are generally VK2-VK7 for each State, with VK1 being ACT, the Australian Capital Territory -- I've never heard ACT), and this page, which clearly denotes this station as being on Heard Island. Obviously -- it's a joke, or somebody, either at the site or elsewhere, typed in the absolutely wrong geographical coordinates.
This is a Ham Radio Station Prefix map. Maps -- and lists -- help you identify the country of the station you just heard. This map may be hard to read, but it -- and others like it -- are available online. I used to have a small book that had a map just like this inside it.
VK1A's QRZ page (QRZ.com is sort of a clearinghouse of info on ham radio stations) didn't have a location (the location only is available if you are logged in, and if you are not a ham, even if you are logged in the information available is a bit restricted). His QRZCQ page of course, was another matter. QRZCQ.com often has a lot more location info available, and QRZCQ said this VK1A guy was on Heard Island.
The latitude and longitude coordinates -- which somebody had to take the time to type in -- gave the latitude and longitude for Heard Island as well.
I made a recording of my catch, still thinking there was something awry about the location. The operator didn't speak with an Aussie accent, but he's Dutch originally, so that would figure. I even heard him on my Radio Shack 200629, which is an able receiver on SSB but not as good as my DX-394, DX-398 (out of batteries right now) or Panasonic RF-B45.
Anyway, I moved on and listened some more and then went on with my household chores -- feeding my three cats, making some celery soup for myself, etc.
So then I looked up the station again. VK1A -- very little info on his QRZ page, or his main QRZ page (he has several callsigns, apparently quite active). No info whatsoever on ANY ham operating out of Heard Island, even during a contest. No real bio. Just a bunch of callsigns he's used over the years.
I finally logged into QRZ (after signing up), and being logged in more location info appeared.
It turns out that the guy's up in the hills just north of Brisbane, and the weird VK1 prefix (not a standard Australian ham call prefix) is for contesters and clubs. Why the misleading info on QRZCQ.com? Maybe someone was having a joke? Maybe they typed in the latitude and longitude coordinates too hastily? I've seen misplaced locations on QRZCQ before, but not 7000 miles off.
So, there ya go. I had thought I'd heard Heard Island, but I had NOT heard Heard Island.
But I did get a clear copy of a guy from Brisbane on my Radio Shack 200629, which actually is a decent catch for that radio and an indoor wire. In fact, VK1A came in as well on my 200629 as he did on my DX-394, which is one of my best two radios for SSB and CW. It may have been that the conditions were up. Either way, I'm still happy with the DX catch -- even if it wasn't in the Indian Ocean. :-)
And, in the process, I found out that Heard Island has numerous glaciers, and its mountain, 'Big Ben', is the tallest mountain on Australian territory (although most Aussies think of Kosciusko as the country's tallest one). And -- no one, meaning absolutely no one -- lives there.
Here's a pic. And remember, if it looks cold, it IS cold. Nothing lives there but elephant seals and some penguins.
A picture of Heard Island, located south of Kerguelen, in the Southern Indian Ocean. The mountain is Mawson Peak, part of the mountain complex called "Big Ben". Big Ben is still volcanically active. No one lives on Heard Island, aside from elephant seals, penguins, and some other birds.
Here is an article on Heard Island's volcanic activity, courtesy the Australian CSIRO.
I will post a couple more short articles within the week.
I hope my readers are all doing well. It's almost Winter here in Seattle, although the temperatures have been more or less moderate for it being this late in the year. I hope that holds.
Racofrats, when a kitten, Oct. 23, 2011. Such a long time ago.
I'll close this article with a pic of my cat Racofrats, when he was very young -- still a kitten. He's on my lap, looking to attack the other cats when they go by. He's the survivor of that litter. I call him Rac-a-doodle. He's turning into an indoor cat now. The plush, antique chair on the upstairs landing is all his, as is the cat furniture there.
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.
The laughing, cackling call of the Kookaburra used to be an identifier for Radio Australia, which has been off the airwaves for several years. The Kookaburra can again be heard, however, on religious SW broadcaster Reach Beyond Australia.
Photo from Wiki, taken by Diliff.
One of the coolest things about long distance radio listening in general, and Shortwave radio listening in particular, is that it is like travelling all over the PNW, all over the US, and all over the World -- without ever leaving your chair. You hear the signals bouncing to your radio from hundreds, and even thousands of miles away, coming from stations that may very well be on other continents -- even on the opposite side of the world.
For example, I have often heard China Radio International broadcasting to Europe from Kashgar, Xinjiang, China -- a city and region that is in the far western part of that country, and is on the near opposite side of the world from me --11 time zones away. By the time the Kashgar signals have reached my radio -- whether the signals are coming off the front OR the back of their beam -- they've literally crossed half the world.
Early in the morning on May 26th, I was up early (I was still recuperating from my week long illness), so I switched on my Radio Shack 200629, and clipped the indoor wire antenna to the whip, plugged in my headphones, and tuned around. I tuned into the 20 Meter ham band, which was amazingly in working condition at that hour of the morning (3 a.m.+), and heard some stations calling CQ, as it was a CW (Morse Code) radio contest, where ham stations try to get as many contacts as possible.
I heard DA3DR (a German ham) trying to contact Statesiders on 14055 kHz, and his Morse Code signal had a "Polar warble" or slight "Polar flutter", caused by the Auroral Radio Zone. On 14049 I heard K3LR (located in the NE US) calling CQ, and on 14034 I heard Japanese station 7K1MAN, which was cool to hear, as Japan, like Germany, is pretty far away.
Then I tuned to the 25 Meter SW Broadcast band. I heard North Korea (the Voice of Korea) on 11710, with distortion in their signal (they've been having issues with their transmitters over the past few months... it comes and goes). North Korea is always interesting to hear because their music is well produced, but it's also fairly unique to North Korea -- they'll have lots of chick singers with operatic style vocals, and all sorts of backing, from full orchestras to rock bands with horns and strings. North Korean music -- at least that North Korean music on the Voice Of Korea -- sounds like Mitch Miller or the Ray Conniff singers with a Motown bassist, fronted by female opera singers trying to sound like ABBA.
You get the idea.
On 11780 at around 1050 UTC, it sounded like a religious service in Portuguese, including some folk hymns. The only station that fit was Radio Nacional da Amazonia, and being that it was Sunday morning, I suppose the programming would fit.
The banner / logo for The Voice Of China (known by US SWL's as CNR-1) from the top of their website.
I tuned up the band and heard China's national radio network station CNR-1 and VOA's Chinese program battling it out on 11785, and CNR-1 battling it out with Radio Taiwan International on 11730. China often uses CNR-1 to drown out the Voice Of America, Ratio Taiwan and Radio Free Asia, and during mornings it's usually audible here in the NW US, sometimes with snippets of the other station behind it. On 11795 I heard KBS World Radio's (South Korea) broadcast to South America in slightly accented Spanish (1148 UTC)... You get the idea, the bands were lively that morning.
A CHINESE RADIO PROGRAM FOR KIDS
On 11885 at around 1158 UTC (458 a.m. my time) I heard CNR-1 and PBS Xinjiang and a third station all occupying the channel at the same time, with one of them playing some decent music -- and at the top of the hour I heard three separate sets of time 'pips', and all three stations switched off instantaneously, and there was nothing but static. On 11785 there was a Chinese program (CNR-1, I think) with a woman talking in a kid's voice ("Mama! Mama!"), with happy sounding, light music behind her talking -- it was obviously a kid's story.
I've heard this a lot on CNR-1. I've often wondered what the kids' stories are about.
Here in the US, anything on radio for kids is consigned to a few religious programs that might run inspirational kids' shows and radio plays, very early Sunday morning. Otherwise, kids' radio programming left the air when Radio Disney yanked the plug on all of their stations in 2015. Children are just another demographic that Radio finds useless, because there is no money to be made from broadcasting to them.
A lot of SWL's seem to tune past CNR-1, viewing it as just a jamming station to note in the logbook and then ignore. However, I've found some of CNR-1's programming interesting, even if I don't know more than seven words of Chinese (Wuh = me, Ni = you, Wuh-men = us, Ni-men = you all, Zhongguo = China, Dien-tai = Broadcasting, and Ni-hao = "hello"). In the early 2010's, every early morning there was a low voiced dude who always spoke softly and closely to the mic, talking over a music bed of romantic piano. I think it was CNR-1's overnight program. I haven't heard that guy -- or that sort of program -- in eight or nine years. CNR-1 is at least two things: well-produced, and it's got a great signal.
Reach Beyond Australia's former, but colorful logo.
From SWLing Post
ANOTHER TONGUE FROM THE POLYGLOT
After I tired of the kid's show, I tuned my Radio Shack 200629 down a few kilohertz, to11875 kHz, around 5:10 a.m. my time (1210 UTC), and I heard a man talking in a very strange language that I'd never heard before.
Now, having listened to Shortwave for several decades, I've heard a LOT of languages, and learned to ID many of them, and at least ID the region if I can't ID the language. I've heard Spanish, Russian, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Hausa, Amharic, Somali, Tigrinya, Swahili, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Viet, Burmese, Inuit (back when the CBC Northern Service was still on the air a long time ago), Hindi, Urdu, Pashto and Dari. I've heard Punjabi, especially on US AM radio stations that program in Punjabi, and I've probably heard that language on SW as well. I've heard Sindhi on SW. I've heard Tamil (on SBC Singapore, which no longer is on SW). I've heard Tagalog and Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. I've heard Pidgin English (on the Solomon Islands BC and the SW station that used to serve Papua New Guinea). I've heard Fulani and one of the languages spoken in Mali, Bambara. I've heard Arabic.
More than half of those languages I can ID. With the others, I generally can at least ID the continent or region where the language is spoken. Sometimes, though, I am clueless about the language. Burmese always throws me off, as does Mongolian. I never can seem to ID those two languages well. I always have problems ID'ing the Afghan languages Pashto and Dari. They're like a puzzle to my ears. It was the same with this language I heard on 11875. I looked up the frequency on my trusty EiBi SW schedule (a very handy tool to keep on your smartphone or tablet computer).
It turned out that the station I was hearing was Reach Beyond Australia, a religious broadcaster I've heard maybe twice before, beaming a program in a language I had never heard of before: Nga La.
A pic of Chin State, Burma (Myanmar), a mountainous region near the Indian border. People who speak the Nga La language -- or Nga La related dialects -- live in both Chin State and India's Mizoram State just across the border. Pic from Wikipedia, photographer: Corto Maltese 1999
EiBi has a "ReadMe.txt" file you can download alongside your Frequency Schedule text file. Both are handy to keep on a tablet or phone. The "ReadMe.txt" has a listing of languages, country codes, and transmitter locations for most of the SWBC stations in the world. You can get the EiBi text files at eibispace.de.
I looked up Nga La in the EiBi readme.txt and it said that Nga La -- also known as Matu-Chin, apparently -- is a language spoken by hill tribes in the Chin Hills region bordering western Burma and India's Mizoram State -- a small area maybe the size of the state of New Jersey, south of India's Assam tea region, and maybe a couple hundred miles east of the Bangladesh coastal city of Chittagong.
And -- get this. Nga La has maybe 40,000 speakers, total, in the World. Some estimates are more like 70,000, if related dialects are included. But you get the idea. Nga La is not a massively spoken language.
Think about it. The people running Reach Beyond Australia are programming half an hour of radio, every day, to a tribal language group that is less than half the size, population wise, than my suburb of 100K people!
I personally wouldn't have know about the Nga La language, Mizoram (although I've seen it on a map before), and Chin State in Myanmar / Burma if it weren't for Shortwave radio. With all the stuff on the internet, I don't think I would have found any info on the language or the region where its people live.
A lot of people, especially SW DX'ers, are really down on religious broadcasters. One SW DX journalist, who has a weekly radio show and web presence, habitually has referred to all religious broadcasters as "hucksters". On the Shortwave subreddit there are fairly frequent references to the religious broadcasters, and the comments usually weigh negative, although surprisingly there are a few guys on there who say they listen now and then out of curiosity -- and they realise that the religious programming on stations like WRMI, WWCR, and WBCQ helps keep the signals -- and the other, non-religious programs -- on the air.
A pic of Aizawl, the capital of India's Mizoram state, where a lot of Nga La speakers apparently live (or at least speakers of Nga La related, mutually intelligible languages live there). Although Mizoram and Chin states are tropical, because most of the terrain is fairly high up in altitude, temperatures range between 60F-80F, year 'round (15-20C). Pic from Wikipedia, Photographer: Nggcha
I personally have no issue with the religious preachers, even if there are some that I do not agree with. I don't always tune into the preaching shows, however. Sometimes they're a little toooooo out there for me. In my view, if one doesn't like the programming, every SW radio has a dial....
But still, these religious broadcasters are important, despite what many may think, because they keep the SW stations on the air, and -- face it: THEY ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN THE SHORTWAVE RADIO MEDIUM. I've even heard some of the religious preachers -- radio veteran Bob Bierman among them -- state that they believe in the medium of Shortwave radio to reach people.
They may not be your cup of tea to listen to, and maybe you disagree with religion, but the religious broadcasters actually believe that the Shortwave Radio medium is valid and useful to reach people with their message. They believe in the SW band as much as we SWL's do. After all, they're paying money to actually use the medium.
And they're doing it even to reach listeners in just one small language group, whose total number of speakers are less than that of an average American city.
And this comes at a time that, right now in the US, there are many who no longer believe in the relevance of Radio, period -- be it FM, AM, or SW. In fact, depending on how one views the data, increasing numbers of listeners in the US also apparently think that Radio is no longer relevant as a medium. The US Radio audience has declined by 10% since 2012, and it may still be declining a certain percentage each year. The big Radio companies that are on the stock market have seen their stock prices plummet, because investors do not see Radio as a terrific investment anymore. Values of the radio stations themselves have dropped -- even many big city FM's are worth less money, when accounted for inflation, than they were worth 20 years ago. Furthermore, advertisers sometimes treat Radio like a redheaded stepchild.
Meanwhile, the religious broadcasters still think that Radio, including Shortwave Radio, is a valid means to reach people with your message.
Some of you may not like the message, but before you knock the religious firebreathers too much, remember -- they actually believe in the medium that you like to listen to.
Anyway, because of the fading on Reach Beyond Australia'ssignal (after all, it was coming from about 12,000 miles away), I switched my antenna from the Radio Shack 200629 to my Tecsun PL-398, and tuned in 11875 on the Tecsun to see if the Tecsun's DSP would make Reach Beyond Australia's program more readable. It did help. It was one of those cases when the DSP really works wonders in resolving the signal.
I listened closely to the language, which seemed to be a mix of SE Asian language sounds (think Viet or Thai), with a little bit of Hindustani language sounds mixed in. Most of what I heard was a guy talking -- probably preaching. The signal level was SIO 2-352 with fading. The guy stopped talking and there was a folk song -- presumably a hymn -- sung by some girls backed by a small pop band.
Then a guy gave what sounded like a web address.
The clock on my Tecsun hit 5:29 a.m., local time, and 1229 UTC. An older woman started speaking, and she mentioned "kilohertz", so she was probably giving the station's Nga La broadcast schedule.
Then I heard a full sign-off from Reach Beyond Australia: "...Thank you for tuning into Reach Beyond Australia.... on the 25 Meter Band." Right after that, there was the sound of a Kookaburra, and then the signal cut off promptly at 1230 UTC.
The Kookaburra's cackly call was used by Radio Australia before the Australian government pulled the plug on them. It's cool that this religious broadcaster is using the same sound as an identifier.
Reach Beyond Australia's current logo.
SO EXACTLY WHO ARE REACH BEYOND AUSTRALIA?
Reach Beyond Australia is apparently an offshoot, or continuation of the old HCJB radio station that was famous for running out of Ecuador in the 1960s-90s. The Australian operation broadcasts in 20 different languages, including some -- like Nga La / Matu-Chin (or just "Matu") -- that I never even heard of. Obviously, they are intent on reaching people in Asia for Jesus Christ.
On their website they say that they are especially interested in reaching out to people in Burma, like the Matu / Nga La speakers, the Rohinga people, and the Burmese people, with daily services in those languages and others like them.
They must think that the Shortwave medium is worth it, or they wouldn't be doing it. On their website are pictures of the antenna farm, near Kunanurra in the Kimberly region of far NW Australia. Looks like a sunny place, and there are more trees there than I had envisioned. Here is a link to their main website.:
The location of Reach Beyond Australia's SW transmitters is just 6 kilometers west of Kununurra, and it's easy to see on a satellite map. Just follow the main road (the Victoria Highway) west, over the Ord River (located right next to the city), and then aim your browser map a bit SW of the bridge that crosses the river. The transmitter site shows up fairly well on a computer mapping app -- a semi-circle of tall towers, which you can spot by their shadows on the ground.
And if you're interested in tuning in this station -- even if it's just to hear the languages, here is their current schedule.:
Although the religous programming coming out of US domestic broadcasters is of marginal interest to most DX'ers, the foreign language broadcasters are a different matter entirely. I've heard Trans World Radio and Adventist World Radio, and their foreign language broadcasts usually have interesting sounding music -- and the fact that a lot of the broadcasts are out of MADAGASCAR is pretty cool, as it's nearly on the opposite pole of the World from me. US religious broadcaster KNLS / New Life Station broadcasts out of Alaska in Russian to Siberia, and they play a lot of cool pop music from the 2010's and the 1980's. And they also broadcast to European Russia from Madagascar, too, and I've heard a few of those broadcasts -- basically coming to my radios from 12K miles away.
Reach Beyond Australia seems similar in scope. They broadcast in interesting sounding languages, and they play interesting music -- usually they seem to be simple church hymns sung by regular folks. Where the station got the girl group singing a hymn in the Nga La language I have no idea. If there are only 40K to 70K Nga La speakers in the world, that's a small population to put together a singing group. But somebody did. Perhaps it was a local congregation in the area.
SHORTWAVE LEADS TO AN INTEREST IN LANGUAGES AND GEOGRAPHY
To bring this back to the first subject breached in this article: Radio has always been a discovery medium for me. When I was a little kid, and when I first heard radio stations from Oregon (which, to a 4 or 5 year old, seemed like a foreign country), I instantly wanted a map to see where Grants Pass was; where was Albany and Lebanon, Oregon? Where was Corvallis? Where was Eureka, California?
MW DXing made me interested in geography, and other places. And then, a few years later, when I discovered the Shortwave band, I was digging through the National Geographic maps that my folks stored on the bookshelf, and then using my big World Atlas. I wanted to see where the Netherlands Antilles were, and where the Netherlands was (after all, Radio Nederland's shows were produced in Hilversum. So I looked it up on the map). I wanted to know the geography of South Africa -- Johannesburg, Germiston, Springs, Boksburg -- I saw them on the map when I heard Radio RSA. When I heard Radio Australia, I pulled up the map of Oz to find Melbourne and Shepparton.
Whenever commentators on Radio Moscow talked about the Soviet republics, I'd pull up a map and see where those places were.
I also developed an interest in languages from hearing them on the Shortwave bands. Like I said, on Shortwave you hear a LOT of different languages, even today.
Although there is a ton of information technically available on the internet, I wouldn't have learned about a language -- Nga La -- that's only spoken by 40,000 people if it weren't for Shortwave radio. And I use the internet daily, like many people do.
I'm not certain how much the truly worldwide reach of the internet really helps people get an understanding of other countries -- be it their geography or languages and culture. I say this in the light of the fact that search engines -- the most basic of research tools -- simply aren't what they were just 15 years ago. The WorldWideWeb has turned slowly into the WorldWide-AI-Boosted-Shopping Mall. Social media connects people, but how much connecting does it really do?
I realize that a lot of the old SW broadcasters have gone online. I wonder if their audience has grown since it's gone web-only. I've never seen the data for it, but I have my doubts that audiences for the online version of Radio Canada Int'l or Radio Nederland are any bigger than they were when they were using the Shortwaves.
Going online didn't help Radio Disney, and they hyped up their stream quite a bit before pulling the plug on Over-The-Air Radio. Their stream barely lasted 5 years. Apparently the listeners didn't follow them over to the streaming site.
The internet is a terrific place, and a great tool for learning and exposure to other peoples and cultures. However I sometimes wonder if it's as effective at world discovery today, as turning on a Shortwave radio can be.
IN OTHER LIFE.....
I'm feeling better than I did a week ago. I'm pretty much recuperated from whatever bug I had. I went out for a bike ride this morning -- the first one in three plus weeks -- and that's progress. My trusty car, however, is simply not so trusty anymore. It appears to be turning into a money suck. The fuel system is fine, but it looks like the temperature sensor is faulty, and the computer that runs the car won't run anything correctly if it doesn't see the right temperature.
This is what happens when you let a computer run your car.
Otherwise, there are a few positives. The weather is improving. As I finish the first draft of this article, it is a sunny morning and it's supposed to be 70F later today.
Weather is OK, and I'm still alive and kicking. Can't beat that, can you?
ONE OF OZ'S BEST EXPORTS, THE BAND DIED PRETTY
I'll close this with a track by an Oz band that I really got into in the 1990's. They're a lesser well-known band, but were one of the best rock bands to come out of Australia. In fact, I first heard of them on Radio Australia: Died Pretty.
Their singer, Ronald S. Peno, had a unique way with words. The words didn't need to be 100% coherent -- the sounds of the words mattered almost as much. I guess Mr. Peno was into poetry, which adopts much the same attitude towards the use of language.
This is their liveliest official video, with a song off Lost, their 1988 album, which was also released in the US. It's called Winterland.Mr. Peno's singing is sort of like Bob Dylan meets Iggy Pop meets Bon Scott meets Jim Morrison:
This is the first song I heard by them, on Radio Australia's Soundabout program, Towers Of Strength.:
This next vid is of the second track on Died Pretty's Lostalbum, which I played quite a bit in the early 1990's. It's sung by the guitar player and co-songwriter, Brett Myers. It's called Out Of My Hands.:
This track has no active video, but the song is probably one of their best. It's called As Must Have.The music actually was an influence on my own songwriting.... plaintive chords, with a lot of E Minor 7ths. Welcome to the Ronald S. Peno method of lyric writing. Mr. Peno unfortunately left us all in August of last year. Mr. Peno, you had a way with words.
This is the best track off Every Brilliant Eye, the Died Pretty album that came out in 1990. The album didn't get much, if any airplay on alternative radio in the US unfortunately, but it should have. One enterprising fan managed to decipher the lyrics to this one -- they're in the comments.
Here's to all this madness, this breeze is blowing cold
The Bible has its new brew, our world has lost its soul....
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