Rainy February

A moody sky in early morning.

Although Winter seems to have passed us by here in Seattle, it seems we're definitely into Spring mode.

Beauty bushes green with buds during the second week of February.

Spring usually means rain -- and I'll call it Spring, because the temperatures are similar to Spring, and some of the bushes are beginning to bud out already -- and so far, this Spring has been typical: 50 degrees (around 6C) and rain.

The cloudy February sky reflected in a shallow pool of water at street's edge.

Last weekend was Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is generally a day of enjoyment for those who have committed partners, and a day for the rest to endure. However, on rare occasions, there are things that bring a smile to anyone's face, and one of those things I saw recently was a house in a nearby neighborhood where a guy put up Valentine's Day lights!

A house in a nearby neighborhood with Valentine's Day lights!

I also found a Valentine's balloon that got away -- about a mile (Km and a half) from the nearest developed area. It had to float over several stands of trees, the river, and maybe a hill or two before it landed where it did in the brush by my favorite cottonwood tree.

The one that got away -- a Valentine heart balloon stuck in some brush at a park -- the balloon had to float about mile or more from the nearest houses or businesses.

In late January I took some photos of the Seattle skyline and harbor area with my Nikon; some of them came out better than I thought they would. Seattle is known for its coffee and software industry, but for decades the backbone of Seattle was the Duwamish River corridor.  Most of the photos I already put up on my blog post last week.

The Seattle Skyline (in the far distance) from Interstate 5.

The Duwamish River -- named after the local tribe of Native Americans -- is where the shipyards are located; the Duwamish River is where Boeing built its aircraft factories; and the Duwamish River is where numerous industries located during the early 1900's -- and many of them are still there.

The industrial Duwamish Waterway during a late, rainy afternoon in late January.

Aside from the weather, it's been life per usual here. I'm still doing a lot of writing, but my music has taken a back seat to everything else. My radio DXing hobby has been mostly shelved because conditions have been crappy and I'm sort of bored with it at present.

West Seattle's "Junction" business district on a rainy evening in late January.

I'm looking forward for the rains to stop, and the sun to get warmer. But that will take time. One thing I've learned over the past several years is to enjoy the seasons as they come. I used to hate the rainy season because it was no fun to go out and ride a bike when its raining -- but since I've been taking daily rides on the Trail most mornings I just slow down and look at nature, and it makes it more pleasant.

Happy February.
CC 2-17-2016

Våren -- Spring is already here

 Rainy windshield, First Hill in Seattle, the last week of January, 2016.

Our Winter here in the Seattle area didn't last long. The past few nights and mornings have been between 38-42F (around 4-5C). We haven't had a freeze since just after New Year's. The trees and bushes aren't budding yet, but there are more Spring birds chirping and singing, and I even heard a Northern Flicker (our local woodpecker) tapping on the metal chimney of someone's house a couple mornings ago.

Fog over a pond on a cloudy, misty morning in late January.

Lately we've had a lot of rain. And a lot of cloudy weather. But it's fairly warm for us, for this time of year. It's even been 60F during the day here. Not bad. Back East, people are having another Winter storm.

A picture of the Duwamish River, and the spires of the Seattle Skyline are in the far background, at the very center of the photo.

Personally, work has been picking up, and that's good.

I still have been working out, and have reached one of my goals, benching over 200 pounds (91 Kg) this week, and that feels good also. I intend to keep going until I max out. My bench will only support so much weight safely, so I may need to buy a new bench this year.

The Seattle harbor and skyline during a rainy afternoon in late January, 2016.

I am still working on my action novel. It's about 250 pages and gaining. Hopefully, it will be ready to publish on Amazon Kindle some time this summer.

I have two other books in the works -- one of them already half done. They will have action also. The one I have about half done is an action sort of novel featuring some homeless guys. I got the inspiration from seeing what goes on with many homeless in my area, and from knowing some people who would be homeless if it weren't for the good graces of their families. The rest of the inspiration was from talking to friends about some of the industrial jobs that a lot of people have to take in the Green River Valley -- some of which have poor safety conditions, bad hours, and low wages. Of course, a lot of that second novel is little more than pure fiction. But most novels are. :-)

A pair of ducks has adopted a local pond. Hopefully, they will stay.

Meanwhile, nationwide, the country is getting into election mode, which means that my Facebook newsfeed is heating up with lots of political crap.

SOME MW DXers READ MY BLOG / PR-D5 and HEADPHONES

I notice that my MW DXing articles get read by a lot of people. I have a few more of those articles in the works. On that front, I've been turning on the radio at least once a night, and tuning around. The only new station has been KWKW 1330, an ESPN Deportes station from Los Angeles, which I logged on my Sangean PR-D5.

Göteborg, Sweden have their Elverommet (a building with a large mural of their river on the side of it)... Seattle has its equivalent: The South Park Transfer Station!

I re-learned that I need to use my old Radio Shack headphones with that radio (I've since updated my PR-D5 article, adding a section about headphones). The PR-D5, being a mini-boombox, has a loudness circuit, which boosts bass at low volumes. It is part of what gives the PR-D5 a big sound through the speakers. But if you have bassy headphones (like my Sonys, which I got with a Sony SRF-59 headset radio), the bass will cover some of the highs, and you can miss ID's on stations on crowded frequencies.

Tåke på vannet... Ghostly fog over the local Beaver's Pond.

My old set of Radio Shack headphones -- which broke last year and I rewired for mono, using speaker cable -- are excellent for DXing and distance listening. They have clarity, but not a ton of bass. And they don't emphasise the midrange like some cheap headsets can do, which just gives you listener's fatigue -- I get zilch listener's fatigue with these headphones. For a while I misplaced them. Now that I found them again, I'm using them with the PR-D5 more.

Finally, I got a decent picture of a duck that wasn't blurry. Taken the first week of February.

My PR-D5 is so good on MW I usually don't need an external loop to DX with it. It's light enough to hold in my hand and turn from side to side, angle it slightly, etc. -- strengthening some radio stations and weakening others. One morning a week ago I heard an unidentifiable Spanish station on 1650 khz. My external loop only boosted the signal by about a db or so -- I still couldn't read the language 100%, but I heard "kilo" and "ahora" -- definitely Spanish. There is a distant Deportes station on that frequency, but this station didn't sound like Deportes at all.

I don't understand a lot of Spanish, even though I took it in high school. But sometimes I'll listen to the Spanish speaking stations to see if I can understand anything.

The last week of January we had some rains... One of the small local creeks, which comes down off of a hillside, got muddy, turning the frog pond yellow.

The only other languages I can read are Norwegian and Swedish -- Norwegian a bit better than Swedish (I took Norsk in college and learned Swedish on my own, as they are related languages). The only way I can hear those languages is through online listening, by logging in to NRK or Sveriges Radio, which -- thankfully -- do not 'geofence' their broadcasts. Jeg kan ikke forstå dem når jeg høre dem, men jeg kan lese dem OK.

ESPN Deportes stations like KWKW 1330, KTRB 860 (in the Bay Area of California), KBRO 1490 (across the Puget Sound from me) etc. are fun to listen to because the announcers are very peppy, and the bumper music is lively -- sometimes rock, sometimes hip-hop oriented pop. I understand the language just enough to know that they usually talk about Mexican soccer and European soccer. NFL football isn't that big amongst US Hispanics, unless they are 2nd or 3rd generation. The farthest Deportes station I've logged is the one in El Paso on 1650, KSVE.

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

On a sports related note, I enjoyed the NFL Super Bowl earlier this month. As most of you probably know, the Super Bowl is a very big deal here in the U.S., even with people who aren't into NFL football. This year it was a game between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers.

As it turned out, it was a tough game. The Denver defense kept Carolina from doing much. Carolina's quarterback got 'sacked' about seven times, losing the ball a couple of times. Before the game, a lot of sports experts were all saying Carolina was going to win. But during the game, they were barely able to move the ball.

It wasn't a high scoring game, but was a fun game to watch.

I'm not much for 'selfies'. As close as I'll get to one. I'm all dressed up to watch the Super Bowl.

Hope all have a great February -- and Happy Valentine's Day, if you're into that....
CC  2-13-2016

Medium Wave DXing with the REALISTIC DX-370

As I have mentioned previously, one of my hobbies is Long Distance MW radio listening. And one of the radios I use frequently is one that is hardly ever mentioned in MW distance listener circles, the Realistic DX-370.

The Realistic DX-370 -- like most Radio Shack portable radios -- was made by Sangean. In many cases Radio Shack just put their name on a Sangean radio and marketed it in their stores. In the case of the DX-370, they combined two versions of a Sangean model -- the ATS-800 and 800A -- to sort of make their own model.

When it first came out, the DX-370 was intended to be an 'entry level' model of digital readout SW radio. The larger DX-390 (a Radio Shack re-branded Sangean ATS-818) was more expensive and had more features, including SSB and a tuning knob. The 370 was more of a bare bones radio (less memories, no SSB, no tuning knob, less SW frequency range), but still was worth the money, as it worked rather well.


The DX-370 is a Sangean ATS-800A with Sangean ATS-800 firmware and features, but unlike either the Sangean 800 or 800A it tunes all the way up to 1710 khz on the MW band. The DX-370 was made in Taiwan.

The Realistic DX-370, a digital portable radio made in the 1990's. It was a budget Sangean digitally tuned AM-FM-SW radio. As you can see from this picture, the LCD display doesn't like 60F or less temperatures (106.1 Mhz is a local pop station in the Seattle area).

The DX-370 is a digitally tuned radio, but you just use the up and down buttons, which can tune very fast if needed. They speed up the longer you press down the up or down tuning button. This can take some getting used to for someone used to a tuning knob or direct-entry buttons. You have very little muting while tuning the radio.

Like the Sangean ATS-800, the DX-370 covers AM, FM, and SW in two "bands", on going from 90 meters to 41 meters, and the other SW "band" covering 31 meters up to 13 meters.

Like the Sangean ATS-800, and unlike the Sangean ATS-800A which the DX-370 is built upon, there is no 9 khz switch, which sucks if you want to take it overseas.

But the radio is actually capable of tuning in 9 khz steps -- one evening I turned my DX-370 on and it was tuning the AM band in 9 khz steps for some reason! It's the only time it's happened in the years I've had the radio. Obviously it was a microprocessor glitch, but it shows that there probably is a diode or resistor somewhere on the DX-370's PCB that keeps it locked in 10 khz mode. If it just had a switch added, it would probably tune in 10 khz or 9 khz steps -- the two khz standards for the MW band around the world.

The DX-370 has the best MW selectivity of all my portables except my Sangean PR-D5. It has the same ceramic filter used by the Radio Shack DX-398, as well as the same TA7758 IF chip.

It has narrow selectivity (sounds like maybe 5-6 khz bandwidth?) on the AM band, but it's not so narrow that the AM or SW bands sound muddy. The trebles are suppressed somewhat, but it has a full, listenable sound. And it has a pleasant sound through headphones, with more treble available than my PR-D5.

My DX-370 with the back off. I hard wired the FM/SW whip antenna to the terminal on the radio's PCB to keep it from ever breaking down or glitching. That's the white wire you see on the right side of the picture. I also added back-to-back protection diodes, which I ran between the whip antenna terminal and the negative side of the battery -- which also can be seen. The radio's 120mm loopstick can be seen, and also my power jack diode repair (diode soldered over the jack, extreme lower right of the radio's PCB) can be seen. I plugged in the wrong power supply by accident once -- it was the wrong polarity -- and fried the original power jack protection diode. I was lucky in that -- at that time -- I was unaware of how easy it is to wreck surface mount PCB connections. :-)

I use the DX-370 a lot because it is small, handy, tunes quickly, sounds good through headphones, it is probably the easiest Radio Shack or Sangean digital portable on AA batteries (especially for a digitally-tuned SW portable radio -- designed to work with 6 Volts, it can work on 3.6V according to specs). It has a clock -- which is handy -- if you want to check the time while listening you just toggle the middle button from radio to alarm to clock and back. It has an alarm which I think I've used once -- the alarm will switch on the radio or give you a piercing tone.

GOOD ON FM

The DX-370 is also is pretty sensitive on FM (it has a TA7358 FM RF amp chip). One Christmas when I took it with me to northern Louisiana I was able to hear FM stations from as far away as Longview and Nacogdoches, TX, as well as Texarkana, Arkansas. I would turn the whip and get two different FM stations from 100 miles or more away, in full stereo. It was amazing.

Another shot of the DX-370 with the back off showing the protection diodes (surrounded by thick, clear shipping tape) that I added to the radio because I'm not 100% certain it has them otherwise. The white wire hardwires the FM / SW antenna because of the way it's attached to the main PCB. I prefer my radios to have their whip antennas hardwired where possible. If you look carefully in the upper left hand side of the PCB you'll see "ATS-800A", which is the Sangean board the DX-370 is made from.

The DX-370 is one of my best FM radios, both in sensitivity and the rich, full sound you get through the headphones. It has FM in stereo through headphones, which is very nice. The memories are quick to program and very easy to use -- you get five memories on each band.

The back of the DX-370. AS you can tell, it's an updated model (the "A" in 20-211A designates an updated version of the radio). The back also says it tunes from 535-1705 on the MW band, which is a mis-print: the radio definitely doesn't tune in that range (unless the microprocessor glitches). It tunes MW from 530-1710, using the North American MW standard. It's an example of the DX-370 being unique to Radio Shack: it is an ATS-800A circuit board with ATS-800 features and North American X-band added on MW.

USING THE PROXIMITY EFFECT WITH A LONG WIRE ANTENNA ON SHORTWAVE

I also use my DX-370 to scan through the 49, 41, and 31 meter SW broadcast bands at night to see what's on. It tunes quickly up and down the band, and it's fairly sensitive off the whip. If you're in a low signal area, you can use it with a longer wire by clipping a wire to the DX-370's whip antenna, using an alligator clip. I often use a 25 ft. indoor wire (about 8-9 meters) with my DX-370, by alligator-clipping the antenna to the radio's whip.

If your wire antenna is longer than 25-30 feet (8-10 meters), you can place the radio's whip antenna near the wire antenna's feedline, using the "proximity effect" to boost signals to the radio. That way you can use a longer wire with the radio without overloading the DX-370's RF circuits. When I had a 100 ft. wire, I was able to hear much of the world this way without overload to the radio.

For example, one early evening a few years ago I heard Tunisia fade in and out on 41 meters. With just the whip, I could barely hear the station. When I placed the whip near the 100 ft. wire's feedline, it came in readable enough to catch an ID. The proximity effect is useful if you have a small radio with no external antenna jack. And one plus is you never have to worry about static charges frying an RF amp transistor.


The DX-370's LCD readout doesn't like the cold. If it gets down below 60F/10C it tends to fade on some of the characters.

It has a 120mm x 7 mm MW loopstick, which is probably very adequate if you are in a high signal area. If you're in a low signal area like I am, an external loop will make the radio shine on AMDX -- which it does.

I tend to use my DX-370 the most, of all my portables, for MW DXing, because of its convenience, quick tuning, smallish size, full sound through headphones, and good selectivity. As I live in a low signal area, I usually use an external loop with it when DXing. But I have read accounts by other radio aficionados who have used this radio in high signal areas without an external loop, and they have had good results.

GOOD MWDX RADIOS IF YOU CAN FIND ONE -- OF IF YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE

Although I haven't priced any of these radios recently, I think they are probably fairly inexpensive online, as they weren't "fancy", high end models with a lot of memories or extra features. A quick search shows some DX-370's for sale as low as $40 online, used.

For those of you who live overseas, where the DX-370 apparently wasn't sold, the Sangean ATS-800A undoubtedly has the same performance (as the DX-370 has an 800A board inside), and I would suggest you try it out on MW with a loop and see what you hear. I've seen some Sangean ATS-800A's for sale online at moderate prices.

A lot of DXers might even have one one of these radios around and haven't thought about using one to DX the MW band with. In my view it's well worth it to try it out on the MW band, especially if you have a loop. And when you're tired of MW DXing, switch it over to FM. The sound is really good (on headphones -- it has a fair sound through the speaker) -- and a DX-370 pulls in a lot of FM signals, too!

ADDENDUM, Dec. 1st, 2019:
I've noticed a couple comments to my article here, which is cool -- it means there are others using this useful little radio for MW DXing. Unfortunately, it seems to be difficult to respond to comments directly. In one of the comments, a reader asks if there is a service manual available for the DX-370. As far as I know, they are hard to find. I have been unable to find one in any of the online manual websites. Perhaps a service manual for the Sangean 800A would work -- I haven't looked for one of those, and I'm not sure how easy those manuals are to find. 

Information on these 1990's-era radios is unfortunately a bit rare.
73
C.C.

New Year's and Winter Pictures

Beaver pond reflection, Jan. 10th, 2016.

A couple of posts back, I said I'd post some Winter pictures, as well as a couple pictures from New Year's. Here are some pictures I took on New Year's Eve morning, New Year's Eve, and a few days after New Year's.

Uncle Mo's karaoke pub in Renton at the turn of the year, New Year's Eve, 2015-16. The Space Needle can be seen glowing with fireworks in the big TV screen.

A karaoke singer brings down the house singing a pop song, standing on the table. New Year's Eve, 2015-16.

On New Year's Eve I went to a local karaoke pub which is one of the most popular bars in Renton, and it was a fun time. The following morning I took my Nikon snapshot camera out on my bike and snapped some pictures.

During our two to three weeks of Winter, the pond froze over solid. Photo taken early morning, New Year's Day, when it was around -4C / 24F. Within a week and a half or so, the pond was back to normal, with a pair of ducks swimming in it.

Since then, the weather here has felt more like Spring than Winter. Right now as I write this, the temperature outside is 9 degrees C (about 50F) and the sun is shining. Outside I can hear chickadees and red winged blackbirds.

An early fog raising from the Cedar River on a -4C/24F day, New Year's Morning 2016.

Red Winged Blackbirds are a summer bird here in Western Washington -- they usually appear in Spring, and nest in the ponds and swamps during late Spring and early Summer, when their "kong-ka-ree" call can be heard. It is a pleasant sound of Summer.

Morning traffic on the early morning of January 6th, 2016.

When I go out on my bike, it feels like Spring already. Winter right now seems to have come and gone. I love all the seasons, but now that Christmas season is over, I say bring on Summer!

New Year's Morning it was very cold for us, about 24F/-4C. The frost was so thick on the Cedar River Trail that it looked like a light coating of snow. This picture was taken just after sunrise, as you can see the sun lighting the hill behind the grove of cottonwood trees.

Some parts of the U.S. have warmer weather this time of year, but they also have other problems, like tornadoes and rainstorms that cause mudslides and the like. Other parts of the U.S., like Minnesota, where the Seattle Seahawks football team played a couple weeks ago, have -10F weather this time of year.

A ravine set in the hillside just off the Cedar River. One wouldn't know that this bit of wild nature was only a kilometer from a heavily urbanized area. Taken a few days before Christmas, 2015.

Here in Seattle we have none of that, really.... It's usually mild in the Winter, and this Winter seems milder than usual. Technically, we are a Mediterranean climate. You wouldn't know it from all the trees around here, but similar to other Mediterranean climate areas we really don't have that many freezing nights here. And this Winter has been the least freezing in a few years.

A drop of water in a small trailside pond on a rainy morning in early December, 2015.

A BIG FOOTBALL DAY

Today is a big NFL football day here in the U.S., with two major games being played. One of the games features the Arizona Cardinals playing the Carolina Panthers. Carolina is a tough team and they beat our Seattle Seahawks last weekend. The Carolina quarterback, who is very talented, ripped down a Seahawks '12' flag after winning the game against us last week: that's unnecessary, and it's a bit ungracious in winning. I hope Arizona wins. Go Arizona.

On the morning of January 2nd, the frost was even thicker than New Year's Morning, looking like snow. It was our dose of Winter this year.

The sun rising through a small break in the fir and maple trees on the hillside overlooking the Cedar River Trail frog pond. The pond was created in the 1890's when the Pacific Coast Railroad (and the transcontinental Milwaukee Road) cut off the flow of a stream, causing the pond, which has existed until this day.

The other game will be the Denver Broncos playing the New England Patriots. Both of those teams are very good, with star veteran quarterbacks. It should be a good game. New England play NFL football the way the German team played soccer during the World Cup -- they're like a well-oiled machine, and very efficient at playing the game. They beat Seattle last year at the Super Bowl. My guess is they will go all the way this year.


So I shall be spending the rest of the day watching football, and working out some.

A pair of ducks recently decided to take over a local pond -- it's the same pond that is frozen in the photo up above. The two ducks stayed there for a while, but I think they've gone. Maybe the raccoons that wander through there at night scared them off. Photo taken January 14th, 2016.

Here's hoping you have had a great January.

CC 1-23-2016

CHRISTMAS Cheer in 2015

The past few Christmases here at my place have been mostly sedate affairs. Living alone with a small extended family doesn't really add up to rip-roaring holidays. My previous post on Christmas ("The Man Out Of Dickens") sort of sums up the way many Christmases have been in my life.

The Piazza Christmas lights in Renton, December 2015.

But the past two or three Christmases I've sort of rediscovered the beauty of the holiday. I've made sure to put up my decorations, even though I sometimes don't really feel like Christmas. I have to lock my cat away from the living room because she loves to attack the ornaments on the Christmas tree.

This year I bought some inexpensive Christmas ornaments to use on my hawthorn tree outside. They are made of plastic -- rain won't bother them, and they are unbreakable. Really nice Chinese made glass ornaments, that were readily available in the 2000's, are getting rarer and rarer.

This year I got a new decoration: a Julbock. The Yule Goat. It's apparently a tradition in Sweden to have a straw goat under your tree. I saw one -- brand new -- at a local thrift store and grabbed it. Now, I'm not Swedish (Scottish & Irish here), and the only thing I really know about Sweden is it's a land of nice looking women and terrific holiday traditions. But the Julbock seems like a nice thing to have under your tree. A couple days after Christmas, I found a "Julnisse" -- a Norwegian Christmas Elf, for sale at the same thrift store. In the box, never used. $3. Not bad.

A Julenisse and Julbock. I'm not Scandinavian (I'm Scottish/Irish) but I've always thought their decorations and Christmas customs were cool.

This gradual renovation of my own Christmas spirit started during the Christmas before last (Christmas 2013), when I wrote and finished my children's Christmas eBook, "Woody The Woodchuck Saves Christmas". It's a story where Woody (a stuffed animal puppet) and his puppet friends (who live in the woods near a big farm) save Christmas from the mean, grinchy Green Pigs From Mars.

One of the better local Christmas displays this year.

Earlier that year I had wanted to do a Woody children's story after I discovered I could draw him and his puppet friends. But I was clueless as to what sort of story to write for him. However, that December, a former Facebook friend of mine was posting tirade after tirade of anti-Christmas memes and posts, saying it was a phony, pagan, anti-Christian holiday -- a time when people "lie" to their children about that evil, pagan Santa Claus and his elves and the like.

One of the local Christmas displays, with a brightly lit polar bear.

I decided then and there to make my children's book support Christmas. While I was writing the story and drawing the illustrations, I realised that Christmas is a really magical time of year, and by that, I mean it is a time that people feel nostalgic as well as hopeful about the oncoming year, and it's a time of year they at least try to think about others -- and for those with children, it's an opportunity to give them happy memories they will carry throughout their lifetime.

A couple of my outdoor Christmas ornaments on New Year's Eve morning.

If you're alone, you may be depressed because you feel you're missing out: but that is a sign of the importance of being connected with other people, as well as the importance of family and social connections, many of which are fragmented in today's world. But Christmas gives us the opportunity to reach out, give someone a gift, a donation, a Christmas card, say "Merry Christmas". To think more of others than ourselves.

The half moon on New Year's Eve morning. The big tree is a cottonwood. The moon came out quite well on my Nikon L32 Coolpix snapshot camera, showing that it can take decent low light pictures -- hand held -- when you use the "night" setting.

My Christmas this year was much like the previous two years. Low key. On Christmas Eve my family (mother, aunt & uncle and a friend of my mother's) had dinner at a local diner. Then my mother came over to my place and we watched a version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", the excellent one starring Patrick Stewart. I have four versions of A Christmas Carol on DVD: Patrick Stewart's, George C. Scott's, the black and white Alaister Sim one, and Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol. The last two Christmases I also have read the Charles Dickens story, which still has a certain magic about it 150 years after it was first published.

My mother and I also watched "Cowboys and Aliens", just for fun.

A neighbor had a small, but nice Nativity scene out in front of their house, its colors matching the frost on a cold, -2C New Year's Eve morning.

Right now, as I write this, it is New Year's Day. I'm not a huge fan of New Year's, as the vast majority of them haven't exactly been memorable. One New Year's I played the bagpipes at a pub and nearly caused a fight -- a woman wanted to pay me to quit playing, while the ones who requested I play the pipes wanted to pay me to keep playing.

Last night, on New Year's Eve, I was at a local karaoke pub. I sang once, had a couple Cokes and ate a bit of popcorn. Before I went down to the pub there were a few fireworks lit off in the neighborhood, which was nice. New Year's fireworks did not used to be a tradition here in Washington, but over the past couple of years you hear them more and more on New Year's Eve. I'm sure the killjoys will figure out a way to try to stop that tradition from continuing. :-)

The closest thing I had to Christmas candles were inexpensive votives, which still gave off a Christmassy cheer early Christmas morning.

I will make another blog post soon with some Winter pictures I took over New Year's and the days right after it. Until then, here's hoping you had a great holiday season, and have a healthy and great 2016.

C.C. 1-1-2016 and 1-10-2016

RADIO SHACK 120-586 Pocket Radio -- a 'Sleeper' MW Long Distance Radio

A 'sleeper' product is usually a product that is an excellent one, and one that you wouldn't think of as an excellent product just by looking at it.

The old Radio Shack Pocket Radio, 1978, on Left -- and the Radio Shack Pocket Radio, circa 2012, Model 120-586, on right. Both are simple radios with two IC's, one to run the radio circuits, the other to push audio through the speaker. You can tell that Radio Shack's newer Pocket Radio has retro styling from this picture.

When it comes to radios, there are many 'sleepers'. The Sangean PR-D5 I mentioned in two of my posts earlier on this blog is one of these 'sleeper' radios. It was marketed as a table radio -- it looks like something a soccer mom would have in her kitchen to listen to soft pop music. And it looks like a mini-boombox -- which it actually is. But the PR-D5 has excellent performance, especially for those MW listeners who want to hear stations from far away. In fact, it's one of the best new long distance AM radios you can buy.

The Sony SRF-59 is another 'sleeper': it looks like a cheap headset radio you would give to a little kid so they could tune in the local pop FM station.

Until a few years ago MW radio aficionados thought it was just a cheap headset until a couple long distance listeners ("DXers") discovered by accident that it pulled in stations like crazy and worked great with an external loop.

ENTER THE RADIO SHACK 'POCKET RADIO'

The Radio Shack 120-586 AM-FM Pocket Radio is another such 'sleeper' product. I first heard of it on the internet. Some guys were saying it had amazing AM broadcast band reception. It was available at the local Radio Shack for around $14 -- that's $4-5 cheaper than a Sony SRF-59. So I got a Pocket Radio about six months ago.

What the guys on the internet said is very true: for a small pocket radio, which resembles the traditional transistor pocket radios of the 1960's and 1970's, it has amazing AM band and very good FM band performance.

It is what it says it is: a Pocket Radio. A small grey and black radio with a small speaker, and a stereo headphone jack wired for mono. You can place it in a small room and hear sports, talk, or music adequately. But like the 60's and 70's transistors it resembles, it won't fill a room with full sound. But you will still be able to hear talk or a football game OK.

The 120-586 Pocket Radio uses two AA batteries, and it seems to do well on them. I am keeping track of how long they last. If what I read on the internet is any indication, battery usage may be quite low. The fact the radio has no microprocessor and firmware operated power buttons, LCD readout, clock, etc. mean that the only time the batteries are being drained are when you actually are listening to the radio. I'm still on the two AA's I put in the radio when I got it.

Because of the low battery drain and great performance, the 120-586 would probably be a good emergency preparedness radio. It's small enough to shove in a back pack, a car's glove box; keep in your camper, or tool box, or even place in a shirt or coat pocket -- and it pulls in a large number of AM and FM stations. And on top of that, although you can use headphones, the speaker makes it a good choice for emergency preparedness.

I have used my Pocket Radio to listen to local sports stations while working out in my storage room, and I have used it on headphones while reading or falling asleep.

I take my Pocket Radio to work with me -- it slips inside my briefcase easily. It's unobtrusive enough and small enough to either use with the speaker or headphones. From work I can listen to either local AM news and sports stations, or local FMs -- or listen to California stations when working at night, as well as stations from other areas of the NW US.

The Pocket Radio pulls in a lot of distant stations from my workplace -- for example I can get KXTG 750 Portland, OR (about 150 miles / 200 km S); KEX 1190 Portland, OR; KGA 1510 Spokane, WA (200 mi E); KFBK 1530 (Sacramento, California -- about 800 miles S) and KGO 810 San Francisco (800 miles away) quite easily with listenable signals at my workplace in Seattle.

I use the Pocket Radio around the house or in the yard sometimes when I am doing chores.

I sometimes DX with it for fun.

It pulls in a lot of stations on AM, and does very well on FM -- the only drawback being that FM is in mono, even through headphones. Even so, the AM and FM sound through headphones is pleasant and full. Although it's a mono radio, the headphone jack is a stereo jack, so any set of stereo headphones will work -- you'll just hear everything in mono. But at the same time, you won't need a mono adapter to plug your headphones or ear-buds into the radio's headphone jack.

It has decent, full sound through headphones, and OK but tinny sound through the speaker.

The first time I turned on the Pocket Radio at night, I was pleasantly surprised. It was pulling in stations that radios with much larger antennas were pulling in.

SiLabs DIGITAL 'I.F. CHIP' INCLUDED

The radio does so well because it has a SiLabs digital IF chip inside.

Since the 1980's, most radios -- whether a headset, small portable, car radio, or boombox -- have had "I.F. chips" inside them ("I.F." stands for "intermediate frequency").

The radio's "IF chip" is the chip that is the heart of the radio. An IF chip is just a bunch of transistors crammed into a small chip half the size of your average USB flip drive. It grabs the radio signals from the FM whip antenna or AM loopstick antenna, and then amplifies, filters, and re-amplifies the radio waves, converting them into audio sound, which is then usually sent to another chip that powers the speakers or headphones (some IF chips have their own audio amp included). All the other components you see crammed around the chip (when you have the radio opened up) are just there to make the IF chip do its job. 

A photograph showing the radio PCB board inside a Sanyo boombox. In the upper left you can see the main chip, the IF chip, possibly a UPC1018 in this model of Sanyo. There are three "IF cans" near the chip, which are tuned coils that the chip uses to filter and amplify the AM/MW and FM signals. Directly below the IF chip are several, similar, tuned coils for FM. In the upper right of the picture is another chip that takes the FM signal from the IF chip and converts it to FM stereo (sometimes these are called "multiplexer" chips). The audio amplifier chips for this boombox are on another board on the other side of the boombox -- to the far right, off the picture.

There may be an audio amp chip to drive the speakers. There may be another chip to help you get stereo FM. And another chip to boost FM signals coming from the antenna. And there may be another chip that runs the clock, or makes the buttons on the front of the radio work. But the "IF chip" is what takes the radio signals and makes them usable for the speakers or headphones.

ENTER THE DIGITAL IF CHIP, OR 'DSP' RADIO CHIP

Until recently, all "IF chips" were analog -- just tens or hundreds of transistors, all amplifying, filtering, mixing and refining the frequencies for the radio. Some of them could be rather complex (the chip in the Sony SRF-59 would be one example), but they still operated as analog devices.

But that changed with the introduction of digital, software operated IF chips during the 2000's.

Digital radio IF chips are like hybrids -- they have a software program inside them that does much of the amplification, and all of the radio frequency filtering and processing (it's called DSP, Digital Signal Processing). Because a lot of the work is done by the software program (which doesn't need tuned coils, ceramic filters, trimmers, and other components), the number of outside parts needed is minimal.

The Pocket Radio with the front off, showing the parts. Compared to many other radios, there are very few parts, which is one reason the radio is $14-$15 or so. The top thumbwheel runs a variable resistor that tunes the radio. The bottom thumbwheel is the on-off and volume control.

SiLabs radio chips are probably the best known brand of these digital radio chips, at least among radio DX'ers. The typical SiLabs radio chip has an analog low noise amp (to maximise the signal coming off of the FM or AM antenna) -- and then a section in the chip converts the analog radio waves into digital signals, which are then amplified, tuned, filtered and processed by the software inside the chip. After that processing, the chip converts the digital signals back into analog audio signals, which are then sent to an amplifier chip that drives the speaker or headphones.

A pic of the Pocket Radio's PCB showing the location of the two chips that make it work.

SiLabs packs a lot of processing into their IF chips. On the MW band, where you have a lot of interference from nearby stations, such interference is surprisingly minimal. On most MW radios, if you tune to a weak station that is right next to a strong station you'll hear "splatter" -- a ker-chush ker-chush sound that is splashing over from the strong station on the next channel. With the SiLabs chip, you hear very little of this.

And the amount of signal a radio with one of these chips pulls from a small loopstick antenna is phenomenal. The Pocket Radio has a small AM loopstick -- it's 50mm long and 8mm wide, and works very well considering it's smaller than standard (most boomboxes and digital-readout SW portable radios have 100 to 120 mm AM loopsticks, for example).

But the Pocket Radio pulls a lot of signals from that small loopstick antenna.

On FM, it pulls in a lot of stations even with the whip antenna collapsed.

A SIMPLE MACHINE

When you look inside the Pocket Radio, it has relatively few parts. There is just a small circuit board with surface mount resistors and capacitors, the tuner control and volume control, the antennas, and two chips. There are no coils, no 'cans', no trimmers, no bulky variable capacitors, no DC-DC converter chips, none of that.

In fact, because it's so simple, and the parts seem fairly tough, the radio seems well built. One would probably have to stomp on it, or run it over with a car to break it.

The radio is inexpensive because it has such few parts. The lack of stereo is due to a small mono audio chip. They could have added a stereo audio chip and made the radio stereo through the headphones, but they probably decided to go mono to decrease cost. They may have also figured no one is going to listen to FM stereo on a single-speaker pocket radio.

The Pocket Radio with the back of the radio off. You can see a total of six electrolytic capacitors, and few other components on this side of the PCB. The other side has 30 or so more -- but still a lot smaller part count than the 1978 model Pocket Radio pictured at the top of this blog post. The loopstick antenna is at the top - it's a 50 mm by 8 mm loopstick, which is fairly common among portable radios today. Although it's short, it's a decent working antenna. The Sony ICF-38, a high performance radio on the AM band, also has a 50 x 8 mm antenna.

Because the Pocket Radio has an analog (or mechanical) tuner control (a thumbwheel on the side of the radio -- no tuner buttons) there is no need for a microprocessor chip or PLL chip in the radio to tune it or control it. One less chip on the printed circuit board to pay for or worry about.

The Pocket Radio is very much a simple machine.

GREAT FOR TAKING ON A BICYCLE (OR WALKING, HIKING, ETC.)

The Pocket Radio is great for carrying around the house and yard, or taking on a bike, or possibly jogging, as it puts out enough sound to hear a sports event, or even music (although music will sound better using headphones than through the speaker).

I take mine on my bicycle when there is a football game on, and I want to go riding. If I'm near a highway with a lot of road noise, I won't hear much, but if it's a quiet residential street, or a quiet section of a bike trail, I can hear football games O.K.

On a bicycle a radio like this is preferable to a headset-only radio, because it's not exactly smart to be wearing headphones or earbuds on residential streets, for safety reasons.

What the Pocket Radio has over a Walkman or headset is the speaker. Sometimes you don't want headphones or earbuds on, especially on bike trails where you need to be able to hear what's going on around you.

Last week I took my Pocket Radio with me to hear the Monday Night Football game. It was raining lightly out. A few drops got onto the pocket radio (which was in my coat's top pocket) but the raindrops didn't get inside the radio (of course). Although the radio is not waterproof, it's so simply built that a few raindrops aren't going to affect it much. Whereas with some digitally tuned radios you don't want any water getting near them.

VERY GOOD ON FM -- BETTER SENSITIVITY THAN AN SRF-59

On FM, it seems to be considerably better than the SRF-59. In my location it will pull in fringe FM stations clearly that the SRF-59 does not hear. For example, in my area, there is a Spanish language religious station on 93.7 that is fuzzy or MIA on many of my FM portables. The Pocket Radio brings it in well, even with its whip down. The SRF-59 -- which uses the headphone lead as the FM antenna -- won't bring the 93.7 station in at all.

In this case, it's too bad the Pocket Radio isn't stereo through headphones, as it works so well on FM.

A FAIR DX RADIO -- EXCEPT IT CAN SKIP CHANNELS

As a long distance AM listener (or "DXer", as we often call ourselves), I have recently been using this pocket radio to DX the MW / AM band at night. The radio works quite well. I can hear the majority of signals on it that I hear on my other DX radios, although a few signals are sometimes missing -- especially very weak stations right next to a local station running at high power.

Compared to my Sony SRF-59 headset radio (well known amongst MW aficionados), the Pocket Radio sometimes has better sensitivity, and better selectivity, on AM.


The only drawback when comparing the Pocket Radio to other portables is that the Pocket Radio is trickier to tune, if you are trying to hear distant AM stations. If you're just tuning local stations or strong distant stations, you won't have any problem whatsoever.

When it comes to finding weak signals, the Sony SRF-59 beats the Pocket Radio hands down. This is because the Sony is much easier to tune, and it doesn't tend to 'latch onto' a strong signal and skip over a weaker one. As you tune across the MW band with an SRF-59, you hear every channel except maybe a weak or MIA channel next to a local 50 KW station. On the Pocket Radio, there are many more of these skipped channels, because of the way the SiLabs chip tunes the band, and it can be frustrating.

The 'problem' is that the Pocket Radio is a mechanically-tuned, digital-chip radio. The tuner knob actually is attached to a device that is similar to a volume control (a variable resistor), which 'tunes' the SiLabs chip. It basically tells the SiLabs chip to tune upwards incrementally, or tune downwards incrementally. As you tune across a strong station you can hear the increments as the chip is tuning across it. And the tuning on the Pocket Radio is very, very tight. Because of muting built into the firmware in the chip, some channels 'mute out' and the radio will skip over them until a signal gets strong enough to rise over the muting. Then the radio will lock onto the channel.

A graphic depiction of how the Pocket Radio can skip over a weak station next to a strong station. In this case, the signal of the weak station on 1330 has faded just underneath the radio's "soft mute" threshold. Because of this, the radio's DSP chip will probably lock onto the stronger signals on 1320 or 1340. Once the signal on 1330 pops up above the threshold, the radio will lock onto it much easier. Once it is locked onto a signal, it stays there, even when the signal drops below the "soft mute" level. But when a signal is very weak, and there are stronger stations next to it, it is very difficult to tune to it.

TUNING THE POCKET RADIO FOR WEAK, DISTANT STATIONS CAN BE A BIT TRICKY AND FRUSTRATING

Tuning the Pocket Radio for distant stations often takes a bit of patience. If you want to hear a weak station that is near a strong station you have to tune very carefully, and wait for the radio to 'latch onto' the weak station. Sometimes (on AM/MW) you have to turn the radio to weaken the local station, and then the radio will 'latch onto' the weak station as soon as it fades up. After that, it will stay on the weaker station even after it fades down for a moment.

An example: I have a strong local station on 770 khz, KTTH, which runs 5 kilowatts at night. Right next to it is KKOH, 780 khz, a station in Reno, Nevada that covers most of the Western U.S. Using the Pocket Radio, the local station on 770 will cover KOH if KOH is weak. But if I turn my Pocket Radio to weaken KTTH 770, and tune a little to the right, KOH will 'pop' through. Then the radio sort of 'locks onto' KOH, and will stay there until I turn the radio off, or re-tune it to another frequency.

This 'popping up' of weak stations is a feature of the SiLab chip inside the Pocket Radio. The SiLabs chip in the Pocket Radio has a 'soft mute' that suppresses noise (something my Sangean PR-D5 does not have), but the chip also will suppress a very weak radio station once it's below a certain threshold -- the station will go from full audio and then sort of drop out for a few seconds, and then pop back up to full audio. Sometimes it's a pain to deal with -- most times it's not that bad. A lot of times you can still hear the station underneath the 'muting', it's just at reduced volume, and the tuner may skip over it when you tune the radio across it.


This skipping of weak adjacents doesn't always occur: I've heard KDWN Las Vegas on the Pocket Radio, and KDWN is on 720 khz, right next to local 50 KW master blaster KIRO 710. I've heard CFRN 1260, which is right next to a strong local station on 1250. Sometimes 1250 covers 1260 completely (especially since they went IBOC HD radio) -- on other nights, it doesn't. I regularly hear KGO 810 from San Francisco, 800+ miles away from me, right next to local 820 KGNW.

RADIO REBELDE HEARD BAREFOOT ON 1180 KHZ

I've even heard Radio Rebelde on 1180 khz, which is a station almost 3000 miles away. I could hear music from Rebelde underneath two other stations on 1180 (KOFI in Montana, and local KLAY in Tacoma, WA). The music was parallel to Rebelde's 5025 khz SW station. And this was without an external loop!

USING AN EXTERNAL LOOP -- TUNE THE RADIO TO THE STATION FIRST

If you use an external loop with the Pocket Radio you don't have as much dropout to deal with.

Using a loop with the Pocket Radio can turn it into a decent AM DX machine. The only trick is that in many cases it is best to tune the Pocket Radio to your target frequency before you place the external loop near the radio. If you don't, you may have trouble with the radio wanting to 'latch onto' a stronger local station instead of the weak, distant channel you want to hear. So tune the Pocket Radio first, then place the loop next it.

In summary, I think the Pocket Radio is a great performer for the size, and it's DX-able, but it can be frustrating to tune in a weak channel near a strong adjacent. It wasn't designed to be a DX radio, it was designed for someone to have a small radio with a speaker for carrying around or using in emergencies. It wasn't designed for DXing, but it can be done. Just be prepared for its peculiarities if you want to DX with it on the AM radio band.

IT'S A GREAT EMERGENCY, CAMPING, OR POWER OUTAGE RADIO -- NOT TERRIFIC FOR DXing, BUT STILL DXable

I suppose for a lot of radio listeners, these Pocket Radios don't have much appeal because they aren't stereo on FM, and aren't the kind of radio that fills a room with sound. But for someone who needs a small radio with a speaker to shove in their backpack or book pack, or for emergency preparedness, the Pocket Radio is a very good bargain.


And for a beginning MW (or FM) Long Distance listener, the Pocket Radio is well worth the price.


ADDENDUM, 5/11/2016:
One thing I've noticed recently is sometimes when the AA batteries are low/weak, the Pocket Radio can take a few seconds longer than usual to turn on. I'm not sure if it's just my own particular radio, or a characteristic of the Pocket Radios in general.

The SiLabs chips take about a second to initialise, and maybe the lower voltages from weak batteries cause them to take longer to kick in.

I still use my Pocket Radio periodically at work (it fits easy in my briefcase or bookpack), or when on my bike.
CC 5-11-2016

ADDENDUM, 5/20/2016:
I thought perhaps it was weaker batteries (they measured at 2.35-2.4 volts together -- the radio runs nominally at 3 volts), then I thought perhaps it was the battery terminals needed resoldering -- the radio was taking up to 10 seconds or so to initialise.

Then, I decided to look at the SiLabs Si4831 Datasheet/manual.

It says that "part initialisation may become unresponsive below 2.3 volts."

So, use fresh AA's with your Pocket Radio, or just wait until the chip initialises when they're a bit weak. The Pocket Radio likes fresh batteries, but it will work on weaker ones. It just takes longer for the chip to initialise and kick in.

And although it will work on heavy duty batteries, Alkalines seem to work best. But you do get a decent life out of them.
CC 5-20-2016

5/24/2016:
I have concluded that the initialisation lag problem in my Pocket Radio is NOT the batteries, it's something else. It is doing it again (the 10-15 second lag before switching on) with brand new batteries that put out 1.6V each. It still works, just has a long lag before turning on which never happened when the radio was new.

I'll probably buy another one in a few days and see if there's a difference. There may be a bad part or solder joint -- hard to fix because it's surface mount. The saga continues. :-)
CC 5-24-2016

6/1/2016:

I might have found the problem with my Pocket Radio: the battery connection was still a bit intermittent. I resoldered the points where the battery connects to the PCB, and also 'tweaked' the positive terminal towards the battery compartment a bit, to tighten the connection with the AA batteries.

It seems -- so far -- to have fixed the problem. The radio now fires up within about a second.

If this indeed was the problem, it would make sense. If the battery isn't 100% connected to the holder, the radio wouldn't receive all the voltage necessary to initialise the SiLabs chip.

I bought a second Pocket Radio for about $14 US. It works well, and the logo is slightly different on the front of it. Last night I heard 1660 Khz KBRE Merced California, a rock AM station, featured in a recent post on this blog.

THE MAN OUT OF DICKENS -- Merry Christmas

 

Once upon a time when I had a mediocre job, I had just enough money to keep my head above water. My car was used, and breaking down. My family was dwindling -- my father had recently passed and other close family members had also recently gone. It was nearing Christmas, and in my eyes there was little to feel joyful about. I looked around and saw all the gaiety, and did not feel a part of any of it.

This one particular Christmas season I was walking down the main street of the University District in Seattle. At the time, one of my pastimes was hanging out at used book stores, and the Avenue in Seattle's University District had several very good ones. Over the period of two years I bought probably several hundred books -- some of which were reference books and history books that I still use periodically.

This particular evening was a cool night in late December, and it was probably a few days before Christmas. The "Ave", a major shopping street, was cheery and bright with sparkling red, white, and green Christmas lighting, and many of the shops had Christmas shoppers and Christmas decorations in the windows.

         
As I walked from one of the bookshops towards my car, I passed a homeless man, in shoddy clothing, who was standing in the entryway to a shop that had already closed. He literally looked like something out of a Dickens novel. He was begging for some money. I looked at him. At first, I thought to myself – “this guy is just going to use whatever money for liquor.” Then my conscience was tweaked, and I remembered the words of Jesus, where he said something like "give to those who beg."

Often – perhaps way too often -- I lay those words aside. I’ll admit that. It is not easy to give money to someone who you suspect may or may not be a con artist. Especially now during the Recession, it is too easy to think that begging people are drug addicts whom you are just enabling when you give them money. So it is easy – convenient, perhaps – to put such people out of your mind when you are making meager money yourself. But there are those homeless in genuine need also, and you can’t always differentiate between them.

And yet here was this guy -- with a full, ragged beard, long hair, aged skin, shoddy clothes, just asking for some spare change.

This time -- instead of walking on -- I reached my hand into my pocket, and gave the homeless man all that was in it – maybe two or three bucks in quarters and dimes.

“This is all I’ve got that I can afford to give you,” I said, handing him the handful of coins. "Merry Christmas."

He literally jumped and cried out in joy, with a sparkle in his eyes.

I shall never in my life forget that moment.

It has stuck with me years later.

In fact, I remember virtually nothing else about that particular Christmas season except that incident.

I have no idea what the homeless man spent those two or three dollars on. Maybe it was a can of strong beer. But he obviously was in need. His clothes were dirty, and undoubtedly stank some. He obviously had no place to live. So what if he bought a can of beer with the money? It was only two or three bucks at most, but it gave the guy some joy, especially during the Christmas season.

Aside from this incident with the Dickensian homeless fellow, I don’t recall anything about that Christmas. If I think back, it wasn’t a good one. A breakup, a recent death in the family, financial hardships, overwork, poor health, and other factors made it a time – like many Christmases, unfortunately – a time that I wanted to forget.

But I remember that homeless man’s joy at just receiving a handful of quarters, during an encounter in the Christmas season. It is my only memory of that Christmas.

Christmas, of course, is a Christian holiday. It's the time of year many people in the U.S. think of family, children, giving, celebrating, gaiety -- and thanks to Charles Dickens' novellete "A Christmas Carol", they also think of charity.

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; I was naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.” (Matthew 25:35-36)

The person whose birth many of us celebrate during this time of year told us to give to those in need.

It's ironic, that my only memory of that particular Christmas is not anything I received, or any partying or celebrating I may have done -- but it was when I gave a poor man in shoddy clothing all the change out of my coat pocket -- and saw his joy.

If only I had more such incidents of my conscience being awakened, perhaps I would be better off for it.

Merry Christmas everyone.

C.C.

Christmas Eve, 2015