Thursday, August 29, 2013

Prasar Bharati to assist Afghanistan in starting news channel


Prasar Bharati will assist the Afghan government broadcaster - Radio and Television Afghanistan (RTA) to start a news channel in the war-ravaged country.
 
 
Excerpts....
 
RTA Director General Zarin Anzor and A R Panjshiri, Afghanistan's head of International Relations met Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar and also sought help in repair and maintenance of their existing transmission facilities such as uplink, short wave transmitter and TV network.
 
The RTA has a network of 24 TV transmitter with downlink facilities, one 100 kw short wave transmitter with 7 antennae catering service to its neighbouring countries and one uplink station in Kabul providing connectivity.
 
[Via Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, DX ASia]

VOA Radiogram for 30 Aug/1 Sept 2013

Hello friends,
 
VOA Radiogram Program 24 this weekend, 30 August and 1 September 2013, will be rather complex.
 
Most VOA Radiogram listeners have had success using the RSID (Reed Solomon Identification) to automatically change modes. The RSID is the brief signal that occurs at the beginning of digital mode transmissions. One exception to this success is the RSID for MFSK64, which is not decoded on some listeners' software.
 
In an attempt to improve RSID performance, I have produced this weekend's VOA Radiogram using Fldigi 3.21.74AB. If you download, install, and use this "alpha" version of Fldigi from  http://www.w1hkj.com/alpha/fldigi/v3.21/, we may have better luck with the RSIDs.
 
Please keep your previous version of Fldigi, at least for now, in case 3.21.74AB does not work well on your PC.
 
If you can't, or prefer not to, install 3.21.74AB, I will provide time for you to switch manually to MFSK64 and MFSK128.
 
In addition to the RSID experiments, VOA Radiogram will also transmit sample text in Vietnamese and Russian. Vietnamese has all sorts of diacritics, and Russian uses a Cyrillic alphabet, so this will be a real workout. You will need to use the UTF-8 character set. In Fldigi, UTF-8 can be selected in a menu located somewhere in Configure > Colors & Fonts, depending on your version.
 
This weekend's VOA Radiogram will also contain two transmissions in Flmsg format. The first will be a VOA News story similar to those transmitted during past weekends. The second will be a Base64-encoded VOA logo transmitted in MFSK128. Because of the speed of MFSK128, I'm expecting a fairly high failure rate. Worth a try, though.
 
Please close and restart Fldigi between VOA Radiogram broadcasts this weekend. This is because letters with accents often do not display correctly, i.e. UTF-8 no longer works, after an Flmsg item is received. 
 
Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, 30 August/September 1 2013:
 
2:55  MFSK16: Program preview
3:10  MFSK32: Vietnamese and Russian text samples
2:58  MFSK32: Discussion of RSIDs
1:50  MFSK64/Flmsg: VOA News re dung beetles*
 :56  MFSK32: Image of dung beetle
3:07  MFSK128/Flmsg/Base64: VOA blue logo*
2:16  MFSK64: VOA News re China hack attack
2:38  MFSK32: VOA Khmer radio photo contest
2:31  MFSK32: Image of submitted radio photo
1:10  MFSK16: Closing announcements 
  :15  Surprise mode of the week
*To make Flmsg work with Fldigi, in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS, under Reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your Flmsg.exe file is located. 
 
VOA Radiogram transmission schedule
(all days and times UTC):
Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz
All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.
 
Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com
 
Audio samples of difficult reception that nevertheless results in a successful text decode are especially helpful.
 
I will start today to respond to your emails from last weekend.
 
Kim
 
Kim Andrew Elliott
Producer and Presenter
 
VOA Radiogram
radiogram@voanews.com
Twitter: @voaradiogram
 


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Last chance to download free Ham Radio Deluxe!


Ham Radio Deluxe is a CAT control program created by Simon Brown (HB9DRV) and 
Peter Halpin (PH1PH). It is a suite of four integrated programs.  All the integrated 
programs are contained within the one download file.
 
The free version of the popular amateur radio software HRD will no longer be available for
download from HRD Software LLC after August 31 

The website says: 

All 5.x files will be removed from the server on September 1, 2013.
You may host these files on your server or have them on a CD, but you may NOT charge 
for the CD or the access to your server.


HRD can be downloaded from
 
Ganesh VU2TS
B.R.HILLSU
 
Sunday Aug 25, 2013 PM Propagation SFI:120 A:15 K:2 SSN:130
Via [ARSICOM] 

Wavescan NWS235


 
* Theme - 00:00
            "Birthday Serenade" - Willi Glahe
 
* Opening Announcement - 00:16
            Welcome to "Wavescan", international DX program from Adventist World Radio
            Researched and written in Indianapolis, produced in studios of shortwave WRMI
            Program outline
                        1. Radio Broadcasting on the Island of Cyprus: The Early Years
                        2. International DX News       
                        3. Australian DX Report
 
* Radio Broadcasting on the Island of Cyprus: The Early Years - 00:48
            The island of Cyprus is a scenic, rugged island located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, just 60 miles off the Middle East coastline and 40 miles south of Turkey.  The island itself is just 130 miles across and 75 miles wide.  It is home to a little more than a million people, with Nicosia as the island capital.  The name Cyprus is derived from the old Latin word cuprium, in recognition of their ancient copper mines.
            The earliest settlements go way back to the very earliest Middle Eastern times; and the first Greek settlers migrated onto the island around 1200 BC.  According to their ancient legends, Cyprus was the birthplace of Aphrodite, or Venus as she was known by the Latins; and early Christianity was introduced to the island in the year 45 AD by the traveling missionaries, St. Paul & St. Barnabas.  In the year 1489, the Cypriot Queen Catherine Cornaro sold the island to the merchant city of Venice in Italy.
            During the era of British colonialism, Cyprus was absorbed into the Empire in 1878, though it was not declared a Crown Colony until the year 1925.  England granted independence to Cyprus in 1960, though by treaty several sovereign bases were retained for the usage of their armed forces.  Turkey took over the northern part of the island in 1974.  Along with several other financially struggling European nations last year, Cyprus requested a financial bailout of E17Bn (17 Billion Euros).    
            It was in 1872 that the Eastern Telegraph Company opened an undersea cable service linking the island to Europe, and thus the rest of the world. 
            On the wireless scene, the famous Marconi announced in 1911 the installation of a massive high powered longwave station on Cyprus as a link in the Imperial Wireless Scheme, connecting England with its colonies all the way from the Motherland to Australia and New Zealand, though this entire project was never implemented.  On the radio scene, the colonial government first issued amateur radio licenses in 1925, though this was for receivers only, not for transmitters. 
            Then in the early 1930s, the British established a navy communication station on the island, and the probable location was in what became the Episkopi Sovereign Base, some 10 miles west of the regional capital, Limassol.  In more recent time, it is known that the Episkopi Radio Station was located specifically at Akrotiri almost adjacent to, and a little southwest of, the powerful BBC Mediumwave Station at Lady's Mile.
            In 1959, as the WRTVHB states, a broadcast unit was on the air at the British communication station at Episkopi with a daily service in English from 1200 - 1530 UTC on 7130 kHz at ½ kW.  A service in Arabic was also in the planning syage.
             It was probable that this new shortwave service in the Middle East, temporary and experimental, was intended to grow into a larger facility akin to the earlier Radio Sharq al Adna.  This new radio service, under the title Radio Independent Transmitting Unit ITU, was on the air apparently for no more than a few months, and the entire project was seemingly transferred to the island of Malta.    
            Interestingly, this same shortwave radio station at Akrotiri in Cyprus was on the air with another broadcast service, dubbed as the infamous Lincolnshire Poacher.  This powerful shortwave station was on the air 11 times daily, beginning on the hour from 1200 UTC through 2200 UTC, and there were always three channels in parallel in the USB, Upper Side Band mode.
            This clandestine station was titled the Lincolnshire Poacher because its introductory music two bars long was taken from the well known English folk song melody with the same name.  This station transmitted coded messages to distant spies, with the usage of a one time only numbers pad.  The numbers were read by an electronically produced woman's voice with the presentation of exactly 200 groups of five figure numbers on each occasion.
            International radio monitors back at that era tell us that this Lincolnshire Poacher signed on somewhere around the mid 1970s.  The last known broadcast from the Lincolnshire Poacher, operated it is said by the British Intelligence Agency MI6, was on June 29, 2008.  The communication callsign for this station was MKE.     
            We go back to the 1930s and we find that another radio communication station was established in Limassol itself.  This was a temporary facility established in 1932 and it was replaced by a permanent station at Larnaca under the callsign ZFE.  Station ZFE was taken into service on February 5, 1934 for ship-to-shore communication and for international communication whenever the cable service was interrupted.
            Then 17 years later, an updated communication station was constructed, with the transmitter base at Saranta Spilia and the receiver base at Kolokoshi.  This new Cyprus Radio, with callsigns 5BA, 5BC & 5BG, was officially inaugurated on May 7, 1951.
            For occasional special broadcasts, Cyprus Radio was in use for the relay of programming to and from the BBC in London.  For example, on August 19, 1956, Cyprus Radio carried a relay from the BBC London on behalf of BFBS Radio on Cyprus.   
            After a couple of weeks, we plan to present the next feature item in the radio scene on the island of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean.
* Program Announcement - 07:18
            Allen Graham
 
* International DX News - 08:06
            Death of Tom Christian on Pitcairn Island
 
* Australian DX Report - 09:18
            Bob Padula
 
* AWR Local Radio - 23:31
            Over in Africa, Adventist World Radio is operating a total of fourteen FM radio stations in ten different countries, each of which is on the air 24 hours daily.  For those of our listeners living in nearby areas in Africa, you have two stations in two different countries from which to choose, and they are on the air 24 hours daily:-
                        Tanzania         Dar es Salaam            Kiswahili language                  105.3 FM
                        Zambia            Kabwe                         3 local languages & English    103.5
 
* Music of the World - 24:31
            Madagascar: Folk music, instrumental & vocal
 
* Closing Announcement - 25:07
            Thanks for listening to "Wavescan", international DX program from Adventist World Radio
            Researched and written in Indianapolis
            Next week:-
                        1. Radio Broadcasting in Bulgaria-8: Regional Radio on Shortwave, Radio Varna  
                        2. NASB Report
                        3. Japan DX Report
            Two QSL cards available - AWR & WRMI
            Wavescan address:-
                        Box 29235
                        Indianapolis
                        Indiana 46229 USA
            Wavescan @ AWR.org
            Jeff White, shortwave WRMI
 
* Music Outrun - 26:15
 
* Program Ends - 28:55

Monday, August 26, 2013

Successful DRM Emergency Warning Workshop in India

The DRM Consortium held a successful workshop in Delhi on August 21st,
showing on tablet and receiver the emergency warning capability of DRM
which is part and parcel of the DRM standard. Alexander Zink, Vice Chair
DRM TechnicalCommittee, Senior BDM Digital Radio Digital Radio at
Fraunhofer IIS, presented extra features of DRM and demonstrated live on a
Digidia and then on an Ampegon content server how the emergency warning as
text and audio can be received by the listeners, the modalities of
configuring the services and all the stages for delivering a nationally
successful service.

The over 50 participants came with many questions and could see equipment
and receivers delivering the emergency warning functionality of DRM.

The workshop was held by the DRM Consortium together with All India Radio
(AIR) at the high frequency transmitter site in Delhi from where the DRM is
being broadcast.

The workshop was opened by Engineer in Chief of AIR and DRM Consortium
Chairman, Ruxandra Obreja.

(Source : DRM Consortium) Via [dx_india YG] 

Sunday, August 25, 2013

AM Antenna from Tecsun AN200

TECSUN AN-100, AN-200 AM antenna is an antenna Desheng company launched new products. It boosts wave reception capacity, improve AM reception, but also has placed a flexible, easy to operate features, suitable for medium-wave signal is weak occasions.

TECSUN AN-100, AN-200 AM antenna to use:
1.   the antenna as close to the radio;
2   rotating antenna knob, so that radio broadcasting radio loudest;
3   appropriately move the antenna position, so the better. (If necessary, repeat steps 2 and 3)
TECSUN AN-100, AN-200 AM antenna just different designs, using exactly the same effect







You may purchase from it from here. Price: $19.00, Rs. 1200/-

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

India heard on FM in Finland !

Markku Sollo from Finland had a sensational catch on 1st August : Big FM on
92.7 MHz !

During that day there were slight condx to Tatarstan on OIRT frequencies,
and this came during fifteen minutes fading with english frequency id and
audio id. No real condx to Russia at all on Band 2. Indian music caused
what the hell idea he found this yesterday. Markku had deleted almost of
those Perses files during that day, so no-one know what if. Came with 5el
Triax beamed to south-east.

Markku (MSO) checked the last files from that day he still had (others were
deleted, some of them without listening properly) and found this Indian
with tent. Pakistan from Islamabad on 93.0. The Big FM 92,7 propably from
Srinagar. Other jewelries he heard (=found) this summer was Mega FM from
Cairo on 92,7 and Imam Hussein FM from Baghdad on 92,9.
92 700 1.8. 1332 - + IND: _ * _ * Big 92.7 FM * _ * _. Uto" kesikseen
packaged goods was apparently delete most of the previous day's recordings.
Only a few files was left. These, then I started to listen to today (18.8)
a little bit surprised that the Indian music ha, ha. At some point, I began
to think that if this is true. World Championships in the triple jump
competition was better loikkien shade. The station broadcast of "BIG FM
92.7 MHz". Fading reception lasted about fifteen minutes. Very likely the
transmitter is the place to Srinagar, the distance between the measuring
tape according to Google's 4398 km. I went to the island of the same road
looking for Buy for confirmation of faith. JJK sowed the seed contentedly
murahdellen suventassuleiman recording. Little Triax isommilleen looked
again ... and luckily I had not acquired the FM+ is a decent Perseksen!
Even more: 93.0 of much lower in Pakistan? Islamabad is moderate. near
Srinagar. MSO

(Hannu Piirainen via skywaves list)

Konstantin Tavolzanskiy from Eastern Ukraine received India on 8th june
2009
Big 92.7 FM
Srinagar about 3400 km
Jammu about 3500 km
or more

the record
http://www.box.net/shared/c4h4uhp06l

(Victor Rutkovsky)
----
[Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi Via dx_india yg]

Monday, August 19, 2013

This week Tamil DX Programme Radio World

This week Tamil DX Programme Radio World may listen on this link. This programme is produced in Gyanvani FM 105.6 Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India. Broadcast on Fridays at 8.30 PM (1500 UTC) and re-broadcast on Saturday at 8.30 AM (0300 UTC).

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Ampegon delivers two 100 kW shortwave transmission systems to All India Radio

Turgi, Switzerland, August 8, 2013. All India Radio (AIR), India's National
Broadcaster and the premier Public Service Broadcaster of the subcontinent,
has ordered two 100 kW shortwave transmitters from Ampegon. The new systems
will replace existing analogue transmitters with four tubes by modern
analogue/digital transmitters having single tube and hence a much better
overall efficiency. The transmitters will operate with the new Ampegon
control system to optimize DRM performance, an important factor in the
growing Indian DRM market.

All India Radio has selected Ampegon as supplier because of the expertise
and the reliability of their transmitters well known since decades. AIR is
already using many different Ampegon AM/DRM radio transmitters which have
been delivered between 1983 and 2012.

The transmitters will be manufactured in Turgi, Switzerland. Factory tests
together with AIR engineers are planned for January and shipment for
February 2014. Thereafter AIR will install the transmitters at a site near
New Delhi. Commissioning together with an Ampegon engineer will start in
August 2014. The new transmitters are expected to be on air in October 2014.

They will be partially used for DRM digital broadcasting and partially for
analogue transmission. Furthermore AIR has plans to upgrade 36 of the
existing AM mediumwave and 4 of the existing AM shortwave transmitters for
DRM digital broadcasting.

AIR originates programming in 23 languages and 146 dialects. AIR operates
244 FM transmitters for coverage of 29.4% surface area and 41.6% of the
population. AIR also operates mediumwave transmitters which cover 92%
surface area and 99% of the population. Further AIR operates 48 shortwave
transmitters. 21 of them are 500 kW or 250 kW shortwave transmitters and
are used for external international services. 27 of them are 50 or 100 kW
shortwave transmitters and are used for local services and for  coverage of
neighboring countries.

(Press Release)

---
Alokesh Gupta, New Delhi, DX India YG

Wavescan NWS234



* Theme - 00:00
            "Birthday Serenade" - Willi Glahe
 
* Opening Announcement - 00:17
            Welcome to "Wavescan", international DX program from Adventist World Radio
            Researched and written in Indianapolis, produced in studios of shortwave WRMI
            Program outline
                        1. 75th Anniversary: All India Radio on Shortwave
                        2. International DX News
                        3. NASB Report: Charles Caudill Madagascar Update 
                        4. Bangladesh DX Report
                        5. European Perspective
 
* 75th Anniversary: All India Radio on Shortwave - 00:54
            On this occasion here in Wavescan, we salute All India Radio on the 75th anniversary of the inauguration of their first shortwave network.  It was back in the year 1938, that four new shortwave transmitters were installed at key locations nearby to four major cities in India: Bombay, Delhi, Madras & Calcutta. 
            During the previous year 1937, a new shortwave transmitter, made by Philips in Holland model KVFH and rated at 10 - 12 kW, was installed and co-sited with the 1½ year old mediumwave unit VUD on Mall Road in Delhi.  At the time, the Delhi radio studios were located in a bungalow on Alipur Road.
Apparently this new shortwave transmitter in Delhi was accorded demonstration status, and thus three more were installed during the following year 1938, one in each of the other three major cities.
            The first of these new 1938 10 kW transmitters, Philips KVFH, was inaugurated in Bombay as VUB2 on February 4.  This new shortwave unit was co-sited with their eleven year old mediumwave transmitter VUB at Malad, an outer suburban area between the airport and the ocean.  At the time, the Bombay studios were located on Queens Road.
            The second new 10 kW shortwave transmitter for the year 1938 was installed at Avadi in suburban Madras with the studios at Mylapore, a suburb that is associated with the history of St. Thomas of ancient Bible times.  Both the mediumwave unit VUM at ¼ kW and the shortwave VUM2 were inaugurated on the same day, June 16.
            The third of these new 10 kW shortwave stations was installed in Calcutta with the eleven year old mediumwave station VUC.  Shortwave VUC2 was taken into service on August 16.
            It should also be mentioned that an additional 5 kW shortwave transmitter was installed at Delhi and this was inaugurated on June 1.
            Each of the four transmitters in this new shortwave network relayed the programming from its parent mediumwave station, and each was intended to increase the service area beyond the regular coverage of the mediumwave unit. 
            However, these shortwave transmitters also enabled the major radio stations of All India Radio to take a relay of important programming from each other.  The first of these mutual inter-city relays by shortwave took place between Delhi & Bombay early in the New Year 1939, on January 18, though the procedure was soon expanded to encompass programming from other stations throughout India also.  
            That early shortwave network in India was established exactly 75 years ago.  Since then, Bombay has become Mumbai, Madras has become Chennai, Calcutta has become Kolkata, and program distribution is by satellite.   
 
* Station Identification - 03:84
            India: AIR Closing Announcement on Shortwave
 
* Program Announcement - 04:45
            Allen Graham
 
* International DX News - 05:34
            Jeff White: Monitoring Times closure
                              Interview, Gary Pierce with Bob Grove  
                             Gayle van Horn will carry on
           
* Focus on Africa: Madagascar Update - 11:28
            NASB Talk, Charles Caudill
 
* AWR Local Radio
            Over in Africa, Adventist World Radio is operating a total of fourteen FM radio stations in ten different countries, each of which is on the air 24 hours daily.  For those of our listeners living in nearby areas in Africa, you have three stations in three different countries from which to choose, and they are on the air 24 hours daily:-
                        Liberia             Monrovia         Bassa language            93.7 FM
                        Malawi             Blantyre           Chichewa & English      90.8
                        Rwanda           Kigali               Kinyarwanda               106.4
 
* Bangladesh DX Report - 19:11
            Salahuddin Dolar
* European Perspective - 23:24
            Luigi Cobosi
 
* Music of the World - 26:57
            India: Classical vocal & instrumental
 
* Closing Announcement - 27:27
            Thanks for listening to "Wavescan", international DX program from Adventist World Radio
            Researched and written in Indianapolis
            Next week:-
                        1. Radio Broadcasting on the Island of Cyprus: The Early Years
                        2. Australian DX Report
            Two QSL cards available - AWR & WRMI
            Wavescan address:-
                        Box 29235
                        Indianapolis
                        Indiana 46229 USA
            Wavescan @ AWR.org
            Jeff White, shortwave WRMI
 
* Music Outrun - 28:29
 
* Program Ends - 28:55