Beijing jamming Radio Australia

The media has finally noticed that China is jamming English broadcasts:

A growing electronic blitzkrieg by Beijing - blasted by Barack Obama as "state sponsored" hacking and now extending to the jamming of Australia's radio news broadcasts in Asia - threatens to derail delicate negotiations for the ABC to win television rights in China.

ABC managing director Mark Scott and chairman James Spigelman are expected in China next month to launch a major children's program co-production with Chinese state television. The trip is also another chance to lobby Chinese officials in long-frustrated efforts for the ABC to win access rights for television broadcasts in the 1.3 billion-strong market.

But the goal has been further complicated after China was accused of deliberately jamming Radio Australia broadcasts in Asia over recent weeks, a move that will also compound fears about Beijing's aggressive attempts to hack Western computer networks.

Mr Obama on Wednesday accused hackers of stealing billions of dollars in industrial secrets and singled out China for the toughest criticism to date over the issue.

"We've made it very clear to China and some other state actors that we expect them to follow international norms and abide by international rules. And we'll have some pretty tough talk with them. We already have," he said.

The jamming of Radio Australia - extending to the BBC World Service and the US Voice of America - is said to be the first time China has set out to disrupt English-language services in the region. The service has been blocked on several frequencies broadcast from short-wave antennas in Singapore in what is seen as an overall crackdown by China to prevent access to foreign news.

The BBC has condemned the interference, saying it was ''designed to disrupt audiences' free access to news and information''. The claims follow evidence Chinese hackers penetrated New York Times computer systems over several months.

The BBC admitted it was impossible to pinpoint the source of the jamming but said the ''extensive and coordinated efforts are indicative of a well-resourced country such as China".

The ABC has not itself drawn attention to the disruption but, asked on Thursday, a spokeswoman said the network strongly supported the free flow of information and objected to interference of any broadcasters' transmissions.

"While we have received reports of interference of our signal into China it is extremely difficult to identify or confirm the source of this interference and we will continue to monitor the situation as well as consult with partners in the region. No formal complaint has been lodged," she said.

The ABC also endorsed a statement made last week by the Association for International Broadcasting - a grouping of major global media organisations - claiming research by the broadcasters and independent monitors indicates the source of the jamming is within China. The organisation said it would lodge complaints with the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

China has long disrupted Mandarin-language services produced by foreign countries and refused overseas broadcasters what are known as landing rights for TV, including multiple bids by the ABC.

This is despite Chinese state media expanding their presence in Australian cities on radio and television with news broadcasts most analysts agree amount to little more than official propaganda.

La Trobe University political specialist James Leibold said Chinese authorities had always tried to control the flow of information into the country.

But he said extending the ban to English-language services probably reflected sensitivity during China's recent leadership transition.

Mr Scott and Mr Spigelman's trip to China is to launch a 52-part preschool program co-produced by the ABC and China's CCTV.

A spokeswoman for the Chinese embassy in Canberra did not respond to requests for comment.

From The Age - 15 March 2013

Indonesian Horse Racing on 7000kHz and 11425kHz

This is one of those odd things that makes shortwave radio so intriguing. I first heard these strange chanting on 7000kHz LSB a few years back and have been running into them quite frequently. In December I found the same phenomenon outside of the Amateur bands on 11425kHz USB and recorded it, which I have presented a short excerpt for you.

Many people have theorised as to what these strange chanting are about - from number stations to some sort of call to prayer. I believe they’re from Indonesia and are using identifiers to chant over one another to see who is able to be heard above the rest. K9RZZ on the radioreference.com forums said amateurs used to call this “Horse Racing” and I’d have to agree with him. It sounds like they take turns being the MC, to judges who is the winner and to introduce the players to compete. The MC says start and the participants chant their Ids for twenty seconds or so. The winners from each round get to play off against each other until an ultimate winner is found, who gets to take home the prize hamper. This seems to go on for hours, the earliest I’ve hear them on air is about 1100z and the latest was 1700z (3am local) when I tuned out for bed (it may have kept going).


In this video you can hear the MC introducing the players and very enthusiastically starts their 20 second race by saying in English “GO! Go! GO! Go! GO!”

I’m located in Melbourne Australia and recorded it using a Soft66ADD SDR joined to a 10m vertical antenna.

If you have any other clues or ideas please post them in the comments.

"Radio Monitoring – A How To Guide” Available As Free Download

Author Skip Arey is now offering his third edition of the popular “Radio Monitoring – A How To Guide” as a free download via the NASWA website. This guide was originally published by Index Publishing Group and later released by Paladin Press–it had two very successful editions that sold for many years.

The guide recently went out of print but Skip has released it on line (for FREE) via Creative Commons license.

You can download a copy thanks to the North American Shortwave Association (NASWA) who have consented to be the primary online source for distribution.

Via SWLing Post

Early Shortwave Memories David Smith

For most parts of the world, shortwave is no longer the medium of choice. There are exceptions, where it has become a medium of last resort. I have been asking people who confess to being SW listeners at early age to share their recollections. David Smith of Okapi Consulting in Johannesburg had this anecdote about listening to Radio Moscow in the 1970's.

Firedrake - the full 60 minute audio mix

From the SatDirectory site:

"A search with our 3 meter dish has found Firedrake! The audio is transmitted on Chinasat 6B within the China National Radio (CNR) satellite feed circuits. Many of the China National Radio feeds are in stereo, however one channel that is solely mono is CNR 8 - The Voice of the Minorities broadcast which features programs in the Kazakh, Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan and Uighur languages. The CNR 8 audio feed to the Chinese transmitter sites can be found on the left audio channel of a feed circuit labelled "Lzh8Rdjy". On the right audio channel of this feed is the audio for the Firedrake transmitters."

LINK to full story.

The 60 min audio 90Mb.

Fretilin's Clandestine Radio Transmitter

"One of the group’s activities was operating a clandestine radio network between East Timor and Darwin. It was the source of broadcast news getting out of East Timor from 1974 to 1976. Members of the radio group were racing along outback tracks, setting up their ex-wartime transmitters and receivers, making contact with East Timor, then hurriedly dismantling their gear, with the police, ASIO, the Army and Telecom officials hot on their tails. It was like a combination of Dad’s Army and the French Resistance being stalked by radio-detection vehicles of the German signals corps."

Read the Quadrant article Crumbs of Compassion
Australian National Maritime Museum has the transmitter in the photo.

Nerdcore Collapsible Fabric Yagi Antenna

"One of my favorite ham radio activities is making contacts on satellites. It's really fun to know that you're controlling something that's receiving and sending communications from space. But communicating with satellites means carrying a big Yagi antenna around. So, I decided to use my fashion sewing skills to make a collapsible fabric Yagi antenna that's much easier to transport."

Diana Eng (Make Blog)

Spain Planning a Pirate Radio Crackdown

It may be hard to believe that Spain only this year passed a law that gives a new Spanish central radio authority the ability to pursue and shut down unlicensed radio broadcasters. Back in January the Spanish radio industry group AERC complained that 3000 pirate stations are operating in the country and need to be shut down.

For its part the government recently claimed to have opened 109 cases against pirate operators since 2007. With the recently passed law the secretary of the Media of the Generalitat says the job will become easier.

I know relatively little about radio broadcasting in Spain, although I have often heard that the radio dial is more chaotic than in other European countries. For instance, apparently 504 of the unlicensed stations are operated by municipalities. (Just imagine if your local city or town government ran its own pirate radio station!) Additionally, some 124 ostensibly licensed stations operate on a frequency other than the one they were assigned.

Given these kinds of stats I seriously doubt that the Spanish government is likely to make much of a dent in the country’s number of unlicensed stations. The FCC has been around for seventy-six years and I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t at least 3000 pirate stations operating in the US right now. At best the Commission does a pretty good job of keeping unlicensed operators more underground and less organized by playing a good game of cat and mouse. I reckon Spain has quite a way to go before it can even hope to have that level of success.

from Radio Survivor

Ron McMullen & His Morse Key Collection

Ron McMullen is an avid collector of all things to do with Morse code. He learned Morse code as a nine year old from his postmaster father. This led to a lifelong love and fascination with the subject. His work as a qualified Morse operator took him to post offices all around Australia, and then to the PMG training school teaching the code and all aspects of telegraphy. His work became his passion. He reckons that once Morse gets into your blood, you never get rid of it; that it’s like music is to a musician.

The collecting bug bit when he heard of a reunion of ‘Morsecodians’ (enthusiasts who still enjoy communicating by Morse) and he decided to go along to see what it was about. He now collects anything to do with the code and telegraphy and lovingly restores the objects to working order. Ron believes his collection is the largest and most diverse in Australia. The quality of his pieces is testament to a lifetime of working, learning, teaching and now collecting and restoring telegraphic equipment.

Ron shows us a typical Morse code setup that you would find in a country post office. He types his transcribed message on a typewriter and shows how it is then delivered to the addressee as a telegraph. The rhythmical sound as Ron demonstrates the dots and dashes on the key and ‘talks’ to his friend Leo certainly does have a musical quality.

We see a message received from Ron’s Morse code buddy that reads, ‘Say hello to the Collectors from me’!

From ABC's Collectors
Also Ron McMullen's Telegraph Collection

New Sunspots Herald a More Active Sun

After a sustained lull of very little solar activity, the sun is finally coming back to life.

In mid-December, solar physicists observed a large group of sunspots that had manifested itself on the solar surface — the largest group of sunspots to emerge for several years.

Scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) are studying the sunspots and how this flare-up compares to previous levels of solar activity.

"This last minimum was much deeper and longer than anybody predicted," said Bernhard Fleck, ESA's project scientist for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), in a statement. "We were beginning to joke that we had entered another Maunder minimum."

Read MORE

Q&A WITH THE GODFATHER OF PIRATE RADIO

Vice Magazine spoke to Matt Mason, London’s pirate radio god-daddy and the host of Vice/Palladium’s new documentary about that daredevil, building-scaling underground music culture.

Getting into jungle, drum n’ bass, garage and grime music growing up in London during the hardcore acid house era, Matt Mason became a pirate DJ running record labels and club nights. He then started writing about it in magazines like Vice [Grimewatch] and founded UK’s largest urban music magazine RWD. Today he’s leading the discussion on piracy with his critically acclaimed book The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Reinvented Capitalism, proving the point that, in this new Darwinist market economy, creativity is by far our most important currency. To him, piracy is just part of a new business model that can be used to improve and add value—like when Bathing Ape appropriated Nike’s Air Dunks to their own devices, which eventually led to Nike themselves ripping off BAPE.

Read MORE

Mystery of the Soviet spy radio found in a Welsh field

THEIR trade was treachery but Cold War spies became box office gold in thrillers like The Ipcress File.

But not even Len Deighton, the novelist who dreamed up the plot, would have placed Aberystwyth at the heart of Soviet era espionage.

Now, after the ultra-secret Government Communications Headquarters opened its doors for the first time, it has been revealed that a Soviet encrypted radio transmitter was found near the coastal town in 1960.

And a further web of intrigue and political scandal has emerged.

The sophisticated transmitter is contained in an in-house museum at GCHQ in Cheltenham.

It was used to send messages to Moscow in the shadowy 1960s Cold War spy era in which bodyguards were known as babysitters, M16 was “the circus”, after nearby Cambridge Circus, and inconspicuous surveillance officers were known as pavement artists.

“This is a simple but robust radio transmitter discovered early in the 1960s in a field near Aberystwyth by a farmer who was ploughing his land,” said GCHQ’s official historian, referred to only as Tony.

“It had obviously been cached there by someone who was working for the Soviets.

“Nobody has a clue who this belonged to, who it was serving, or even which bit of the GRU [Soviet foreign intelligence network] he was working for.”

read MORE

CB Radio QSLs

An Amazing collection of CB calling cards (QSL):

quirky and colourful calling card of the CB radio craze!!!
Yes, CB radio: the chatroom of the past, one of the world's first virtual social networks!
A weird & wonderful window onto 1960s-1980s North American culture, from local to global!
A tribute to the millions of CBers who lit up the airwaves and the tens of thousands who QSLed!

MyQSL & Also