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