Radio User February 2019 PDF

Aerials Now!
Utility Monitoring
PA0RDT Mini Whip & RA0SMS Kit Weather Information Broadcasts
February 2019 £3.99 www.radioenthusiast.co.uk

Network Radio: New Devices from
Kenwood, Pulsat and Telo Systems
Scanner Special
We take a closer look at the AOR AR-DV 10
and the Uniden Bearcat SDS100E
The STEMTera Project Building

ISSN 1748-8117
a Direct Conversion Receiver

Radio Tech Con 2018 | Kiwi SDR and WebSDR | Unmanned Aerial and
Surface Vehicles | British DX Club | Channel 5 History | Digital Futures Display until 28th February 2019
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• Weight: 235g • Power: 11.7-15.8V DC
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• 3 pcs x AA NiMH batteries ...........£39.95 • Built-in Record & Playback • Weight: 4.1kg
• microSD card (installed) Supplied with:
• Belt clip ARC-536P Supplied with: • Drop-in mains charger
• SMA-BNC ant. adaptor Pro software
• UK Mains adaptor • 1800mAh Li-ion battery Optional 12V DC power supply ......£15.95
• AC mains adaptor ...........£69.95 • Wide band Antenna
• USB Cable £299.95 £469.95
• 8 Gb Micro SD card (installed)
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22 metre ‘Long John’ NEW.............................£399.95 • 30A (max) with meter • TCX0 high stability 1800mAh batteries
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12.5 metre Standard ......................................£329.95 PS-40M ....Linear 40A (max) 3-15V DC...........£129.95 • Preselected Front End
14.5 metre Heavy Duty...................................£425.00 PS-08 .......Linear 8A (max) 13.8V DC...............£34.95
15 metre standard (2m retracted)...................£399.95 PSW-50 ....Switch mode 50A (max) 9-15V DC ..£129.95
PSW-30 ....Switch mode 30A (max) 9-15V DC ..£79.95 £459.95 RRP £679.95
679 95 £659.95
PSW-30H ...Switch mode 30A (max) 13.8V DC ..£69.95
MFJ PS23-SW1..Switch mode 23A (max) 13.8V DC ..£59.95
Antennas
MFJ-1026
Deluxe version inc.
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• Bi-Directional Comet AB1230M Civil Military Mobile Whip..........£34.95
£399.95 this antenna gives
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£269.95 Scanmaster Air-
r master Civil Airband Base .............£39.95
Sirio SD-3000N Discone £64.95
Scanmaster B1300N Fibreglass (25-1300MHz).........£39.95
JIM M75 High quality stainless steel, Scanmaster D1300 Discone (25-1300MHz) ...........£49.95
chromed brass & anodised
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Scanmaster Double Discone (25-1300MHz) .........£59.95 Scanmaster Desktop
Scanmaster Desktk op Indoor Discone .....................£49.95 Indoor Discone antenna
Low noise pre-amp • 300 MHz-3GHz
Sirio SD3000N Discone (300-3000MHz).................£69.95
with 3 band pass filters 25-1300MHz complete with
• 24-2150MHz £69.95 Sirio GPA
P -(108-136MHz) Civil Airband GP .............£39.95 cable and BNC plug
Sirio CX4
X 40 PMR446 Base Antenna........................£29.95
• Variable gain £49.95
CLP-5130-2N 105-1300MHz 17 Element..............£279.95
• 12V DC or PP3 battery CABLE & WIRES
(not supplied) LOW LOSS COAX
A CABLE
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Westflex 103 ........Ultra low loss ............£159.95
RG-213 (Cabnex) ..Low loss high quality ...£99.95 Aircell 5 High quality complete
Headphones RG-213U................Mil spec.....................£116.00 per metre.............£2.75 per 102m drum..........£247 kit includes mounting
RG-Mini 8..............Super XX .....................£59.95 Aircell 7 hardware & coax cable
Kenwood HS5 RG58/CU................Mil spec.......................£39.95 per metre.............£2.99 per 102m drum..........£269
Communications Headphones • Covers: 2-30MHz
ANTENNA WIRE - 100 Metre Drums • Kevlar Mil spec. wire
£59.95 Nevada Coated Flex Weave ...................£59.95 • Length: 20m
Y esu STA
Ya T 77 Nevada 28D ..........2.8mm 2kW Kevlar .....£89.95
Nevada 32D ..........3.2mm 5kW Kevlar .....£99.95 Ecoflex 10 £69.95
Stereo Headphones £69.95 per metre.............£3.79 per 102m drum..........£345
PRICE PLEDGE WE ALWAYS AIM TO BE COMPETITIVE - SEEN IT CHEAPER? LET US KNOW!
www.nevadaradio.co.uk
Index
Contents Favourites Reviews Features News
Cover Story
February 2019 Vol. 14 No 2
14 The AOR AR-DV10
On sale: 24th January 2018 Wideband Receiver
Next issue on sale: 28th February 2019 Liam Hargreaves gets hold of the latest model
AOR AR-DV10 handheld digital receiver and of-
RadioUser fers a review of the radio, using the most recent
Warners Group Publications plc
The Maltings, West Street irmware V 1807A/1810A and SN AA630226.
Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH
www.warnersgroup.co.uk
Tel 01778 391000 36 Digital Radio
Editor Kevin Ryan undertakes an excursion into digital
(c/o Warners Group Publications plc) radio futurology, outlining forthcoming scenarios for
Georg Wiessala
wiessala@hotmail.com the evolution of DAB and DRM services, and of new
equipment, throughout 2019.
Designer
Mike Edwards
mike.edwards@warnersgroup.co.uk 40 Scanning Scene
Advertisement Manager In our second extended scanner review in this issue,
Claire Ingram Tim Kirby puts the new Uniden SDS-100E wideband
claire.ingram@warnersgroup.co.uk receiver through its paces, evaluating its perfor-
Multimedia Sales Executive 14 mance across the board.
Kristina Green
kristina.green@warnersgroup.co.uk
Tel: 01778 392096 7 News & Products 44 Off the Record
SenHaix SPTT-N60, Tecsun PL-360, a bhi ground Oscar the Engineer assesses professionalism and
Advertising Production
Nicola Lock breaker, Sirio airband aerial, AOR AR-DV1 Tetra informality in free radio and speculates on how
nicola.lock@warnersgroup.co.uk Decoding and more innovative products; radio for studio equipment can influence presentation and
Publisher refugees, for mental health and for much more. quality standards.
Rob McDonnell
robm@warnersgroup.co.uk
12 DXTV – Channel Five (II) 46 Comms from Europe
Subscriptions Keith Hamer and Garry Smith conclude their two-part In his bi-monthly column, Simon Parker has news
Subscriptions are available from as little
as £11. Turn to our subscriptions page for
mini-series on the 20-year history of Channel Five. In on the Midland Dual Mike microphone and on a
full details. this second part, they look at Channel Five transmit- PMR446 event, and he weighs the likelihood of new
Subscription Administration ter tests and launch timetables. transceiver models appearing in 2019.
Radio User Subscriptions,
Warners Group Publications plc 20 Airband News 48 International Radio Scene
The Maltings, West Street
At a time of drone-disruptions at Gatwick, David Chrissy Brand offers Turkish delights, surfs transat-
Smith has news on unmanned aerial vehicles, chan- lantic medium wave, appreciates online music from
Subscriptions Hotline: 01778 395161
subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk nel spacing and capacity, before delineating comms the Balkans and presents radio loggings from around
at Belfast Aldergrove Airport. the globe.
Technical Help
We regret that, due to editorial time scales,
replies to technical queries cannot be 23 Maritime Matters
given over the telephone. Any technical Robert Connolly traces unmanned surface vessels,
queries by e-mail are very unlikely to
receive immediate attention either. So, if provides an in-depth introduction to AIS technology
you require help with problems relating to and remembers the tricky South Paciic rescue of
topics covered by RU, then please write to yachtswoman Susie Goodall.
the Editorial Offices, we will do our best to
help and reply by mail.
26 Emerging Issues in Radio
Book and back issue orders
Send your completed form to:
Chrissy Brand reports from Radio Tech Con 2018,
RadioUser Subscriptions Dept emphasises diversity in radio and discusses loud-
Warners Group Publications plc ness standards and immersive audio podcasts.
The Maltings, West Street
30 The STEMTera Breadboard
Construction Project
Roger Thomas introduces his STEMTera breadboard
radio direct conversion receiver building project,
looking at its parts, functions and uses.
48
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4 RadioUser February 2019
Editorial
Welcome
Guest Editorial
join (there are sixteen such clubs afili-
ated at present).
For those not in a club, individual mem-
berships are encouraged.
Throughout the decades, the EDXC
had a signiicant advisory role to interna-
tional broadcasters, including on such
issues as listener feedback and QSL veri-
ication formats.
With an ageing demographic and tech-
nological evolution, AM and FM radio
DXing, and short wave listening have de-
clined from its 1960s and 1970s heyday.
The hobby now shares an audio space
alongside Internet radio, podcasts and
60 social media. It is still popular global-
ly, with individuals, DXpeditions and re-
52 Aerials Now! mote-controlled online receivers.
Keith Rawlings offers a critical appraisal of active There remains an important role for ra-
aerials, in terms of their design and function and dio clubs to play, in promoting the hobby,
reviews the performance of the PA0RDT mini whip sharing DX catches, station information,
and the RA0SMS mini whip kit. and encouraging new stations, as well
as well-established players and state
56 Utility Monitoring broadcasters.
Nils Schiffhauer advises on how you can easily Heritage resources and archives in the
elcome to the February hobby are growing daily, as the following
W
receive and monitor a plethora of weather-related
maritime utility signals on MF and HF, and he offers a 2019 issue of RadioUser. examples show.
comprehensive list of relevant frequencies. February 13th is UNESCO www.radionetherlandsarchives.org
World Radio Day; time to http://jonathanmarks.libsyn.com
60 Network Radio remember that radio communications are https://swling.com
Chris Rolinson surveys some signiicant forthcoming about understanding and collaboration, The 2019 EDXC conference will
radio conferences; he has news on the latest crop of uniting enthusiasts, radio professionals, take place in Andorra from September
network radios and bemoans the ghostly remains of suppliers, and associated organisations 6th to 8th 2019.
some much-valued equipment. in one broad sweep. https://edxcnews.wordpress.com
https://tinyurl.com/ycm5apcb
64 Software Defined Radio It is with reference to the latter that Chrissy Brand
Andrew Barron introduces the SDR.hu webSDR I have been invited to write this guest
Receivers website and has fun working with the editorial. I am honoured to have been
WebSDR network and KiwiSDR board open-source appointed as the European DX Council N.B.: I am sorry to be the bearer of this
receiver. Secretary-General for 2019-2021. In this news this early on in the New Year, but
capacity, I will be working with Christian the cover price of RadioUser will increase
67 Book Review Ghibaudo, the new Assistant Secretary- to £4.50 with the next (March 2019) is-
David Harris shares his opinions of a new book on General. After six years of dedicated sue. It is the irst increase in almost ten
the relationship between radio, international relations service, Finns Kari Kivekäs and Jan- years and has become necessary on
and the nation state. Mikael Nurmela stepped down after last account of rising paper prices and pro-
year’s successful EDXC conference in duction costs and much-increased dis-
68 Profile: The British DX Club Bratislava and Vienna. play charges by high street retailers. You
Scott Caldwell offers his 2018 Annual Review of Founded in 1967, the EDXC advo- can avoid this price rise by taking out a
the membership proile, publications, activities and cates the interests of European DX lis- subscription at just £3.33 per issue (see
aspirations of this key UK DXing organisation. teners, and DX Clubs in international this month’s and next month’s maga-
organisations, in the ield of radio and zines, and the Radio Enthusiast web-
71 Rallies & Events telecommunications. It is, in effect, an site for details).
Radio rallies, up-to-date contact details and related umbrella group for any radio or DX club www.radioenthusiast.co.uk
opportunities, for the irst quarter of 2019. in Europe, and beyond, which wishes to Georg Wiessala
Why not visit our new online bookshop at www.radioenthusiast.co.uk/store

RadioUser February 2019 5
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World Comms from Euerop
Radio around the The Midland Dual Mik
WHAT’S NEW Uniden Bearcat SDS-100E
INAC Magnetic Loop Ante
and the IC-SAT100 Satel
Scanner,
nnas,
lite PTT
tional Radio Scene
LM&S becomes Interna
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December 2018 £3.99
www.radioenthusiast.c
January 2019 £3.99
www.radioenthusiast.c n Win bhi’s
o.uk Review & Competitio Worth £199
2018 Annual Index
Comms from Europe
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Radio News
ST
OP
KLINGENFUSS GUIDES: Jörg Klingenfuss
PR
got in touch to inform readers about his
ES
S!
products for 2019. They are The 2019/2020
Guide to Utility Radio Stations, the 2019
Shortwave Frequency Guide, the 2019 Super
Frequency List on CD, the 2019 Frequency
Database for the Perseus LF-HF Software-
Defined Receiver and the 1997-2019 Digital
Data Decoder Screenshots on a USB Stick.
These were published on 5th December 2018.
www.klingenfuss.org/homepage.htm
TODAY IN RADIO HISTORY: Don’t forget

to check the ever-interesting Today in
Radio History website by Radio THE RADIO
TECHNOLOGY LEADER on a regular basis, to
learn about the events and personalities that
have made radio what it is.
https://tinyurl.com/y77cd5qr
RADIO IN 2019: Marvel at James Cridland, a

radio ‘futurologist’. Here are his predictions
regarding the future of radio in 2019
The second website leads to more radio
predictions from AdNews:
https://tinyurl.com/y82k764z
https://tinyurl.com/y9642nmp
News from Moonraker
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT : In the last six Chris Taylor, Head of Retail at Moonraker (UK) T298S Zello Phone. It connects APP of the
weeks, the European Parliament and the Ltd, has several new and updated products smartphone or the network radio, provides
European Council have adopted the new this month: The SenHaiX SPTT-N60 is a 3G a truly secure link, pairs easily while on
European Electronic Communications Code. network android mobile radio with Wi-Fi, the go, and has an instant-push-to-talk-
This piece of legislation requires all new Bluetooth, Zello, SOS, phone function, feature. This Bluetooth microphone,
car radios sold in the European Union to be GPS function, with touchscreen and a large as a wireless accessory, is flexible and
capable of receiving digital terrestrial radio, in LCD. It is 100% compatible with PTT4U and cost-effective. It provides users with more
addition to any FM or AM functionality, which Zello. Group call, single call, and Intelligent mobility in their critical communication.
manufacturers may want to include. The code selective call are all supported. The radio has Last, but certainly not least, the Tecsun
also grants EU member states the power to a 50Ω, 1W, loudspeaker and requires a 13.8V PL-360 portable receiver/ world band
introduce rules requiring consumer radios to power supply. radio offers AM & FM reception, keeps
include digital capability. Next, the INRICO T320 Bluetooth speaker you in with the action on Long Wave,
microphone is a piece of professional Short Wave(2.3-21.95MHz) and FM (87-
NEW RADIO GROUP IN DEVON : From Steve intercom equipment for the Inrico T320 108MHz).
G3USE, comes the news that The University
of the Third Age (U3A) in Honiton, Devon has
added Amateur Radio to its choice of over 25 PRESIDENT’S ALERT: On 3rd October, the RADIO? – WHAT’S THAT: An eye-opening short
interest areas. The new group is intended as FEMA National Wireless Emergency Alert System article called Radio? What’s That? is dealing
a ‘primer’ to encourage members who wish to was tested in the USA. FEMA is the US Federal with how the BBC is attempting to re-shape both
revive a previous interest or take up the hobby Emergency Management Agency, and the event structure and content of its listening services, in
for the first time. U3A membership is open to was named The President’s Alert. search of a youth audience. Check out the cute
those who are fully or semi-retired. SOURCE: Bob Houlston G4PVB/ FEMA ‘doggie-with-a-radio’ HMV picture...
https://u3asites.org.uk/honiton/home https://tinyurl.com/yd8ptxkc https://tinyurl.com/yc48a9xg
For the latest news and product reviews, visit www.radioenthusiast.co.uk

News What’s new in the world of radio
Radio News
ST
OP
PR
VALUING RADIO: A new report from a cross-
ES
party group of MPs and peers has revealed
S!
the value of commercial radio to all parts of
the UK. Valuing Radio is the first report of its
kind from by the All-Party Parliamentary Group
(APPG) on Commercial Radio. Its key planks
are: Commitment to Local News, Operational
Freedom, Embracing Diversity and a Digital
Future.
The report includes new figures that show
an estimated £1.6bn return on investment
annually for local advertisers, which is
particularly significant for small and medium-
sized enterprises (SMEs). This is in addition
to the public value of radio from news and
information, charitable fundraising and
education. It also found that commercial
stations provide an average of 10 hours of
news, travel and weather output each week,
made up of dozens of bulletins every day,
contributing to radio’s status as the most
trusted medium for news.
This value is illustrated by examples of radio’s
BHI Breaking New Ground
reporting of emergencies and its up-to-the-
Graham Somerville, of bhi Ltd, offers a new and “add-on” audio equipment is being
minute coverage of local and national events.
product, which offers a simple solution to used. The new bhi GroundBreaker is a
Commercial radio’s support for charity and
RFI and ground loop audio breakthrough quick and easy solution to solve this issue
good causes is also highlighted, with an
problems! RF breakthrough and earth by totally isolating the grounds of your
estimated £30m being raised during 2018
loop current issues tend to happen when external audio equipment from those of
from initiatives such as Bauer’s Cash for Kids,
a transceiver is in transmit mode (keyed). the radio system. The bhi GroundBreaker
Global’s Make Some Noise and many other -
You will hear a buzz or your own distorted is easy to install and simply fits in
often local - campaigns.
voice coming out of the audio. The two main between your radio and audio equipment.
https://tinyurl.com/yc8o5w97
reasons are a poorly matched antenna which Connections are 3.5mm mono or stereo
results in RF being reflected back into the and no extra leads are usually required.
MORE WELSH:News about Wales should
radio room or a difference in ground currents There are 6 versions available to match
be a key condition in the awarding of local
between pieces of equipment. RFI issues are most impedances:
commercial radio licences according to
usually caused by reflected waves coming All versions are available from bhi Ltd.,
the Welsh National Assembly’s Culture,
back down the outside of the coax whilst or one of their authorised stockists.
Welsh Language and Communications
earth loop problems are usually caused Price £29.95 incl. VAT.
Committee. It wants the UK Department of
when the same power supply for the radio www.bhi-ltd.com
Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to introduce
regulations to ensure local commercial
stations broadcasting in Wales feature
Welsh specific news alongside local and UK
national content. BBC network radio stations, OPPOSITION RADIO STATIONS CLOSED: NEW MD: Former Global Commercial Director
including Radio 1 and Radio 2, currently Nairobi — Authorities in the Democratic Republic & Regional Training Manager Sean Childerley
dominate the market with almost half of all of Congo (DRC) closed two opposition radio has been appointed as Managing Director of the
radio listenership in Wales. The Committee stations, the latest in a series of clampdowns on Radio Academy. Sean replaces Roger Cutsforth
is calling on the BBC to explore options the media, as the country prepared for elections, who left to join Wireless in Bradford. He took
to provide a Wales opt-out service and to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. up the position in early December and will
prioritise investment to overcome the current Voters were set to go to the polls on December 23 report to The Radio Academy Chair, Dr Yvonne
technical barriers to doing so. to elect a new leader as President Joseph Kabila Thompson CBE and its Board of Trustees. Sean
https://tinyurl.com/ydh8uqmd steps down after 17 years in power. His anointed was previously Business Development Director
successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, faced at Babington, a training, apprenticeships and
MOUSER NEWS: Mouser.com offer a free competition from several opposition leaders. traineeships provider. Childerely was formerly
subscription to their electronics-themed The central African nation has not had a peaceful Commercial Director and Regional Training
e-mail news. One of the last (September transfer of power since it gained independence Manager at Global Radio as well as Commercial
2018) pdf issues is now available for free. in 1960. Director at Notts TV Ltd.
https://tinyurl.com/y7mcaaty (SOURCE: BusinessDay) (SOURCE: eRADIO with Broadcast Bionics)
Enter our competitions at www.radioenthusiast.co.uk/competitions

What’s new in the world of radio News
Radio News
ST
OP
TALK RADIO THERAPY: How patients at a
PR
psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires found
ES
S!
healing by starting a radio program: Radio
La Colifata is the first radio show in the
world to broadcast from inside a psychiatric
hospital. The project revolutionized the way
professionals and the general public thought
about their relationships and connections
with mental hospitals, and eventually inspired
similar projects in institutions in Germany,
Sweden, Spain, France, Italy, Mexico,
Uruguay, Chile, and other places.
(SOURCE: Vice Magazine)
https://tinyurl.com/yadswyol
BBC GENOME PROJECT: The BBC has

made the 1940s issues of the Radio Times
magazine publicly available online. The
release, by the BBC Genome Project, covers
World War Two, the immediate post-war years
and key landmark events in British history
such as the Royal Wedding in 1947 and the
1948 London Olympics. The 1940s also saw
the beginnings of long-standing programmes:
Woman’s Hour, Any Questions? and Desert
Island Discs.
During the first half of the decade, Radio
Times magazines became slimmer, as
resources were diverted to the war effort.
Programme billings were often written
Nevada Radio: Sirio
allusively, with precise locations concealed
to avoid giving away too much information
Civil Airband Aerial
for security reasons. Prof. Jean Seaton, Nevada Radio has introduced a new, for use by both aviation professionals
Historian of the BBC, comments: “This 3-element, beam from Sirio Antennas, to and airband listening enthusiasts alike.
release gives a gripping insight into Britain cover the Civil Airband frequencies. The The antenna can be mounted both
during the Second World War. It shows beam has wideband coverage from 108 to horizontally and vertically, and it is
everyday life, the tension of the blitz and the 137MHz, enabling complete coverage of the supplied with a low-loss N-type socket
D-Day landings on Europe. But the excitement UK Civil Airband. The aerial boasts 7dBi gain for best performance. The antenna sells
of the post-war Royal Wedding and the thrill of with a symmetrical pattern, making it ideal for £89.95.
the London Olympics are also there. The Radio
Times takes you directly to what it was like to
live through a pivotal decade in the nation’s
history.”
RadioUser Contributor Chrissy Brand appointed
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk Secretary-General of the European DX Council
Founded in 1967, The European DX Council RadioUser author and journalist Chrissy Brand
SIDMOUTH ARS COURSES : The Sidmouth (EDXC) advocates the interests of European is the new Secretary General, and Christian
Amateur Radio Society will be holding DX listeners and DX clubs in international Ghibaudo is the new Assistant Secretary General.
Foundation and Intermediate courses organisations in the field of radio and As well as a columnist for RadioUser, Chrissy is
(planned for April 2019) for budding amateurs telecommunications. After six years of dedicated an active member of the British DX Club and was
in the East Devon and West Dorset area, in a service in the posts of Secretary General and the local organiser of the EDXC 2016 Conference
bid to encourage newcomers to the hobby. Assistant Secretary General, Finns Kari Kivekäs in Manchester. Christian is a long time DXer, an
They are a friendly group and use a quiet, and Jan-Mikael Nurmela stepped down after last individual member of the EDXC. He was the main
comfortable hall, with car parking, for tuition year’s successful EDXC conference in Bratislava person arranging the EDXC 2014 Conference
and examinations. The ARS is also more than and Vienna. After consultation with member in Tende and Nice, in the south of France. The
happy to assist any candidates who might be clubs across Europe in November, the EDXC is 2019 conference will take place in Andorra in
wishing to take the Advanced Exam. pleased to have appointed a British-French team September 2019.
www.sidmouthars.org.uk at the helm, for the years from 2019 to 2021. https://edxcnews.wordpress.com

News What’s new in the world of radio
ICOM: RS-BA1 Version 2 Dual- Radio News

watch Remote Control Software GERMANY: Streaming Revenue Surpasses
The RS-BA1 Remote Control Software gained allow the Dualwatch operation and dual spectrum Physical Sales: Germany, one of the last
popularity by allowing amateur radio operators scopes with waterfall functions to be used on your markets of CD dominance, has finally seen
to operate selected Icom radios from a PC via IP. remote PC. MAIN and SUB spectrum scopes can streaming eclipse physical formats. In the first
The RS-BA1 offers real-time operation with low be observed on the RS-BA1 Version 2 at the same half of 2018, the country’s music industry saw
latency, high-quality audio, allowing you to use an time. Of course, the RS-BA1 Version 2 can be used revenue of €727 million, down 2% on-year. The
Icom radio installed in another room using your with Icom single receiver transceivers. We advise period saw digital revenue overtake physical
home network, or even from a remote location that you consult with the product leaflet for the level for the first time, with digital sales at a 58.9%
over the Internet. A new version of this software of compatibility and available functions. To find out share and physical sales at 41.4%. Audio
is now available called RS-BA1 Version 2, which more about this product, visit the dedicated RS-BA1 streaming revenue increased by 35.2% for the
will allow users to take advantage of some of the Version 2 Dualwatch Remote Control Software prod- first six months of 2018 and now holds a 47.8%
features of HF radios such as the IC-7610, IC-7851 uct page. The RS-BA1 Version 2 is available from all market share. “Germany’s market for recorded
and IC-7850 including Dualwatch operation and authorised Icom amateur radio dealers. music has crossed a major milestone,” said
dual spectrum scope. The RS-BA1 Version 2 will https://icomuk.co.uk/News_Article/2/1333 Florian Drücke, CEO of the German Music
Industry Association (BVMI). The country
has been showing trends toward more
audio streaming, but this is the first time the
ST
OP
PR digital format has ‘dethroned’ CDs. A recent
survey by Goldmedia showed that the shift to
ES
streaming was mostly being driven by younger
S!
generations of listeners.
SOURCE: Radio and Internet [RAIN] News
https://tinyurl.com/yb5pjamv
REFUGEE RADIO: The United Nations High

Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has
launched a community radio station at Dzaleka
Refugee Camp in Malawi — the first community
radio in a refugee camp in Southern Africa.
Yetu, which means ‘ours’, is a name derived
from the Swahili language, spoken among
about 40,000 refugees at the camp, mainly
from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Somalia. The
AOR AR-DV1 TETRA Decoding UNHCR representative in Malawi, Monique
Ekoko, said during the launch in August
Mike Devereux, of Nevada Radio, wrote in , to sometime in January, after all other functions
that the radio broadcasts would help build
let our readers know about a big step forward, are tested. AR-DV1 is, therefore, the first wide-
understanding between the refugee and host
recently achieved in the development of the band receiver in the world with this powerful
communities. “The radio largely aims to build
AR-DV1 Digital Voice Receiver. AOR has feature. This should have a great, positive,
rapport with the refugee community through
created a new firmware which enables traffic impact on AOR sales in Europe and Asia, where
targeted news coverage, in-depth analysis
channel decoding of Tetra trunking networks! Tetra is used extensively. This represents an
and radio documentaries, phone-in programs
The new decode mode is named T-TC (for Tetra enormous selling potential not only to private
as well as to foster communication and
Traffic Channel). This BETA firmware 1812A customers (for example airband enthusiasts
collaboration within the refugee community,”
was published on the AOR website (see below). which can expand their hobby by listening to
she said. The broadcasts air in the six
For the time being it is in BETA state, as its only airport staff) but also commercial operators
languages spoken at the camp — English,
purpose is to test voice decoding of the traffic and governmental/law enforcement entities.
French, Swahili, Kirundi, Kinyarwanda and
channels of Tetra trunking networks. The http://www.aorja.com/receivers/ar-dv1.html
Malawi’s local language, Chichewa.
“stable” version of the firmware should be ready
SOURCE: Radioworld
https://tinyurl.com/y7fuxvsz
JOTA/JOTI NEWS: David Lees G0PDL contacted Both amateur and hobby radio enthusiasts took SHORT WAVE PROPAGATION: Here is a
RadioUser to let us know that the 2018 Jamboree advantage to communicate with special event short YouTube video, explaining some of
on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet took stations and individuals throughout the UK and the vagaries and imponderables of short
place recently and involved the use of the in many other countries. In 2019, the event will wave propagation conditions. It is aimed at
Network Radios channels on Zello for the first be held over the weekend of 18th to 20th October beginners and raises awareness of changing
time. The Network Radios Events channel was and will be supported by the Network Radio ionospheric states.
made available for the weekend in question. Channels once more. https://tinyurl.com/y9dtobur

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the latest UK Band plans, RSGB affiliated clubs, contest groups ing is quick and easy with search decoding for which a smartphone
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catio re e t
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issues Practicalbook.
about the hobby, or are newly ers the 2019 syllabus for exams Reviewed
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Wirelessaspublished
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DXTV Special
20 Years of Channel Five

[Part Two]
Keith Hamer ALL PICTURES: KEITH HAMER + GARRY SMITH RESOURCES COLLECTION
Keith405625.kh1@gmail.com
Garry Smith
garry405625.gs@gmail.com
Keith Hamer & Garry Smith continue to

delineate the history of Channel Five,
which celebrated its 20th Anniversary
in 2018. In Part Two, they look at tests,
transmitter launches and the overall
switch-on timetable.
The test pattern for the Channel Five test

card consisted of a set of ive mock col-
our bars, with the station’s slogan, Give Me
Five, and offering some helpline information
(Figs. 1 and 2).
More detailed transmitter identiication
information was not normally included, al-
though at least a couple of sites did display
this information, for instance at Croydon and
Reigate (Figs. 1 and 3).
At the time when the Channel 5 re-tuning
exercise was carried out, from the autumn of
1996 onwards, the transmitters were still in
the process of being installed.
They remained largely inactive – apart
from short tests, which were conducted at
some sites – to prevent interference, until a
certain percentage of re-tunes had been car- 4
ried out within the service area, or in those

cases where the transmitters were simply
considered less of a ‘threat’.
Test broadcasts were mainly undertak-
en during the day, so as not to disrupt any
evening video viewing in homes that had not
yet been re-tuned.
Later Transmitter Launches

The batch of transmitters airing on Channel
35 did not enter service until after the ofi-
cial launch date. 1 2
This seemed to suggest that plans were

considerably off-target. Some transmitters,
such as the one in Waltham, did not in fact air
Fig.1: The C5 ‘give me 5’ test caption from

the Croydon transmitter. Fig. 2: One of the
many Channel 5 identii cation graphics used
in the channel’s infancy. Fig. 3: A test caption,
announcing the E42 Reigate transmitter. Fig. 4:
Kirsty Young presents the i rst news programme.
Fig. 5: Channel 5 station identii cation graphics,
20 years on. 3 5

DXTV Special
until about August 1997. terrestrial transmitters.” became available via Freeview.
Some of the Channel 35 transmitters were ‘Yet’ was very much the opera- However, ironically, viewers who were de-
located geographically ‘too close for com- tive word here…. pendent on local relay stations (i.e. where an-
fort’. These included Waltham (250kW), The After its launch, some relays had Channel alogue Channel 5 was not available), were not
Wrekin (100kW), Fenton (10kW), Ridge Hill 5 added, depending on frequency availability, able to receive the digital counterpart either!
(100kW), and Hannington (60kW). and local reception conditions permitting.
Needless to say, that there were plenty of In a handful of cases, some locations were Switch-On Timetables
visible co-channel effects at times, even in granted relays operating on very low-power. According to Channel 5 switch-on infor-
some primary service areas and under rela- In addition to this, a few ‘self-help’ sites mation disseminated at the time, switch-
tively ‘lat’ reception conditions. began operating, some of these in an unof- on dates for the irst batch of 33 transmit-
The preliminary information supplied by icial capacity. ters were as in Table 1 (below left). Tables
Channel 5 in early 1997 stated that, “once the Eventually, there were almost 70 transmit- 2 and 3 (below right) show the state of af-
Channel 35 transmitters are airing, there are ters, relays and self-help sites broadcasting fairs after March 1997, as well as small and
no further plans yet to add any more analogue Channel 5. After 2002, the service eventually self-help relays.
SWITCH-ON TRANSMITTER CH/POL. ERP TRANSMITTERS CH/POL ERP
Nov 1st, 1996 Cambret Hill 37 20kW Bilsdale 35 500kW

Nov 21st, 1996 Belmont 56 50kW Croydon (Old Town) 59V 300W
Darvel 35 100kW
Dec 10th,1996 Tay Bridge 34V 4kW
Fenton 35V 10kW
Dec 11th,1996 Churchdown Hill 48 1kW
Hannington 35 60kW
Dec 11th,1996 Caldbeck 56 10kW
Hastings 35V 1kW
Dec 17th,1996 Sandy Heath 39 10kW Kilvey Hill 35V 10kW
Jan 5th,1997 Black Hill 37 500kW Madingley 34V 5kW
Jan 5th,1997 Black Mountain 37 50kW Middleton (Manchester) 22V* 40W
Jan 7th,1997 Huntshaw Cross 67 2kW Millburn Muir 45V 250W
Jan 9th,1997 Plympton 30V 2kW Norwich (Central) 33V 30W
Jan 9th,1997 Fawley 34 10kW Oliver’s Mount 66V 1kW
Peterhead 68V 100W
Jan 15th,1997 Chelmsford 63 1kW
Reigate 42V 10kW
Jan 15th,1997 Londonderry 31V 10kW
Ridge Hill 35 100kW
Jan 26th,1997 Croydon 37 1000kW
Salisbury 68V 2.5kW
Jan 28th,1997 Craigkelly 48 4kW Sudbury 35 50kW
Feb 16th,1997 Lichield 37 1000kW The Wrekin 35 100kW
Feb 20th,1997 Perth 55V 2kW Tunbridge Wells 37V 10kW
Feb 23rd,1997 Emley Moor 37 870kW Waltham 35 250kW
Feb 25th,1997 Durris 67 100kW Whitehawk Hill 35V 10kW
* N.B. - A temporary mast was radiating BBC-1 on Channel 22 by the end of June 1999.
Feb 25th,1997 Tacolneston 52 4kW
Mar 2nd,1997 Mendip 37 126kW Table 2: List of Channel 5 transmitters opened after March 1997.
Mar 4th,1997 Oxford 49 40kW SMALL & SELF-HELP RELAYS CH
Mar 5th,1997 Storeton 39V 2.8kW Aberdeen 49

Mar 6th,1997 Burnhope 68 50kW Ardlui 62
Bakers Wood 63
Mar 9th,1997 Presely 37 100kW
Balquidder 30
Mar 9th,1997 Redruth 37 3kW Blackpool Football Club (SH) 34
Mar 11th,1997 Mounteagle 67 100kW Blair Drummond 54
Mar 11th,1997 Shefield (Crosspool) 67V 2.5kW Craigie Gardens (SH) 52
Mar 18th,1997 Blaenplwyf 56 4kW Culloden (SH) 56
Enochdhu 48
Mar 18th,1997 Fenham 56V 2kW
Llandyfriog 35
Mar 19th,1997 Nottingham 34V 2kW
Torridon (Active Delector) 56
Mar 19th,1997 Selkirk 52 50kW Torridon (Translator) 56
Mar 20th,1997 Winter Hill 48 12.5kW White City 54
Table 1: Switch-on dates for the irst 33 Channel 5 Transmitters. Table 3: Small and Self-Help Relays (All very low power).

Review
The AOR AR-DV10

Digital Handheld Receiver
Liam Hargreaves reviews the AOR AR-DV10 Handheld Digital Receiver,
in the latest version, including Firmware V 1807A/1810A & SN AA630226.
Liam Hargreaves reception, the earphone lead can be used

c/o wiessala@hotmail.com as an aerial, obviating the need for using
the BNC connector.
OR irst came to my attention
A
Next, to the BNC socket, there is a twin
in 1984 with the AR2001 concentric control. The left-hand side of
model, which I bought. This the set houses the power button, squelch
radio replaced my JIL SX200, defeat and access to the micro SD card.
and, to this day, it still sits On the right-hand side, there is access to
alongside my other receiving gear, even if the earphone output, the data port and
relegated to monitoring just two speciic external DC supply. All external ports are
channels for most of the time. What made sealed by rubber covers. On the back, the
the AR2001 outstanding at the time was its radio is covered by the battery, which clips in
wide frequency coverage, modes, memory and out easily.
channels and sensitivity. This set was The front panel houses the keypad, and
followed by a number of other models, the buttons are irm, with a positive click
including handhelds, and all had features, when pressed. A large, 2.4-in, LCD display
which other manufacturers soon emulated. gives the user all the status information
AOR has always been innovative with needed, such as frequencies of the two
their designs, and the AOR AR-DV10, along VFOs, mode, memory settings and digital
with the AOR AR-DV1, is proudly keeping up signal information for digital modes such as
this tradition. DMR, D-STAR and so on.
The display is large and clear enough to
Overview and Features be easily read under most conditions.
The AOR AR-DV10 is a handheld There are 2,000 memory channels, in
communications receiver covering 100kHz 40 banks of 50, and various modes are
to 1300MHz (Figs. 1 & 2). It resolves the provided for scanning, including linked scan
analogue modes of WFM, NFM, AM, USB, banks. Searching between frequencies is
LSB and CW. In addition to this, this scanner possible. Search banks can be scanned
receives the digital modes of TETRA (direct individually or as groups of linked banks (40
mode), DMR (Tier 1/2, Mototrbo), NXDN of which are provided). Users can adjust
(6.25K), dPMR (446 Tier1), APCO25 (Phase AGC to Fast, Mid, Slow and Manual. In
1), D-STAR, Yaesu C4FM, Alinco (EJ47U), manual mode, RF Gain is adjustable, and a
and (Japanese) D-CR. 10dB attenuator is included.
The set automatically detects and The DV10 allows the operator to
resolves all these digital signals. Moreover, adjust the squelch threshold, with the
a COPAS-SARSAT beacon decoder is level displayed on the screen. There are
available as an option. The DV10 measures three types of squelch: Noise Squelch
65X137X41mm (WHD) and weighs 420g. (NSQ) is used for FM and digital modes,
The receiver comes with a number of and Level Squelch (LSQ) is used for
accessories (Fig. 3): AC Adaptor, battery AM, SSB and CW. Tone squelch is also
pack, charger cradle, belt clip, cigar lighter available (CTCSS/DCS).
DC/DC converter, alkaline battery tray, micro A variety of step sizes are provided, from
SD card/ SD card holder, telescopic/ ‘rubber- 10Hz up to 500kHz. This should suit most
duck’ aerials, and manual. needs. However, I did not ind the capability
In the hand, the DV10 feels more like a to enter custom step sizes during this
two-way transceiver. The aerial mounting on review. But there is a Step-Adjust mode;
top of the set is of the BNC type and has a tuning steps can be offset by a selected
1 rubber sealing ring at the base. For FM band amount, to allow for non-standard channel

Review
allocations. In digital reception, the IF

bandwidth is ixed. For analogue modes,
it can be changed in increments, which
depend on mode.
The DV10 is provided with CTCSS and
DCS decoding which can also be used in
conjunction with Tone Squelch so that the
radio only receives signals with the correct
signalling tone.
An analogue voice de-scrambler is
included. For NXDN the DV10 can detect
scramble codes and display these. One of
the features that will be of interest to many
is the receiver’s ability to record and save
signals to a micro SD card.
In Use
I was able to perform basic SINAD
(signal-to-noise and distortion ratio)
measurements on the DV10, using my
signal generator and a separate analyser.
I undertook some comparisons with other
receivers of known performance, and I was
thus able to ascertain that, by comparison,
the DV10 has similar sensitivity to some of
its current (less advanced) contemporaries.
Sensitivity too is in line with other models.
Regarding optimum frequency accuracy
and drift, irmware version1810A has
introduced the useful ‘XTAL Offset’
facility, with which users can manually
shift the receiver.
I got a fair way into operating the radio
before I needed to consult the manual.
Buttons are clearly marked, and it seemed
obvious. A prolonged press of a button
brings up a sub-menu, there is no ‘Function’
key. You will need the manual when scrolling
through the sub-menus. A press of the ‘CLR’
button will bring the user immediately back
to the main window. 2
The concentric scroll knob houses the

Volume control in the centre and the outer aspects of AM reception. On medium with a third, ‘VFO Z’ used for storage of
control the Dial. The latter is used to change wave, the 15 and 8kHz ilters worked well. scanned memory channels. Switching
frequency, step through memory channels On short wave, I mainly used the 8 and between VFO’s A and B is a simple matter
and select many of the radios parameters. 5.5 kHz ilters. On air band, the 8kHz ilter of a quick press of the Enter button. Once
While the display is generally clear and easy worked best in most cases, except where an appropriate step size has been set, the
to read, under certain lighting conditions transmissions were offset, here I had to user may tune the radio up and down in
I had problems. use the 15kHz ilter. On SSB, the user has frequency using the outer control knob and
Frequency entry is a simple matter of the option of 2.6 or 1.8kHz, and both offer adjusting the volume with the inner knob.
keying in the frequency and pressing Enter. good audio quality. The 1.8kHz ilter was The Left and Right Arrow buttons (Cursor
Once entered, parameters like Mode, Step useful on the occasions where the amateur Keys) can be used to change frequency; the
Size, Bandwidth, and so on, are selected in bands were busy. tuning rate seemed to be related to tuning
the appropriate Menu. Within a short while, I When switched to CW, there are two step by a factor of 10.
was able to do this without thinking about it. options of 500 and 200Hz and I found both Sensibly, along with the rubber aerial,
ilters worked well, with minimal ringing. a telescopic whip has been provided. I
Bandwidths, Modes and Aerials On FM, you can select between 30, 15 and measured the VSWR of the supplied rubber
A number of bandwidths are only available 6kHz, and, when on the FM broadcast band, aerial to get an idea of its performance, and
in certain modes. For AM, bandwidths 100kHz is also available. When using digital its swept response can be seen in (Fig. 4).
of 15, 8, 5.5 and 3.8kHz are available, modes, bandwidths are ixed. The markers are numbered 1-6 with the
and these were entirely suitable for all The DV10 has two VFOs, ‘A’ and ‘B’, frequency in white and the SWR in yellow. I

Review
Fig. 3: The AOR AR-DV10, as supplied with all its

accessories. Fig. 4: The measured performance of
the supplied ‘rubber-duck’ aerial. Fig. 5: HDSDR
playing back a long recording of BBC Radio 5.
have read claims that the aerial has been op-

timised for airband use; looking at markers
1 & 2, this would seem to be the case.
Performance on HF
The AOR AR-DV10 is, of course, not a dedi-
cated short wave receiver, but if you do
want to use it to listen to HF, as some do,
you should bear in mind that, using any
scanner with an end-fed aerial will produce
overloading, noise and reception of only the
strongest of signals.
Attenuation is not the solution to this, as,
any radios (scanners) of the size and com-
pactness of the AR-DV10 are not able to ac-
commodate front-end iltering, whether it be
bandpass or tuneable iltering – principally
owing to a lack of space.
A short whip antenna will make a dif-
ference, but it will also drastically re-
duce signal levels.
Bear in mind, moreover, that, if you wish
to delve into HF with any radio such as this
one, the irst thing needed is a correct im-
pedance match – not something an end-
fed aerial can do. A dramatic improvement
results when an antenna tuning unit (ATU)
is added because it offers front-end band-
pass iltering.
Therefore, any limitations to HF per-
formance of the AOR AR-DV10 are by no 3
means restricted to this receiver, and, with

the correct aerial termination, HF perfor- good overall, with plenty of output but I did decoding was attempted, and the DV10
mance is quite good. note a degradation of audio quality at high- did display that it was decoding P25 and
I really enjoyed sitting in my garden in the er output levels. the NAC code of each channel, but, as I be-
evening, during the tail end of the summer By far the majority of signals I can hear lieve the channels are encrypted, that was
heat wave, and into the autumn months, outside of the amateur bands on UHF are as far as I got.
listening to medium wave and HF broad- DMR. Overall the DV10 decoded these with- Of those signals I found, the DV10 au-
cast stations and the stronger amateur out problems. However, reception dete- tomatically decided which modes it was
stations using just the supplied telescopic riorated, to some extent when the set got receiving, and it quickly started to decode
whip, where I experienced no overload prob- warm, such as when the backlight had been them. I noted that, if there was an interfering
lems at all. The same applied during even- on for a period. signal on a channel which also had a digital
ing walks I took along the footpaths near to I found that the DV10 easily decoded system on it, then manual mode had to be
me. I used an earpiece and tuned around the simplex DMR, no matter what distance the selected for correct decoding. At no time did
shortwave bands enjoying the noise-free en- transmitter was from it. One observation for I detect any problems with overloading due
vironment of the countryside. DMR is the ilter bandwidth; this is ixed at to pagers or other strong signals.
15 kHz which, in my view, is a tad too wide Audio quality was reasonably good, but I
VHF and Above for DMR; the only information that seems sometimes noted a noise in the background
I found the radio’s performance on the VHF to be displayed on the screen is the colour when the set was squelched; this was more
and UHF bands to be very good, both with code; there was no indication of radio ID, the noticeable when using an earpiece. When
the supplied aerials and also when using talk group in use or system type. set near the threshold, the squelch was
my base discone. There are a number of an- On the VHF PMR bands, I was able to de- sometimes ‘spluttery’ and needed setting
alogue and digital signals to be heard from code not only a lot of DMR but also a num- some way past minimum to avoid this.
nearby Stansted airport, and the DV10 was ber of NXDN signals.
capable of searching and inding those. I experienced some false decoding with Battery Life and Charger
Analogue reception was found to be NXDN but not enough to be a problem. P25 Battery life depends on the operating condi-

Review
back from the SD card into applications

such as HDSDR for later playback and de-
tailed analysis – a very useful addition.
The screenshot in Fig. 5 shows
HDSDR playing back a long recording
of BBC Radio 5.
Using the IQ recording function, I saved
some DMR transmissions to the SD card
and I played them back later through DSD+,
the latter being fed via HDSDR This com-
bination worked well and, of course, I was
able to continually replay the recordings. A
screenshot of DSD+ can be seen in Fig. 6.
AOR has now added a recording type
selection in the CONFIG menu. Here,
the user can toggle between AUDIO,
DISCRIMINATOR, and I/Q. This removes
4 the need to add a DISC.txt ile into the SD
card to initiate a discriminator recording.
Furthermore, in order to differentiate be-
tween recording types, recording ile names
start with ‘0’ (zero) for audio, ‘D’ for discrimi-
nator and ‘Q’ for I/Q.
Scanning and Memory.

Scanning and searching were reasonably
fast, and these functions are easily ac-
cessed via the Menu. I set up numerous
searches on the VHF and UHF bands and
found that the DV10 was effective at inding
busy channels. Search speed was reason-
able, and I did not note that the scan missed
many signals despite the squelch having to
be wound up reasonably tightly.
With the mode set to ‘Auto’, the DV10
5 scans, and it stops on any analogue or
digital signals, resolving those as they are
tions determined by the user. In normal use, point was that the DV10 would still charge found. When searching, users have a num-
I found the DV10 managed to eagerly eat the battery while the set was being used. ber of options to choose from, and cus-
into battery life. While using the set at an tomisation is possible. To enable to skip
air show, I decided to concentrate purely on Recording Features (search-pass) function, the user needs to
decoding DMR being used on the day. The Starting and stopping recording is simplicity delve into the menu; it might be better to
backlight was set to ‘Off’, and all monitor- in itself, with a single press of the Record have this function somewhat closer to hand
ing was done on a single channel, through button on the front panel. To play back in future versions.
an earpiece. The DV10 was switched on audio, a long press of the Record button To set a memory channel, users can
at around 8:30 am; by 4 pm, I realised that will bring up the ‘List’ menu and recordings long-press the Enter key once a signal has
the radio had gone silent as the battery may be selected for playback. Details of been found. The next free channel num-
was lat. For a full day’s monitoring, there- time, date and duration are stored with ber is displayed, and, if you are happy with
fore, a spare battery would be desirable, recordings, but not frequency or mode. the mode and IF bandwidth settings, a few
and the supplied Alkaline battery tray is a Received signals can be recorded in more presses will store the data. If you wish
useful addition. WAV format in 16-bit, 38.400kHz-mono, to store a name to the channel or edit de-
The battery charger has to be plugged and each recording has a ile number tails, the procedure is no more complex than
directly into the DV10 to get at least some that is incremented by 1 each time. Long in most other scanners – and easier than
charge into the battery before the charging recordings are split into 100MB chunks, some I can think of.
cradle will work. The DC input to the DV10 is which each represent about 21 minutes of There are a number of other options that
rated from 6.5-10.5V, so it is not possible to recording, This works out at around three can be used when storing memories.
power it from the usual 13.8V found in most and a half hours per GB. Scanning appears to be adequately fast,
shacks. I did note that there was some dis- The latest irmware version, very usefully, and it did not take long to work through a full
tortion on HF when the set was in its charg- also enables IQ recording. bank of stored frequencies. There is a simi-
er and that the charger itself did generate While the bandwidth is quite narrow (30 lar procedure to pass memory channels as
some noise on the lower frequencies. A plus kHz) it will enable recordings to be played there is with a search pass.

Review
Fig. 6: A screenshot of DSD+.

Fig. 7: The large screen of the AOR AR-DV10.
Memory banks can be linked for scan-

ning, making it easy to select what channels
to monitor. Recalling memory channels is
simply done by pressing Menu and press-
ing Enter twice.
When using a CTCSS Scan to look for sig-
nalling tones, I found that the DV10 quickly
locked on to any tones detected, and imme-
diately displayed them on the screen.
Conclusions
I enjoyed using the DV10 during what was
an agreeably long review period, and I used
both the 1807A and the 1810A versions
of the irmware. This gave me a thorough
chance to evaluate this new receiver.
I achieved some very good results when
using it in a variety of different places
and environments.
Early issues with the radio, such as occa-
sional ‘lock-ups’, appear now to have been 6
addressed, as I did not experience any after

the irmware update. I did note some prob- cording modes in the latest irmware update
lems with the earlier irmware version during currently, I believe, puts the DV10 ahead
the hot weather and also later on with the of its rivals in this respect. It hosts a large
updated irmware when the set was warm. screen and numerous reception modes,
However, throughout a cold and wet airshow which, again, puts it ahead of its competi-
day, the set resolved DMR very well. tors (e.g. Fig. 7).
In this price range, I would have expect- The DV10 will give the user a discreet,
ed frequency accuracy/drift to be some- and very comprehensive, capacity for inter-
what better, but the errors in the review cepting and recording signals at just about
model were nowhere near as bad as some any location and anywhere within the large
reports I have seen, and the user can now range of frequency spectrum the set covers.
‘trim’ the set to the correct frequency, via a To be able to playback on the radio (and
new menu option. now with the latest update) also analyse on
Overall, the ergonomics of the DV10 are a computer what was recorded via I/Q or
good; it feels solid and well made. Owners discriminator, is a further important asset.
will soon ind their way around the men- The DV10 has a lot of features, and I am 7
us. With some practice, it is simple to step sure that future irmware updates will fur-
through the menu structure to select fre- ther add to these.
quency, mode, bandwidth and so on. I found I would like to thank Jeff and Peter Links
it easy to do this with just one hand. The Waters, and Mike Devereux, for the loan of https://tinyurl.com/ycf2tste
ability to save recordings to the card at any the DV10 review unit and for the assistance https://tinyurl.com/yct6spgd
time is a great feature, and the additional re- given throughout the review.
Scanner,
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Airband News
An Avenger at Duxford.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles at

Manchester Airport
David Smith reports on UAV tests at Manchester, a common VHF channel’s
change to 8.33kHz spacing, and runway capacity at Heathrow and London
City Airports, before profiling Belfast Aldergrove Airport.
ter landing, were designed to showcase how livering parcels, investigating crash sites to
David Smith it is possible to unlock the enormous social inspecting industrial installations, drones
dj.daviator@btinternet.com and economic beneit of drones while pro- have a great deal to offer and we believe
tecting today’s manned aviation. that carving up the skies to offer commer-
peration Zenith, an ambi- Live-streamed to an invited audi-
O
cial drones a slice of segregated airspace is
tious drone demonstration at ence at the Royal Aeronautical Society not the answer. From our perspective, allow-
Manchester Airport, has shown in London, Operation Zenith is the UK’s ing visible UAVs safe access into controlled,
that drones can be lown safely irst contribution to the recently-launched integrated, airspace is the best way forward,
alongside manned aircraft in European Commission’s U-Space both for the drone industry itself and for avia-
controlled airspace. Demonstrator Network. tion as a whole.
The drones, overseen by NATS air trafic https://www.aerosociety.com “With the number of drone-related air-
controllers communicating with drone op- https://tinyurl.com/yc22b72t space incidents on the rise, it is essential that
erators via Altitude Angel’s Guardian UTM Employing air trafic management sys- we take steps now in order to create a safe
Airspace Management Operating System, tems and technology interfaces that are environment for UAVs to be integrated with
successfully performed a series of on-air- compliant with U-Space programme require- manned aircraft and factor their presence
ield tasks without endangering or disrupt- ments, the success of Operation Zenith pro- into redesigned airspace that is able to cope
ing airport operations. vides a realistic view of a future in which with the increasing demands of modern avia-
The carefully-planned unmanned aerial UAVs can be lown safely within visual line tion in our busy skies.”
vehicle (UAV) scenarios, which included an of sight, and beyond (VLOS/BVLOS), in inte- Chris Wild, Head of Airield Operations at
equipment delivery, runway inspections and grated airspace. Manchester Airport, added, “We are delight-
obeying an automated instruction to clear In the words of Alastair Muir, NATS Safety ed how the demonstration came together to
the skies for an emergency police helicop- Director, “From distributing medicines to de- showcase how manned and unmanned avia-

Airband News
ATC Profiles 10: Belfast Aldergrove Airport

piloted and unmanned aviation to take
ICAO Code: EGAA IATA Code: BFS place in harmony.”
SAFETYCOM Conversion to
Frequencies (MHz) Hours of Operation 8.33kHz Voice Channel Spac-
Aldergrove Approach/Radar 128.500 H24
Aldergrove Director 120.900 As directed by ATC ing
Aldergrove Tower 118.300 H24 At aerodromes having no notiied VHF chan-
Aldergrove Ground 121.750 As directed by ATC
Aldergrove Fire 121.600 (non-ATC) Fire vehicles attending aircraft on the ground nel, a common channel is available to assist
ATIS pilots to avoid potential collisions between
Aldergrove Information 128.200 H24 arriving and departing aircraft. Pilots may
Navaids ILS CAT III on Runway 25 CAT I on Runway 17 use the channel to broadcast their inten-
NDB OY 332kHz
DME/VOR BEL tions for safety purposes, and there should
Runways 07 2780m x 45m be no response, except when the pilot of an-
25 2 x 45m other aircraft transmits his intentions.
17 The channel assigned is 135.480MHz,
35
known as SAFETYCOM. All pilots should
Holds BEL VOR
OY NDB be aware that SAFETYCOM is not a UK
Notes (A-Z) equivalent to the UNICOM system used
CAT II/III Operations in the United States and does not work
Runway 25, subject to the serviceability of the required facilities is suitable for Category ll/lll Operations by in the same way.
operators whose minima have been accepted by the CAA. During Category II/III operations, ATC Low Visibility
Procedures will be applied. Pilots will be informed when these procedures are in operation by ATIS or by radio. As a shared channel, used in many dif-
Pilots can expect a low rate of ten per hour for arrivals, and ten per hour for departures. Runway 25 is suitable for ferent locations, SAFETYCOM is expect-
Lower than Standard Category I operations, subject to the ILS radiating at CAT III and LVPs being declared in force ed to be a busy channel, with a signiicant
by ATC, and for operators whose minima have been accepted by the CAA.
probability of breakthrough to users at
Frequency Monitoring Code (FMC)
Pilots operating in the vicinity of, but intending to remain outside, Belfast Aldergrove controlled airspace and other locations.
maintaining a listening watch only on Aldergrove Approach frequency, 128.500 MHz, are encouraged to select It is important to remember that
SSR code 7045. Selection of 7045 does not imply the receipt of an ATC service. Aircraft displaying the code are
not expected to contact Aldergrove. While squawking 7045, pilots should be aware that Aldergrove Approach may Radiotelephony (RTF) content must be con-
make ‘blind’ transmissions in order to ascertain a particular aircraft’s intentions/route. cise, unambiguous, and that it should in-
When a pilot ceases to maintain a listening watch, code 7045 should be deselected. clude the name of the aerodrome.
Handling Agents SAFETYCOM is not to be used as a ‘chat
HAE, Jet Assist, Swissport 130.600MHz
Global Trek Aviation, Woodgate Executive Charter (UK) Ltd 130.175MHz channel’ or for the conduct of formation
EAC (GA and private jet aircraft). lights. To reduce the probability of break-
Holding through, it is also important that transmis-
When Runway 25 or 17 is in use, in order to expedite trafic, aircraft may be transferred from VOR BEL holding
pattern to NDB OY holding pattern, prior to carrying out the approach procedure. The primary holding pattern will sions are only made within the height and
be a 1-minute race-track pattern based on VOR BEL. An alternative holding pattern based on NDB OY may be used range limits for the channel. Transmissions
instead. should only be made up to a maximum
North Atlantic Jet Departures range of 10nm from the aerodrome or loca-
Jet aircraft routing via Oceanic Entry Points GOMUP or ETILO must request oceanic clearance from Aldergrove
ATC at least 30 minutes prior to departure. Jet aircraft entering oceanic airspace at all other entry points should tion of intended landing, and below 2,000ft
request oceanic clearance from Shanwick as soon as possible after departure. Pilots are reminded that oceanic above the elevation of that aerodrome
clearance (including level allocation) issued prior to departure is valid only from the Entry Point. Domestic ATC
clearance to the Entry Point is issued separately. or landing site.
VFR Helicopter Operations Within Aldergrove Control Zone SAFETYCOM will be monitored by the
Operation - Outbound: The pilot must lift into the hover to a height of not greater than 200ft above ground level, CAA. Any evidence of abuse may result in
squawking 7000 and obtain zone clearance. Aldergrove ATC will pass on any appropriate trafic information. Only its withdrawal; the continued use of 25kHz
when clearance has been received, can the light set course, subject to any restrictions, which Aldergrove ATC
may impose. Operation - Inbound: Contact should be made, where possible, with Aldergrove Approach, at least ten radio equipment is not permitted. Pilots
minutes lying time before Belfast-controlled airspace, with a request for clearance to enter. The pilot must report should not assume that all other pilots in
when descending into the private site.
the vicinity are monitoring the same chan-
Visual Reference Points (VRP)
To facilitate the integration of VFR lights within the Belfast Airspace, pilots may be required to join/leave the nel. Use of SAFETYCOM is optional, and
airspace via speciied VRPs: there may be non-radio aircraft in the area.
Ballymena; Cluntoe (Disused aerodrome); Glengormley (M2 Junction 4); Toome (Disused aerodrome). In the vicinity of a microlight or gliding site,
Warnings pilots may be monitoring one of the sport-
The attention of pilots is drawn to the existence of Langford Lodge aerodrome. This unlicensed aerodrome,
situated 3nm south-west of Belfast Aldergrove, is provided with crossed Runways 08/26 and 03/21. Pilots making ing use channels. It is therefore important
approaches to Belfast Aldergrove, when Runway 07 is in use, should exercise due caution to ensure they have that, as at all other times, pilots maintain
identiied the correct aerodrome. The 07 approach and runway lights will be selected ‘ON’ whenever 07 is in use,
regardless of weather conditions. Model aircraft lying takes place at Nutts Corner, a disused aerodrome situated a good lookout.
3nm south-east of Aldergrove, and also at Langford Lodge.
Improved Procedures Add
Runway Capacity to Heathrow
tion can be undertaken collaboratively, within have been real foci for us over the last few It is claimed that Enhanced Time Based
controlled airspace. years. As an airport, we are fully supportive Separation (ETBS) has increased operation-
“Manchester Airport handles over of co-operative drone operations, and we al capacity by approximately 1.4 additional
200,000 air transport movements. Drone are committed to inluencing regulation landings per hour in all wind conditions. This
use, regulation and technological mitigation and embracing new technology that allows added operational resilience helps the air-

Airband News
port deliver to plan, enables airlines to keep and local communities are not affected by pair of aircraft type will have its own separa-
to their schedules, and reduces the noise late running arrivals. tion standard, as opposed to the six catego-
impact on local communities. Heathrow is capped at 480,000 move- ries used today. This is hoped to optimise
The use of Time Based Separation (TBS) ments per annum. Therefore, this addition- the gaps between arrivals and departures at
for London Heathrow arrivals is continu- al tactical capacity is said to be translating single runway airports.
ing to deliver major operational improve- into an improvement of on-time perfor-
ments, with the latest analysis revealing mance and a better passenger experience. Potential Confusion for
the added beneits of new tools introduced Heathrow is, so far, the only airport in the London City Airport’s Radar
earlier this year. world where arriving aircraft are separated A proposed viewing platform on a City
In March, an enhanced version of the using dynamically calculated time intervals, of London building project known as the
system (eTBS) was brought into ser- as opposed to set distances. This allows Tulip Tower is facing serious objections.
vice by NATS, bringing with it a more re- them to be adjusted in real-time, in order to Gondolas designed to move up and down
ined set of wake categories developed suit the prevailing wind conditions and help the top of the tower are at risk of confusing
by Eurocontrol, as well as new separation maintain the landing rate. ATC systems, according to telecommunica-
tools. These enhancements have helped The eTBS technology still shows wake tion specialists at London City Airport.
make the operation more resistant to de- pair markers or separation indications to The moving gondolas may have a
lays and disruption. the approach controllers. However, it now slightly different effect from the static
The irst four months of eTBS operations also models the compression between element of the building. Oficials told the
saw a tactical capacity gain of approxi- each arriving pair as they slow down on authority considering whether to give
mately 1.4 additional aircraft landings per inal approach. A runway occupancy in- planning permission that construction
hour in all wind conditions, with an addition- dicator for pairs of arriving aircraft is on the 305m (1,000ft} tower must not be
al 1.6 arrivals in strong headwinds, over and also displayed, when the time spent get- started until its potential impact on radar
above the 0.8 additional landings (2.6 addi- ting off the runway is more limiting than systems at the airport, six miles to the east,
tional in strong winds) already achieved by wake separation. has been assessed.
the original TBS. NATS intends to continue adding tools This month’s picture is of an Avenger
That is the equivalent of extending and reinements to the TBS system, creat- at Duxford – the very aircraft once
Heathrow’s operating day by 30 minutes, ing a suite of functionality it calls ‘Intelligent lown by the recently-deceased ex-US
which helps ensure the airport can deliver Approach’. The next step will see the intro- President George Bush Senior. The clue is
to plan, airlines can keep to their schedules duction of Pairwise Separation. Here, each in the name….
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Maritime Matters
COURTESY OF XOCEAN
Unmanned Surface Vehicles
and a Golden Globe Rescue
In this month’s column, we learn about the scientific use of unmanned
surface vessels, AIS technologies, such as CSTDMA and SOTDMA, and the
challenging rescue of yachtswoman Susie Goodall in December 2018.
Fig.1: The XOCEAN Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV).
Robert Connolly However, this proved not to be the case. mum range of eighteen days or just over
gi7ivx@btinternet.com I discovered the USV was undergoing tri- 1500 nautical miles.
als using two local sites and was owned by As the USV is an over-the-horizon-operat-
XOCEAN, a company based in Carlingford,
R
ecently, while carrying out a rou- ed craft, it has to be seen by other shipping.
tine check of local shipping with Co Louth, just a few miles from my home lo-
the vesselinder.com mobile cation. A local Notice to Mariners (NTM) de- AIS Technologies
phone app, I noticed an unusual tailed testing of this vessel at a site within Apart from the usual navigation lights,
return, in the form of a vessel Carlingford Lough, and at a further site, just sound signal and active radar relec-
identifying itself as ‘XO-2B’, with a UK radio outside the Lough in the open sea. tor, it is equipped with an Automatic
callsign, and showing as an unmanned sur- The NTM also stated that the USV would Identiication System transponder (AIS-B).
face vessel (USV). be accompanied by a safety vessel during This allows other vessels to see the USV on
For me, this was one of those occasions the testing and that the latter would have their AIS display.
when something unusual shows up, and I the facility to override the remote control AIS class A and B both use the same ma-
subsequently started to carry out further carried out from its base. rine VHF frequencies: AIS1 (161.975MHz,
investigations as to what the vessel was The USV (Fig. 1) is a composite, wave- CH87B) and AIS 2 (162.025 MHz, CH88B).
and what it may be doing. Initially, I thought piercing, catamaran, 4.5 metres in length, Class B AIS operates using either Carrier-
that it may be associated with a planned 2.2 metres wide, 2.2 metres in height, and Sense Time-Division Multiple-Access
wind farm, to be located a few miles south weighing 750kg. It can carry a payload of (CSTDMA) or Self-Organized Time Division
of here. A surface vessel had recently been 100kg and is propelled by two DC drives, Multiple Access (SOTDMA).
carrying out several surveys of that site. providing a speed of 3.5 knots with a maxi- There are two separate IMO speciica-
FREE P&P for all UK orders purchased at www.radioenthusiast.co.uk/store

Maritime Matters
tions for Class B. There are some places where SAR tasks are
Aimed at lighter commercial and leisure
markets, CSTDMA transceivers listen to the difficult and complicated, due to sheer remoteness.
slot-map immediately prior to transmitting
and seek a slot where the ‘noise’ in the slot
The worst sea area for rescuing a casualty is,
is the same or similar to the background arguably, the Southern Ocean...
noise, thereby indicating that the slot is not
being used by another AIS device.
Class B AIS transmits at 2W, unlike Class to the area it has been assigned to operate need to wait for up to 24 hours, while the
A, which has a transmit power of 12.5W. Its in. Once launched, it is normally escorted casualty on a vessel comes within range of
default transmit rate is normally every 30 by a safety vessel until it is in open sea, and the helicopter.
seconds, but this can be varied according to then remote-control operations by the USV These tasks normally involve a helicop-
vessel speed. Class B equipment receives pilots take over. ter and aircraft acting as ‘top-cover’ to relay
all types of AIS messages. XOCEAN has several units of this type of communications and provide initial assis-
Class A AIS has 27 message types availa- craft. They can be equipped with various tance, should the rescue helicopter encoun-
ble overall, and the class B transponder has sensors, including multi-beam sonar, with a ter technical problems.
only four, shown in Table 1. frequency range of 200 to 400kHz. For nav- In mid-Atlantic, the rescue of any ca-
igation positioning and attitude correction, sualty will normally involve ships that are
Control, Safety and Uplinking it uses Global Navigation Satellite System close by and, perhaps, a ixed-wing aircraft
In addition to the normal navigation equip- (GNSS) with Differential Global Positioning dropping additional survival equipment to
ment, the USV is equipped with cameras System (DGPS) correction, providing an ac- the casualty vessel to assist survival until
that provide a 3600 view, uplinked by secure curacy of two centimetres. a ship arrives.
satellite broadband. This provides the USV Unmanned vessels have been around There are some places where SAR
pilots located at the XOCEAN base (Fig. 2), for a while, and the military has been using tasks are dificult and complicated, due
with a live video feed, and it enables them them for exercises. More recently, the to sheer remoteness. The worst sea
to, not only be aware of shipping in the area wider civilian use of the USVs has been area for rescuing a casualty is, arguably,
in which the USV is operating but also to developed for various survey operations. the Southern Ocean, where rescues can
take avoiding action, if required, to prevent Initially, control was carried out by the take several days.
a potential safety incident. operator who had visual contact with the This is not helped by gale force winds
The qualiied USV pilots are able to fully vessel. However, with the development and enormous waves.
control the craft remotely, by means of a of ‘over the horizon’ control, using secure In December 2018, a British yachtswom-
secure satellite broadband system. They satellite communications, operations an, Susie Goodall, was taking part in a sin-
can check the quality and remotely adjust provide valuable insight into how larger gle-handed, non-stop, around-the-world-
– where required – any data received from (commercial, unmanned) cargo vessels race called the Golden Globe. Two thousand
the sensors on board, for the type of survey could work safely. miles west of the Cape of Good Hope she
that they have been tasked with. In theory, XOCEAN USVs could be de- encountered a severe storm, nothing un-
Currently, survey types include isheries, ployed anywhere in the world for sur- usual for this area, and her yacht violently
bathymetric and environmental surveys, vey work. They can be safely controlled pitched end-over. This caused the mast and
along with ocean data and data harvest- by qualiied pilots located at the compa- rigging to be lost overboard, leaving her un-
ing. The USV is designed to be transported ny HQ in Ireland. able to jury-rig (a form of emergency-mast-
and launched by trailer at a harbour closest My thanks go to Claire Quinn, Marketing sails-and-tiller installation) the yacht.
and Communications Specialist at The Golden Globe yacht race requires
XOCEAN, for kindly providing me with addi- all entrants to use the same – or very sim-
Type 14: Safety-related message.
tional information on their craft, and also to ilar – equipment and operate technolo-
Type 18: Standard Class B position report. This message
XOCEAN for the use of their images. More gy that was carried on board Robin Knox-
is sent every 3 minutes, where speed over ground (SOG) is
information on XOCEAN may be found here: Johnston’s 1968/69 race-winning yacht.
less than 2 knots (or every 30 seconds for greater speeds).
www.xocean.com Entry is open to sailors who have already
It provides the name, MMSI, time, speed, course, position,
and true heading. completed at least 8,000 miles of ocean
Long-Range SAR and Tough sailing, plus at least 2,000 miles of solo
Type 19: Extended class B equipment position report. This
Races ocean sailing. As this is a ‘retro’-type race,
message was designed for the SOTDMA protocol and is too
As a general rule, when we think of Search equipment requirements mean that modern
long to be transmitted as CSTDMA. However, a coast sta-
tion can poll the transceiver for this message to be sent. and Rescue (SAR) tasks, it is normally navigation and communications equipment
something that will involve the coastguard, must not be carried. This includes GPS,
Type 24: Class B static data report (MMSI, boat name, ship
an RNLI inshore or all-weather lifeboat and, electronic charts and plotters, along with all
type, call sign, dimensions, and equipment vendor ID). This
on occasions, a coastguard rescue heli- electronic and computer-based navigation
message is sent every 6 minutes, the same time interval as
Class A transponders for this message type. Because of its copter. Such tasks are normally inished equipment – even recreational equipment,
length, this message is divided into two parts, sent within relatively quickly. such as mobile phones and CD players.
one minute of each other. Larger SAR tasks, such as those under- The participants’ yachts are equipped
taken off the western coast of the British with an AIS transponder without access to
Table 1: The Four AIS Class B Transponder Isles in the Atlantic, tend to last longer, due GPS. Navigation is carried out using a sex-
Message Types. to the distances involved, or because of the tant and paper charts. The yachts must car-
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Maritime Matters
COURTESY OF XOCEAN
ry, not just marine VHF radio equipped with
both the International and United States
channels, but also an MF/HF transceiver
with a minimum transmitter power of 125W
and a frequency range from 1.6 to 29.9MHz,
along with a permanently-installed, ground-
ed, antenna and an emergency antenna.
Other equipment required includes a ra-
dio direction inder, for receiving marine and
aviation navigation radio beacons, an inde-
pendent general coverage receiver, capable
of receiving weather bulletins and interna-
tional time signals, a hand-held, waterproof,
marine VHF transceiver with spare battery,
another (waterproof) transceiver, capable
of one or more aviation VHF frequencies
including 121.5 MHz, and a personal AIS
beacon. In addition to the permitted equip-
ment, yachts are supplied with a sealed
safety pack, which includes two hand-held
GPS units. Yachts are itted with a track-
er, which updates the vessel’s position ev-
ery two hours to race control. Competitors
must also carry a satellite phone, used for
mandatory weekly (scheduled and emer- Fig. 2: USV Pilots at XOCEAN HQ.
gency) contacts with race control, and
which cannot be left permanently switched satellite, to a ground (earth) receiving sta- away, which would take two days to ar-
on. Position reports should be mostly tion. The signal is relayed to a Maritime rive at the scene.
made by HF radio. Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC). Race Control kept in hourly contact with
Depending on the type of EPIRB in use, Susie via satellite phone, and their medical
Susie Goodall’s Rescue position accuracy can be from three miles team provided advice on treating her inju-
Susie Goodall’s yacht was disabled, due to around 50 metres, if it is GPS- enabled. ries. The team also worked with her to pre-
to the loss of the mast and sails. Her The EPIRB distress signal contains the reg- pare an evacuation plan, for when the cargo
main HF and VHF radio antennas would istered Maritime Mobile Service Identity ship arrived. With high seas in the area, it
also have been lost, as they were mount- (MMSI) number of the vessel and is normal- would not be possible for the cargo ship to
ed onto the mast. ly forwarded to the MRCC of the country that launch its rescue rigid-inlatable; therefore,
Even though the hull of the yacht re- the MMSI is allocated to. Operators are then a plan was made to get the severely-dam-
mained intact, there was no possibility of able to establish the details of the vessel. aged 11-metre yacht alongside the 38,000
making up another emergency mast and In this case, as it was a UK-registered ves- ton, 190-metre-long bulk carrier, MV Tian Fu
sail. Moreover, radio communications sel, it was forwarded to Falmouth MRCC, and hoist the casualty on board using one
were very limited. which coordinated the rescue with the of the ship’s cranes.
The scenario had now changed, from a MRCC closest to the casualty. For this par- The yacht was a total loss, but Susie was
race to a ight for survival. ticular incident, this was an MRCC in Chile. successfully rescued. Nevertheless, it was
Had she still had the use of the emer- It was established that the yacht was still expected to be at least two more weeks be-
gency HF radio antenna, it would only have water-tight, although it had taken on sea fore the cargo ship was to arrive in a port.
been possible to rig this up at deck height, water when it lipped. It was in no immi- Table 2 details the radiotelephony fre-
thus seriously reducing the range of that nent danger of sinking, and the nearest as- quencies used for distress and SAR.
transmitter; moreover, satellite phones only set for rescue was a cargo ship, 480 miles Until next time, Fair Winds.
work when they are ‘visible’ to satellites.
Located, as she was, in such a remote re- Frequency USAGE
gion – especially with regard to commercial 2182kHz R/T Distress and safety communications
shipping – Susie would have been painfully 8215kHz R/T Low-power distress and safety calls, used for both ships and aircraft in SAR roles
aware that it could be several days before 8291kHz R/T Distress and safety communications
12290kHz R/T Distress and safety communications
help was to, eventually, reach her.
16420kHz R/T Distress and safety communications
Judging by the reports I read, it seems 121.5MHz Aero SAR Aeronautical emergency Frequency
that she activated the vessel’s Emergency 123.1MHz Aero SAR Auxiliary aeronautical frequency
Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), 156.3MHz VHF CH06 for SAR ops between ships and aircraft
knowing that it could be up to 45 minutes 156.8MHz VHF CH16 Distress/ Safety communications. May also be used by aircraft (safety purposes only)
before a satellite would come into range 406 - 406.1MHz EPIRB Exclusively for EPIRB earth to space.
9200 - 9500MHz SAR Transponder. Used by radar transponders to facilitate SAR operations
to relay its signal. The EPIRB operates on
406MHz. It transmits a coded signal, via Table 2: Distress/ SAR Radio Telephony Frequencies.

Emerging Issues in Radio
Radio TechCon:
It’s All Systems Go!
Chrissy Brand joins the audio broadcast technical community at the
RadioTech Con gathering. Furthermore, she brings us news of immersive
audio, loudness standards, and the need for staff and programme diversity.
Chrissy Brand London (Fig. 1). The opening speaker was Judy
chrissyLB@hotmail.co.uk https://www.radiotechcon.com/2018 Parnall, chair of the European
https://www.theiet.org Broadcasting Union (EBU).
R
adioTech Con is an important The EIT venue is an appropriate setting https://www.ebu.ch/home
event in the radio and audio indeed; a hallowed place where the great She emphasised that radio audiences
industry’s calendar, as it and the good in this field are honoured in a in Europe are still very high. The average
provides opportunities to photo staircase gallery. The IET is, “inspiring reach across audiences was 85% in 2017,
find out what’s new, what’s the next generation of engineers and and 82% of those aged between 15 and 24.
innovative and, sometimes, what didn’t technicians Informing the wider engineering Methods of consuming radio are ‘changing’,
work so well. It also allows professionals community and Influencing government rather than ‘disappearing’. She stated how
a chance to catch up and to make new and standards to advance society.” That’s radio is still popular, “even medium wave
contacts. When woven together, this all aids very much what Radio Tech Con does, and long wave.”
a smoother and better experience for the too. The IET building, as conference host Traditional radio has been added to, by
end users, the listeners. David Lloyd reminded us, was also an means of a variety of evolving technology -
For a second successive year, the 2018 early home for the BBC, back in the days especially by streaming, podcasts, mobile
RadioTech Con took place at the Institute when the C stood for ‘company’, rather reception and the use of smart speakers.
of Engineering and Technology (IET) in than ‘corporation’. Judy stated that smart speaker penetra-

ALL PICTURES: CHRISSY BRAND
5G is ten times faster Fig. 1: Organising a successful Radio TechCon
than 4G and will enable is not a piece of cake.

Fig. 2: The BBC’s Adrian Wisbey shows what
the Internet of Things the ‘big boys’ do with LUFS.
(IoT) to fully develop Fig. 3: A stark choice from Dr Yvonne

Thompson, Chair of the Radio Academy.
Fig. 4: URSpy, an innovative audio drama by
Sienna Holmes and Rebecca Saw.
tion in the UK is 11% and accounts for
1% of listening.
The advent of 5G as a ‘game-changer’ claves of yesteryear. After a little of the 2
was also mentioned. It is ten times fast- physics behind the subject – conveyed with
er than 4G and will enable the Internet of the help of a large light – delegates were
Things (IoT) to fully develop. From a radio shown how to produce the best effect.
and audio perspective, the ability to stream How to Build an Agile Studio in Just Four
to all devices, whether static or on the Weeks was the subject of another engross-
move, will herald a great shift in habits. It ing talk delivered by Hannah Austin and
will also open up new forms of content. Mark Farringdon. They were charged with
One of the current UK 5G trials is tak- turning a small meeting room into a studio
ing place in a rural community on Orkney, on a small budget, and in an innovative way,
where there is no DAB, and where inter- at Bauer Media’s ofices and studios on
net connectivity is poor. Supported by the Golden Square in London.
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Among the challenges to overcome
Sport (DCMS), the trials are beneitting the was the timescale, it would usually take
ishing industry, schools and ferries, along three months to it out a studio. The meet-
with many individuals. ing room – a more ‘echoey’ space than a
conventional studio – led to the testing of
Loudness, Lights, Studio different microphones, and a Neumann 3
Loudness standards for smart speakers mic won out. They also chose a touch-
and podcasts were the theme of Adrian screen mixer (which had the added bonus
Wisbey’s presentation. He is the princi- of being tea-proof!). Overall, the reit has
pal systems engineer at BBC Design and been a great success, and the studio is in
Engineering. Getting the loudness right for constant demand.
the audience is key; when it’s wrong, listen-
ers might retune to another station or medi- ‘Diversify or Die’
um. He ascertained that a LUFS (Loudness The chair of the Radio Academy, Dr Yvonne
Units relative to Full Scale) of -18 is best, Thompson, had a stark message to the
something that, among the major players, radio and audio industries: ‘Diversify
only NPR seems to get right (Fig. 2). or Die’ (Fig. 3).
Other presenters included Rob Webber, A recent Ofcom report stated that 81%
BBC World Service distribution manager. He of the technical staff in radio are male. 4
highlighted the issue of Radio Frequency Women make up just 37% of the sen-
Interference (RFI), where LED lights in- ior roles in radio, While 14% of the UK Holmes and Rebecca Saw developed the
terfere less with radios than the old lu- population come from minority back- URspy app, an interactive game about an
orescent lights did. However, the pow- grounds, they account for a mere 6% of the alien invasion, which uses GPS (Fig. 4). The
er-converters on cheap LED lights often radio workforce. listener is cast as the protagonist and is di-
cause problems. The Radio Academy is leading the way in rected around the campus, depending on
Rob also showed an interesting video setting an example, with its current Board of the choices they make after listening to the
by NRK, the Norwegian state broadcast- Trustees the most diverse in its 38-year his- dialogue. It seems a wonderful piece of in-
er, of radio engineers testing different ve- tory. It also ensured that half of the speak- novation, which was aided through the col-
hicle headlights, illustrating how the lights ers at its Radio Festival were female. laboration of technical and creative people
interfere with the DAB spectrum. Ensuring Yvonne emphasised that broadcasters at University Radio York.
that there is a CE mark on lights, and hop- must take more action to ensure a wider URspy won the best technical achieve-
ing the EMC Directive helps, seems to diversity of employees, looking at demo- ment at the 2018 Student Radio Awards. It is
be the best hope. graphics including age, social mobility, available as an Android app, mostly due to
A mini-masterclass in ‘Lighting for disability, sexual orientation and so on. the fact that Google Play charges a one-off
Radio’ was conducted by Jeremy Roberts Change is slowly occurring but there is still fee of $25 to upload an app, whereas Apple
from Electronic Theatre Controls and Dan a long way to go, apps cost a hefty £200 per annum.
Aldridge from Stage Electrics. With web- Two students from the University of The audio industry’s future is bright with
cams and visualisation commonplace in York’s radio station explained how they cre- creative women like this at the helm.
radio, studios are no longer the dark con- ated an audio drama on campus. Sienna www.facebook.com/URspyApp

The internet has

empowered many
people to access and
use it, and podcasts
are just a logical audio
progression of that
Best of the Rest

Other presentations included an update
on the Norwegian FM switchover, with be-
hind-the-scenes details, and the latest from
Ofcom on small-scale DAB planning and
how it its into the digital landscape.
Cordulla Schellenburger from Veritone
looked at how Artiicial Intelligence (AI) 5
can transcribe and analyse live and ar- Fig. 5: Ben Poor and Matt Gray with the radio hack created for the EBU.
chive radio content.
Tony Mattera from Ofcom explained caught the public’s imagination. Serial was
how a (temporary) 310-metre transmitter one example. It’s a US investigative jour-
mast has been erected at Emley Moor in nalism podcast, now in its third series, and
Yorkshire. A section of the transmitter tow- hosted by Sarah Koenig.
er has to be replaced as part of the 700MHz https://serialpodcast.org
clearance programme. Another factor in podcasts’ rise is that
Ben Poor and Matt Gray spoke about podcasters, broadcasters and commer-
hacking the radio and ‘hackathons’ in gen- cial companies have worked out how to
eral. The annual Electromagnetic Field ‘monetise’ them, through sponsorship or
Festival sounds like a technicians’ dream, targeted adverts.
with the attendees putting together all kinds A third reason suggested by Judy, which
of interesting hacks. They also spoke of the I thought was equally valid, was that pod-
project to create a voice-controlled radio for casts are a natural step on from mixtapes Fig. 6: New Year, New Challenge.
the European Broadcasting Union. and blogs. They also offer the added bo-
Over a one-month timescale, they man- nus of not being subject to the content The only radio plays that got produced
aged to create a usable radio, incorporat- constraints of broadcast radio. This is true and aired were those deemed ‘worthy’ of at-
ing a Raspberry Pi, which uses FM, DAB for many reasons, including that there is tracting an audience, by the powerful com-
or the internet to deliver the station of no broadcast schedule to have to it into. missioning bodies. Listeners only heard a
choice. Both software and hardware are Moreover, the content can be as risqué, tiny proportion of what was being written.
open-source so that the wider communi- political, controversial or experimental as Today, limitless dramas and views are out
ty can develop it further (Fig. 5). This proj- the individual (or the team) behind the pod- there for us all.
ect will be taken up during the EBU Digital cast might desire. Power to the podcast!
Radio Week Hackathon on February 11th One of the most entrancing podcast
and 12th, 2019. series I’ve heard recently is also North
Philippa Demonte from the University American. Archive 81 is dystopian, disturb- Radio Events
of Salford spoke of an object-based audio ing and addictive. Start at the beginning RADIOCENTRE TUNING IN
project for radio, in particular, a project de- of Series One with the strange case of Dan SCOTLAND EVENT Everyman Theatre,
veloped with the University of Surrey, the the sound archivist, holed up with a thank- Glasgow. February 7th.
University of Southampton, the BBC and less task and a draconian boss. However, https://tinyurl.com/ycv2agsu
the Engineering and Physical Sciences Episode 12, which is in Series 2 (Fly, DIALOGUE, TOLERANCE AND PEACE
Research Council (EPSRC). The Vostok-K Honeypot , February 2017) will also be of the theme of the eighth annual UNESCO
Incident is an immersive, 3D, audio drama great interest. It concerns a mythical radio World Radio Day, February 13th. Events all
using tablets, laptops and smartphones. Try station that we’d give up our souls to hear. over the globe.
it for yourself: The internet has empowered many https://tinyurl.com/ycm5apcb
www.bbc.co.uk/taster/pilots/vostok people to access and use it, and pod- RADIODAYS EUROPE
casts are just a logical audio progression Lausanne, Switzerland, March 31st to April
Podcast Popularity of that. Previously, the realism of the au- 2nd. The meeting point for the world of
Judy Parnall proffered several reasons why dio drama was the sole preserve of pub- radio and audio
podcasts are currently “having a moment”. lic service broadcasters, such as the ABC, www.radiodayseurope.com
It could be that one or two podcasts have Deutschland funk, CBC, BBC and others.

RSGB SHOP
RS G B
NEW
Power Supplies Explained Test Equipment

for the Radio Amateur
A power supply is something that is often overlooked by radio By Phillip Lawson, G4FCL
amateurs, as for many it is simply the box that provides stable DC
voltage. A modern power supply is though much more, combining This book is aimed at the radio amateur, listener and electronic enthusiast
theory that dates back to the nineteenth century incorporating the who wants to make a variety of measurements without necessarily
latest techniques in digital control, with a wealth of electronics spending a fortune on expensive test equipment. It is a very practical
practice in between. Power Supplies Explained sets out to explain book, designed to help you develop care and skill in making the most
what that box is doing, through to designing your own bespoke common and important measurements, quickly, safely and affordably.
power supply.
In this new fifth edition of Test Equipment for the Radio Amateur
Amateur, the reader
Beginners are wary of the challenging mixture of digital, analogue,will find, for the first time, extensive links to internet sources for access
magnetics and control loops, with cooling, EMC and safety to to the very latest information on construction projects, equipment and
contend with as well. Power Supplies Explained seeks to detail measurements. The sections on commercial and home-brew equipment
how circuits are chosen for the application and how circuits are have been separated for clarity, new items added and some dated items
designed including their inductors and transformers. Calculations removed. Timeless reference data has been retained; some items of
are outlined in a simple way so that the reader can use them as a technical theory have been given their own section, and extended, for
basis for their own designs. those who wish to deepen their understanding of these areas. This book
is designed to give an overview of how each item of test equipment
Chapters include descriptions of ‘linear’ supplies and a wide works, what it can be used for and even how much it might cost. Many
range of ‘switched-mode’ types from simple buck converters to general measurements, plus specific measurements on transmitters
the latest off-line high-efficiency topologies. Examples are based and receivers, are described in detail. Matters such as the effect of the
around typical radio amateur requirements and are versions of test equipment on the circuit to be measured are especially considered,
commercial products that the author has successfully designed. so that the measurement results may be interpreted correctly. A large
There are also chapters on magnetics theory, control loops, section of the Test Equipment for the Radio Amateur is devoted to home
EMC, practical construction techniques, test equipment and construction, as it is frequently possible to make an extremely useful item
much more. High voltage power supplies are included with of test equipment for a fraction of the price of its commercial counterpart.
Test Equipment for the Radio Amateur is a practical guide to getting the
Power Supplies Explained sets out to dispel the mystery and most out of your equipment and understanding exactly how your station
is performing. It is simply a must have book for every radio amateur.
E&OE (All prices shown plus p&p)
Also available on ISBN: 9781 9101 9365 6

Size: 174x240mm, 192 pages
Radio Society of Great Britain

3 Abbey Court, Priory Business Park, Bedford, MK44 3WH. Tel: 01234 832 700 Fax: 01234 831 496
www.rsgbshop.org
Building Project
Roger Thomas
drmradio@gmx.co.uk
The STEMTera
T
he STEMTera Breadboard may,
perhaps, be said to fall into the
why-didn’t-I-think-of-that cate-
gory. The depth of the enclosure
(16mm) and the four small built-
in LEDs suggest that this is no ordinary
breadboard.
Breadboard
Essentially, the STEMTera Breadboard, Roger Thomas introduces his STEMTera
Fig. 1, is an Arduino-Uno-R3 compatible
micro-controller board, built into the base
breadboard radio direct conversion receiver
of a solder-less breadboard enclosure, al- building project.
though I prefer the word protoboard, rather
than breadboard.
Using this 634-tie-point protoboard
greatly reduces any wiring needed to con-
nect an Arduino Uno board to a popu-
lated protoboard.
STEMTera was created by JP Liew and
crowd-funded through the Kickstarter
website, with more than 1,000 backers.
The ‘STEM’ acronym stands for ‘Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math’. The
STEMTera board uses two Atmel (now
part of Microchip Technology) micro-
controllers, and the main microcontrol-
ler is an ATmega328P. The second one is
an ATmega32U2, which handles the USB
communications.
Powering the STEMTera board requires
either a USB connection or an external
power supply (6 to 12V DC), plugged into 1
the 2.1mm socket. The circuit board has Fig.1: The STEMTera Breadboard.
voltage regulators that give the necessary
+5V, needed to power the microcontrollers. (TX), through the USB port. The RX and TX compatible base that enables LEGO bricks
There is also a 3.3V regulator for devices or LEDs are controlled by the ATmega32U2 to be connected directly to the underside
shields that require it. Both of these voltag- and lash every time a byte is sent to or re- of the STEMTera enclosure.
es are made available on the protoboard. ceived via the USB port. The open- source
When powered, the green ON LED is lit. Arduino Software IDE includes a serial LED
monitor, which allows data to be sent to As mentioned, there are four LEDs built
USB and from the board; the STEMTera board into the enclosure – these are for power
If you have an Arduino Uno board, by com- appears as a virtual serial com port. (ON), yellow LEDs for USB serial transmit
parison, the STEMTera enclosure is larger, www.arduino.cc (TX) and serial receive (RX). The fourth
the enclosure measuring 112 x 80mm. In red LED is marked ‘L’ and is connected
the original Arduino Uno design, the sec- Shields to pin 13 (PB5) of the micro-controller.
ond micro-controller was used only to con- The STEMTera Breadboard has the same Having a LED on this port pin seems to
nect the USB port to the main processor pin-out coniguration as the headers on be an Arduino tradition. The ‘L’ LED blink-
with all the unused pins left unconnected. the Arduino Uno R3, Fig. 2. This means ing sketch (‘sketch’ being ‘Arduino-speak’
In the STEMTera design, all ATmega32U2 that most of the shields that work with for ‘program’) is usually the irst program
I/O pins are also connected to the proto- the original Uno R3 will be able to plug downloaded to the Arduino’ to conirm
board (left-hand side of the protoboard). into the STEMTera. that the development software (compil-
Users can develop native USB projects, However, there are some shields that er) is conigured correctly and the Arduino
such as a keyboard, mouse, joystick with have ICSP header or connectors sol- board is working.
these extra 21 I/O pins. dered on the underside of the PCB shield.
These components may prevent the shield Protoboard
Serial from being inserted correctly into the As can be seen from the STEMTera photo
The ATmega32U2 micro-controller pro- STEMTera protoboard. the protoboard part has a conventional
vides the serial interface for programming layout, with two sections of holes connect-
the micro-controller and serial commu- LEGO ed vertically, but with a horizontal space
nications, available on pins 0 (RX) and 1 As a bonus, the STEMTera has a LEGO- down the centre, so that dual-in-line chips

Building Project
(such as the SA612) can straddle this gap.

When a wire or a component is inserted
into a hole, the metal contact underneath
will hold it in place and also makes an elec-
trical connection.
The STEMTera difference is that all the
pins from the two Atmel microcontrol-
lers are made available on the protoboard.
These are the two horizontal rows above
and below the main protoboard area. When
a wire or component is inserted into these
protoboard holes, it is connected directly
to the appropriate I/O pin of the microcon-
troller. The numbers 1 to 40, visible in the
photo, are for reference, numbering the pro-
toboard holes (as are the letters A to J) and
should not to confused with the pin num-
bering of the Atmel microcontrollers. 2
Fig. 2: The STEMTera Breadboard with a micro

Conclusion USB cable attached powering the board. Adafruit
Using the STEMTera allows for more el- Si5351 Clock Generator providing a local oscillator
egant wiring and is more portable than the to a SA612 direct conversion receiver via a 100nF
separate Arduino/protoboard approach, capacitor (blue wire), receiver output via an audio
but the US$45 cost may deter some. The cable connected to PC line input. The red wire is the
fall in the pound/dollar exchange rate does antenna, connected to pin 2 of the SA612.
make it a relatively expensive purchase. It
is certainly possible to buy an Arduino Uno tor and goes, via a 500mA poly-fuse, to the
and separate breadboard for less money. rest of the circuit. This is a poor design but
However, STEMTera is a real alternative to is based on the oficial Arduino UNO doc-
using a separate Arduino and protoboard, umentation. Good design is for this +5V
particularly for prestige projects. supply to be connected through a low pass
ilter (usually an inductor and capacitor) to
Any Good for Radio? remove much of the noise before it is used 3
There are limitations for building radio to power the circuit. This noise does not Fig. 3: A simple circuit using an NE/SA602 (or ‘612)
circuits using a protoboard. The irst is have any consequence for digital electron- is all that’s needed to create a direct conversion
stray capacitance. You will know that us- ics, but it can affect analogue functions; receiver.
ing solderless protoboard is convenient. more about +5V noise later.
Nevertheless, due to its construction, it lected sample rate of the sound card.
has an inherent frequency limit. The strips Radio Frequency Interference Where the received radio signals are placed
of metal underneath the holes can act USB cables can act like antennas, picking on the spectrum is the difference between
as a capacitor, the higher the frequency up radio/electrical signals from the out- the LO frequency and the radio station’s
the more pronounced the capacitive ef- side world and feeding this noise into the broadcast frequency. The signal will be du-
fect. Check out Dave Jones’ EEVblog #986 STEMTera. To help prevent this, all cables, plicated and appear on both sides of the LO
on the STEMTera, showing the internal particularly long ones, should have a fer- on the spectrum display, as can be seen in
construction: rite choke itted. Figs. 4 and 5).
https://tinyurl.com/yaaex67z Although this receiver project has been
Also, there can be possible QRM from Direct Conversion implemented on a STEMTera board it
the 16MHz crystal Atmel microcontroller If you followed my series (in RadioUser in should work without modiications on any
clocks, which imposes another upper-fre- 2007), using this simple direct conversion Arduino Uno R3 compatible board.
quency limit. design, Fig. 3, you will know that any re- Table 1 shows the components needed
ceiver with a mixer has an image response to build the direct conversion receiver.
Noise at twice the local oscillator frequency. This
The STEMTera is lash-programmed circuit has no front-end iltering, so it is de- The Si5351 Frequency Generator
and powered via the USB connection. iantly susceptible. Fortunately, if this im- Having built the simple direct conversion
Unfortunately, using USB- delivered +5V age causes a problem with a wanted sig- radio onto the STEMTera protoboard, we
can be very noisy. The amount of electrical nal, the LO frequency can be changed, and can take advantage of having a microcon-
noise depends on the design and iltering, the image moved. The wanted signal only troller. The Adafruit Si5351 clock generator
on the PC’s motherboard, and especially has to appear somewhere on the spectrum is a programmable clock (Fig. 6 and Table
on the switch-mode power supply. display for the SDR program to decode the 2). It is controlled by commands, sent to it
Looking at the STEMTera circuit, the +5 signal, Fig. 4. via the serial I2C interface. This makes it
volts (Vcc) is derived from the USB connec- The received bandwidth is half the se- a very suitable alternative local oscillator

Building Project
Fig. 6: A small simple frequency synthesizer board

from Adafruit, has the SI5351 device with up to three
differing output signals simultaneously available, all
ready to go.
(left to right; cf. Fig. 6)

5
0, 1, 2 - Three independent outputs.
Fig. 4: The STEMTera powered from the USB connector, receiver LO at 12MHz (AM HDSDR). Fig. 5: Powering
SCL - I2C clock pin.
the board from an external smoothed supply, lowers the number of spurious signals from the display.
SDA - I2C data pin.
GND - connect to ground.
TYPE COMPONENT
Vin - power pin, connect to 5V.
C1 ceramic capacitor 47nF (marked 473)
C2 electrolytic capacitor 10µF. Table 2: Adafruit Clock Generator board pinouts.
C3 electrolytic capacitor 1µF.
C4, 5, 6, 7 ceramic capacitors 100nF (marked 104)
this produces the cleanest signal. The
fractional mode is more lexible and can
R1 resistor 1kΩ (audio)
create frequencies not possible with
1 chip SA602/612
integer mode. However, with this mode,
1 miscellaneous solid core or jumper wire the frequency output may have a small
Table 1: List of Components for the receiver. amount of jitter. In integer mode the output
frequency can be calculated like this:
than the LC tuned circuit or crystal used in pin header (supplied but requires solder-
my previous projects. As this board is an ing to the board). PLL x m
Adafruit product there is a comprehensive There is a provision on the board for div
amount of technical data and Arduino li- SMA connectors. The Adafruit board is For fractional mode the
brary ready to download from this URL: powered from +5V and has an onboard output frequency is
www.adafruit.com/products/2045 3.3V voltage regulator. PLL x (m + n/d)
To connect the Adafruit Si5351 board re- (div + n/d)
quires +5V and ground. The two-wire I2C QRG? where
bus (SDA and SCL) also need to be con- To help calculate the required parameters PLL = 25MHz
nected, these are the two yellow wires visi- for the PLL multiplication and division m is the multiplier
ble in the photo, Fig. 7. Clock output is tak- Silicon Labs has a Windows program, n is the numerator
en from pin 1 (output 1) via the blue wire to called ClockBuilder Desktop Software d is the denominator
a 100nF capacitor, the other side of this ca- (Si5351) to produce a ‘Frequency Plan’ div is divisor
pacitor is connected to pin 6 (oscillator) of (Fig. 8). This can be downloaded from the
the SA612 chip, via the orange wire. Silicon Labs website (you may need to If you are using the Arduino IDE, the
register). Remember to change the crystal Adafruit Si5351 library can be downloaded
How the Si5351 Works frequency parameter from its default from the GitHub repository and installed.
The Silicon Labs Si5351 chip has a pre- frequency of 27MHz to 25MHz. You can https://tinyurl.com/y8ntmxuh
cision 25MHz crystal reference and an also download this program from the Having this library makes writing
internal PLL (Phase Locked Loop). The Adafruit website (no need to register). commands to the Si5351 generator
PLL multiplies this 25MHz reference www.silabs.com very easy, to generate any frequency
clock, and then the frequency is divid- only requires a few lines of code. The
ed down to create any frequency from Frequency Generation instructions for each mode are:
8kHz up to 160MHz. There may be several different
There are two PLL multipliers (labelled multiplication and division parameter SA612clock.setupPLLInt(PLL, m);
SI5351_PLL_A or SI5351_PLL_B), so if combinations that will create the same // integer mode
you want three outputs then two of these frequency. In operation there are two SA612clock.setupPLL(output, PLL, m, n,
outputs will have to share a PLL, although distinct modes, they are ‘integer’ and d); // fractional mode
each output can be a different frequency. ‘fractional’ for frequency generation. SA612clock.setupMultisynthInt(output,
Frequency outputs are available from the The preferred mode is an integer as PLL, d); // integer mode

Building Project
SA612clock.setupMultisynth(output, PLL,
div, n, d); // fractional mode
where:
output is 0, 1 or 2.
PLL can be either SI5351_PLL_A
or SI5351_PLL_B.
Additional Divider
To get the output frequency below 100kHz,
there is an additional divider (called R),
that divides the output from the Multisynth
command by a ixed amount:
SA612clock. setupRdiv(output, div);

where div (divisor) can be one of the
following values: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128.
DC Offset
Now the receiver is working, we can start
decoding radio signals using an SDR
program. Here, I am using the HDSDR
program, downloaded from this website:
http://www.hdsdr.de 7
Looking at Fig. 4 or 5, at the centre of Fig. 7: Fritzing layout of the direct conversion receiver and Adafruit Si5351 board. The red vertical wire is the
the HDSDR spectrum display, there is a antenna.
‘signal’ at DC (12MHz LO). However, this is
not a radio signal; this ‘spike’ has a variety
of causes, including self-mixing in the
receiver, LO leakage, crosstalk, ground
loops and is a common problem in direct
conversion SDR. This situation is made
worse by noise introduced from the +5V
derived from the USB connection.
The screengrab of Fig. 4 shows HDSDR
reception in the 25m band (12MHz) with
the STEMTera being powered from the
USB. The screenshot of Fig. 5 shows the
same circuit being powered from a USB
‘power bank’ (i.e. from a +5V rechargeable
battery). Comparing the screens, you can
see the amount of noise being derived from
the USB. The board requires 70 to 80mA
so battery operation is possible after the
board has been programmed via the USB.
The HDSDR software has an option 8
to ilter this central spike from the Fig. 8: ClockBuilder Desktop Software calculating parameters to generate output frequency of 12MHz. The
spectrum display: Click on Options (F7), Feedback Divider, Multisynth Divider, and possibly the R Divider for low frequencies, are the parameters needed.
then select Calibration Settings, and DC
Removal Calibration.
More information regarding the Adafruit
Clock Gen can be found here:
https://tinyurl.com/hosy7xw
The STEMTera breadboards come in
various colours, for more information and
product availability, check out this URL:
www.stemtera.com
Fig. 9: Here’s the layout of the Arduino compatible STEMTera

board. Fig. 10: Arduino IDE Program listing: the Adafruit
library needs to be installed before compiling this sketch. 9 10

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SDR Receiver
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Flightaware Prostick Plus........................................................£29.99 High Performance
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FlightAware ADSB weak-signal wide band reception on HF – something
1090MHz Band-pass SMA Filter ..............................................£16.99 other competing solutions fail to address efficiently
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The SDS100’s digital performance is better than any other scanner in both
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resistance.
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can take camping, fishing, picnics in the park or basically anywhere of your choice, Memory • Pre-emptive Trunking Priority • Fully Customizable Scanning with
Charging is easy with a 12/24 auto switching power supply for your car cigarette lighter your own Favourites Lists • Backlit Keypad • Channel Volume Offset • PC
socket or your trucks 24v one and if at home simply plug into the mains. You can use the Programming and Control • USB Connectivity and Charging • Weekly Da-
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Digital Radio
Changes and Challenges

for Digital Radio in 2019
Kevin Ryan gets his digital crystal ball out to see whether he can predict how
digital radio will develop in 2019, and which new services and radios might emerge.
Kevin Ryan quencies. Despite successful trials on AM Fig.1: The new DAB+ logo. It should soon appear
kevin@kpr-web.co.uk in Devon, and on FM in Scotland, it has on receivers, possibly alongside the Digital Radio
failed to gain any ground in the UK. Great Tick Mark in the UK.
B
roadcast digital radio has ideas were put forward, to the effect that
been in general use for a cou- medium wave stations like Absolute Radio Common Challenges
ple of decades, but where is and TalkSport could build single-frequency All three systems are under the threat –
it heading in 2019? First of networks or cover the whole country with a or think they are – of losing listeners to
all, it depends on where you single shortwave transmitter. Several com- streaming services and podcasts on the
live. There are two digital radio systems mercial broadcasters were active on DRM internet and of being displaced from the
we can receive in the UK and in many other for a while when VT Digital operated BBC car’s dashboard, as newer models start to
places, like Europe and Australia. They are World Service transmitters. include internet access, now delivered over
DAB (Fig. 1, Digital Audio Broadcasting). North America has its own digital radio the 4G and 5G mobile networks.
For some enthusiasts, there is also DRM system known as HD Radio, and I ind it
(Digital Radio Mondiale). interesting to keep track of how that is de- DAB Broadcasters
DAB is used on Band III frequencies, and veloping. HDRadio started life as IBOC (In- I sometimes think that UK DAB broadcast-
it now covers most of the UK population. Band On-Channel). ers make this prediction happen by, for
DAB receivers are widely available and have In this way, the millions of analogue example, creating more of their own pod-
become very affordable. radios didn’t have to be scrapped, while casts, so that more listeners follow the
DRM in its various modes can be used the new radios decoded the signals in trend. I just discovered the Global (Radio)
from long wave (DRM) to VHF (DRM+) fre- the sidebands. Player for iOS and Android. Global owns fa-

Digital Radio
mous names like Classic FM, LBC, Capital,

Heart and Smooth. You can listen live or
download any show ofline. The other big
commercial radio operator, Bauer, will likely
create one of their own.
https://www.globalplayer.com/
North America
In the USA and Canada, the biggest com-
petitor to HD Radio is ad-free satellite radio,
delivered by Sirius XM. SiriusXM has nearly
34 million subscribers, of which 2.5 mil-
lion are in Canada; listeners have to pay a
monthly fee to get their programming.
Figures for HDRadio are impressive, with
claims that nearly 80% of all radio listening
in the USA is to stations that have upgraded
to HDRadio. It is not clear if the listeners are
tuning into the digital channels or still listen-
ing to the analogue signal. There are some
55 million HD radios, and 90% of those are 2
installed in cars. KEVIN RYAN
HDRadio is moving to the same ‘look’ seeking to persuade regulators to

and ‘feel’ as does satellite radio in the car. choose DRM as the preferred standard.
It has developed an enhancement called However, DAB is also a competitor to
Artist and Advertiser Experience, to include DRM+, with the added advantage of a wide
pictures of album covers and the logos of choice of receivers.
advertisers. The images in the article be-
low show dashboards devices like the one The US$50 DRM radio
on my 2016 Mazda, where I have noticed DRM waits for its own ‘Holy Grail’: A good 3
5
placeholders for images. receiver, mass-produced and selling for

https://tinyurl.com/yaz8ywdf under $50US. I doubt that 2019 will be any Fig. 2: The Web-Interface of the All India Radio
I can’t see anything very exciting hap- different to the last decade. Therefore, the DRM station in Bengaluru lets users experience
pening in HD Radio, other than a few more wait is likely to continue. DRM audio and data. Fig. 3: Look out for more
all-digital AM stations launching, but there The Titus II (an Android-based SDR developments and announcements about hybrid
won’t be any great overall change. receiver), as well as various software in-car radio.
decoders for the three main forms of digital
DRM - Still Hoping radio, were all expected to start production
DRM’s position is the most precarious, in late 2018, but they hit a major problem
mainly because it is trying to digitize what trying to include a decoder for the HD China) from 0100-0900 UTC. I have heard
is now considered (by many regulators, Radio Standard. them both, using remote Kiwi SDR receivers
not listeners) ‘expensive’, ‘legacy-‘ AM and Tecsun Australia launched the Q-3061 in Russia and Vietnam respectively. It
FM radio systems. In the AM mode, me- DRM shortwave radio last year. If you are would be a huge boost for DRM, were China
dium wave and shortwave transmitters are interested in DRM radios, then you will to launch regular broadcasts, because
viewed as too expensive, and budget hold- probably spot that this is a re-badged receivers would surely follow soon. Of
ers reckon that signiicantly fewer people Gospell GR-216. Check the picture of course, DRM is also a great way to ‘block’
listen to them. the rear of the receiver and you can spot other broadcasters.
The BBC World Service’s Annual Report the GR-216 model number. The website
for 2017/2018 cites a decline in short claims that this is a local initiative and not DRM India
wave listening – in close conjunction connected with Tecsun in China, who – Given All India Radio’s investment in DRM
with more competition from syndicated as many of us hoped – would produce a transmitters, you would expect many
TV – as a reason why some language cheap DRM receiver. portable receivers to be on sale, but this is
services (like the one for Urdu) lost one- However, at AUS$500 (ca. £280), this is not happening. Several car manufacturers
third of its listeners. The BBC WS on not a cheap radio. include DRM as standard, but there is
medium wave – and the majority of its https://tinyurl.com/y9mzwb4y only one. This is a, rather expensive,
shortwave transmissions – are still in Meanwhile, China is taking more of an desktop model called Avion DR-1401. It
analogue format; as these decline, so do interest in DRM. China National Radio was updated in 2018 and is due to go on
opportunities to convert them to DRM. (CNR) increased its DRM transmissions sale again. I couldn’t ind it on Amazon
Against this backdrop, the DRM from several domestic sites. They are on India’s website, and the Avion site is geared
Consortium can’t do much, aside from 15580 (North China) and 11695kHz (South to bulk orders.

Digital Radio
I think that India will adopt DRM+ for the

4
FM band like Russia and South Africa have.
AIR is in Phase Two of its DRM roll-out, pro-
moting services, which started two years
ago. There is no sign of a inal, Phase Three,
implementation. However, you can experi-
ence the DRM service of Radio Bengaluru
over the internet (Fig. 2).
www.airbengaluru.com
US Coast Guard DRM

The United States Coast Guard published
a report on its experience of using DRM to
deliver weather and other information to
vessels around Alaska, where the disturbed
radio conditions around the North Pole
cause problems with other radio technolo-
gies. The report said that DRM worked very
well. It outlined three possible projects.
The most ambitious one would be provid-
ing for DRM delivery of weather on multi-
ple frequencies throughout North America.
However, I cannot see any of these options Fig. 4: The PURE IR3 model is an internet radio; the PURE IR5 model also includes Bluetooth.
being put into operation in 2019.
and France (20%). By contrast, nine out of al car manufacturer in 2019.
US Short Wave Broadcasters ten new cars sold in the UK now come with https://tinyurl.com/y99guw8p
With the introduction of the B18 short- a digital radio. The BBC will provide a lot of content to
wave schedule, WINB expanded its DRM The European Union (EU) has made DTS, and there is a hint that there will be
test schedule with a morning transmission it mandatory for all new car radios to be tests of both a DAB and an HD Radio sys-
on 7315 and 9265kHz. The afternoon test able to receive digital terrestrial radio. tem using the PILOT project, although this
moved to 13690kHz. Many other broad- The respective EU Directive comes into le- could just be a laboratory trial.
casters say they want to use DRM but won’t gal force in 2021. https://nabpilot.org
until those elusive receivers are on sale. I guess that this will mean only DAB/ Overall, hybrid radio will dominate DAB
DAB+ unless an EU country adopts DRM+, development in 2019, but we won’t have any
Faltering DAB? but car radios can still receive AM and FM. receivers until 2020.
The WorldDAB organization is acting now I think DAB+ will grow in 2019, but at a
to counter the threat from mobile services, much slower rate. UK 1: Small-Scale DAB
primarily in the in-car radio market. Ofcom’s consultation on expanding small-
WorldDAB is strongly promoting the con- Hybrid Radios for Cars scale DAB attracted a lot of responses
cept of ‘hybrid’ radios, positioning itself as The WorldDAB organisation has settled on from parties interested in either providing
a content provider, alongside the dissemi- co-existing with the internet as their strat- just the multiplex, or just programmes and
nation and expansion of streaming servic- egy to ensure that DAB+ stays relevant to from groups wanting to provide both.
es and podcasts. listeners. RadioPlayer UK published their Ofcom split the results into those three
Comparing the Q2-2018 summary of DAB hybrid ‘Reference Radio’, a prototype touch- categories, and it will them take some
worldwide with the Q2-2017 igures, I get screen radio for the car dashboard (Fig. time to decide how to advertise the li-
the sense that the number of new house- 3). The ‘hybrid’ prototype is multi-platform, censes. The full report is available on
holds embracing DAB is slowing down. It is able to play DAB, FM, and Internet radio the Ofcom website:
hard to judge from the footnotes whether streams. But unlike most modern car ra- https://tinyurl.com/yc93kwon
people are actually listening to DAB; these dios, the Reference Radio shows a single The irst of a new round of joint, small-
notes usually say things like ‘have access list of stations across all those platforms. scale, DAB and community radios will start
to a digital radio’. Of course, these statis- There’s no need to select different sources towards the end of the year, and we can
tics relect established markets, and some like DAB, FM, or Internet irst – the driv- expect current operators to include more
slowdown is to be expected. er just taps a station logo to play it, and community stations in their multiplexes.
It seems clear that DAB has to open up the system does the rest. You can see a
new markets, in order to keep growing. demo on YouTube: UK 2: Digital Switchover
The build-out of the DAB network has www.radioplayerworldwide.org There is bound to be a statement on this
stopped worldwide, with no increase in pop- https://tinyurl.com/y72j5wn9 by mid-2019, when at least two more quar-
ulation coverage from 2017. The igures The BBC and DTS, an American com- terly reports from RAJAR should show that
for the percentage of new cars with DAB/ pany developing hybrid radio ideas using overall listening to digital platforms has
DAB+ are more interesting, especially when RadioDNS, are working on a new system reached around 55-56% - with DAB mak-
you see how low they are in Germany (39%) that will be installed in an unspeciied glob- ing up at least 40% of that. The informa-

Digital Radio
tion published by WorldDAB in their 2018 month, replacing city stations that operated the BBC is starting to put exclusive content
Summary Report indicates that ‘digital radio for many years. on the playlist.
reach’ (the percentage of people who lis-
ten to digital radio in a given time period) is Channel Islands DAB Mux Internet Radio
at 63% in the UK. However, this igure is at Ofcom will soon advertise for a new local A lot of my listening is now via DAB; mainly
odds with the RAJAR Q3 2018 report, ac- radio multiplex for the Channel Islands. The to the BBC World Service and, increasing-
cording to which 52.4% of listening is on BBC national multiplex has two transmit- ly, to LBC. I also listen to quite a bit of in-
digital platforms. ters, at Les Platons in Jersey, and at Les ternet radio, mainly to those few stations
https://tinyurl.com/yb8y7g4z Touillets in Guernsey; the latter also covers that I once regularly tuned into via short-
https://tinyurl.com/yc2wg4cd some of the smaller islands. wave. I noticed that Pure launched the IR3
The Government’s last word on this was Both FM commercial radio stations, and the IR5 internet radios (Fig. 4) using
given in September at the Drive to Digital Island FM and Channel 103, are owned the Frontier Silicon portal, rather than their
conference, during which the Minister re- by Tindle News, and the company will Lounge service. The latter is still active, but
sponsible announced that a further state- probably apply to operate the commer- it cannot now be changed.
ment would be forthcoming shortly. cial multiplex. It seems that internet radio is
I predict that a date will not be set for the http://tindlenews.co.uk making a comeback.
digital switchover. However, I believe that https://tinyurl.com/ya5yjnmb
another consultation on the future role of Podcasts
FM will be announced soon. The humble podcast has been around for Summary
many years, and it is now the new challeng- I feel that 2019 will be an exciting time for
UK 3: DAB Expansion er to traditional radio – or is it? digital radio, even though I am not expect-
I can’t foresee much, if any, expansion of Most of these and similar theories and ing any more signiicant announcements.
national and local multiplexes during 2019. reactions come, it seems to me, from some It would be a fantastic year if a Titus II
There will some new stations (or, more radio executive who becomes aware that DRM radio were to land on my desk, to re-
likely, more ‘re-branded’ stations) to cre- their kids have no idea about ‘real’ radio. vive digital shortwave, and if small-scale
ate more quasi-national networks. Bauer In other news, the BBC Sounds app has DAB started to ill in the holes in cover-
launched their Greatest Hits Network last now displaced the popular iPlayer, and now age across the UK.
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Scanning Scene
Review: The Uniden

Bearcat SDS-100E Scanner
Tim Kirby UNIDEN
tim@g4vxe.com According to Uniden,

In an extended Scanning Scene col-
the USPs of this scanner
umn for this month, Tim Kirby departs are that it is particularly
somewhat from his usual format and
offers an in-depth review of the new
suitable for ‘simulcast-‘
Uniden SDS-100E wideband receiver. and weak-signal
My favourite e-mails always start with the
environments
words, ‘would you like to review…?’ - Well,
maybe that’s not completely true, but concerned, is that it only covers the US and
those e-mails are always up there. This Canada. If you are in the US and Canada,
time, it was an email from our editor ask- you can type in your latitude and longitude,
ing if I’d like to take a look at the Uniden or location (or connect a compatible GPS
SDS-100E scanner. I replied ‘yes’ and then receiver). and the appropriate frequen-
went to look and see what was special cies and descriptions will automatically be
about the SDS-100E. downloaded to your scanner, ready for you
to listen and see what you can hear. Very
Introduction cool. However, this is not available in the
I soon learnt from the promotional mate- UK, Europe or in fact, anywhere outside the
rials, that this radio is the irst scanner to US and Canada. I felt a little disappointed
incorporate Software Deined Radio (SDR) and guessed that I would have to populate
technology. According to Uniden, the USPs the frequencies of interest myself – and of
of this scanner are that it is particularly course, you can argue very reasonably that
suitable for ‘simulcast-‘ and weak-signal this is the whole point of the hobby!
environments. The receiver has an eye- Never mind, at least I’ll be able to have a
catching, customisable, colour display, and listen to some of the digital voice modes.
it meets JIS4 (IPX4) standards for water Oh, wait! What’s this piece of paper in
resistance. Table 1 lists the key features of the box with the SDS-100E? You need
this digital wideband receiver, according to purchase ‘activation-keys’ to make
to the manufacturer’s website and various the scanner work on DMR, NXDN and
pdf lealets. ProVoice. DMR costs €55, NXDN €50 and
This looked very interesting, and I ProVoice €50. Most people buying this
watched a video from Monitoring Reviews in Fig.1: The Uniden Bearcat SDS-100 with its scanner, would, I suspect want at least
the US on the SDS-100 to give me an idea of distinctive colour screen. the DMR mode to be enabled. I’m not sure
what it was all about: how much NXDN and ProVoice activity
https://tinyurl.com/y7jvovhw you don’t feel like explaining what you’re would be found.
One of the things I was particularly doing! The battery is pretty sizeable and Not all digital modes are optional; P25,
excited about was the fact that, unlike all has a 5,400mAh capacity. Earlier mod- Motorola, EDACS and LTR systems can all
my scanners here, the SDS-100 had some els came with a 3,600mAh capacity, but be received without any upgrades. However,
digital capability. have been upgraded. unfortunately, not all of these systems are
At a price point of around £600, it is Reading the instructions, the irst step widely used in the UK. This is true too, of
in a completely different league to my is to download the Sentinel software onto trunking systems, which the scanner is
scanners, so I was also excited to ind out your computer and connect the scanner to set up to receive.
the difference, and what features the extra the computer by USB cable, which is sup- Therefore, there is quite a bit of
money would buy. plied. This allows a check to be made of the functionality built into the SDS-100E, which
irmware; if required, this can be upgraded. you may not be able to use in the UK; if you
First Impressions The instructions also talk about download- travel to the US and Canada regularly, you
The SDS-100E arrived, and I eagerly un- ing the appropriate part of the HomePatrol might well be able to use it there.
boxed it (Fig. 1) The irst impression is database to your scanner. Feeling even more disappointed, I
of a solid unit, which its well in the hand. The HomePatrol database is an online dropped a quick email to Mike Devereux at
It’s actually quite large to it in a pocket – scanner directory containing thousands of Nevada Radio, who kindly loaned me the
or put another way – to rapidly conceal if frequencies. The problem, as far as we are radio. I asked Mike whether there was any

Scanning Scene
TIM KIRBY
• Trunk tracker X; APCO P25 Phase

I and II; Motorola, EDACS, and LTR
Trunking, MotoTRBO Capacity + and
Connect +*; DMR Tier III*, Hytera
XPT*; Single-Channel DMR*; NXDN
4800 and 9600*; EDACS ProVoice*
• Location-Based Scanning; USA/
Canada Radio Database
• ZIP Code Selection for Easy Setup
• Close Call™ RF Capture
with Do Not Disturb
• 8 GB microSD
• Soft Keys for Intelligent UI
• Recording, Playback, and Replay
• Temporary-Avoid, Fire Tone-Out
Alert, System Analysis and Discovery
• CTCSS/DCS/NAC/RAN/Colour Code
Decoding, S.A.M.E. Weather Alert
• Enhanced Dynamic Memory, Pre-
emptive Trunking Priority, Multi-Site
System Scanning
• Fully Customizable Scanning with
operators’ own ‘Favourites’ Lists
• Backlit Keypad,
Channel Volume Offset
• PC Programming and Control, USB
Connectivity and Charging
• Weekly Database Updates, Free
Sentinel Software keeps the SDS100
database and memory up to date
• Li-Ion Battery
• Frequency Coverage: 25-512;
758-824; 849-869; 895-960,
and 1240-1300MHz
* Paid upgrades required for DMR,
NXDN, and ProVoice monitoring
Table 1: Key Features and Receiving Capabilities. Fig. 2: The SDS-100E in Custom Search mode, having found a local DMR signal.
chance of getting an activation-code for the cided to create two favourites lists to start You can decide whether or not to include it
digital modes so that I could try it out. with, one for airband, and one for amateur in your list of favourites. I quickly had forty
Mike quickly replied, and we managed to radio, with the option to create others, say channels to scan across the airband.
arrange with Uniden the loan of a digitally- for the marine band. You can choose which It’s easy to enter these, using the Quick
enabled SDS-100E. of the favourites lists to scan at any one Save feature from the keypad. When I con-
time. This is all easy to switch on and off nected the SDS-100E up to the computer
Conventional Scanning from within the menu structure. and read the memories of the scanner into
With digital scanning off the menu, for the Having worked that bit out, I decided to the software, I was able to add a textual de-
time being, I decided to see what I could see what I could do about inding some scription for many of the channels. When
hear. Being out in the country and cur- aviation channels to listen to. You can use you write the memories and data back to
rently away from the sea, airband was the the Custom Search feature. The SDS-100E the scanner, and when it stops on a particu-
obvious choice. If you are not using the supports 10 custom searches, and you can lar channel, you will see the description you
HomePatrol database, it is a question of easily predeine searches in bands you are entered on the PC.
setting up favourite lists. particularly interested in. In my case, I set I sat the scanner on the windowsill of the
The memory system of the SDS-100E up a custom search for the airband. You shack and let it go. Very quickly, it was re-
is very lexible and allows the concepts can set the upper and lower frequencies to ceiving plenty of aircraft trafic. I found the
of System, Department and within that, be scanned, the modulation, the step to be audio from the scanner particularly pleas-
Channel. As it arrives, the SDS-100E is setup used (including 8.33kHz spacing) and many ing, and of a full tone, rather better than
with Quick Save System and Department to other parameters. You can let that run and, some of the cheaper scanners I have in my
allow you to manage your frequencies. I de- of course, it will stop when a signal is found. shack! Something else that impressed me,

Scanning Scene
TIM KIRBY
One of the challenges,

with DMR, is knowing
things like the colour
code, timeslot and
talk group that a DMR
transmission is using
is that the receiver is pretty ‘bomb-proof’: I
was listening on the airband, whilst trans-
mitting on a nearby antenna on 144MHz;
scanner reception was unaffected – very
impressive! This is one of the beneits of
the SDR receiver design.
I noticed that the SDS-100E wasn’t re-
ceiving quite as much as one of my desk-
top scanners, albeit with a telescopic an-
tenna in the back of the scanner. I took the
supplied antenna off the SDS-100E and re-
placed it with a longer antenna, which was
resonant near the airband (it was actually
an amateur 2m/70cm dual band anten-
na). Performance immediately improved
to be similar, if not slightly better, than the
desktop scanner.
What else did I hear? A few paging trans-
mitters around 150MHz – nothing interest-
ing there. The SDS-100E didn’t seem partic-
ularly sensitive around 433MHz – I could
only just hear one of the amateur band re-
peaters about 15 miles away, even with the
dual-band 144/433MHz dual-band antenna
attached, but there was DMR buzz from the
co-sited amateur DMR repeater.
Digital Scanning
After Mike’s kind intervention, a digitally-en-
abled SDS-100E arrived a day or two later.
One of the challenges, with DMR in particu-
lar, is knowing things like the colour code,
timeslot and talk group that a DMR trans-
mission is using. I wondered how the cus-
tom search would work.
I set it running, whilst also operating my
amateur digital radio hotspot. Sure enough,
it found the transmission. The screen dis-
played details of the DMR slot, talk group Fig. 3: The SDS-100E, showing the text display that can be added for a memory channel.
(TGID) and colour code, along with the fre-
quency (Fig. 2). different to what I expected. I needed to set tion with analogue ones. You will probably
This is all you need to program up a ‘system’ and – within that – there is a end up setting up different favourites lists
one of the memories on the scanner ‘site’ and a ‘department’. based on location or transmission type
for future use. The ‘site’ allows you to enter one or more (Conventional, DMR, NXDN and so on).
Having set up the Quick Save favourites frequencies. The department is where you I tried running a custom search across
for conventional analogue, I decided to cre- enter one or more talk groups (in the case the 430-440MHz segment from a rural set-
ate another favourites list for DMR, with my of DMR), which will be the TGID that you dis- ting where I knew I should be able to pick
local digital hotspots, as well as the local covered with your custom search. up a variety of analogue and digital signals.
amateur DMR repeater (it could just as well Having created my new Quick Save fa- This worked ine.
have been a local DMR PMR frequency of vourites list, I was able to choose to scan I felt that the sensitivity of the SDS-100E
course). This was easy enough but slightly it. You can scan digital lists in combina- was somewhat poorer than I would have

Scanning Scene
This was my first transmission (frequency etc) will be dis- update the irmware in the scanner.
played. This works very well for analogue However, there are two other bits of
experience of trying a transmissions. software (at additional cost) which you
digital scanner in an I discovered that simplex DMR trans- can use to add functionality to the SDS-
missions are not detected (the trans- 100E. If you are interested, have a look at
urban environment and missions are too brief). However, a DMR the well-known Butel website, where you
I must say I was quite repeater transmitting both time-slots will ind details on the ARC536Basic and
will be detected. ARC536Pro software.
impressed Because the SDS-100E saves data on an www.butelsoftware.com
8GB memory card (included), you can re-
expected around this frequency, but such is cord the transmissions the scanner hears. Overall Impressions
the nature of scanning equipment. This can be interesting anyway, but in Close The SDS-100E is deinitely the most expen-
If you are expecting to be dealing with Call mode, it is really helpful to help you sive and fully-featured scanner I have used
weak signals in this part of the spectrum, determine what transmission you are de- so far. I found it a bit disappointing to have
it’s worth bearing in mind that it’s not neces- tecting. You can choose how long that the to pay extra to receive DMR, NXDN and
sarily going to be on par with dedicated sin- scanner will record for, under the Replay ProVoice modes. I would have thought that
gle-band equipment. Settings in the menu. The range is from 30 most potential purchasers in the UK would
Next day, I took the SDS-100E into Oxford to 240 seconds, or you can switch the re- want at least the DMR option, which is an-
city centre to see how it fared. I ran a cus- cording functionality off completely. Each other €50 on top of the already substantial
tom search across 450-460MHz and transmission is stored as a separate ile. If purchase price.
was rewarded with a variety of systems: you leave this running, you will end up with a When I queried this, Uniden responded
Capacity Plus primarily, conventional FM, lot of recordings. as follows: “Not everyone wants to listen
and the odd bit of DMR. to the various trunking systems, and not all
I was really impressed with the way the Customisable Look and Feel of these systems are used in every country,
SDS-100E worked out the type of transmis- The SDS-100E has a customisable col- ProVoice, for example, is not used in Europe.
sion, adjusted and, in the case of the digital our display. There are several predeined NXDN is not used in all European countries.
transmissions, provided data about the co- screen layouts, which you can choose, de- For using the trunking technology, also when
lour code, time slot, talk group ID and so on. pending on what systems you are typically only listening to it, Uniden has to pay royal-
I walked around the city – with the scanner listening too (Simple Conventional, Detailed ties. That is why Uniden decided that the ac-
in my pocket and an earpiece in – and I was Conventional, Simple Trunk, Detailed tivation key for each of these 3 trunking sys-
surprised by how many different transmis- Trunk, and so on). tems has to be purchased”.
sions that the SDS-100E picked up. The Sentinel software allows you to Another small niggle I had is the fact
There was the odd encrypted transmis- customise the screen, permitting you that the HomePatrol database – a feature
sion which, of course, could not be decod- to change ields, text- and background which is quite widely advertised in respect
ed. In the case of the FM transmissions, the colours (Fig. 3). to the SDS-100E – does not work outside
appropriate CTCSS tone was shown. I tried North America.
custom searches in other frequency seg- Battery and Charging Putting these impressions aside, I did en-
ments, but, as I expected, 450-460MHz was The chunky-looking 5400mAh battery joy using the SDS-100E. Its performance in
the most proitable and interesting. looks like it should last forever. Actually, it strong signal environments was excellent,
This was my irst experience of trying a doesn’t quite. However, I got a good cou- and I loved being able to listen to airband
digital scanner in an urban environment and ple of days of fairly intensive use out of it, without any issues when I was transmitting
I must say I was quite impressed! without charging. in the 144MHz amateur band.
I also took the SDS-100E to Cheltenham The latter is achieved by means of a USB Scanning performance was good, even
and tried it there. The 450-460MHz seg- cable. A 2A USB charger is supplied, which fairly short transmissions were detected,
ment was, once again, very interesting. does a good job of recharging but takes and I particularly enjoyed the SDS-100’s
There were a couple of FM systems, some several hours for a full charge. I charged ability to decode digital transmissions.
DMR systems and an encrypted system, the scanner overnight, and it was back to If you enjoy, as I did, walking around a
which of course, I could not receive. The fully charged in the morning. city with a scanner in your pocket to see
SDS-100E dealt with them all easily, as well However, if you plug the scanner what can be heard, the SDS-100E will give
as monitoring local air trafic. into a laptop USB port for charging, it you plenty of things to listen to, for exam-
will take longer. ple on the airband, marine band and ama-
Close Call and Replay teur radio bands.
Functionality Software I found it lacked some sensitivity around
I tried out the Close Call functionality, which The Sentinel software supplied allows ba- the 70cm amateur radio band, but it was
users of other Uniden scanners will be fa- sic capability. For example, I could add a still workable.
miliar with. This looks for very strong sig- textual description to the memory channels Facilities like Close Call, and the ability
nals (transmissions close by). You can I had added from the scanner. As far as the to record transmissions, were useful and
choose which bands the scanner looks UK and European users are concerned, one well implemented. I didn’t have the oppor-
for these transmissions in. When a trans- cannot use the HomePatrol database to tunity to test the Analyse and Discovery
mission is detected, an alert will be heard, populate the SDS-100E’s memories. features, which are associated with
or a light will lash, and data about the You can also use the Sentinel software to Trunking systems.

Off the Record
The Free Radio Column

This month, Oscar explains the appeal of free radio stations, in terms of a
choice between informality and professionalism, looks at the ‘profanity-
delay’ feature and assesses the role of studio equipment in free radio.
Oscar the Engineer

oscartheengineer@yahoo.com
H
ello, and welcome once again
to my column. It is always
a pleasure spending this
time with you each month,
chatting about a range of
topics relating to free radio or broadcast
radio more generally. Last month I included
quite a lot of what you might call pure pirate
news, but over the years I have tried to
make this a free-form radio column in which
almost any topic with a radio connection
may be on the agenda. Apart from the fact
that free radio has become less of a distinct
category of radio and more interwoven
with new technologies and media forms, I
also believe it makes sense for this column
to try to have an appeal that is as wide as
possible.
Professionalism and Informality

Radio may appeal to listeners for a range
of reasons. We all have different tastes,
and, sometimes, an individual’s tastes may
be wide-ranging or may change accord-
ing to his or her mood at the time. I think
certain trends are identiiable. Some peo-
ple appreciate a professional and polished
sound. Free radio stations that have made
a success of this include Wonderful Radio rived from the notion that it is really nice High Standards
London, Laser 558, some of the Irish super- to set ourselves free and not be bound by However, it remains very important to un-
pirates like Radio Nova, and many of the what are essentially self-imposed rules derstand that informality in radio broad-
more local land-based operations. and structures. casting is never an excuse for a lower-
I can think of numerous examples of the The fact that radio is often a more ‘inti- ing of quality standards. Over the last few
specialist music stations on FM, and some mate’ and ‘personal’ medium also comes months, I have talked about this subject
of the pioneering ventures operating on into play here. Some free radio stations on several occasions, and people have
Medium Wave, such as Radio Sovereign have been able to achieve popularity (or been joining in.
and Radio Jackie, were always well struc- at least notoriety) through this kind of ap- If you can listen to archive recordings of
tured and had a sound that was both very proach. The Short Wave hobby pirates do free radio stations from the past, voices
distinctive and easily recognisable. Good this very well. Although they have dwindled and speech were always reined and often
jingle packages are always a huge help with in number, there are many that can still be pleasing to the ear. ‘Sounding good’ is sure-
this, of course, but it is also about organisa- enjoyed from time to time to this day. ly the object of the exercise, so it is always
tion and structure. Another example of informality, com- disappointing to me when I hear exam-
On the other hand, though, radio stations bined with artistic talent, is the London ples of poor and lazy speech and grammar
and programmes can sometimes have tre- FM pirate Thameside Radio, which used from presenters.
mendous charm, just because they go in the to broadcast regularly every Sunday even- On this topic, Ian Godfrey wrote in to say,
opposite direction and deliberately choose ing, and which was able to generate a real “I’m intrigued by your observations of the
to have an air of informality about them. sense that each of the listeners was part of poor diction and gratuitous language on the
In that case, their strong appeal is de- its wider ‘family’. radio. The closest example I can think of is

Off the Record
The voices I hear on some of the urban music Radio is an amalgamation of the
technical and the artistic, and I think it
pirates are ‘diabolical’, to say the least. If this is a would be acceptable to say that many men
cultural trend, it is one that I don’t wish to be part of seem to be more interested in engineering
subjects than women.
In radio, it is, of course, perfectly possible
presenters who lapse into ‘mumble-mode’, will never sound nice on the radio. to get involved in the creative and artistic
or whose voices dip for about a second, The majority are just in-between and side of broadcasting, without having to
becoming almost totally inaudible. I’d be can sound ine if the presenters know how become expertly acquainted with how the
surprised if the gratuitous language on ‘le- to control and project his or her voice. technology actually works.
git’ radio wasn’t pounced on pretty quickly, A bit of microphone technique is often We are often told of the stereotype that
resulting in the suspension of the offender. involved as well. women are the more ‘communicative’
It sounds as though there are quite a few Speaking of studio apparatus, the usual gender, more ‘expressive’ of their feelings
examples that slip through the net. I agree practice – as a presenter or participant in a than men who are supposed to have
about the possible ‘deiling’ of the English radio programme – is to wear good quality, the tendency to ‘bottle things up’ and
language, Whenever I hear discussions on closed-cup, headphones over both ears. speak in ‘grunts’.
this, opinions are quite varied; some seem The DT100 model by Beyerdynamic Those entrenched stereotypes
convinced that it’s all part of an evolution has been the industry standard for this in notwithstanding, radio is often about
process! I’m irritated by the frequent use radio studios for many years, because it music presentation, and women to enjoy
of certain expressions - one or two of them is considered to be physically robust, as music just as much as men, so I ind myself
have been with us for decades.” well as having satisfactory audio quality. wondering why women constitute such a
Thanks for responding on this subject, Personally, I prefer the improved bass small percentage of the people in radio.
Ian. I have heard examples of this phe- response of the more expensive DT150 We are all aware of the scandal of the
nomenon on both free radio stations and model, and you may, naturally, have your gender pay-gap recently exposed in the BBC
licensed ones. There was a time when a own personal preferences. The point, in and elsewhere, but could it be that female
good speaking voice was a primary require- relation to voices and speech, is that the talent is, at times, also denied opportunity?
ment in the selection process for broad- headphones block out any extraneous I can see no reason why this should be
cast presenters. These days it seems we noises, but also feed a mix of all relevant the case. However, perhaps, women do
have sunk into a world in which ‘diversi- sounds being broadcast directly into the not see the prospect of working in radio as
ty requirements’ mean that stations have ears of the broadcaster. This monitoring of an attractive one, but if so, what would the
to have their quota of people who do not the station output includes your own voice reason for that be? We have lots of women
know how to converse properly. I feel that when you are speaking, thus enabling you who ind success in other media careers
– on the BBC in particular – this is dei- to pay closer attention to your own diction like acting for example. Perish the thought
nitely an issue. and clarity of speech. that they don’t like the idea of radio because
Swearwords can be acceptable in the People are often surprised when they they won’t be seen. I’m sure that couldn’t
right context, but not if their use is just hear recordings of their own voice, if they possibly be it.
random. Another thing with the BBC and are not used to hearing it, because of Nor am I willing to accept that they are
phone-in callers is that they do not use the way in which what we normally hear just ‘not good’ at radio, although I have
a profanity-delay. Thus, I have heard as our own voices can give us quite a (male) friends who tell me that they usually
examples of some of severe swear words false perception. ind female DJ’s and hosts unappealing’
going out on air. This does not offend me, Some may also be ‘’linguistically lazy and I myself would have dificulty thinking
but I ind it interesting that commercial in their natural everyday conversations, of a large number of women in radio that I
radio would be sanctioned for it. Therefore, and we have all come across the would count among my personal favourites.
they always operate in delay-mode with a phenomenon of the ‘telephone-voice’. Therefore, I will pose a couple of
‘dump’ button. This relies on the station In radio, opinions are divided as to questions for your consideration. Why are
staff to catch it in time, of course, which whether or not broadcasters should there so few women in radio and can you
occasionally they don’t. have an ‘on-the-air-voice’ or whether nominate any exceptionally good ones
I am also concerned about the style of they should speak in exactly the same from past or present? I may return to this
speech. Rather than an ‘evolution-process’, voice as they would naturally. I guess subject in future with some reviews and
what I sometimes hear sounds more the answer is that it depends; either way, examples. In the meantime, remember that
like a ‘degeneration-process’ to me. The if someone is going to be welcomed if there is anything you would like to solicit
voices I hear on some of the urban music into a listener’s intimate space over the my response on or converse with me about
pirates are ‘diabolical’, to say the least. If radio, I believe that broadcasters should you can drop me a line. Alternatively, you
this is a cultural trend, it is one that I don’t always show decorum. are always welcome to send your thoughts
wish to be part of. about anything relating to radio to our editor
Wireless Women for inclusion in the feedback section.
Vocal Tones and Headphones We live in an age in which we are With that, I will call a halt to proceedings
Regarding tones and audio characteristics encouraged to strive for equality, but it for this issue.
of voices, there are always going to be a would be foolish to deny biological facts, Enjoy your listening, keep expressing
few that are naturally outstanding and a so I think it is still fair to say that there are yourself freely and I will endeavour to
few that are, unfortunately, the types that differences between men and women. return next month.

Comms from Europe
Stafeta 2019, Modifications

and New Transceivers
Simon Parker Product development for the dual mike Mine came from the webshop in export
13at777@gmail.com is ongoing, and a cordless Bluetooth mi- mode. I have since joined the wire and re-
crophone is also on the cards. Many peo- set the jumper, as I had wanted this in mul-
Simon Parker previews product de- ple have removed the cable that comes ti-norm EU mode, not extended.
velopment of the Midland Dual Mike with the mike; it still works, even then, as
microphone app and has news of a the battery is in the microphone. However, The HF Doktor and the President
European PMR446 event. He also please be careful as tampering with this I recently made the decision and sent one
reports on transceiver modifications, will invalidate any warranty. of my President Bill transceivers by DHL to
Bluetooth dongles, and amplifiers. Germany, to see what could be done to this
PMR Linking (Stafeta 2019 ) small box; my email inbox is littered with
Radio can be a volatile topic to write on. For As you read this in late January 2019, messages from all over Europe about this
a while, things are quiet. But now, I am writ- Czech PMR hobbyists will have gone out radio, and about what people have done
ing this just a few days before Christmas, on January 1st, from around 21.00 till with it. Mine went away in export mode,
and I have literally thousands of new bits of 07.00, to welcome the new year with PMR high power and 1.4kHz of FM audio.
information crossing my desk – questions, transceivers. This is otherwise known as Around two weeks later, the radio re-
reception reports, funny stories, and every- ‘PoMeRanc’ (‘Orange Band’). turned, and has been altered by the doc-
thing in between. The philosophy of this event is very tor, shall we say. If you now turn the radio
This time I can share some more of the much one of working off some of the ex- on, with PTT pressed, it is in export mode,
ideas Midland have for the Dual Mike. In cesses of Christmas, by standing, sitting or with 20W power. Switch it on with just F
general, I believe that we need a dedicated camping all night on a hill. They are sure to pressed, and it is in multi-norm.
Bluetooth microphone to use on CB radios absolutely freeze to death in my opinion. The FM audio has been increased from
and I will be offering a reason why. 1.4kHz to 2.4kHz, and there is talk online
Most importantly, I will be trying to an- New AM/FM Radio that someone’s radio was expanded to
swer the questions about the FT-4xe and Some news is just in, of a new dual-voltage 5.0kHz audio. However, mine is for the car,
FT-65xe, especially concerning the ‘unlock’ (12/24V) CB radio. It is in an early design and don’t need all the stranger things.
and ‘God’ mode and how to access it. stage at the moment, and possible deliv- A hole has been drilled in the standard
Last but not least, there are repeat- ery will be later in 2019. It is said to offer microphone and a compressor itted, as
er shifts on radios to consider and loads a large display, and it will feature AM, FM, well as some other circuits, which make
more so take a look at. and export mode. Its size is on the small the transceiver super-strong indeed.
side, somewhere in between the President Since my own unit was returned, other
Midland Dual Mike CB App Bill and the CRT Xenon. experimenters have produced different
We’ve talked about this new microphone modiications to other radios, with even
before, especially its functions, and about The CRT S Mini V3 more different options now available.
what works and what might possibly need Having invested €62 on the CRT webshop
changing in the future it. With this in mind (plus €18 for shipping) and after a 5-day Project President Bill Repeater
and thinking of the changes that Midland wait, this new transceiver has arrived here. Shift
have now implemented in their CB app, it is It looks quite plain; there is, for example, Repeater shift is now possible on the
worth another look at this device. no signal meter. President Bill transceiver model, thanks to
You are now locked to the country from The unit has a 4-pin microphone connec- a circuit designed by Leo1968. This will al-
where you log into the app. Therefore, in tion, and there are few eye-catching things low you to transmit (currently in German
my case, I have 15 ‘rooms’ (all empty). on the front of it. mode) on Channel 41 (26.565MHz FM)
Midland has now implemented a system ‘Under the hood’, however, it has loads of and receive on Channel 40 (27.405MHz
with which you can add a maximum of 4 interesting features locked away, such as FM). Currently, this is being revised for
locations around the world. There is a drop- 10m simplex mode, A channels between more options, as obviously the Dutch and
down menu, with all the countries in the 25.6-30.1MHz, low, medium and high pow- the Germans have repeaters connected to
world, and you can select 4 of these. er on FM (4/8/15W) and (4/8W) on AM. the internet on different bands other than
In my case I’ve selected the UK, There is also coverage of 24-30MHz DE, such as EU for example.
Germany, and Italy so far and, of course, in export mode. I am reliably informed that this is ‘just the
my quiet ‘rooms’ in Hungary, which still Yes, you do lose the ‘UK40’ in ‘extend- start’ and that far more exciting things are
remain empty. Midland has developed ed mode’ but, for the price, what is hid- on the horizon.
many ideas on the application and the den away here, is incredible. To ind out As always, radio hobby experimentation
microphone for the year ahead, includ- all this, you have to move the jumper and just needs time, energy and some ‘know-
ing an equalizer, echoes, roger beeps and cut the wire for some of it; otherwise, just how’, to make it happen. If it happens, I will
other functions. move the jumper. feature it in future columns, of course.

Comms from Europe
SIMON PARKER SIMON PARKER
Fig. 1: The RM Italy KL-703 linear ampliier.
that keeping on the straight and narrow is

really the only way when it comes to radios
and transceivers.
The RM Italy KL-703 Amplifier

The RM Italy KL-703 linear ampliiers are
now on sale (Figs. 1 and 2), and I was lucky
enough to try one out here (see editor’s
note, below). I was extremely impressed.
Basically, two KL-503 ampliiers tied to-
gether make a high-drive ampliier. This
can take 25W input on FM and SSB, and it
will power 500W from the ampliier.
The power supply is the fun piece, as
my 50 amp one went dim and pegged the
meter when I keyed the microphone with
15W FM going into it! Take this on to the
Fig. 2: The RM Italy KL-703 linear ampliier (inside). hill, like in the old days, when the B550P or
KL500 were the ‘weapons of choice’ as it
Yaesu FT- 4X (E) & FT- 65X (E) date your warranty – Ed.]. were, and you’ll push the car home. Or, in
Unlock/ ‘God’ Modes my case, roll it down to start from Thetford
I have received many e-mails and mes- Bluetooth Dongles hill, as the DTI went up the hill (that was a
sages on Facebook about these radios, es- I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I night to remember!).
pecially in connection with the ‘unlock’ and have to conclude that we need cordless Expect to see them in your dealers from
‘adjustment’ modes for audio, and so on. microphones, which can link through a late January in the UK but the UK price is
The unlock is via a number code, and six-pin connection, and a Bluetooth mi- unknown as we speak.
the radio will reset, and turn on unlocked. crophone to connect to it. How much [N.B.: Ampliiers can be illegal to use on
If you type the code into a locked one, it would this cost? That is the key question. CB in the UK – Ed.].
will return to being locked from 144-146 The Midlands cordless microphone and
and 430-440MHz. dongle will cost you around €100, or a And Finally...
The service mode (or ‘God mode’, as the little bit more. At the time of writing, there is plenty of
makers call it) is currently not available. Bear in mind that trafic laws are cur- news concerning the release of four new
Yaesu will not release it, advising instead rently changing, both in Continental Europe transceiver models from President.
that owners take the radio for a service, and the UK, over the next 18 months or Moreover, it appears that analogue sig-
and it will be ixed. Let’s wait and see. so: If you get caught using a microphone nal meters are making a comeback.
Many thought the codes would not be re- or mobile phone, you will get a ine and a There is a new aerial from the USA, com-
leased; however, eventually, and by means ban, depending on the severity of your of- ing to Europe to avoid the ‘Trump Tax’.
of trial and error, this was possible. Many fence. For this reason alone, VOX operat- The Magnum 1 transceiver has been up-
of you have written to me about low audio. ed Bluetooth technology for the hobby – dated and is returning to Europe. However,
The radio isn’t Yaesu-made but either through a headset or a microphone at a cost of around £450 in the shop, will
produced by OEM. – seems the key. anyone be interested at all?
https://tinyurl.com/y97zlwnj Add to this the many situations in which For now, however, keep the radio
[N.B.: be aware that any interference with trucks are now routinely stopped, and ille- on, keep listening and keep the hob-
your transceiver will, at the very least, invali- gal radios are impounded, and you will see by alive. Simon.

International Radio Scene
CHRISSY BRAND
Fig. 1: A Voice of Turkey QSL card from 2016.
Turkish Delights and

Medium Wave Wonders
New Secretary-General of the European DX Council, Chrissy Brand, catches
up with the best of the broadcast bands, including the excitement of
transatlantic medium wave DXing, and listens to Bosnian music online.
Chrissy Brand on the HF short wave radio transmitters be- 6050kHz to Europe; from 2130 to 2230 on
chrissyLB@hotmail.co.uk cause we don’t have mobile and data cover- 9610kHz to Asia and Australasia; and from
age for AM and FM radio stations. The ABC 2300 to 0000 UTC on 5960kHz aimed at
I
n November, the ABC’s Northern can expand its modern day platforms all it Europe and the Americas.
Territory Country Hour programme likes, but the truth is we don’t all have access The Voice of Turkey still issues a wide
reported that the controversial cuts to it, and the ABC did not care at all about the range of QSL cards, often to commemo-
to ABC Radio Australia’s short wave impact of its decision.” rate national and international events. In
service in 2017 might be reversed. https://tinyurl.com/y98dsnhv 2016, the broadcaster supported a cam-
Should the Australian Labor party regain Lionel Clyne heard TRT the Voice of paign to tackle nicotine and substance
power, it would provide the ABC with AUS$2 Turkey at 1920 UTC on 5945kHz, broad- addiction (Fig. 1). The listener feedback
million of funding, in order to resurrect the casting in German until the station went off programme, Letterbox, is aired during the
service and to help re-establish short wave the air at 1925 UTC. You can hear the Voice Friday broadcasts.
radio services across Australia’s Northern of Turkey in English as follows: Daily, from It is time to come to the aid of Radio
Territory. 0400 to 0500 UTC on 6125 and 7240kHz France International’s popular programme,
Northern Territory Cattlemen’s aimed at Europe, Asia and the Americas; The Sound Kitchen. It has been relegated
Association president Chris Nott was one from 1330 to 1430 UTC on 12035kHz for to ‘podcast-only’ status, losing its place on
of many who welcomed the news. He said, Europe and the Americas; from 1730 to1830 short wave. With its weekly quiz, facts, inter-
“What people take for granted in the cities, is UTC to the Middle East and East Asia on views and listener input, it was a great pro-
a luxury for those of us in the bush. We rely 11730kHz; from 1930 to 2030 UTC on gramme to start the weekend, at 0600 UTC.

CHRISSY BRAND
Presenter Susan Owensby encourages peo-

ple to complain by e-mail, in order to make
the powers that be rescind this decision.
In the meantime, listen online for some
wonderful content. In the most recent pro-
gramme I heard, Susan took us to the Musée
du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, for a look at
the art of Japanese bamboo basket weav-
ing, investigated Sudan’s pyramids, gave
a mini history lesson on Nubia and played
some music requests.
http://www.quaibranly.fr/en
Other English programmes from Radio
France International (Fig. 2) can be heard
on short wave via a WRMI relay of the
World Radio Network, to North America on
5950kHz, and via an hour-long broadcast at
0600, 1600 and 2300 UTC.
thesoundkitchen@ri.fr
www.rienglish.com
Medium Wave
The medium wave band is still alive with
signals, despite some European coun-
tries cutting back coverage in recent years.
Spanish stations dominate; however, Italian,
Czech and other broadcasters are all easily
heard too, even on the most unsophisticat-
ed of receivers. With a good receiver and a
decent antenna setup, you can pull in medi-
um wave stations from North America.
Probably like many other enthusiasts, it
was the medium wave band that started my
DXing. In childhood, I recall the glow of the
green light on my grandfather’s big valve
radio. A never-to-be-forgotten excitement
of hearing different languages and exotic
music ensued. And I was in control of this
prized possession, twiddling what was then
a huge tuning dial in my tiny hands. Lyon,
Dublin and Hilversum were among new Fig. 2: Radio France International’s promotional material, glossing over the cuts.
place names to me. It was like a drug, and I
wanted more: I was entranced by the voices None of these stations is dificult to dio and television. In the Telegraaf (news-
that I couldn’t understand, and by all kinds catch, and they are reminders of what de- paper), the AT indicates that Wi-Fi and in-
of music, such as string quartets, bebop and lights there are still to be found. house telephones also suffer from this. The
eastern European folk. Tony Stickells identiied an RFI prob- agency has now started a major investiga-
I was reminded of all this the other lem, caused by street lighting. Tony wrote, tion among 50 suppliers. Two years ago, it
day when I was driving around the Home “The street light bulbs were replaced and had already noticed during a test that almost
Counties. It was still a thrill to hear BBC the RFI reduced. I have emailed the council, no one of them met all government require-
Radio Scotland on 810kHz, some 500 and apparently, they have a plan to replace ments in a test of thirty lamps.” (You can
miles away, talking about ski slopes and the whole lot with LED street lighting, let’s read more about LED RFI in my Emerging
explaining why some Scandinavians sing hope this helps.” Issues in Radio column this month).
to their reindeer. On 1341kHz, BBC Radio The next item, from Graham Smith, might Graham also suffered some RFI recently,
Ulster from aired a feature about a camou- not be music to Tony’s ears. The LED light- but it seems to be manageable. He was get-
laged micro moth. ing in the Netherlands is causing interfer- ting a ‘buzzing’ sound on his radio. On me-
MR1 Kossuth Rádió from Hungary on ence to radio and TV, according to a report dium wave and long wave, turning the radio
540kHz positively booms in now, thanks to from the Dutch Radio NL website: “Energy- nulled out the problem. He thinks that the
a more powerful transmitter. Hungarian is a eficient LED lighting that the government source of the interference came, in all like-
fascinating language to listen to, and there advises as a replacement for old light bulbs lihood, from someone’s television. Graham
are often musical interludes, unlike much can, according to the Radiocommunications further noted that, “Egypt broadcasts on
that is heard elsewhere on the dial. Agency (AT), cause many disruptions on ra- 774kHz, carrying its Middle Eastern channel.

Short Wave Logs

UTC kHz Station and Location Language SINPO Initials
0205 6090 Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Spanish 45544 GS
0415 6030 Radio Marti, Greenville Spanish 45344 LC
0500 6000 Radio Havana Cuba, Titan Quivicán English 45333 LC, OR
1140 17665 Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sirjan Hausa 55344 LC
1548 15825 WWCR, Nashville English 45333 LC, OR
1554 15410 Eye Radio, Santa Maria di Galeria Sudanese Arabic 45343 LC
1601 15105 Trans World Radio Africa, Mazini Kirundi 45333 LC
1602 15235 Channel Africa, Meyerton French 45233 LC
1633 7475 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Udon Thani Tajik 45333 LC
1644 7465 BBC World Service, Kranji Dari 55344 LC
1650 7230 Vatican Radio, Maria di Galeria Arabic 55455 LC
1902 6180 Radio Romania International, Țigănești German 55555 LC
1909 6135 Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sirjan French 45233 LC
1912 5990 Radio Romania International, Galbeni Romanian 45455 LC
1916 5980 TRT, Voice of Turkey Turkish 45444 LC
1928 5900 Radio Taiwan International, Kostinbrod German 45434 LC
1936 9940 Trans World Radio Africa, Manzini French 45444 LC
1937 7585 Radio Farda, Udon Thani Persian 55444 LC
1941 7475 Radio Thailand, Udon Thani English 55444 LC, OR
1941 9690 KNLS, Madagascar Russian 45334 LC
1947 7375 Radio Algérienne, Issoudun Arabic 45344 LC
1948 9420 Voice of Greece Greek 55434 LC
1952 7280 Voice of Vietnam, Hanoi-Sontay French 55344 LC
2019 7235 Radio Romania International, Ţigăneşti Spanish 55555 LC
2032 7205 Radio France International, Issoudun French 45534 LC
2040 12095 BBC World Service, Ascension Island English 44233 LC, OR
2045 9690 Radio Exterior de España, Noblejas Spanish 35334 LC, OR
2200 6185 Vatican Radio Chinese 45544 GS
WLW FACEBOOK PAGEDAVE KENNY
ind most programmes of that ilk to be dull, LOG CONTRIBUTORS: GS = Graham Smith, Bury St.
whatever the language. I probably spent Edmunds, Suffolk. Sony ICF-SW600 and a telescopic
too many years in my formative DXing days, antenna. LC = Lionel Clyne, Faversham, Kent. Lowe
hearing overlong items from Radio Tirana HF-150, random wire or homemade loop. OR = Owen
and others on production output igures. Rutherford, London. Lowe HF-150 and a Wellbrook
To be fair, I do often enjoy the BBC World loop. SC = Scott Caldwell, Warrington, Cheshire.
Service programme Business Daily (0830 Realistic DX 394, Sony ICF 2001D, Lowe HF225, and
UTC and repeated at other times). It breaks a Wellbrook Loop. TS = Tony Stickells, Wrexham.
the mould, covering wider issues such as SDRplay RSP2, AOR AR7030 and a 500ft long wire.
ofice politics or environmental matters. An
examination of the breakneck pace of ur-
banisation in Dar-es-Salaam (Ethiopia) was Listening in Cheshire, fellow RadioUser
another good example of this programme’s columnist Scott Caldwell also caught some
breadth (Mapping Africa’s Megacities, transatlantic DX. On 700kHz at 0430 UTC,
November 22nd). he heard Newsradio 700 WLW in Cincinnati
https://tinyurl.com/yaybajlp (Fig. 3), broadcasting an item about rude
Tony logged quite a few stations from National Football League fans. Owned by
North America in November. He did so by iHeartMedia, the station’s studios are locat-
using an AOR AR7030 and his SDRplay ed in Sycamore Township, and its transmit-
Fig. 3: The nicely-branded transmitter tower of RSP2 receiver with a Cross Country Wireless ter is at Mason in Ohio. One of the oldest
WLW Cincinnati. (CCW) pre-selector. He commented, “The radio stations in the US, in the 1930s it was
SDR is a good tool, as I can see the signals also the only US station ever authorised
However, the sound quality is poor, unlike the on the waterfall display; iddling with the set- to broadcast with a power of 500,000W.
Egyptian General channel on 819kHz or the tings, including the LO separation, and tuning Returning to the theme of business and the
Egyptian Koran channel on 864kHz.” the pre-selector, gets a good, clear, identii- economy on the radio, Scott also heard the
Spanish station Radio Intereconomia re- able, signal. I record it and then get an ID at Bloomberg Business Report on WBBR in
turned to 918kHz, having been forced off leisure, usually on the hour. On some days, I New York on 1130kHz.
the air due to vandalism, although he com- can get skywave signals from Europe. This
mented that, “Actually I ind that station rath- isn’t unusual for this time of year, but I can Radio Website Tips
er boring.” Radio Intereconomia started in get distances well beyond the normal 200 If you have an Alexa smart speaker, then
1994 with a remit of business news. I too miles of line-of-sight reception.” you will want to know about the Alexa short

Medium Wave Logs

kHz UTC Station Location Country SINPO Initials
570 0429 CFCB, VOCM Corner Brook, NL Canada 33222 SC, TS
580 0420 CFRA Ottawa, QC Canada 33222 SC, TS
585 0025 RNE Madrid Spain 43333 SC, TS
590 0048 VOCM St. John’s, NL Canada 43344 TS
600 0426 CBNA St. Anthony, NL Canada 43333 TS
620 0204 CKCM Grand Falls, NL Canada 41222 TS
621 1617 RTBF Wavre Belgium 44333 SC, TS
639 0031 RNE La Coruña Spain 44444 SC, TS
670 0059 WSCR Chicago, IL USA 45244 TS
680 2332 CFTR Toronto, ON Canada 33333 SC, TS
680 0100 WRKO Boston, MA USA 44334 TS
684 0038 RNE Seville Spain 33333 SC
700 0432 WLW Cincinnati, OH USA 33333 SC
710 0046 CKVO Clarenville, NL Canada 44233 TS
740 0050 CHCM Marystown, NL Canada 52242 TS
750 0415 CBGY Bonavista Bay, NL Canada 32222 SC, TS
756 1619 Radio Romania Actualităţi Boldur Romania 32222 SC
760 0026 WJR Detroit, MI USA 45343 TS
770 0054 WABC New York NY/Lodi NJ USA 54223 TS
864 1610 Radio Liberty/TWR Gavar Armenia 44334 TS
930 2343 CJYQ St. John’s, NL Canada 43343 TS
1008 0925 Groot Nieuws Radio Zeewolde The Netherlands 44333 SC, TS
1010 2353 WINS New York NY /Lyndhurst NJ USA 42233 TS
1030 0135 WBZ Boston, MA USA 44244 TS
1130 0517 WBBR New York, NY USA 33333 SC
1179 1709 SER Valencia Spain 44444 SC, TS
1188 1700 MR4 Nemzetiségi Adások Marcali/Kisperjés Hungary 44444 SC, TS
CHRISSY BRAND
wave signals skill. This was developed by lively Bosnian Turkish-infused music. It’s
Mark Hirst, and his blog post at Thomas the kind of station that really feeds my pas-
Witherspoon’s SWLing Post explains all, sion for global radio.
from the basic to the areas where Alexa www.radiomix.ba
struggles, for instance with certain lan- Graham Smith recently visited Belgrade
guages, like Oromo. (in Serbia), where he noted several televi-
https://tinyurl.com/y7zebud4 sion stations: National broadcaster RTS,
N1 Serbia, Serbian Science Television,
FM Finds BN Televizija, for Serbs in Bosnia, RTV, for
One of the added bonuses of travel is lis- the northern province of Vojvodina, Sat
tening to local radio stations, in particu- Televizija, from Požarevac, Pink (a commer-
lar, those on FM that you won’t hear at cial station) and O2 TV/RTV B92, from the
home. Although many seem top-heavy with people behind Radio B92.
American and British pop and rock music, B92 was founded in 1989, as a youth
you can usually ind stations that play lo- radio station broadcasting to parts of
cal music as well. Some French stations Belgrade. It rose to prominence through-
carry interesting jazz programmes, which I out the world during the Balkans conlict,
can hear from across the English Channel on account of its independent journalism.
if conditions are right. Open Jazz, with B92 criticised hate speech and became one Fig. 4: Mostar in Bosnia is famous for its bridge,
Alex Dutilh, is on France Musique, week- of the few free media outlets, shut down less so for its exciting FM band.
days from 1705 to 1800 UTC. I supple- by the regime of Slobodan Milošević on no
ment that by listening online to French sta- less than four occasions. B92 is one of the solar data, which he has enlarged, for easi-
tion Jazz Radio. founders of the Association of Independent er visibility. He also recommends the social
https://tinyurl.com/ybscpt2m Electronic Media (ANEM). media channels of Tamitha Skov, a space
www.jazzradio.fr/radio/frequences www.anem.rs/en.html weather physicist. She is also a TV present-
I was in the Bosnian city of Mostar last B92’s importance and inluence have er who is, “working to make credible space
year (Fig. 4) where the FM band is packed. been the subject of a book and a ilm. You weather forecasts as common as the weath-
One station that stuck with me, and which can follow B92 in English, online. er forecasts you see on the evening news. I
I now listen to online, is Radio Mix, on www.b92.net/eng would love for you to join me on this journey!”
107.1MHz. The station name may sound www.anem.org.rs/en.html g4pvb.eu5.net/solar.htm
rather run-of-the-mill, but you will hear some Finally, Bob Houlston has a webpage on tinyurl.com/TamithaSkov

Aerials Now!
Active Aerials and Mini Whips

Keith Rawlings
Keith.g4miu@gmail.com
This month, Keith Rawlings

investigates active aerials. He begins
with some general technical and
design advice, and he subsequently
evaluates the PA0RDT mini whip and
the RA0SMS mini whip kit.
For many years, I have concentrated my ef-

forts on ‘passive’ aerials. These are aerials
that have no active or ampliied parts, such
as half-wave dipoles, long wires and so on.
The reason for this was twofold: First,
it was more convenient to use my main
station transmitting aerials for general re-
ception, and, second, there were a num-
ber of pitfalls to consider when using
active devices.
For example, care has to be taken to en-
sure that excessive gain is not applied to
the receiver front end, causing overload.
Furthermore, there may be mixing prod-
ucts, generated within the aerial itself,
if it is poorly designed leading to Inter-
Modulation Distortion (IMD). This can
cause ‘phantom’ signals.
Poorly designed units may lead to high
noise levels, and, in some cases, the re-
ception of local ‘electrical’ noise can
also be a problem.
In the end, because of disappointing re-
sults, I shelved my attempts at using ac-
tive aerials and, more or less, gave them
up as a bad job. 1
That was back then, but things change.

Modern housing is more densely packed of some sort may start to look a desirable use as noise sensors for use with my noise
than it used to be, and it looks set to con- proposition, certainly for HF. With the ad- cancelling units. These aerials – because
tinue that way. Moreover, no matter vance of technology and a better under- they were compact and small – could be
where you live, just about all houses will standing of the subject, and using modern placed very near to noise sources; they
have a multitude of electronics devices design techniques, excellent performance could provide a good signal to feed into the
generating noise. can now easily be achieved at affordable cancelling units.
This presents a challenge to any- prices, as you will see. I continued to experiment with various
one wishing to use a radio in this type designs I found on the net; presently, I still
of environment. Some Background use my original loop, plus a PA0RDT mini
Smaller gardens can make putting up an I started looking more seriously into active whip alongside my end-fed, as well as vari-
aerial for HF dificult and, if so, some part of aerials, while also carrying out experiments ous other passive designs.
it may well be near a noise-generating de- during my attempts to reduce interference
vice of some sort as well. at my station. As described in previous is- Main Characteristics
The VHF bands and above probably sues of RadioUser, I built an HF active loop An ‘active’ aerial is, basically, an aerial that
present less of a challenge for the listen- that could be placed as far away from inter- has a signal ampliier built into it. This re-
er; a simple vertical on a pole on the side fering sources as possible. I could turn it to sults in a smaller structure, compared to a
of the house may sufice. A Yagi or log help reduce some of the interference, and, full-sized system. The ampliier has a num-
periodic may be manageable and can by the nature of its design, it was quieter on ber of things to do: It must match the ele-
be loft-mounted. the lower frequencies. ment to 50Ω over a wide frequency range. It
So, for many listeners, an active device I then made some active ‘verticals’ to needs to have good signal handling proper-

Aerials Now!
ALL PICTURES: KEITH RAWLINGS
2 3
4 5
Fig.1: The receiving element of the PA0RDT Mini ment as a tiny ‘patch’ of copper printed cir- HF bands. The only drawback for construc-
Whip. Fig. 2: Circuit for an isolating transformer, cuit board (PCB) (Fig. 1). This patch acts tors to the original design is the slightly ex-
built into the bias-T. Fig. 3: One of my home-made as a shortened element, which is capaci- pensive 2N5109 transistor.
loops, based on the M0AYF design. Fig. 4: The tance-coupled to the electric ield (E-ield). One thing of importance with mini whips
mini whip kit from Anton RA0SMS (components). Indeed, these designs are often called is that they need to be mounted well clear
Fig. 5: The mini whip kit from Anton RA0SMS (kit ‘E-ield probes’. The signal levels from this of any objects and preferably on a ground-
with instructions). patch of PCB are extremely low and need ed metal mast (although mine is not) and
amplifying; furthermore, the patch presents away from possible noise sources.
ties to avoid overloading (IMD), as this will a high impedance and will need matching They also need a good ground to elimi-
lead to the production of spurious signals. to the 50Ω required by most systems. nate noise. Try to ground both the mast (if it
It also requires enough gain to compensate To do this, the mini whip employs a two- is metal) and the coaxial cable shield at the
for the short element, and it ideally should stage ampliier that can be built, ‘ugly’-style, base of the mast. Use a clean power sup-
have a low noise factor. onto a piece of PCB, part of which is the reply and also a common mode choke near
A look at the adverts in RU and on the in- ceiving element. This simple design leaves to where the coaxial cable connects to the
ternet reveals a very large selection of ac- plenty of room for experimentation. receiver. This can be achieved by using an
tive aerials available. There are a number of modiied mini isolating transformer built into the bias-T (if
Also, there are a number of designs out whip circuits out there. one is used). For this, I would suggest the
there which users can build for themselves, Moreover, the PA0RDT is simple to build circuit seen in Fig. 2.
and many of them are simple; the popular and can either be powered directly or Depending on noise pickup, it may be
and previously-mentioned PA0RDT mini through the coaxial feeder using a bias-T. I worthwhile not grounding the feeder at the
whip is one example. have found this mini whip works surprising- receiver end (jumper).
This aerial has the actual receiving ele- ly well from VLF to the upper reaches of the As mentioned earlier, it is possible to

Aerials Now!
use an active design with a loop. My home-

made loops are based on the M0AYF de-
sign, which is very simple to build and im-
plement (Fig. 3).
There are many commercial offerings
to be found, and among the most popu-
lar loops found in the UK are those made
by Wellbrook. It seems that most own-
ers of Wellbrook loops are more than
happy with them.
AOR also offer loop products as do MFJ
and, not forgetting another British manufac-
turer, Cross Country Wireless. A look at the
adverts in RU, or a search on a popular auc-
tion site, may well reveal more.
RA0SMS Mini Whip Kit

A look on ‘that’ auction site will reveal
many designs for active aerials, includ-
ing a fair number based on the PA0RDT
design. One of which, comes from Anton
RA0SMS in the Ukraine, who offers kits, as
well as ready-made units (Figs. 4 to 6). The
reason I have selected this particular kit is
that I obtained one on behalf of a friend. He
wanted something ‘cheap and simple’ to Fig. 6: The completed RA0SMS kit.
build, for use with his HF receiver. He had
seen this kit and thought it would be suit- length of wire was soldered to the board, much as three to ive S-points. We did note
able, in the knowledge that I could help him and now we were ready to test the kit out. that the background noise was slightly low-
out if things went wrong. Construction took about 45 minutes, and I er on the RA0SMS, giving a likewise slightly
Well, things didn’t go wrong, because he found it simple enough but, as stated, I don’t better overall signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
soon realised that while the design is sim- think this is a complete beginners kit. Presently, my friend’s mini whip is housed
ple construction was not quite the same! The circuit incorporates components within a cut-down plastic milk carton, af-
The parts are, in the main, surface-mount, enabling the DC supply to be fed along the ixed to a wooden pole with a separate
and there were no ‘step-by-step’ instruc- feeder. Because of this, it was a simple mat- earth wire going to a stake in the ground;
tions provided. Also, his soldering equip- ter to connect it to one of the feeder runs this seems to be working quite well. I am
ment, eyesight, dexterity and experience used by my active aerials in the garden. hoping that, by the time my friend reads
were all unsuitable for such small com- These are powered through a home-con- this, he will have housed it in the plastic
ponents. So, one evening we sat together, structed, dual-output-version, bias-T, similar waste pipe he bought for the job!
while I constructed the kit and he watched. to the one in Fig. 2. For those that don’t construct, Anton also
I, at least, had the soldering equipment, We taped the mini whip to a ibreglass offers ready-made items, and so do other
if nothing else! pole and then made some quick daytime sellers on eBay.
The kit is supplied with a decent circuit comparisons against my PA0RDT, which The beauty of an active aerial is that
board and with all of the SMD devices in follows the original design. There was a these designs are small and are great if you
their tape packaging. The board is clearly difference of around four feet in height be- are limited by space. They can provide the
marked and shows where most of the com- tween the two, with the RA0SMS being the ideal solution when it is dificult to install
ponents go. Once identiied, they are simply lower model. Both mini whips were fed DC something like a half-wave dipole, or in situ-
soldered on the board. The resistors have from my bias-T into a coaxial cable switch ations where you do not want to create po-
their values marked on them, and it was not so that quick comparisons could be made. tential problems with your neighbours.
a dificult task to cross-reference the cir- The irst thing we noted was that the Next month, I will continue the ‘active ae-
cuit diagram with the parts list. The capac- RA0SMS design had lower gain. From 9kHz rial-theme,’ by describing the construction
itors are not marked, but there are only ive upwards, all signals resolved were of a low- and commissioning of a PA0RDT mini whip,
of these, and four have the same value, so er level than those found on the PA0RDT. using conventional components and cheap-
it was not dificult to identify these either. These levels varied to some extent and de- er substitute transistors.
Transistor Q2 is obvious, as to where it is pended on the frequency and (on HF) possi- For those awaiting my follow up on the
placed, but Q1, a BF998, needs some care bly on the angle that signals arrived at. MR100 aerial analyser, at the time of writ-
on its placement and orientation. On domestic AM broadcasts, the PA0RDT ing, I am still trying to ascertain if there are
I started off by irst soldering the resis- was some 10dB better. On HF, we checked issues with the computer interface.
tors to the board, followed by the capaci- up to the 41m band and found that, on As always, so that everyone may beneit, I
tors. Next, the two inductors and then the some signals, the RA0SMS was only slight- will reply to queries via this column.
two semiconductors. Finally, the supplied ly down, whereas, on others, it could be as Good Listening.

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Utility Monitoring
1655 kHz Tjøme 1680 kHz Florø 1692 kHz Rogaland 1728 kHz Bergen 1782 kHz Ørlandet 1785 kHz Farsund
Norway MSI Broadcast on 650 South

monitored 2323 to 2336 utc on October 2nd 2018
Level 1785 kHz Farsund
MF/HF SSB:
Nils Schiffhauer, DK8OK
dk8ok@gmx.net
S
écurité, all ships in the White
Cruising the
Sea, this is Two Arkhangelsk
Radio …”, shouts the lady behind
the microphone at this coastal
station just south of the Polar
Circle. She is one of the many voices,
Seven Seas
announcing weather broadcasts in SSB for
ships. But have they not all gone digital? Far
from it! There still is much Utility DXing to
be had in voice mode, mainly SSB. It can be
received with literally every receiver, maybe
a legacy analogue radio or, preferably,
a modern SDR with some recording Nils Schiffhauer uses his radio, instead of binoculars,
capability.
Overall then, scheduled weather
to scan the horizon for maritime and weather-related
broadcasts provide a fairly easy gateway utility signals on MF and HF – signals you can
into Utility DXing. receive and evaluate with simple means.
Most of the near-coastal areas are now
covered by VHF transmissions. However,
beyond their immediate radio horizon, – publication Information for Shipping of journey back into the gilded age of HF. In
short wave comes into play. There is the World Meteorological Organization general, however, it is often claimed that
still activity on the MF band (medium (WMO) with its 1,003 pages of free-to- the Admiralty List of Radio Signals generally
frequency, 300 to 3000kHz), providing download information. documents the most reliable information.
Maritime Safety Information broadcasts In addition to this, the International However, price-wise at least, this
(MSI, mainly weather reports). This band Telecommunications Union ITU provides latter guide is squarely aimed at
provides a daytime coverage of some 100 a free web-based service, the Maritime the professionals.
to 150 miles; this extends to 1,000 miles Mobile Access and Retrieval System https://tinyurl.com/yc4p4jkd
at night in SSB. (MARS). Despite being “updated on a daily https://tinyurl.com/y76ftqmo
It is impossible to provide a complete basis”, this oficial information resource https://tinyurl.com/ydgjr8qk
overview of all the stations, frequencies contains many gross register tons of https://tinyurl.com/ya6o5wqg
and schedules. Even some national ‘wooden’ (i.e. obsolete) data.
authorities, responsible for these services, Another ITU publication on roughly the On the DX Seas
often provide outdated information. This is same topic is the List of Coast Stations and Therefore, I like to invite you on a voyage
also the case for the – otherwise excellent Special Service Stations. This is, in part, a into this partly- (and incompletely-charted)

Utility Monitoring
Arkhangelsk Radio 2, 2182 kHZ

anouncing weather on 2630 kHz
Arkhangelsk Radio 2, 2630 kHZ

starting with weather
Witwo Radio 2, 2720 kHZ

starting with weather
Witwo Radio, 2182 kHZ

anouncing weather on 2720 kHz
Speech formants of
computerized voice
Noise on free channel
Transmission starting
with tone sequence
sea of DX. Only a fraction of stations heard SSB/USB (with USB/carrier being seen but Fig.1: Norways southern coastal areas are served by
is listed here, due to space limitations. Italy rarely). Transmit power is usually between six remotely-controlled stations. Fig. 2: Most stations
is given a rather more complete overview, 1 and 10kW. Frequency, time, power and, announce their weather broadcasts on the international
whereas for other countries, only selected possibly, antenna direction, are matched calling frequency of 2182kHz, before changing to their
examples are provided. You can begin with to serve the region in focus – and not us individual channels. Fig. 3: All stations from Italy start
the stations from Europe and then sail on DXers. This makes reception from countries with a distinctive tone sequence.
to other continents. like Vietnam a rather weak experience.
As usual, I have listed only those As the coverage area of many stations North is sent from transmitters at eight
stations, channels and times I monitored is relatively small, the same weather locations. Most reports are transmitted
by myself in late 2018 with a modest set- information is often re-disseminated over shortly after the usual silence period for
up, consisting of the ELAD FDM-S2 SDR a net of remotely-controlled transmitters to listening to distress signals, i.e. after h+03
and a vertical active dipole of 2 x 2.5m provide reliable reception at sea. Norway, and h+33 or h+15 and h+45.
length (Megadipole MD300DX) on a birch for example, transmits the Norwegian Coast Weather reports are transmitted in local
tree in the garden. Weather South in parallel via six stations languages and English, the latter usually
All the transmitters in my list work in (Fig. 1). The Norwegian Coast Weather with a heavy accent (Ahoy, Aberdeen and

Utility Monitoring
AUSTRALIA Marconi. On its 7,600 km long coastline, the country still POLAND
Surrounded by ocean, Australia uses HF channels for more maintains 15 different locations for MSI broadcasts on Gdynia Maritime University is maintaining “Dar Młodzieży”,
than just regional coverage, as my logbook shows. Under the MF. All stations start their transmission with a distinctive an impressive three-mast training ship lying the
currently prevailing, unfavourable, propagation conditions, tone sequence (Fig. 3). All stations are transmitting with lag of Poland.
only two-thirds of the frequencies have come through. a power of 1kW. 2720 Witowo Radio: 2133 UTC.
Australia Weather West originates from VMW Wiluna and 1888kHz Civitavecchia Radio at Torre Chiaruccia, IPD: 0203,
is best heard on: 0503, 1703, 1803, 2003, 2103, 2203 UTC plus 0435, 0535, RUSSIA
6230kHz: 1430, and 2230 UTC 1635,
5 1735, 2035, and 2135 UTC Though many stations listed, only a few are regularly heard
8113kHz: 1430, 1530, and 1630 UTC 1925kHz: Livorno Radio at Montenero, IPL: 0403, 0503, with weather reports in Russian, e.g.:
12362kHz: 1830 UTC 1603, 1703, 2003, 2103 UTC plus 0135, 0435, 0535, 1635, 2630kHz Arkhangelsk Radio [Russian and English]: 1935
Australia Weather East is transmitted by VMC Charleville 1735, 1935, 2035, and 2135 UTC 2805kHz Taganrog Radio [Russian]: 0004 UTC.
and has been logged on: 2600kHz Mazara del Vallo Radio, IQQ: 0303, 1703, 1803,
6507kHz: 1430, 1530, and 1630 UTC 2103 UTC plus 0135, 0335, 1635, 1735, 1835, 1935, SPAIN
8176kHz: 1430, 1530, and 1630 UTC. 2035, and 2135 UTC Christoph Columbus started his irst journey to America
2624kHz Trieste Radio, IQX: 0203, 0503, 1703, 1803, 2103, from Palos de la Frontera/Spain on August 3rd, 1492. Today,
CANADA 2203 UTC plus 0435, 0535, 1635, 1735, 2035, and 2135 UTC I have heard only some weak signals from this nation:
Thanks to their many islands in the north, Canada is the 2628kHz Augusta Radio at Carrubazza, IQA: 0335 1677kHz RCC Coruña via Machichaco Radio, 2303 UTC
country with the longest coastline worldwide. MF/HF 2632kHz Napoli Radio at Posillipo, IQH: 0403, 1703, 1704kHz RCC Valencia via Cabo de Gata Radio: 2330 UTC
propagation is dificult in the Arctic, so there are many 1803, 2103 UTC plus 0135, 0335, 1635, 1735, 1835, 1935, 1755kHz RCC Valencia via Palma Radio/Mallorca: 1933 UTC
transmitters, some of them can be regularly heard in Europe. 2035, and 2135 UTC 1767kHz RCC Valencia via Cabo la Nao Radio: 2330 UTC.
Among them are: 2642kHz Genova Radio at Castellacio, ICB: 0403, 0503,
2598kHz Placentia Coast Guard Radio, from St. John’s: 1503, 1603, 1703, 1803, 2003, 2103 UTC plus 0135, 0435, SWEDEN
2007, 2207, and 0007 UTC 0535, 1635, 1735, 1935, 2035, and 2135 UTC Under the name of “Sweden Trafic”, this Scandinavian
2598kHz Placentia Coast Guard Radio, from St. 2656kHz Ancona Radio at Forte Millo, IPA: 0403, 0503, 1603, country transmits via a couple of coastal stations, each of
Lawrence: 2137, 0047 UTC 1703, 1803, 2003, 2103, 2203 UTC plus 1635, 1735, 1935, them heard at 0200, 0600, 1000, 1400, 1800 and 2200 UTC:
2598kHz Port-aux-Basque Coast Guard Radio, from 2035, and 2135 UTC 1710kHz Grimeton
Stephenville: 0207 UTC 2663kHz Crotone Radio at Monteparano, IPD: 0403, 1674kHz Tingstäde/Gotland
2749kHz Rivière-aux-Renard [French]: 0437 UTC 1703, 1803, 1903 UTC plus 0135, 0335, 1735, 1835, 1779kHz Bjuröklubb
2749kHz Halifax Coast Guard Radio, from 1797kHz Gislövshammar
1935, and 2035 UTC
Chebogue: 2320, 0140 UTC 2733kHZ Härnosand.
2680kHz Cagliari Radio at Margine Rosso, IDC: 0403, 0503,
2749kHz Halifax Coast Guard Radio, from
1703, 1803, 2003 UTC plus 0135, 0435, 0535, 1635, 1735,
Sambro: 2120, 0240 UTC THAILAND
1935, 2035, and 2135 UTC
2749kHz Sydney Coast Guard Radio, from Port Bangkok Meteo is providing weather reports in English and
2719kHz Porto Torres Radio at Monet Rosé, IZN: 0403, 0503,
Caledonia: 0040, 2010 UTC Thai, preceded by a wonderful signature tune, heard at 1300,
1603, 1703, 1803, 2003, 2103, 2203 UTC plus 1635, 1735,
2749kHz Rivière-aux-Renard [French]: 0437 UTC. 1400, 1500, 1600, 1800, 1900, 2000, 2100, and 2200 UTC
1935, 2025, and 2135 UTC
6765kHz Bangkok Meteo
2789kHz Messina Radio at Forte Spuria, IDF: 0430, 1803,
CHINA 8743kHz Bangkok Meteo.
1903, 2103 UTC plus 1635, 1735, 1835, and 2035 UTC.
Admiral Zheng He commanded expeditionary voyages up
to East Africa between 1405 and 1433. China’s maritime UNITED KINGDOM
weather in SSB on HF now seems just a remote, bleak, echo MONACO Many stations listed even today by ITU but most of them
of former glories: The national anthem, broadcast at the beginning, reminds ran aground as recently as summer 2000. Among them
4219kHz Guangzhou Radio, XSQ: 2320 UTC. me of that of Freedonia in the movie Duck Soup (Marx were Humber Radio, GKZ, on 1869kHz, Cullercoats Radio,
Brothers, 1933). A must for your MP3 collection. GCC, on 2719kHz and Lands End Radio, GLD, on 2670kHz.
DENMARK 4363kHz Monaco Radio, 3AC4: 1830 UTC Nevertheless, I have still monitored at least this last one with
Lyngby Radio, OXZ, was founded 1917. Denmark still 8783kHz Monaco Radio, 3AC8: 0657, 0757, 0930, 0957, some weather broadcast:
maintains some MF broadcasts: 1257, and 1355 UTC. 2226kHz Aberdeen Coast Guard, 0130, 0430, and 2230 UTC.
1734 kHz Blåvand: heard 0133, 0533, 1733, and 2133 UTC
1758 kHz Skagen: heard 0133, 0533, 1733, and 2133 UTC NORWAY USA
2586 kHz Rønne: 0133, 0533, 0933, 1533, This Scandinavian country is a true seafarer’s nation, as The US Coast Guard works some stations from CONUS, as
1933, and 2333 UTC. I saw in Oslo’s striking maritime museums, showing Thor well as from Hawaii and Guam. Please ind below some easy
Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki, Fridtjof Nansen’s Fram, and, above catches with plenty of room for your own discoveries.
FRANCE all, the Viking ships. Take the ferry from the town hall to the USCG Chesapeake, Virginia
Start with this country just across the Channel to get some Bygdøynes’ Maritime Museums! 4426kHz: 0330, 0515, 0930 UTC
practice in discovering more locations/schedules. “Norwegian Coast Weather South” (of 65° N), each heard at 6501kHz: 0330, 0515, 2130, 2310 UTC
1650kHz CROSS Corsen: 1515, 1915 UTC 0235, 2235 and 2315 UTC: 8764kHz: 1115, 1715, 2130, 2310 UTC
1696kHz CROSS MED(diterranée) La Garde: 1665kHz Tjøme 13089kHz: 1115, 1530, 1715, 2130 UTC
1600, 2200 UTC. 1680kHz Florø USCG New Orleans, Louisiana
1692kHz Rogaland 4316kHz: 0515 UTC (strong European STANAG4285 signal
IRELAND 1728kHz Bergen on 4314.2kHz makes reception dificult here)
Malin Head 1677kHz and Valentia 1752kHz are obviously 1782kHz Ørlandet 8502kHz: 2130, and 2310 UTC.
transmitting only on receipt. At least one of them was 1785 kHz Farsund
monitored in November 2018: From “Norwegian Coast Radio North” (of 65° N), these VIETNAM
1752kHz Valentia Radio: 0235, 1835, and 2235 UTC. stations were heard with their identiication “All stations, all Vishipel, the Vietnamese body responsible for Maritime
stations, this is Coast Radio North.”: Communications, lists 7906 and 8294kHz for weather
ITALY 1710kHz Sandnessjøen: 2303 UTC broadcasts to ishing vessels. I heard the following in
This country gave birth to commercial maritime wireless 1713kHz Vardø: 2233 UTC Vietnamese, starting with some second-pips:
from 1895, through the pioneering work of Guglielmo 1770kHz Bodø: 2303 UTC. 7906kHz 1557 to 2257 UTC, each hour.
Table 1: A Basic Overview of Maritime MF and HF SSB Weather Information.
Valentia Coast Guard Radio!). Moreover, into UTC isn’t always that trustworthy, as
Sometimes, bad automatic speech systems (e.g. ‘Iron Mike’, it sometimes does not take into account
modulation and noisy of the US Coast Guard) are widely used. countries’ Daylight-Saving Time schemes.
Sometimes, bad modulation and noisy At least, the minutes are generally correct,
transmitters place transmitters place additional strains on the except for occasional delays.
additional strains on the long-suffering DXer. Published schedules Many stations irst announce their
are most reliable when referring to local transmission on the international calling
long-suffering DXer times. But even their oficial conversion channel of 2182kHz, directly after the

Utility Monitoring
Scheduled: h+03
Start: 0006 UTC
24 hours recording
Click through
0106 ... 2306 UTC
Scheme of 24 x 60
bloack, each one
represeenting one minute
of the recording
Fig. 4: Each of the 15 different Italian MF channels is received in parallel with Simon Brown’s, G4ELI, software V3. You can see the strongest signal or detect where there is some
interference, or even no signal at all. Just click and listen! Fig. 5: With V3’s Playback Navigator, following a schedule from a recording is just a breeze.
silence time, changing to their individual or (on this and other frequencies) via fast and professional workflow, which is
channel after about 30 seconds. For remote receivers from this URL: best achieved from an IP recording.
example: “Sécurité, Sécurité, Sécurité, all https://sdr.hu In the irst case, set the (up to) 24
ships, this is Ancona Radio for Navigational The list in Table 1, shows an excerpt from demodulators to each frequency – as I did
Warning, up on [sic] frequency 2656kHz.” my own weather info logbook. with 15 different Italian channels (Fig. 4). In
See Fig. 2 for two further examples; the second case, you tune to the frequency,
without listening to 2182kHz, I would have Two Helpful Strategies click onto V3’s Rec/Playback tab, and
missed Two Arkhangelsk Radio. There are two generalised patterns behind eventually open the Navigator. Click on
The name and location of the station are maritime broadcasts. Either, they are the irst scheduled time of transmission
often announced on 2182kHz only. Some being transmitted at the same time, and and continue to click on the other times
stations, among them the Irish Coast Guard on different frequencies. Or, broadcasts as well (Fig. 5).
at Malin Head (EJM) on 1677kHz, seem to occur at different times, but on the There is one caveat: scheduled times
transmit on reception only. same frequency. may often deviate - at a rate varying from
If you want to make your own discoveries, With an SDR and Simon Brown’s, G4ELI, around 10 minutes to several full hours -
set sail on 2182kHz from your own location V3 software you are best prepared for a from the actual transmission!

Network Radio
Rugged Radios, Peanuts

and Ghostly Remains
Chris Rolinson KENWOOD
g7ddn@g7ddn.com
Chris Rolinson anticipates the

forthcoming radio conference season,
looks at new network radio models,
investigates coverage and shares a
salutary lesson.
It is February already, and the new con-

ference season appears to be approach-
ing. One such event, which network radio
users may wish to keep an eye on, is the
International Wireless Communications
Expo (IWCE), from March 4th to 9th in
Las Vegas, USA.
https://tinyurl.com/y9brxbmb
.snoitseuq gnidlefi NDD7G :1 .giF
Kenwood Network Radios
At the 2018 IWCE, it was announced that
Kenwood Communications were partner-
ing with rugged mobile phone manufac-
turer Sonim, to come up with a Kenwood-
branded PTT Android device.
This year’s expo will see those devices
appear. The KWSA80K and KWSA50K were
both announced quietly towards the back
end of 2018, and, while there is information
about them on the internet, at the time of
writing, this has not become mainstream.
This is what we know so far:
Both models are 4G LTE & Wi-Fi and fea-
ture the renowned Kenwood audio for clear Fig.1: The Kenwood KWSA80K and KWSA50K models.
communications in noisy environments.
Allegedly featuring 3-year warranties, they wearing industrial gloves. It offers two nice compact mobile/base unit for network
both sport PTT buttons and highly durable front-facing speakers and a ‘dual-shift’ radio use with a few quibbles.”
screens. The two devices differ, in that the long-life battery. It can also survive being https://tinyurl.com/ycwehpvu
80K is in a more ‘typical’ smartphone factor, dropped onto concrete. The Telo Systems TE590 has been
with a 5-in, puncture-resistant, touchscreen Even the most ‘ham-isted’ of users will around for a little while now but is gain-
visible in bright sunlight, which can alleged- struggle to damage these beauties. Let’s ing traction as an excellent premium net-
ly be used while wearing dirty gloves! hope they live up to the speciications once work radio device. Android developer Filip
Featuring an extra-strength loudspeaker, they hit the market, in the UK and the USA. I Everaert NR001 declared “This is by far the
a long-life battery and built-in noise cancel- can’t wait to see them (Fig. 1). best radio I have. Build quality, signal qual-
lation, it is also oil-, chemical- and micro- ity, the feeling when holding it, its weight,
particle-proof, as well as resistant to drops, More New Radios battery...; it’s very nice! …expensive, but
shocks and extremes of both temperature The new Kenwood radios are not the only worth the money!”
and air pressure. devices to have recently hit my inbox, as it Have a closer look at one at
The 50K model has a smaller industri- were. The Pulsat PM-1100 was the subject this URL (Fig. 2).
al-grade ‘gorilla-glass’ display and a key- of a video review on the Ham Radio Science https://tinyurl.com/ybkyrgbb
pad more like the many network radios website. The review stated that “The Pulsat
we have seen so far. This device features […] is pretty much identical to the very popu- Network Radio on the Train
an extra-large PTT button for use while lar Inrico TM7. (It) turned out to be a very Network access while travelling by rail is

Network Radio
TELO SYSTEMS
often a cause of frustration. Ofcom is look-

ing to alleviate this with a plan to use higher
frequency bands to improve bandwidth. By
2025, it estimates that the demand for net-
worked services on trains will be so great
that the current frequency bands will not
be able to cope!
In this context, the 26GHz band has been
proposed for use. This band will be part of
the new 5G rollout, and the cost of simulta-
neous deployment for rail use may be less
than it would otherwise have been.
The band between 66 and 71GHz,
which is currently vacant, has also been
put forward. This would be on a licence-
exempt basis, to enable use for track-
side connectivity.
You can read more on the
Ofcom website:
https://tinyurl.com/ybqdcnrh
More Network Availability?

Ofcom has also published their list of priori-
ties for the next inancial year. Number one
among them is to continue the move to-
wards universal network availability: “We…
want to achieve universal mobile coverage
and will work with governments and indus-
try to progress this. We will work to improve
the quality of broadband by supporting long-
term investment in ibre networks […]. For
mobile networks, we will prepare for the fu-
ture award of spectrum bands (700MHz and
3.6 – 3.8GHz), as they are cleared and re- Fig. 2: The Telo Systems TE590 network radio.
leased. We will build our capability to ensure
communications providers are making their ten by David PA7LIM. David is the author audio quality, as well as concern that re-
networks secure and resilient…” of BlueDV, the DMR/D-STAR and Fusion lectors were being overloaded with peo-
Clearly, 2019 is looking bright for net- hotspot software for Android (and other ple coming in from the network. But is
work radio users. systems). Peanut connects network radios it that different from the use of DV don-
to amateur radio digital voice systems (ini- gles and ThumbDVs? And don’t we
A Useful App tially D-STAR relectors), thus giving radio want more activity?
I notice too that Ofcom has been promot- amateurs access, without the expense of Sadly, by the turn of the year, David’s web-
ing a new app. The nifty Ofcom Mobile buying a dedicated D-STAR radio. site (www.pa7lim.nl/peanut/) reported that
and Broadband Checker app will allow you Mike G0AMO was one of many users he was ending the experiment due to time
to easily look up the indoor/outdoor mo- who locked to David’s site upon hearing issues – others may yet take up the baton
bile coverage and availability for voice, 3G about this and reported that PA7LIM was though, so watch this space…
and 4G services from all the major provid- overwhelmed with the response to what
ers. This is useful when you cannot decide was actually intended as a conceptual ex- A Threat to Network Radios?
which provider gives the best coverage for periment! David had to restrict access to IDGConnect reported recently on a poten-
your location. There’s a speed-test built in new users as he couldn’t keep up with the tially concerning development: A threat
too and some tips on how to improve your demand! G0AMO says that the stations he to the Internet from climate change.
internet connection or mobile coverage. worked using an Inrico TM-7 gave good au- Apparently, the data centre industry’s car-
Get it free for iOS from here: dio reports (Fig. 3). On the receiving side, bon footprint approximates that of avia-
https://tinyurl.com/y8gekcqy the audio was typical of D-STAR, clear tion. Computer technology is estimated
Alternatively, you can navigate to this ad- but not quite as ‘Hi-Fi’ as network radios. to consume around 10% of the world’s
dress for the Android version: Contacts were quickly made around the energy output. OK, nowhere near the big-
https://tinyurl.com/jrgn3ey world on several D-STAR relectors, with gest polluters, but it too could suffer from
callsigns showing up on a dedicated Peanut the effects of climate change. Two US
Peanuts Anyone? dashboard (Fig. 4). Universities (Wisconsin–Madison and
No, not of the honey-roasted or salted vari- Inevitably, not all users welcomed the Oregon) have warned in a recent study
ety, but an Android app called Peanut, writ- development. There were reports of poor that critical comms infrastructure could be

Network Radio
PA7LIM
3
MIKE ADAMS G0AMO
submerged by rising seas within 15 years.

Much of the world’s internet infrastructure
is situated close to coastlines; the report’s
authors estimate that over 4,000 miles of
buried ibre could be underwater by 2033.
The most susceptible cities are listed as
New York, Miami, and Seattle, so the likes
of Birmingham are OK… for now!
A Lucky Escape!
Callum Jackson NR224 reported an over-
night ‘incident’ recently, which caused
some concern among members of
the Network Radios Facebook group.
Apparently, his RadioTone RT-4’s battery
caught ire, destroying the Radio and dam- 4
aging his phone which was next to it. He
woke up just in time to ind the ‘ghostly re- work correctly, often not waking up the Fig. 3: Peanut, running on an Inrico TM-7 network
mains’ of his radio. Radio when needed. He did eventually ind radio. Fig. 4: A Typical Peanut dashboard.
The radio, which was over a year old, was one that did the job, from eBay seller ‘can-
fully charged but NOT plugged in at the dy-ly889’, based in Hong Kong. “Almost was a nice bonus, as it allows going back
time. A salutary lesson to keep an eye on perfect” was his assessment. Steve con- a screen, even to the top level on Zello, giv-
any device with a Lithium Polymer battery. tinued: “This button paired easily, with just ing an easier channel change. Now if only
We know they can self-combust, but it is the ‘Play’ button to map across using the Zello would allow the ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’
still a shock to hear about it happening in Zello ‘add PTT button’ option. It did exactly track buttons to change the channels. This is
the real world. what I needed! I use a Plantronics Legend deinitely the best device of its kind that I’ve
Thankfully, this is the irst reported inci- Bluetooth headset when in the car, and this found to date!”
dent I know of involving a network radio but unit adds buttons to my steering wheel. It For under £9, it is certainly worth a try.
still – take care! does volume up and down, mute (only the A search on Google is worth doing too, as
Radio, not the Bluetooth), PTT, back button, prices may vary.
T320 Media Button and it will auto sleep after 5 minutes of be-
Steve Turner G0HCR got in touch recent- ing disconnected from the phone, waking Lest We Forget
ly to tell me about a media button he pur- with just a press of any button. Jon Wheeler G0IUE, from Chippenham &
chased for use with his Inrico T320 in his “It is powered by a replaceable Lithium District ARC, had a story about a special
car. Steve had been trying out a few of CR2025 button cell – battery life is yet to event station for the 100 years remem-
these but found that many of them didn’t be determined though. The ‘back’ button brance of the end of World War 1 anniver-

Network Radio
G0IUE
In total, we worked
153 stations from
13 countries, via NR
sary (Fig. 5). He explained: “Chippenham
& District ARC was granted GB1WWI for
remembrance purposes for the duration of
November 2018. Being a modern-thinking
club, we wanted to provide some innova-
tion in our operations and looked to com-
bine both traditional modes of operating (HF
SSB and 2m/70cm) with the likes of D-STAR,
Allstar, via Hubnet, and also network ra-
dio, via the rapidly-growing NR Channel
Suite on Zello.
“For the NR operation, we used a
RadioTone RT-5 and connected to the in-
ternet, via the hall’s free wi-i. A Zello ac-
count had been set up with the User Name
‘GB1WWI Special Event Station’. It wasn’t un-
til the Saturday evening though, that we got
around to switching on the RT-5.
“We began to call away on Channel 00,
which seemed to be in constant use. It
did not take long for us to be noticed, and
a steady low of callers started to ill the
log. Cyril, NR 9363, suggested we ask to
move to the Events (EV) channel and, after
a quick discussion with Moderator Hairy
Paul NR707, we found ourselves hosting our
Remembrance activation on EV. Although
the use of Zello and network radios can be
a source of debate, we were blown away
by the warm reception and kind words by
all stations worked, many of whom were
not using amateur radio callsigns. But that
made no difference; we are all communi-
cators, and it doesn’t really matter how we
achieve this aim.
“In total, we worked 153 stations from 13
countries, via network radio. Contacts were
made as far away as New Zealand, Australia,
South Africa and the USA. Many of the op-
erators we spoke to, had a story to tell, about
a family member who had served in one or
both World Wars; ittingly, several stations
from Belgium and Germany called in and
shared their best wishes and thoughts with
us. We continued to activate GB1WWI on
our remaining Tuesday evening club nights
throughout November. Network radio has
proved to be a real asset in a very short
space of time” (Fig. 5).
Keep in Touch
And on that relective note, please re-
member to let me know your news from
the world of network radios by drop-
ping a line to my email address at the top
of this column. Fig. 5: John Wheeler G0IUE, operating GB1WW1 on the Radio Tone RT-5 network radio.

Software-Defined Radio
The KiwiSDR board, the WebSDR

Project and the SDR.hu Website
Andrew Barron provides an introduction to the WebSDR network, the KiwiSDR
board open-source receiver initiative, & the SDR.hu webSDR Receivers website.
Andrew Barron
andrew.barron@broadspectrum.com
W
ebSDR is a worldwide
network of receivers
that can be used by any-
one with an internet con-
nection. More than 300
remote receivers are available for you to use
for free. The radios are made available at no
cost to the user, even though there is a sig-
niicant amount of internet bandwidth used
at each receiver site. There is no ‘sign up’
or ‘login’ required, so I encourage you to try
some out.
You can tune to any frequency in the HF
spectrum, and, in some cases, VHF or UHF
frequencies as well. By picking receivers
located in countries on the far side of the
world, you can listen to foreign stations
when there is no propagation on that fre-
quency to your location. If you are an ama-
teur radio operator, you can transmit from
home and monitor your signal as it is heard
in another country. Note that this does not
work particularly well for making contacts
over amateur radio, as there is a signiicant
latency (delay) on the received signals. It is Fig. 1: The KiwiSDR mounted on top of a BeagleBone Single-Board Computer (SBC).
also not ‘legal’ for amateur radio contests
or awards. Just looking at the signals on internet web browser, not dedicated SDR puter, or just the radio on its own. A metal
the waterfall at various locations can give software. If the radio is set up for access case is available as an option. The boards
you an indication of what bands are ‘open’ in through your computer irewall, and if public are made and distributed by SeeedStudio.
various countries. access is allowed, the way that you use the There is a list of regional dealerships on
radio is identical to the way that anyone else the KiwiSDR website. The site has a wealth
The KiwiSDR Project can access it via the internet, worldwide. of information about the SDR and the pro-
The KiwiSDR board is a unique open- The web interface software running on the ject, as well as a lot of links to relevant re-
source SDR receiver project started by BeagleBone SBC is based on OpenWebRX views, blogs, forums, setup guides, and
John Seamons. It is based on a standard di- by András Ritzier. YouTube videos.
rect sampling 10kHz to 30MHz HF receiv- Another unusual feature is that the board
er designed by John. This is paired with a includes a GPS receiver, which is used to The Hardware
BeagleBone Green or a BeagleBone Black keep the radio precisely on frequency. The The radio board includes a Xilinx Artix-7
single board computer (SBC) (Fig. 1). code for the GPS receiver was written by A35 ield programmable gate array (FPGA).
The thing that makes the KiwiSDR differ- Andrew Holme. Both the KiwiSDR hardware This performs the DDC (digital down con-
ent from other small SDR receivers is that and the software is completely open-source. version) functions of the radio. It also con-
it is designed speciically to be an inter- Many people have contributed to the devel- tains a small, software-implemented, CPU,
net-, web-accessed, radio. The hardware is opment of the project. If you want to estab- which is used to run the software that man-
self-contained, requiring no connection to lish your own WebSDR, the radio boards are ages a GPS receiver. The Verilog software
your PC at home. available as a full kit, including the GPS an- running on the FPGA outputs a 16-bit data
To use the radio, you use your normal tenna and the BeagleBone single board com- stream for up to four spectrum displays and

8.25 kHz 24-bit audio streams from four

DDC receivers.
Although not very powerful, the single
board computer performs the FFT (Fast
Fourier Transformation) for the waterfall
and/or spectrum display. FFT converts the
time-domain signal from the ADC into a fre-
quency-domain signal, i.e. into frequencies
displayed across the display screen. It also
takes care of passband iltering, AGC (auto-
matic gain control), signal strength meter-
ing, and demodulation.
The SDR board is designed as a ‘Hat’ or,
in Beagle terms, a ‘Cape’ for the BeagleBone
Single-Board Computer (SBC). This means
that it is designed to plug into the comput-
er board as a peripheral. Apparently, John
used the BeagleBone SBC because he was
familiar with it and because it represented
the best ratio of ‘computing-power- versus-
cost’ at the time. Since then, the Raspberry
Pi 3 and many other single board comput-
ers have been released, but the BeagleBone
is still up to the job, so the design has
not been changed.
The ADC is a 14-bit Analog Devices
LTC2248, running at a sample rate of Fig. 2: A few of the SDR.hu webSDR sites, showing location, number of simultaneous users, and radio type.
65Msps. It is preceded by a 30MHz anti-
aliasing low pass ilter and a 20dB pre- There are extensive instructions on how you must be over 18 years old and regis-
ampliier. The clock is a standard GPS- to do all of this on the KiwiSDR website. You tered on the SDR.hu website.
speciication 0.5 PPM TCXO. But the GPS don’t need to know any Linux or assembly As well as the list of receivers, there is
system locks the radio to a much more ac- code to use or conigure the KiwiSDR. The also a link to a site where the receivers are
curate standard. The GPS receiver is capable BeagleBone board comes with all the soft- indicated on a world map. This makes it
of receiving signals from up to 12 GPS satel- ware already installed; moreover, you get a much easier to select a receiver located in a
lites. The GPS system receives the Navstar backup copy on an SD card. The radio up- particular region (Fig. 3).
system on the L1 frequency, 1575.42MHz. dates itself weekly, or when required, when The latest KiwiSDR receivers are capable
The board includes an SMA connector for connected to the Internet. All you have to do of supporting eight users at a time. However,
the GPS antenna with 3.3V DC power for is plug in a 5 Volt power supply, the anten- this limits the panadapter functionality.
active antennas. na, the supplied GPS antenna (which can sit Therefore, many owners limit their site to
on the windowsill inside), and the Ethernet four simultaneous users. The BeagleBone
The Software cable to your Internet router. All controls for does not have enough computing power to
The BeagleBone computer manages the the radio, including conig settings, are per- support more than four simultaneous us-
interface with the internet or your local net- formed using your web browser. ers and four full panadapters. But even four
work. You use your normal web browser, is quite impressive. Each user sees an in-
rather than a dedicated SDR software ap- The SDR.hu webSDR Receivers dividual panadapter and can tune the radio
plication, to control and listen to the radio. The whole idea of the KiwiSDR project was to any HF frequency. On most of the web-
You don’t need to connect the radio to your to create a radio that could be used as a sites, you can zoom the panadapter in or out
PC for it to supply the Internet with the re- remote-receiver over the Internet, from any- and change modes.
ceived signals and waterfall images, but you where in the world. The SDR.hu website The radio supports AM, AM narrow, LSB,
do need a PC connected to the LAN or the (Fig. 2) currently lists 342 receivers. Most USB, CW, CW narrow, and narrowband FM
Internet to use the radio. You can choose of them are KiwiSDRs, but there are several modes. The KiwiSDR uses a modiication
to view the radio over your local network, in RTL dongles, at least one SDRplay RSP2pro, of OpenWebRX by András Retzler, HA7ILM,
much the same way as using a web browser and one DX Patrol SDR. Anyone can listen which can be used to get other SDR receiv-
to change your Ethernet-connected printer on any of the radios. So please give it a try. If ers such as the RTL dongles, SDRplay and so
settings or the settings in your Wi-Fi router. you want it to provide a link to your KiwiSDR, on onto the world wide web. The advantage
Or, you can open the port setting on your
router to allow access from the world wide
web. This is reasonably secure, since only The latest KiwiSDR receivers are capable of
one port is activated, and anyone outside of
your network will only be able to see the ra-
supporting eight users at a time. However, this limits
dio, not your PC. the panadapter functionality
PICTURES: ANDREW BARRON
The KiwiSDR project is

very innovative and a
great illustration of the
power of open-source
design and cooperation
of using the KiwiSDR is that you don’t have to
tie up your computer to act as a web server.
I believe that this is the reason that the vast
majority of receivers available at SDR.hu are
KiwiSDRs. The software and the Ethernet
interface are already programmed into the
BeagleBone when you buy it. If you want to
supply your own BeagleBone SBC, you can
download the software and load it onto an
SD card yourself.
Conclusion
The KiwiSDR project is very innovative and
a great illustration of the power of open- Fig. 3: SDR.hu webSDR sites in the UK and western Europe.
source design and cooperation. It is not
very cost effective to buy one and just use They are particularly interested in new re- http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm
it yourself, but that is not its intended role. mote radios in the Southern Hemisphere, SDR.hu webSDR receivers
The radio was specifically designed to be a especially in Africa and South America, and https://sdr.hu/?q=kiwisdr
webSDR, open to anyone who wants to use there are currently only four stations in New
a remote radio. If you want to become part Zealand, the home of the real Kiwi…. [Andrew Barron’s recent books include ‘SDR:
of the team, this is as simple as buying a Software Defined Radio’, and ‘AMSATS
KiwiSDR, connecting it to the Internet and References: and HAMSATS: Amateur Radio and other
changing a few settings in your Internet rout- KiwiSDR website Small Satellites’, available from the Radio
er. Then you can contact the team at SDR. http://kiwisdr.com Enthusiast website – Ed.].
hu and put your radio onto the world stage. GPS implementation www.radioenthusiast.co.uk
HAVE YOU TRIED THE

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Book Review
Globalisation, Media and the

Nation State
David Harris countries in the Global South. Western me-
mydogisfinn@gmail.com dia tends to dominate other countries, in
that American films and TV programmes are
David Harris reviews a new title, shown throughout the world.
which aims to put in place significant Media giants such as Time Warner,
theoretical foundations, to help read- Disney, News Corp and Viacom have a
ers better understand the concepts, huge global reach. However, some region-
processes and networks that underpin al centres such as Nigeria, Hong Kong,
radio in the wider media landscape. Egypt and India are big players in their re-
spective regions.
There are many people who feel that ‘Media With the exception of the USA, which
Studies’ is a bit of a ‘soft’ option; the com- went down a commercial route from the
mon stereotype caricatures students sitting early days of broadcasting, most countries
around watching soap operas and writing have pursued a Public Service Broadcasting
dissertations about Dr Who. (PSB) model, as pioneered by the BBC. The
However, even a superficial study of author here describes the characteristics of
Understanding Global Media should con- a PSB model as having universal reach, and
vince anyone that Media Studies is now a a ‘mission’ to educate, as well as entertain;
challenging discipline with an intellectual independently and impartially, with inclusive
framework equal to any other humanities programmes and a high degree of profes-
subject. This book in an up-to-date overview sionalism. Discussing the many, and var-
of the various theoretical models, which can ied, uses of the term ‘culture’, he contrasts
be used in studying global media. It is a book theories of homogenization, where people
which will be an essential addition to the are absorbed into globalism, as opposed to
reading list for anyone studying media, com- Terry Flew fragmentation, which gives rise to concepts
munications, sociology, modern history, poli- Understanding Global Media (2nd ed.) such as multi-culturalism. In the concluding
tics and other associated subjects. Palgrave 2018. Hbk. £24.99. 227 pp. chapter, the author proposes that globali-
The basic premise of this volume is to ex- (ISBN 9781137446534) sation is at a crossroads, a situation he de-
amine theories of globalisation and to con- www.macmillanihe.com scribes as ‘post-globalisation.’
trast them with theories of the nation state. There has been a shift towards far-right
The author also looks at the question of the and how this has changed the relationship parties in France, Germany, Austria and the
‘old (print, radio, TV) as opposed to the ‘new between consumers and media organisa- Netherlands. Poland and Hungary have right-
media’ (internet, social media, etc.). This tions. Radio, TV and the press were not inter- wing nationalist governments, and the USA
book is best appreciated in conjunction with active, in the same way as some of the new (and now Great Britain) seem to be turn-
a course of study, and it did remind me of media are. Anyone can now post a video ing inward, by rejecting trade alliances with
some of the texts I read when studying mod- on YouTube, comment on Twitter or have a neighbouring countries. That notwithstand-
ern history in the 1970s. huge number of followers on Facebook. ing, some 96 UK universities now offer com-
Each chapter takes the reader through Back in the 1960s, Canadian academic munications and media studies degrees.
the various competing theories informing Marshall McLuhan famously forecast that The idea of studying media, as a separate
modernization, political economy, globaliza- the world would become a ‘global village’. He discipline, really only arose in the 1960s.
tion, global media, and the nation state. One did not envisage the internet, but media con- Terry Flew is Professor of Media and
could envisage each chapter as being ac- vergence and ‘multi-platformism’ now mean Communications at the Queensland
companied by a lecture and seminar on the that audiences are able to become partici- University of Technology, Brisbane,
subject, followed by an essay. pants. Traditionally, most nation states have Australia. He has authored seven other aca-
This is a thoughtful book and one which chosen to regulate the media. However, this demic books about the media.
really does make one consider the role of the becomes much more challenging when This is a very well written book, which
media, in all of its forms, in the modern state. states try to deal with global corporate gi- explains some complex theories in an ac-
This title was first published in 2007 but has ants such as Facebook and Google. cessible manner. In this way, it makes
been extensively updated. It includes dis- The chapter on modernisation theories readers more aware of the politics of con-
cussions of ‘Brexit’ and Trump’s presidency makes the point that there are now 195 na- temporary media.
in the USA as examples of how globalisation states and that culture is a way in which This book is highly recommended to any-
tion has been checked by the re-emergence states integrate diverse groups. There is one interested in the wider embedding of ra-
of nationalism. also a growing digital divide between devel- dio, studying media or contemplating taking
There is a lot of discourse on new media, oped countries on the one hand and poorer a humanities degree.
Visit our Book Store at www.radioenthusiast.co.uk

Profile
BDXC Members amid a forest of antennas.
The British DX Club:

A Review of 2018
Scott Caldwell reviews the development of the British DX Club (BDXC) in
2018, including issues 518 to 529 of its main publication, Communication.
Scott Caldwell associations. For example, the BDXC both
scottandrewcaldwell@yahoo.co.uk supports and attends the regular Reading
International Radio Group meetings.
2
018 has been another exciting
year in the history of The British Sheigra DXpedition
DX Club (BDXC), reflected Communication in January’s edition
in the diverse nature of the contained a detailed report on the 57th
club’s publication entitled DXpedition to Sheigra (North – West
Communication The history of the BDXC Scotland), featuring a full set of loggings
may be traced back to 1974, under a more for Africa, North America, Central America,
regional format. the Caribbean, South America, Asia, the
The club’s initial name was The Middle East, and Europe.
Twickenham DX Club. The rapid growth (Communication) – usually within a one- Among the participants of this
in membership led to a change of title week period after the contribution deadline. DXpedition were BDXC stalwarts Dave
in 1979 when the title The British DX The BDXC is a non-profit club, with an Kenny and Alan Pennington. The remote,
Club was adopted, underpinning a editorial group, which is entirely made up of and naturally beautiful, location, which
more substantial UK and international volunteers, who possess a deeply-rooted has changed little over the last 38 years, is
membership and ethos. passion for broadcast radio. perfect for operating long wire Beverage
One of the noteworthy achievements of The club website has articles and aerials. The complete lack of household
the BDXC – and 2018 was no exception – resources of interest to DXers. It liaises appliances that may result in continuous
is the fast turnaround of its key publication strongly with RadioUser and with other radio interference is a significant factor too.

Profile
Meet the Members Feature

In terms of members’ activities and
achievements, several delegates of the
BDXC attended the 2018 EDXC conference
in Bratislava and Vienna. You will find
reports of this in RadioUser throughout
2018. This year has witnessed the return of
the Meet the Members feature, providing an
insight into equipment used in the pursuit
of Broadcast Radio DX.
It also offered an opportunity to
discuss many personal journeys,
which have led to lifelong interests in
broadcast radio. Moreover, the feature
concluded with the listening location, age,
profession, equipment used, and other
interests of members.
Social Gatherings
The BDXC promoted a variety of social
gatherings throughout the membership
year, such as the Dorset social summer
meeting, offering the opportunity for some
outside clifftop FM-DXing.
Most noticeable was our main gathering
at Twickenham, in mid-August. It brought
about a lively discussion on radio-related
matters and offered an opportunity to
socialise and exchange good practice in a
relaxed atmosphere.
BDXC is a full member of the European
DX Council and members can attend EDXC
conferences held annually in a different
European city each year – most recently in
Bratislava and Vienna.
BDXC Publications
The BDXC, once again, provided the popu-
lar Broadcasts in English guide. It coincides
with the Spring and Winter schedule chang-
es in international short wave frequen-
cies. The guide is included in the annual
membership fee and is very useful in plan- The BDXC’s key newsletter, Communication (ISSN 0958-2142; issue 529; 12/2018).
ning listening time and selecting possible
future DX targets. The December edition Featured in the December edition was cast radio in general – is dependent on
of Broadcasts in English was compiled by a reprint of an article by Clint Gouveia in the continued success of each other in
Dave Kenny, Alan Roe, and Tony Rogers. RadioUser (Radio User, October 2018, 10- 2019 and beyond.
In terms of publications, BDXC also 13). The piece focused on low-cost ap- The club is committed to promoting the
produces an occasional Audio Circle pro- proaches to broadcast radio DXing. This hobby of broadcast radio listening and
gramme, free to members. article was seen as a highlight of the BDXC DXing through its monthly publication,
Furthermore, there is Radio Stations in in 2018. This was because – without en- Communication; it remains the flagship
the UK and Ireland. This BDXC flagship couraging younger listeners – our hobby achievement of the Club.
guide to UK and Irish radio stations on MW struggles to continue and develop, espe- http://bdxc.org.uk
and FM is published every two years. The cially in the light of other pursuits now read-
27th edition will come out early in 2019. ily available for the younger generation to [With special thanks to Chrissy Brand, for
enjoy. Clint’s article was also significant in additional information provided. The team
Members’ Articles displacing the myth that only expensive DX at RadioUser wish the BDXC continued suc-
To maintain the highest possible stand- equipment will produce remarkable results. cess in 2019 – If there are other, similar,
ards, and a good diversity of articles, mem- clubs and associations out there, wishing to
bers are encouraged to submit articles for Conclusion feature in this magazine, you are most wel-
publication in Communication The future of the BDXC – and broad- come to get in touch - Ed.].

DealerGuide
Devon
Zeacombe House, Blackerton Cross, East Anstey,

For Sale For Sale
Tiverton, Devon, EX16 9JU
Phone/Fax - 01202 490099 N3 USB RTL-SDR FROM THUMBNET. Optimized for VINTAGE FIREWORK COLLECTOR Do not light the
Specialist Suppliers of Amateur Airband low noise. Linear regulators, better decoupling, im- blue touch paper and burn British Heritage, private
Marine PMR & Shortwave Equipment to
proved heat dissipation, +/-0.5ppm TCXO, 5V input etc. collector will pay cash and collect from anywhere,
the Business User & Hobby Enthusiast
For more information on this, our other SDRs and ac- licensed explosive storage. Call Tony on 07956 506300
Camping available on our 70 cessories go to technofix.uk or www.technofix.co.uk
pitch site - quote Radio User
www.shortwave.co.uk
Scotland
sales@shortwave.co.uk
Trading
TradingPost
FOR SALE WANTED
TECSUN PL-680 PORTABLE all modes A MARCONI 394 OR 394A TRAWLER RE-
communications receiver, PLL World band CEIVER from around the 1930/40s.
receiver. Selling owing to bereavement. New, Tel: Geoff 01634 891017
boxed, £70.
Tel: Liz 01274 785922 BRADFORD
TR10 R-1000 COMMS RECIEVER. 200-3000

kHz, upper and lower sideband factory fit-
ted 12V socket. Everything works, excellent
condition, manual. c1979. Collectors item?
£75 ono Tel: David 01305 261617
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(SUBSCRIBERS STILL FREE) and will also be published
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Rallies & Events
Rallies & Events

Plan your rally visits with our comprehensive list of forthcoming events. RadioUser will be at events marked with an
asterisk – come along to our stand for great deals on subscriptions to Practical Wireless and RadioUser.
Please send in details of your events if you would like them to be mentioned here: wiessala@hotmail.com
February 3rd (Sunday) on Sunday, February 10th February 2019 16’s free) There will be trade stands, a purchase/bookings are now available.
CANVEY SEARS RADIO AND ELEC- from 10.00 am to 3.00 pm (setting up bring-and-buy (book-in is from 10.15am), Attractions: Bring-and-buy Sale, catering,
TRONICS RALLY: The 35th SEARS Ra- from 8 am). The rally will be in the Didcot and catering will be available. lectures/seminars, RSGB bookstall, spe-
dio and Electronics Rally is at Cornelius Leisure Centre, Mereland Road, Didcot, E-mail: g3zvi@yahoo.co.uk cial interest groups, trade Stands, guest
Vermuyden School, Dinant Avenue, Can- OX11 8AY, three miles from the Milton In- speakers, digital village, demos. Icom,
vey Island, Essex SS8 9QS. This is a new terchange on the A34, midway between March 17th (Sunday) SDRPlay and many more exhibitors. Disa-
venue for 2019, and doors open at 10 am. Oxford and Newbury. The venue will be WHYTHALL RADIO CLUB HAMFEST: bled Facilities. Free parking. RSGB exam-
Disabled visitors can come in from 9.45 signposted from the A34. For details and The 34th Wythall Radio Club Hamfest will inations will be held at the event .
am. There is free car parking and easy forms, please contact: be held at The Club HQ, Wythall House, E-mail: club@darc.online
level ground floor access to 2 large halls. Email: rally@g3pia.net Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ. Doors will M0IERDX@gmail.com
Admission cost is £3. Tea, coffee and open at 9.45 am, with access for disa- www.hamzilla.uk
soft drinks will be available, as well as ba- February 17th (Sunday) bled visitors from approximately 9.30
con butties. There will be radio, comput- RADIOACTIVE RALLY: The Radioactive am. Free on-site parking will be available. March 31st (Sunday)
ing and electronics traders and special Rally is at Nantwich Civic Hall, Cheshire, Admission costs £4.00. Bring-and-buy, BATC REGIONAL CONVENTION: The
interest groups. More details from Tony, CW5 5DG. The venue has free car park- and the Club Stand. Refreshments will British Amateur Television Club (BATC)
the rally co-ordinator: ing, and the doors open at 10:30 am. be available all day, and bar facilities are will hold a number of “mini-conventions”
E-mail: tony@tonystreet.net There will be a bring-and-buy, as well as open within Wythall House from midday. in various regions of the country during
traders and an RSGB bookstall. A single www.wythallradioclub.co.uk 2019. The Club is pleased to announce
February 8th to 10th (Friday to Sunday) raffle ticket is included with the entrance wrc4hallsradio@outlook.com the first of these in Bristol on 31st March
ORLANDO HAMCATION®: The 73rd programme, with additional tickets avail- 2019. The event will take place from 10
Orlando HamCation® is at the Central able. Catering is provided on site. March 24th (Sunday) am to 4 pm, at the premises of the North
Florida Fairgrounds and Expo Park, 4603 www.radioactivefair.co.uk CALLINGTON RADIO RALLY: The Cal- Bristol ARC, SHE7 building, Braemar
West Colonial Drive, Orlando, Florida lington Radio Rally is organised jointly by Crescent, Filton, Bristol BS7 0TD. These
32808, USA. There will be more than 150 February 24th (Sunday) the Devon and Cornwall Repeater Group are not regular rallies, involving traders,
commercial vendors, more than 200 RAINHAM RADIO RALLY: The Rainham and the Callington Amateur Radio Soci- but technical meetings for ATV enthusi-
swap-table vendors. The largest tailgate Radio Rally 2019 of the Bredhurst Receiv- ety. It will be held at Callington Town Hall, asts, and for those thinking of making a
area in the southeastern US will show ing and Transmitting Society takes place, New Road, Callington, Cornwall PL17 start in this aspect of the hobby. There
and sell amateur radios, parts, computer from 10 am until 4 pm, at The Victory 7BD. The doors will open at 10 am and will be a full day of talks and demonstra-
hardware and software, and other in- Academy, Magpie Hall Road, Chatham, admission is £2.00, with those under tions and the opportunity to meet some
teresting electronic items for a growing Kent, ME4 5JB. Local and National 14 years going free. Free parking, trade of the most active ATV enthusiasts.
group of radio enthusiasts. Over thirty Brands and Traders, BRATS Kitchen, stands, amateur radio sellers, a bring- E-mail: g8vpg@aol.com
forums held at the Lakeside Pavilion will BRATS Interactive Zone for Kids, BRATS and-buy, and on-site catering. https://forum.batc.org.uk
present a diverse range of topics, includ- Junk, Talk-In Station 145.550MHz Call E-mail: 2e0rph@gmail.com
ing digital amateur radio, new software Sign GB4RRR. £2.50 Adult Entry. Free en- April 7th (Sunday)
developments, youth and amateur radio. try for children. March 24th (Sunday) CAMBRIDGE REPEATER GROUP
K1AA will be the operating as a special E-mail: rally-coordinator@brats-qth.org HAMZILLA RADIO FEST AND ELEC- RALLY: The CRG 2019 rally takes place
event station and talk-in station. TRONICS FAIR: The Hamzilla Radio at Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road,
www.hamcation.com March 3rd (Sunday) Fest and Electronics Fair, hosted by Do- Foxton, Cambridge CB22 6RN. Car park-
EXETER RADIO & ELECTRONICS RAL- ver Amateur Radio Club, will take place ing is free. Doors open 9.30 am for public
February 10th (Sunday) LY: The Exeter Radio & Electronic Rally at the Discovery Science Park, Gateway entry and 7.30 am for traders. Entry is
HARWELL ARS INDOOR RADIO AND will be held at America Hall, De La Rue House, Ramsgate Road, Sandwich, Kent, £2. There will be a talk-in station. You will
ELECTRONICS RALLY: The Harwell Way, Pinhoe, Exeter EX4 8PW. The doors CT13 9FF. Open 10 am to 4 pm. Online see traders a bring-and-buy and an RSGB
Amateur Radio Society will be holding will open at 10.30 am (10.15 am for disa- ticket entrance £3.00; Limited early bird bookstall. Catering is available on site.
its 22nd indoor Radio & Electronics Rally bled visitors). Admission is £2.00 (under tickets £5.00. Tables cost £10.00. Online rally2019@cambridgerepeaters.net
In next month’s
onitoring
Utility MTim tions
Radio e Signal Sta
e-Defineduipment Receiving
■ Extended Review of the Best Listening Guides/ Books. Softwarthe
Selecting
Right Eq
■ Quarterly Non-Directional Beacon (NDB) Report.

o.uk
enthusiast.c
■ Radio: The Voice of A Totalitarian State. October 201
8 £3.99
www.radio
n MisDur CrisdisWar
sile the
o’s Ro le in the Cuba al Relations
ing Col
Radiast Propaganda
and Internation
Plus all your favourite regular features and columns Broadc
LO
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HOW TO... ur GPS
Marine tiv
The next issue is on sale on the 28th February 2019 e yo
Calculat‘li
aerial’s
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Martin Lynch & Sons Ltd. Wessex House, Drake Avenue, Staines, Middlesex TW18 2AP. E-mail: sales@hamradio.co.uk
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GEOCHRON 4K UHD DIGITAL AOR AR-DV1

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The Geochron Digital 4k UHD displays a The ULTIMATE all mode

full-featured Geochron World Clock on any all band scanner.
4k TV, with every mapset and lighting option 100kHz-1300MHz Analogue & Covers 100kHz to 1300MHz in traditional
available in our famous mechanical clock but Digital Modes. analogue modes (SSB, CW, AM, FM, S-FM,
at a fraction of the cost. Now in the digital W-FM) as well as various digital modes. In fact,
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format, users customize markers on the map, ML&S: £395.95 we know of no other radio in this category that
can decode Icom's D-STAR mode, Yaesu's new
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NOW IN STOCK interesting features!
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ICOM IC-R30 SCANNER 100kHz-3GHz Receiver with SDR
The Icom IC-R30 has extremely wide coverage (exact coverage
ICOM IC-R8600
Technology from IC-7300.
range unknown). Modes of reception include: FM, WFM, AM, (SSB) ML&S: £2499.95 www.HamRadio.co.uk/icr8600
USB, LSB, CW and digital modes to be announced. It is expected to
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ML&S: £569.95 ELAD FDM-DUOr A Receive-only FUNcube Dongle Pro+
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GREAT SCOTT GADGETS HackRF ONE www.HamRadio.co.uk/
HackRF One from Great Scott Gadgets is a Software Defined Radio peripheral
capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 1MHz to 6GHz. Designed
funcube
to enable test and development of modern and next generation radio technologies,
Wideband SDR Receiver.
HackRF One is an open source hardware platform that can be used as a USB 150kHz-1.9GHz incl SAW Filters.
peripheral or programmed for stand-alone operation. See web for specification.
ONLY £229.95 ML&S: £149.95
DIGITAL AND ANALOGUE RECEIVERS www.HamRadio.co.uk/ ML&S: £699.95 LATEST MODEL - ELAD FDM-S2
whistler The FDM-S2 is the second device created
Expert Electronics Colibri DDC from the ELAD SDR sampler technology line
Whistler TRX-2 Shortwave Receiver up.
Desktop/Mobile Whistler TRX-1 This small-size Direct sampling
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receiver is intended
Only £479.95 Technology Scanner to receive signals 122.88MHz. 16-bit
Only £419.95 covering the HF single channel ADC
frequency band converter covering
0.09MHz to 55MHz, HF/6m. Offering the
The Uniden UBCD3600XLT Icom IC-R6E and also (with the possibility to exploit
New digital TruckTracker V The 100 Ch/Sec Wideband
Signal “Search Machine”
help of external filters) to receive frequencies up undersampling. ML&S: £449.95
Professional Scanner Receiver, to 800MHz whilst working together with a PC.
covers 25-1300MHz wideband Communications handheld
frequencies.
receiver. While retaining ML&S: £439.95 www.HamRadio.co.uk/fdms2
basic features of its popular
The TruckTracker V operation allows predecessor the IC-R5, the IC-R6
this scanner to scan APCO 25 Phase Expert Electronics Colibri Nano SDR Receiver
contains many improvements
1 and Phase 2, DMR, Motorola,
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including 100 channel per
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Small dongle sized SDR receiver covering
DC-500MHz with oversampling!
ML&S: £239.95
well as conventional analog and P25 memory channels, 15 hours of www.HamRadio.co.uk/sunsdrnano
digital channels. continuous receive capability,
optional drop-in charger stand
ML&S:
ML&S: £425.99 and voice control squelch. £199.95 RSPduo DUAL TUNER 14-BIT SDR
Dual-Tuner wideband full feature 14-bit SDR, 1kHz to 2GHz, 10MHz of
spectrum visibility. Simultaneously monitor 2 separate 2MHz bands
ANTENNAS AND ACCESSORIES www.HamRadio.co.uk/
of spectrum between 1kHz and 2GHz. 3 software selectable antenna
inputs, & clocking features ideally suited to industrial, scientific, Ham &
BONITO RANGE AT ML&S bonito £239.95 educational applications. Windows 10. www.HamRadio.co.uk/RSPDUO
The Antenna Jet AAS300 A USB powered antenna splitter designed to work between 9kHz
and 300MHz. Now you can use your one antenna with up to 3
receivers simultaneously. Finally, you can listen to marine band
traffic, The Archers on Radio 4 and the air band at the same time
SDRPLAY RSP1a SDRplay range also
available. RSP1a, RSP2
Brand new design, the RSP1a is a and RSP2pro
(provided your antenna will cover it all!) Only £234.95 major upgrade to the popular RSP1
offering a powerful wideband full Identical to the FDM-Duo transceiver
featured SDR covering 1kHz to 2GHz with the TX strip removed.
Antenna Jet ASM-300 Only £224.95 & up to 10MHz visible bandwidth.
A USB controlled antenna switch and mixer. It can be used
as a simple switch, or can be used to switch in more than
Better still, it’s “Built & Designed in
Britain”!!
£89.95 www.HamRadio.co.uk/sdrplay
one antenna, to aid receiving to an optimum performance.
Megaloop ML200 The perfect antenna for small scale listening. The bhi ParaPro EQ20
ML200 is an active loop antenna that packs a serious punch. Covering 9kHz
to 200MHz without the need for any tuning! Included in the box is the antenna The bhi ParaPro EQ20 product range features a 20W modular audio power
wire, the amplifier and the coax power inserter. It’s a simple case of just add amplifier with a parametric equaliser plus the option of having bhi’s latest dual
Channel DSP Noise Cancelling technology and Bluetooth technology.
coax! Only £284.95
See web for prices.
GigActiv GA3005 www.HamRadio.co.uk/parapro
A portable active antenna capable of covering 9kHz EXPRESS
to 3GHz. Perfect if you are say on holiday and want to DELIVERY NOW
have a listen to the bands. You’ll need to provide it with You can order from ML&S for delivery on a Saturday or AVAILABLE VIA
5V via a USB cable (included) and some coax but it is Sunday! Order before 3.00pm as late as Friday. OUR WEBSITE
just ready to go. Only £319.95 Web purchases: Just select Saturday or Sunday at the check-out or call to place your order for
Saturday or Sunday delivery on 0345 2300 599
Boni-Whip The active antenna that is raved about. Covering 20kHz to ML&S can deliver your new purchase to your local “Access Point” whether it is a small corner
300MHz and ideal for times when you can’t erect a wire antenna. For home, store, petrol station or other location suitable for you.
for travelling and for DX camps. And despite the whip being only 4 inches If you are at work all day and want to collect at a time suitable for you, just check “UPS Access
long, it actually works! Only £99.95 Point” on check-out on our website.

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Aerials Now!

February 2019 £3.99 www.radioenthusiast.co.uk

The STEMTera Project Building

a Direct Conversion Receiver

IC-R8600 NEW Icom R-30 Whistler

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Huge Stocks • Friendly Service • Expert Staff • Fast Despatch

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PRICE PLEDGE WE ALWAYS AIM TO BE COMPETITIVE - SEEN IT CHEAPER? LET US KNOW!

Contents Favourites Reviews Features News

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Why not visit our new online bookshop at www.radioenthusiast.co.uk/store

December 2018 £3.99 www.radioenthusiast.co.uk Dual In-Line

Listing every article pub

Radio on the Water

of the Icom IC-7610

Piloting The Solent us

SDR receiver/transceiv Aerial Analysers | Airp

6 RadioUser February 2019

TODAY IN RADIO HISTORY: Don’t forget

RADIO IN 2019: Marvel at James Cridland, a

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BBC GENOME PROJECT: The BBC has

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ICOM: RS-BA1 Version 2 Dual- Radio News

REFUGEE RADIO: The United Nations High

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A curated collection of articles

gleaned the BBC archives

Based on the series of RadCom

July 2019 onwards and contains

licensed or are even just looking articles published in 2000-2001,

now available in a handy CD

60 Antennas You 50 projects for Point to Point Point

Will Want to Build Archive CD

munications, after the use of VLF communications, after the

published, you will ﬁnd projects as

complex, that the home construc-

long-distance communications of VLF long-distance

will ﬁnd plenty to build.

for everyone in this book!

ORDER YOUR BOOKS AND CDS TODAY!

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20 Years of Channel Five

Keith Hamer & Garry Smith continue to

The test pattern for the Channel Five test

ried out within the service area, or in those

Later Transmitter Launches

This seemed to suggest that plans were

Fig.1: The C5 ‘give me 5’ test caption from

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SWITCH-ON TRANSMITTER CH/POL. ERP TRANSMITTERS CH/POL ERP

Nov 1st, 1996 Cambret Hill 37 20kW Bilsdale 35 500kW

Mar 4th,1997 Oxford 49 40kW SMALL & SELF-HELP RELAYS CH

Mar 5th,1997 Storeton 39V 2.8kW Aberdeen 49

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The AOR AR-DV10

Liam Hargreaves reception, the earphone lead can be used

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allocations. In digital reception, the IF

The concentric scroll knob houses the

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