a place for comments and questions: 2010

Readers of the Cobalt Pet shortwave / mediumwave radio weblog are encouraged to post comments and questions. In case you have a comment that's not related to a specific article, you are welcome to reply here. I'll link to this post from the website's sidebar so it's always easy to find. I welcome general comments, questions, and any feedback about the website.

I'll do my best to respond, either with a comment here of my own, or an article on the front page.

* (there is no 2009 comments and questions page)
* 2008 comments and questions
* 2006 comments and questions
* 2007 comments and questions

latest receptions - 2009 archive

During my occasional band scans, I tune in to each audible signal I can find and make a cursory attempt to identify it. Schedule information from EiBi and Primetime Shortwave aids in station identification. I collect and publish these logs so others can see what's possible to receive with a portable shortwave receiver in northern California. This list of receptions doesn't include items from my reception reports which I publish separately.

Here's my list of shortwave band scan receptions during 2009:

25 July 2009:
0520 UTC : 6010 khz : Radio Havana Cuba
0526 UTC : 6110 khz : NHK Radio Japan
0527 UTC : 6190 khz : China Radio International
0529 UTC : 6060 khz : Radio Havana Cuba
0530 UTC : 6090 khz : University Network

01 Aug 2009:
0304 UTC : 5875 kHz : WHRI
0305 UTC : 5890 kHz : WWCR
0307 UTC : 7325 kHz : Voice of Turkey
0310 UTC : 7415 kHz : WBCQ
0311 UTC : 9505 kHz : WYFR
0312 UTC : 9560 kHz : China Radio International (Spanish)
0314 UTC : 9625 kHz : CBCNQ
0315 UTC : 9680 kHz : WYFR (Spanish)
0316 UTC : 9690 kHz : China Radio International
0324 UTC : 9715 kHz : WYFR (Spanish)
0325 UTC : 9735 kHz : Voice of Russia (Spanish)
0326 UTC : 9790 kHz : China Radio International
0325 UTC : 9735 kHz : Voice of Russia (Spanish)
0326 UTC : 9790 kHz : China Radio International
0325 UTC : 9735 kHz : Voice of Russia (Spanish)
0326 UTC : 9790 kHz : China Radio International

03 Aug 2009:
0001 UTC : 13725 kHz : Radio Canada International (Spanish)
0003 UTC : 13760 kHz : Voice of Korea (Spanish)
0005 UTC : 9505 kHz : WYFR
0006 UTC : 9980 kHz : WWCR
0009 UTC : 11530 kHz : WYFR (Spanish)
0012 UTC : 11760 kHz : Radio Havana Cuba (Spanish)
0015 UTC : 15440 kHz : WYFR
0211 UTC : 5890 kHz : WWCR
0211 UTC : 5935 kHz : WWCR
0212 UTC : 5950 kHz : Radio Taiwan International
0213 UTC : 5960 kHz : NHK Radio Japan (Japanese)
0215 UTC : 6010 kHz : Radio Sweden (Swedish)
0216 UTC : 6060 kHz : Radio Havana Cuba (Spanish)
0216 UTC : 6090 kHz : University Network / Gene Scott (Gibberish)
0218 UTC : 6100 kHz : Radio Canada International (Spanish)
0219 UTC : 6120 kHz : Radio Havana Cuba (Spanish)
0226 UTC : 6175 kHz : Voice of Vietnam (Vietnamese/English)
0228 UTC : 7415 kHz : WBCQ
0229 UTC : 9505 kHz : WYFR
0230 UTC : 9600 kHz : Radio Havana Cuba (Spanish)
0231 UTC : 9680 kHz : Radio Taiwan International
0232 UTC : 9690 kHz : China Radio International (Mandarin)
0233 UTC : 9735 kHz : Voice of Russia (Spanish)
0234 UTC : 9745 kHz : HCJB (Spanish)
0234 UTC : 9755 kHz : Radio Canada International (Spanish)
0236 UTC : 9780 kHz : HCJB (German)
0238 UTC : 9955 kHz : WRMI
0243 UTC : 11520 kHz : WEWN
0244 UTC : 11760 kHz : Radio Havana Cuba (Spanish)
0244 UTC : 11775 kHz : Radio Marti (Spanish) + bubble jammer
0249 UTC : 11780 kHz : Radio Nacional Amazonia (Portuguese)
0250 UTC : 11870 kHz : WEWN (Spanish)
0252 UTC : 13710 kHz : Radio Canada International (Spanish)
0252 UTC : 13790 kHz : Radio Havana Cuba (Spanish)
0254 UTC : 15440 kHz : Radio Taiwan International (Hakka)

04 Aug 2009:
0830 UTC : 5900 kHz : V02 numbers station

06 Aug 2009:
0534 UTC : 11725 kHz : Radio New Zealand International

08 Aug 2009:
1305 UTC : 5875 kHz : BBC
1310 UTC : 7325 kHz : Radio Canada International (Mandarin)
1312 UTC : 9455 kHz : WYFR (Vietnamese)
1314 UTC : 9605 kHz : BBC (Mandarin)
1315 UTC : 9675 kHz : China Radio International (Russian)
1316 UTC : 9980 kHz : WWCR
1323 UTC : 11785 kHz : Hmong Lao Radio (Hmong)
1330 UTC : 6030 kHz : China National Radio (Mandarin)
1400 UTC : 5875 kHz : BBC
1408 UTC : 6110 kHz : Voice of America (Mandarin)
1409 UTC : 6170 kHz : Radio New Zealand International
1411 UTC : 7240 kHz : Radio Australia
1414 UTC : 9525 kHz : Voice of Indonesia (Malay)
1416 UTC : 9760 kHz : Voice of America

09 Aug 2009:
1937 UTC : 15290 kHz : Radio Nacional Venezuela (Spanish)

11 Aug 2009:
0011 UTC : 17715 kHz : Radio Australia

analog tv channel 6 used for radio

While reading about VHF on Wikipedia, I learned about a company called Pulse 87. This company broadcasts low-power analog television on channel 6, with the audio subcarrier appearing at 87.7 MHz. Low-power television is exempt from the digital tv switchover, so this analog broadcast works as a radio station at 87.7 MHz. This unusual radio station has a "hot dance airplay" format.

Pulse 87 currently operates WNYZ in New York City, while plans to operate stations in other cities (Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago) have run into various problems preventing their launch.

Wikipedia also suggests that digital television in the channel 6 frequency (83.25-87.75 MHz) has had problems with interference, so it's possible that the FCC might release that part of the spectrum for radio broadcasting.

Digital radios intended for the North America market are often confined to the 88.1-107.9 MHz range, so as a rule, this station's target audience is limited to those who have radios without that limit (such as imported radios with a wider range for FM, or analog-tuned radios that have less precise FM broadcast band boundaries.

radio factory quality control

Sometimes, I wonder what it's like to work in quality control at a shortwave radio factory in China. I imagine the conversation with a new employee could go something like this:

Employee 1: "When I tune through the shortwave bands, all I can hear is loud orchestral music."
Employee 2: "That means it's working."
Employee 1: "But where does it come from? And why is it the same on so many frequencies?"
Employee 2: "Just put the QC PASS sticker on the radio, and wrap the package!"

radio versus the web in 2009

I've been following chartoftheday on Twitter. Recently, they posted an interesting finding by the Council for Research Excellence:

• Radio reaches more people than the web

traffic reports on the radio

I enjoy listening to traffic reports on the radio. The regular traffic reports on KCBS AM 740 in the San Francisco bay area can actually be quite entertaining.

This area has bad traffic. It's the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States according to Wikipedia, and I often hear disturbing statistics about how much time the average person in this region wastes in traffic each year. These days, it's easy to obtain live traffic maps with the average speed of vehicles in a given location, but it's invaluable to know in advance that a disabled vehicle is blocking the left two lanes of a particular roadway. Or that a major event is starting or ending, which can impact traffic.

A couple of the in-studio traffic reporters have special methods of delivering their reports. One of the reporters, Mitch, starts the work week on Mondays at 10am by greeting the anchors by name, then saying "Happy Monday, if there is such a thing!" He sounds cheerful on the air, so I interpret his greeting as a positive and friendly way of saying that we're all in this together. On a few occasions, he omitted the "happy Monday" greeting for reasons unknown. He also says "Happy Friday" during his first report at the end of the work week. KCBS uses airborne traffic reporters, but also encourages listeners to call in with incident reports or updates. Occasionally, the studio traffic reporter will credit the caller. Mitch's usual way of crediting a caller for updating a long-standing problem is with a rhyme: "Joan was the latest... to update us."

Another traffic reporter on KCBS has an obvious interest in sports. Sometimes, when Ted greets an anchor who is just coming on the air, he will start out discussing the latest sports headline. He'll hurriedly finish up that bit and quickly start with the traffic report, as if he might get in trouble for wasting too much on-air time. In one instance, I heard Ted ask the anchor a sports-related question. The anchor was silent for a moment, then said "Let's have the traffic, Ted." However, the sports banter has continued between the two, so it must be an officially sanctioned practice when the traffic news is light. Ted has also been lucky enough to occasionally fill in for sports reporters.

Various traffic reporters on KCBS empathize with listeners when reporting about debris in the roadway. One traffic reporter alerted drivers that a ladder was dropped in the roadway at a particular location, and ironically added, "that never happens!"

Since the traffic reports are always live (as required by our current lack of time travel ability), they provide ample opportunity for studio mis-haps. Many times, I've heard an anchor call for the traffic reporter on the air, followed by silence, and additional calls. Then the anchor says "There we go!" as if they just found the right button or fader on the console, and the traffic reporter starts talking. I also heard the anchor introduce the traffic reporter as Mitch one morning, only to have Paul respond via microphone. The anchor then admitted she hadn't looked over to see who was sitting at the traffic desk.

The traffic reporters confused me with one of the ways they describe current conditions. Sometimes they cheerfully say that traffic is moving "at the limit" in a particular area. At the limit?! That sounds like a dismal scenario for people who need to travel through there. But my interpretation was wrong: finally, a reporter said "at the speed limit" to clarify the issue and correct my initial assumption of "at the capacity limit".

My understanding of how radio traffic reports originated is that a radio station had a helicopter or a plane that they planned to use for live weather reports. The station didn't see much difference in the weather forecasts, though. But one day, the weather forecaster in the sky spotted a bad accident on the roads, and relayed the message to the station. This turned out to be so useful that the reporter was told to report on the traffic from then on instead of the weather.

Traffic reports on the radio provide an interesting frame of reference when doing AM broadcast band DXing. When I pull in major stations from Los Angeles or Seattle, I can hear about their traffic conditions, and imagine that I'm in a different place. I can't remember if I've heard traffic reports for other large cities such as Denver or Vancouver. Then there are smaller cities like Reno, where station KKOH sometimes has traffic reports like this: "there are no accidents or incidents to report." Or, when they're reporting an incident, they use highway mile markers to indicate the location (presumably due to the lack of other suitable landmarks).

OK, I feel like I got that topic out of my system for now.

portable radio memory systems

I have never been satisfied by the frequency memory systems in portable radios. The primary reason is that, in the year 2009, I'm expecting so much more than I'm getting.

The simplest memory systems only store a fixed number of stations in a simple list. The list can be stepped through with up and down buttons, or sometimes by entering the number of the memory location. A slightly more complex system adds the concept of pages, which provides a way to group frequencies together, and usually increases the total number of memory locations. Improving upon that, pages or even individual memory locations can be labeled with short alphanumeric strings.

Simple memory systems work fine for FM and the AM broadcast band, where stations are broadcasting 24 hours a day. In shortwave, I find that this is the exception rather than the rule.

With shortwave broadcast schedules widely available on the Internet, radios could easily sync with a computer and save the schedules to memory. Then, a portable radio could add a schedule browser to the memory system. The internal clock could keep track of both local time and UTC, and the user could specify their geographic location, and perhaps even which languages they understand. Then, the internal schedule could show them the appropriate broadcasts.

Sure, this concept has several flaws. More screen real estate would be needed to make this work well, and most portable radios commonly available today use limited LCDs. Schedule data can easily go out of date. Shortwave reception within a target region doesn't come with a guarantee.

This is the kind of enhancement that would take portable radio memory systems from the level of computerized intelligence up to the level of human intelligence. Maybe radio manufacturers will make this happen, and we'll ask, "why hasn't it always worked this way?"

bay area television antenna update

In late October 2009, I heard a most unusual commercial on a local AM station. Television users were asked to rescan for channels on their over-the-air sets. A url was provided for more information: www.sutrotower.com.

Those who live in or near San Francisco are likely familiar with the name Sutro Tower. This ominous, three-pronged antenna dominates the skyline near the center of the city. San Francisco's hilly terrain made line-of-sight propagation difficult for analog television and FM stations, prompting the construction of Sutro Tower from 1971 to 1973.

A new graphic on sutrotower.com shows the location, callsign, and frequency/channel of each station with an active or inactive antenna on the tower. The website also hosts an RF exposure report showing the findings of a firm called Hammett & Edison.