HF – Page 2 – Engineering Radio

An open letter to my Russian friends

I’ve made no secret here over the years, I have many friends and acquaintances in various parts of Russia. It is a fascinating culture with great art, literature, and music. I am watching with growing concern, the level of Russian demonization from seemingly every quarter being aimed at Russian people and businesses here. It seems that a great number of people have lost perspective. It also shows the power of propaganda. Theirs and ours.

To be sure, watching the situation unfold in Ukraine on social media is disconcerting. No one in their right mind can look at those images and say “Oh, that is normal.” It is greatly disturbing. It is also war. All wars are like this and have been like this since the beginning of time. The images of dead civilians, bombed-out cities, mass graves, and so on are broadcast to the world on social media in almost real-time. That is the difference this time.

This situation in Ukraine is complicated. It is a war of gas and ambition. There are many questions, good questions which can be asked; Why is NATO a concern? Why does Putin feel threatened by the EU? What is the Azov regiment? What did the natural gas fields discovered in 2010 have to do with the 2014 overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych? How much corruption is there with the Zelenskyy government? How did the US know that there was to be an invasion? What, if any, does the Bo Biden/Berisma thing have to do with this?

I mentioned in a previous post about Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shortwave broadcasts during the cold war. I am heartened to see that there is a private effort to use the facilities of WRMI to broadcast information to that area of the world. The VOA has stated that they are not making plans to make broadcasts via shortwave because few people in that part of the world have shortwave receivers. I know firsthand, that is not true. There are many shortwave sets still in existence and there are people who remember how to hook them up. As Russia becomes more isolated from the world, those shortwave sets are going to get dusted off and put into service.

Currently, WRMI is transmitting Russian language broadcasts on 7730 KHz from 0200-0500 UTC and 9370 KHz from 1900-2000 UTC. They have funding to buy broadcast time into the summer months. They are also leasing time on 1395 KHz medium wave, which I think is the public broadcaster in Armenia:

Radio International Broadcasting Center, 1395 KHz 500 KW

On the downside, shortwave transmission facilities are expensive to build and run. Unlike internet distribution, there is no way to measure audience engagement or gather audience data. On the upside, it is very difficult to effectively jam HF signals across large areas. It is also very expensive and it would take a fair amount of time to rebuild the old soviet jamming networks. In the meantime, people will be looking for good sources of information about a number of topics.

The one thing that I do know, Putin is the aggressor and he cannot be allowed to win.

Ukraine

I have been watching and listening to the news from Ukraine. It is somewhat horrifying to see the wanton disregard for human life. It is especially concerning when combatants begin shelling a nuclear power plant. A breach of one of those reactor containment buildings might have contaminated a wide swath of eastern Europe. Such an act demonstrates that the Russians no longer seem to care about anyone, themselves included. A man can be very dangerous when he has nothing left to lose.

I have known many Russians over the years through email exchanges, video chats, and meetings in person. People seem to be celebrating with glee over the sanctions but it just makes me sad. Obviously, the war of aggression is wrong. However, you cannot conflate ordinary citizens with the terrible acts of their government, whether in Russia or anyplace else.

Roskomnadzor is has removed almost all outside sources of information from the Russian internet. As of this writing; CNN, BBC, Facebook, Twitter, and Google (YouTube) have all been banned. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty still exist, however, they are either on FM or use the internet for distribution.

I have to wonder if the VOA is going to step up with some shortwave broadcasts to the region. I know that the BBC has restored two frequencies so far. I believe that the European VOA relay sites have been shut down. That means either leasing time with someone or using Greenville. That is a long way away from eastern Europe, however, HF propagation is currently good and those old Continental 420As could use a little workout. Looks like they still have a row of curtain arrays aligned along 30-40 degrees true North.

Continental Electronics 420A 500 KW Shortwave transmitter

As the Chief Engineer of Radio Australia once said, HF will get through when nothing else will.

In the meantime, it might be a wise idea to dust off those old cold war contingency plans and review them. It appears a new iron curtain has arisen, stretching from St. Petersburg to Odessa.

Resurrection of a different sort

I just finished a full alignment of my Kenwood R-2000 receiver and tonight I am treated with the pleasing tones of “Jazz from the Left,” on WRMI. Jazz from the left means the west coast sound, ~~aka Smooth Jazz~~ as I am given to understand. I spent some time on the west coast and beyond. I have fond memories of those years.

It is amazing to me still, that a simple AM receiver demodulating +/- 4.5 Khz audio bandwidth from 1,057 miles (1701 km) away can sound that good. That is being received directly; no Internet Service Provider, no satellite service, just a transmitter, and a receiver.

There is an art to all this, which is being forgotten. A few minutes with a manual, a volt meter, a tone generator, and a non-conductive screwdriver can bring something that was neglected back to life sounding as good as the day it left the factory 35 years ago. Try that with your very expensive iPhone 10,000,000x! Of course, you will need those tiny pentalobe tools to get the screws out. Apple would rather you return your expensive i device to their expensive i store so that their i geniuses can fix it for you.

I don’t know, maybe I am an old fart. Perhaps the right to repair the appliances that I purchased and therefore should own is an old-fashioned point of view. After all, all of these corporations have my best interests at heart, right?

I recommend you support your not-so-local shortwave stations by listening to and supporting their programmers. Even in 2021, there are still many shortwave broadcasts that are worth listening to!

Attention K-mart shoppers…

During the impending doom that is/was Hurricane/tropical storm Henri, I decided to bust out the old Kenwood R-2000. This venerable radio has been in my collection since 1989, when first purchased at the AFEES on Andersen AFB, Guam. Over many a year, it has given me lots of great service. However, the last time I tried it a few years ago, the frequency tuning was all haywire and it seemed to be inoperative. I set it aside, as I always seem to have something important to work on. Not so much today.

As I discovered, there were two problems; the first being a dead lithium battery and the second was the dirty pots on the VCO stepper, which are common failure modes for these units. I unsoldered the lithium battery and ordered a new one (CR 2032 with leads). The VCO stepper issue was corrected with a few slight turns of a small screwdriver. There are a couple of Youtube videos on this procedure. Truth be told, the entire unit needs an alignment, which I will do once the replacement battery arrives. The service manual is available from several sources online and it gives very good directions on how to perform an alignment.

Tuning around the Shortwave bands, I heard the normal things; some hams sending CW, some good some bad. A few messages from the Air Force Global HF network. On the broadcast side of things, Brother Stair seems to have multiplied… Then I came across an interesting signal on 9395 KHz. KMRT was broadcasting the K-Mart shopping soundtrack from the 70s-90s, interspersed with spoof ads for “Plummet Mall.” As the story goes, these cassette tapes were saved from the rubbish bin by a store manager in 1992. Now, they are being broadcast for everyone’s enjoyment on the short waves. I can say, I felt like I was pushing that shopping cart down the very narrow isles looking for a pair of Adidas.

This is via WRMI, Okeechobee, Florida.

This was a lot of fun.

I will finish the alignment/repairs of the Kenwood R-2000 and put it back in service in the upstairs equipment rack. Enough of these software-driven dongles, it is nice to just listen to the radio without having to boot up a computer.