Submission to the Shortwave Archive Part 1: Furusato No Kaze and KCBS Pyongyang

This post marks the start of my weekly submissions to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. This week's theme is North Korea.

Furusato No Kaze: September 17, 2015

Furusato No Kaze recorded in London, UK on September 17, 2015 at 1600 UTC, on the frequency of 9960 kHz using SDRPlay with SDR# software and a 2 x 6m long wire dipole. The transmitter has a power rating of 100 kW and is located in Palau. From NorthKoreaTech:

Shortwave radio remains a vitally important way to reach into North Korea because of the total lack of international communications offered to its citizens.

Furusato no Kaze (ふるさとの風, Hometown Wind) is run by the Japanese government and targets any Japanese citizens that were abducted by North Korea and remain alive in the country. There are two programs: Furusato no Kaze in Japanese and Nippon no Kaze (il bon ue baram, Japan Wind) in Korean. The first and last broadcasts of each day come from transmitters in Taiwan while the rest are from Palau.

You can also hear what appear to be North Korean jamming attempts in the background.

Click here to download the recording // Link to the original SRAA submission

KCBS Pyongyang: September 17, 2015

Korean Central Broadcasting Station, Pyongyang recorded in London, UK on September 17, 2015 at 1605 UTC, on the frequency of 9665 kHz using SDRPlay with SDR# software and a 2 x 6m long wire dipole. The non-directional transmitter has a power rating of 50 kW and is located in Kanggye, DPRK. From NorthKoreaTech:

The Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) (Korean: 조선중앙방송, Chinese: 朝鲜中央放送, Japanese: 朝鮮中央放送) is the main domestic radio network in the DPRK. It sits under the Central Broadcasting Committee of the DPRK (called the Radio and Television Committee of the DPRK until 2009). 

KCBS broadcasts from 5am to 3am local time via a network of mediumwave and shortwave transmitters that cover the nation. The powerful transmissions can easily be heard in neighboring countries, including South Korea where some of its frequencies are jammed. 

A central program is broadcast from Pyongyang on most transmitters through the entire broadcast day, but some are reported to carry regional programming between 2pm and 3pm. 

All programming is in Korean and includes music, talk and news.

The station appears to be a difficult catch in Europe because of the relatively low power and the non-directional mode of the transmission, and because of frequency clashes with China Radio International, Radio Cairo and Radio Voz Missionaria of Brazil. Indeed this recording was made in the small time window between CRI's Pashto and Hausa broadcasts, the latter of which can be heard starting at the end of the recording.

Click here to download the recording // Link to the original SRAA submission

Longwave DXing: Radio Romania Antena Satelor

In the early hours of Friday morning, just before going to bed, I inserted a fresh pair of AA batteries into my analogue Roberts R9962 portable radio and fired it up for some late night listening. Despite its simple looks and the lack of bells and whistles, R9962 is a fine radio. However, I was immediately reminded that my home is plagued by severe interference on HF from the adjacent apartments and that using this radio on its own on shortwave is simply not feasible in such conditions. The only relatively quiet frequencies were in the lower part of the long wave spectrum. I switched the band selector into the LW position, put the radio on the window sill and started slowly tuning the dial. I heard our BBC Radio 4 on 198 kHz, a few French stations further down the frequency range but none of this seemed particularly interesting for some reason. Just as I reached the very bottom of the dial I heard a very faint signal against the backdrop of constant static crashes and crackles. I rotated the radio so that its ferrite bar antenna would be maximally aligned with the incoming signal, and although it was still a bit weak, I immediately recognised it — what I was hearing was none other than Radio Romania's Antena Satelor on 153 kHz! Long wave signals usually do not travel very far, even at night when the ionosphere allows for some long distance opportunities in this part of the spectrum, so at 2000km this was certainly some impressive DX. I have certainly had many nights when I couldn't hear it with my Wellbrook loop antennas and all the additional anti-interference gear in place.

After listening for a few minutes I realised that I'd better record this — who knows when the bands will open up like that again! At night, Antena Satelor play traditional Romanian music, and at the start of the recording I caught what I think was the end of the program featuring some of their songs from the 1930s. Then, at the top of the hour the station switched gears and started playing Romanian folk music instead, something that is now quite familiar to me after a few years of listening to Radio Romania International on shortwave. However, one more surprise was in store: the signal started becoming stronger steadily and after about ten minutes the little red light on the radio came on — now we were definitely tuned in! Nonetheless, even while the signal was very faint, I was impressed by how reliably the R9962 was pulling it out from the static, something that can be heard by comparing the volume of the audio with the strength of the static crashes. I hope there will be more nights when I can hear Antena Satelor with such clarity!

Below is the full recording for your enjoyment (153 kHz on 31/07/2015 at 0055 UTC):

Click here to download the recording instead

Shortwave playlist part 1

Over the past two years, shortwave radio listening has exposed me to lots of new music from around the world. Starting from this entry, I shall occasionally post short playlists of some of the more interesting records I have heard.

1. Ibrahim Maalouf - Sensuality
Medi 1, July 2013

2. Morenito - Los Almonteños
Radio Exterior de España, June 2014

3. Harold Lopez Nussa Trio - Bailando Suiza
Radio Habana Cuba, December 2013

4. Alexis Boulgourtzis - Choris Prova
Voice of Greece, November 2013

5. Lin Hai - Happy Together
China Radio International, August 2013

Recording the spectrum with portable SDR

Update (15/11/16): this article describes an older version of my portable SDR configuration. Jump to this post to see my current set-up.

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As my friend Thomas Witherspoon frequently points out in his excellent blog, one of the great things about using a software defined radio package like SDR# is that one can record entire regions of the frequency space instead of a single station. Although I've always wanted to try this out, my home is plagued by tremendous electromagnetic interference and the challenge has always been finding the optimal equipment settings for a single station. Under such circumstances, capturing parts of the spectrum didn't really make sense. Now that I finally have a convenient portable SDR solution, I decided to give spectrum recording a go.

On the evening of 15/04/2015 I went out to a nearby park and set up my equipment as follows:

I used a thin SMA to BNC wire to reduce the strain on FunCube's RF front end connector.

Hiding the gadgets from prying eyes inside the carrier bag (all listening done via a pair Bluetooth headphones)

The feed line cable has a velcro strap which is great for attaching the former to a tree branch.

12m of wire were wrapped around the tree branches (two 6m wires connected to the balun in a dipole fashion)

I fired up SDR#, set the centre frequency to 12095 kHz and started recording the spectrum to disk. This is what it looked like:

FunCube Dongle Pro+ spectrum circa 1600 UTC on 15/4/2015 (click above to enlarge)

The frequency window of the captured spectrum was 192 kHz, which is the maximum that the FunCube Dongle Pro+ can provide. While this is only a small fraction of the entire shortwave spectrum, it it is still possible to simultaneously capture a fairly large number of radio signals within it. When I got home I replayed the spectrum data through SDR# several times to extract the following station recordings:

Voice of America (Somali service), 12055 kHz, 1600 UTC. The strongest signal in the above screenshot (unsurprising, as it happens to be transmitted from the closest geographical location). The SDR# / FunCube Dongle Pro+ combo did well not to produce audio artefacts given that the carrier peak occasionally inched close to 0db.

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Radio Australia, 12065 kHz, 1559 UTC. SDR#'s passband tuning and synchronous detection were of invaluable help here because of VOA's blowtorch beam was destroying the lower sideband of Radio Australia's signal. A cheap portable radio almost certainly wouldn't cope in these circumstances!

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NHK Radio, 12045 kHz, 1559 UTC. SDR# did a brilliant job of pulling this exceptionally weak station out from the static. However, once the nearby VOA powerhouse got going on 12055 kHz at 1600 UTC, it buried this signal almost completely, which you can hear towards the end of this short recording.

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Voice of Korea, 12015 kHz, 1602 UTC. North Korea's international radio service in German. SDR# allows the user to select arbitrary audio filter widths, which was useful for this signal as its bandwidth was roughly 20kHz, making the sound come out in somewhat higher fidelity.

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Radio Free Asia, 12075 kHz, 1600 UTC. Broadcasting from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean, the station comes through remarkably well. That is, until the Chinese start jamming it, which can be heard in the later part of the recording.

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BBC World Service, 12095 kHz, 1559 UTC. BBC's signal is surprisingly crisp considering it is coming all the way from Madagascar.

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Radio Farda, 12005 kHz, 1559 UTC broadcasting from Udon Thani in Thailand.

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Radio Dialog, 12115 kHz, 1602 UTC broadcasting from Talata-Volondry in Madagascar (presumably airing the recording of their earlier Sunday morning program).

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IBRA Radio, 12125 kHz, 1600 UTC broadcasting from Yerevan in Armenia.

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Trans World Radio, 12160 kHz, 1602 UTC broadcasting from Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

All in all, I am really pleased with what I could pick up. If you have SDR# installed you can be the judge by downloading the spectrum recording itself. Unzip the file, select it after choosing "IQ file" as the input source in the application, and press play (make sure you tick "Swap IQ" and "Correct IQ" in radio options).

Portable SDR update

Update (15/11/16): this article describes my old portable SDR configuration. Jump to this post to see my current set-up.

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This is a quick entry describing an update to my portable SDR setup. Readers may remember that my previous configuration suffered from the tablet's radio interference leaking into the FunCube Dongle Pro+ SDR. I solved the problem by using a galvanic USB isolator and a separate portable USB power supply for the dongle. When I posted this configuration on SWLing.com in August, Alexander DL4NO advised me that it's possible to get rid of the USB isolator. Because my balun has two terminals, he said, I can use it to make a dipole antenna (an antenna with two wires) that balances the radio current before it gets passed down into the SDR dongle, which ought to prevent tablet interference from getting into the antenna system.

At the time I wasn't sure this would work. His other suggestion — using a ferrite ring choke on the antenna feedline cable — didn't do much to suppress the tablet noise, which made me assume that it was FunCube Dongle's design that was at fault, and that the noise was getting in from the USB end and not via the antenna.

Wellbrook UMB130 balun

However, when I finally tried out Alexander's suggestion, I could not believe what a drastic effect the addition of the second wire has: as soon as I connect it to the balun, the noise disappears, even with the USB isolator "out of the loop". This simplifies my portable SDR configuration substantially. Below is a demo video:

There is no sound here because I was listening to Radio Australia's 12065 kHz signal using a pair of Bluetooth headphones. Note the low noise floor and the absence of any interference on the spectrum. This has a substantial impact on the overall cost:

1) On The Go USB host cable for Toshiba's micro USB connector: $7
2) FunCube Dongle Pro+: $186
3) Wellbrook HF Balun: $60
4) Feedline cables $7
5) 12 metres of thick copper antenna wire: $16

The total without the tablet comes to $276, and if you buy an HP Stream 7, you only need to add $90 more. A complete on-the-go SDR solution for $366 doesn't sound too bad, does it? Many thanks to DL4NO for making my set-up that much more portable!

US and Cuba set to re-establish diplomatic relations: the shortwave radio listener perspective

Viva Cuba by Alain Bertrand

On December 17, US President Barack Obama announced a "new chapter" in US relations with Cuba with a move to re-establish diplomatic and economic ties between the two former Cold War adversaries. Though much has already been written about this elsewhere, I would like to share my perspective of this event with a few shortwave recordings I made the following morning.

Readers of my blog and Twitter feed know that I'm big fan of Cuban radio. However, because this was a White House announcement, I wanted to hear the official US perspective on this historic event. I tuned into the Voice of America broadcast, directed at Africa from the Vatican (6080 kHz on 18/12/2014 at 0259 UTC):

The style and the delivery of this news bulletin combined with the magnitude of the events being mentioned reminded me of catching the tail end of Cold War shortwave broadcasts as a small child in the late 1980s. Another news item that stood out for me was the unilateral declaration of ceasefire by Colombia's FARC guerrilla group. It left me wondering whether this was somehow tied to the US-Cuba announcement, as negotiations between the rebels and Colombia's government have now been taking place in Havana for quite some time.

Shortly before that, though, I tuned into Radio Martí, the clandestine broadcaster funded by the United States government that transmits American propaganda newscasts and programmes in Spanish to Cuba (check out my earlier post for a quick profile of this station). Although I would not normally turn to them for any in-depth analysis (or to any clandestine station for that matter), I was very curious to hear how they would present this tectonic shift in the American policy towards the island nation, given how scathing they normally are of the Cuban regime as a whole. Below is my recording of Martí's news bulletin transmitted from their Greenville transmitter in North Carolina (7365 kHz on 18/12/2014 at 0059 UTC)

Unsurprisingly, the news of the re-establishing of diplomatic relations was quickly followed by criticism of Obama by senators Menendez and Rubio, who said that it was too bold a move and that consultation with the US Congress would be necessary before any real progress could be made. However, it is unlikely that many Cubans would have heard their complaints, as my friend Thomas Witherspoon at SWLing.com tells me that the Cuban jamming of Martí's signal is so strong that he can barely copy it at his home in South Carolina. It is somewhat ironic, then, that I can receive it better here in London.

On the other hand, my attempts to record Radio Habana Cuba that night were far less successful. Propagation was really weak on the 49 meter band, which, combined with a number of sources of local interference made it very difficult to tune into either the Spanish broadcast on 6060 kHz or the English one on 6000 kHz. The speech was intelligible but the reception conditions certainly didn't help to make nice recordings. I was briefly lucky around 0325-0335 UTC on the latter frequency and was even able to record their half-hour news bulletin (which unfortunately was condensed and didn't cover all the key events of the day), but by its end, the local noise source had returned with a vengeance. Still, at least I was able to record some nice music!

Luckily, Thomas at SWLing.com made a full one hour recording of that broadcast in superb audio quality. I embed it below with his kind permission (6000 kHz on 18/12/2014 at 0300 UTC).

Predictably, the main focus of the news was on the release on the remaining three of the Cuban Five and less on the re-establishing of relations itself. However, the broadcast also contained the English translation of Raul Castro's speech that coincided with Barack Obama's announcement. Gerwyn Jones's commentary on the Islamic State (20 minutes into the program) was also noteworthy. And here's a bit of trivia: the music at the start of the recording is Bailando Suiza by Harold Lopez-Nussa Trio and David Sanchez. All in all, it was definitely one of the more exciting days to listen to shortwave radio.

My submission to SWLing.com Virtual Radio Challenge II

Update (15/11/16): this article describes an older version of my portable SDR configuration. Jump to this post to see my current set-up.

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A few days ago The SWLing Post published a challenge to their readers: given a budget of $1200, to put together the best possible shortwave radio listening set-up that can function completely off the grid in the Himalayas.

My solution is to fuse my two previous submissions to The Post - my response to the shortwave listening challenge for the remote Atlantic island of Tristan Da Cunha and my portable SDR design - and to add solar power.

FunCube Dongle Pro+ and Toshiba Encore 8" running SDR# in a London park

To recap, the tablet-based SDR set-up costs $643. My experiments with FunCube Dongle Pro+ and SDR# software have convinced me that this combination makes for one of the best shortwave listening experiences in its price range. Here are a few reasons why:

- FunCube Dongle Pro+ is a sensitive SDR.

- SDR# has an excellent noise reduction algorithm that often turns laborious DXing into comfortable listening. It also has a robust synchronous detector, which, combined with its passband tuning and noise reduction algorithms can unbury almost any station from the surrounding co-channel interference.

However, given the remoteness of the location and the fact that there is no reliable electricity grid to speak of, we need a few extras:

Solar Power

You may recall that in my portable SDR solution there are two sets of batteries that need to be recharged:

- Toshiba's built in Lithium Ion battery (via its USB port)

- 4xAA batteries for the Gomadic 5V Power Pack (used for supplying extra power to the SDR)

First, let's get a compact, foldable solar panel:

1. Powerfilm F16-1200 20W foldable solar panel

I would go with Powerfilm F16-1200 20W foldable solar panel  (buy it here for $210.99). Disclaimer: although I've never used any of the PowerFilm products or accessories, I have read good reviews of them from other radio enthusiasts. When folded, this solar panel measures merely 27.9cm x 16.5 cm - slightly smaller than an A4 notepad. Once fully opened, however, it can deliver 20W of power (15.4V, 1.2A), enough to charge the Toshiba tablet and 4xAA rechargeable batteries simultaneously.

To charge the AA cells, I would go with the Powerfilm RA-3b - 12V Battery Charger Pack for AA and AAA (buy here for $54.41) and the Powerfilm RA-2 12V Female Power Port Adapter (already included with F16-1200).

2. RA-3b - 12V Battery Charger Pack for AA and AAA

3. RA-2 12V Female Power Port Adapter

Although we only need 4 AA batteries for the Gomadic USB Power Pack, it's always nice to have some spare ones, just in case. I would throw in a pack of 12 Panasonic Eneloop AA 2100 Cycle Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries for $26.95.

4. 12 Panasonic Eneloop Rechargeable Batteries

The spares can be used in the following ways:

- To power the backup portable shortwave radio

- To have another batch ready when the batteries insde the Gomadic USB Power Pack run out.

- Using Gomadic, to charge the tablet outside daylight hours, for more daytime listening.

Now onto charging the tablet itself. For this I would use the Powertraveller Spidermonkey 4-Port USB Charger Hub at $38.76. Again, I haven't used this product, but according to the specifications it can charge up to 4 USB devices and accepts input power between 5V and 30V. The reviews are largely positive, so it seems like a safe choice.

5. Powertraveller Spidermonkey 4-Port USB Charger Hub

To connect the Spidermonkey hub to the solar panel we'll need the Powerfilm RA-16 - 3ft. Extension Adapter with 4.75mm Barrel cable (available here for $9.98)

6. RA-16 - 3ft. Extension Adapter with 4.75mm Barrel

If we want to charge both the tablet and the AA batteries simultaneously, the  Powerfilm PP-7 - Multiple Device Charger Cable accessory will come in handy (here for $24.99)

7. PP-7 - Multiple Device Charger Cable

Antenna Extras

Living off the grid has the advantage of there being minimal man-made radio interference. For this reason we can use a larger antenna than in my original proposal. I suggest buying 40m of POLYS18 Copper-Clad Steel Antenna Wire from Universal Radio (the total comes to $31.44), cutting it halfway, and attaching each half to one of the two antenna terminals on the Wellbrook HF Balun, mentioned in my previous article, thus creating a dipole.

Of course, this makes for a rather powerful shortwave receiving antenna that can easily overload the radio. We can solve this problem by connecting the balun's feedline output to the antenna terminal on the Global AT-2000 Antenna Tuner, $85 via 25 feet of GadKo BNC Male Copper Stranded Center Conductor Cable , $16.90. We should then connect the radio terminal to the short feedline cable of the FunCube Dongle Pro+ SDR, with the ferrite chokes left in place. We will need 2 x BNC female to PL259 Adapters, $6.49, to connect the BNC cables to Global's PL259 female sockets.

8. Global AT-2000 Antenna Tuner

9. 2 x BNC female to PL259 Adapters

10. GadKo BNC Male Copper Stranded Center Conductor Cable

Finally, here's a simple schematic diagram of how the antenna parts should be wired together:

Connecting all the antenna bits together

Backup Radio

The challenge article mentions that a back-up radio would be desirable in the event of other equipment failing. I suggest Tecsun PL-310 ET, available for $48.79 from Amazon. It's a very similar radio to the excellent Tecsun PL-380 (they use the same Silicon Labs chipset), but it has one notable advantage: an external antenna input! It takes a 3.5mm jack plug, so we'll need a BNC Socket to Composite 3.5mm Male Jack Plug Adapter, $2.01.

11. Tecsun PL-310 ET

12. BNC Socket to Composite 3.5mm Male Jack Plug Adapter 

The subtotal for all of the above comes to $556.71. Adding on $643 for the tablet-based SDR solution brings the total to $1199.71, just 29 cents below the budget limit!