Listen Live to what I'm listening to !!

Head Over to My Broadcast Radio Station - Monitoring HF Maritime and Other HF Utility Comms

Friday 26 December 2008

Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race 2008

That time of year again, I've been broadcasting the primary race frequency and making recordings of the Radio Skeds for Position and Safety, hope you all enjoy and we'll see how the race goes :)

Radios and QTH Background
The primary race frequency 6516khz has been clear as bell since I've been testing my new setup at the Canberra QTH preparing for remote controlling the radio from Brisbane via internet.

Beside the normal bastard of a Shortwave Station that starts broadcasting on 6518khz from 2155 AEST until 0805 AEST the next morning I was fairly happy with the results.

However things went to custard sometime from Xmas-eve and Boxing Day morning, when I logged on to monitor the audio on 6516khz, I was getting blasted with a S2-S4 electrical RFI. Since I'm in Brisbane, I was unable to diagnose or locate the possible source of RFI, except to come to the conclusion that one of the bloody neighbours must have got a new present / device for xmas and has plugged it in and now causes +/- 500khz from 6500 to have a very annoying RFI. All other frequencies I've scanned on the Icom R75 are clear of this RFI noise.

I put up with it for the first day as the fleet when broadcasting could be fairly easily be heard over the RFI. However the next morning when preparing for the 0735 AEST sked, HF propagation between the S2H fleet and the Canberra QTH fell through the floor (and has remained that way through out the race so far!) and had to resort to the Sony ICF-SW7600GR Portable and the Brisbane Special homemade inverted V antenna. This gave me enough signal to monitor the race when the Canberra QTH was crap, and visa-versa Canberra QTH was perfect for the 4483khz frequency.


S2H Radio Schedules

20081226 20:05 Position Report - (Listen Here)

20081226 21:15 Yacht Georgia sinking - Pan Pan / Mayday

Part 1 - 2008-12-26 21:13 AEST (~47mins 10 Mb) - (Click Here)
(NB at 21:55 AEST Shorwave Station starts broadcasting on 6518 kHz, it a pain in the ARSE!!!!
and the station does not stop broadcasting till 0805 AEST following morning.
Not much I can do about it, got the R75 Filters and DSP tuned / configured as best
as I could to filter the station out.)

Part 2 - 2008-12-26 22:00 AEST (~60mins 12 Mb) - (Click Here)

Part 3 - 2008-12-26 23:00 AEST (~15mins 3 Mb) - (Click Here)


20081227 00:05 Safety Report - (Listen Here)

20081227 07:35 Position Report - No recordings, nothing heard from QTH Canberra except for the annoying interfering Shortwave Station broadcasting on 6518khz since 2100 to 0900, I was however able to hear them on the Sony Portable with a small hookup wire from hear in Brisbane, but was not able to setup any recording via the laptop in time. I'm, going to set up the Brisbane Special inverted V antenna and hook it up to Sony as a backup and get this recording issue sorted.

20081227 12:05 Weather Report - (Nothing of interest and HF was still fairly poor)

20081227 17:35 Position Report - Canberra QTH was a wash out after two afternoon storm came through the region / area (God I hope the house is ok, heard on the news this morning there was flash flooding)

20081228 00:05 Safety Report - Good signal, nothing of interest a few of the yachts that did not report position earlier came in nice and strong.

20081228 07:35 Position Report

- Audio from Sony SW76000GR - Located at Brisbane - (Click Here)

- Audio from Icom R75 - Located at Canberra - (Click Here)


Regards
Mark

Friday 12 December 2008

Christmas Songs

Having put up the Chrissy lights the other day, I've noticed that while listening to the local radio stations, the lack of feel good Christmas songs especially the traditional one I use to remember when I a fair bit younger :) So with a quick google, I found a website "Christmas Songs" list of Christmas songs, and thought I'd go through them as link them as usual to a video clip from YouTube:


  1. A Baby Just Like You - John Denver

  2. All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth - Spike Jones

  3. Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley

  4. Christmas Dinner

  5. Christmas For Cowboys - John Denver

  6. Christmas In Killarney

  7. Deck the Halls

  8. First Christmas - Stan Rogers

  9. Frosty the Snow Man - Nat King Cole

  10. Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer - The Irish Rovers, Dr. Elmo

  11. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Frank Sinatra

  12. Here Comes Santa Claus

  13. Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives

  14. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Jessica Simpson

  15. It's the most wonderful time of the year - Andy Williams

  16. I'll Be Home For Christmas - Frank Sinatra

  17. Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms

  18. Jingle Bells - Bing Crosby & Frank Sinatra

  19. Jolly Old Saint Nicholas - The Ray Conniff Singers

  20. Let It Snow - Dean Martin

  21. Mary, Did You Know? - Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd

  22. Merry Christmas Darling - The Carpenters

  23. Must Be Santa - Mitch Miller & The Gang

  24. Nuttin' For Christmas

  25. O Christmas Tree (Has many Versions - Very funny)

  26. Pine Cones And Holly Berries

  27. Rocking around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee

  28. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - Gene Autry

  29. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - Bruce Springsteen

  30. Silver Bells - Dean Martin , Johnny Mathis

  31. Sleep Well, Little Children - Kristin Chenoweth

  32. Sleigh Ride - Andy Williams, The Ronettes

  33. Tennessee Christmas - Amy Grant

  34. The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole

  35. The Little Drummer Boy - BING CROSBY & DAVID BOWIE

  36. The Night Before Christmas

  37. The Twelve Days of Christmas - John Denver - Muppets Christmas

  38. Up On the Housetop - Gene Autry

  39. We Wish You A Merry Christmas

  40. White Christmas - Bing Crosby

  41. Winter Wonderland - Bing Crosby



Misc:

O Come All Ye Faithful - Nat King Cole

Silver Bells


Wow !!! Thats enough for tonight :) Hope you enjoy the version / cover of each popular Christmas Songs listed above......

Merry Christmas Everyone !!

Mark

Saturday 6 December 2008

Frequencies 6th-December-2008


Using Icom R75 - Slinky Dipole, QTH: Canberra

khz UTC SINPO Country Station
13362 0855 45544 USA AFRTS
5765 0904 45544 USA AFRTS
7811 0905 45544 USA AFRTS
2310 0908 25222 AUS ABC
2325 0909 25223 AUS ABC
8743 0912 25443 ?? USB - Melody intro, clean frequency, but faint very faint voices talking.
4750 0917 23222 BGD Bangladesh Betar
6195 0922 22232 G BBC - (Thailand)
9740 0927 55545 G BBC - (Singapore)
6020 0930 55555 AUS R. Australia
6070 0932 34333 CHL Voz Cristiana
3330 0941 15331 CAN CHU
7335 0941 43333 CAN CHU
15555 0945 33333 AUS CVC International
13630 0948 15331 AUS CVC International
17820 0949 35544 AUS CVC International
17635 0951 22222 AUS CVC International
17710 0952 55545 D Deutsche Welle
21840 0954 25522 D Deutsche Welle
17520 0956 55545 D Deutsche Welle (Sign off 0958)
17510 0959 55555 IND All India Radio
5955 1005 43434 CHN China Radio Int.


9735 2000 55545 D Deutsche Welle (Tgt East Africa)
6075 2055 55545 RUS GTRK Kamchatka (Sign off at 2059)
11845 2127 55545 CAN Radio Canada Int. French (Tgt North Africa) Station ID 2130
17675 2132 45433 NZL Radio New Zealand Int.
7405 2143 22233 USA Voice of America. English (Loc KWT) (Tgt AFG) - Co Channeled against Arabic Singing / music / chanting






Brisbane QTH 2007

Brisbane QTH 2007
Heres my little Listening Post at Brisbane

Charlotte Pass August 2007

Charlotte Pass August 2007
The DEGEN 1103 in action on the ski slopes

Listening Post Thredbo

Listening Post Thredbo
Degen DE1103 and Long Wire - Thredbo Camp Site June 2007

Condamine Gorge - XMAS / NEW YEARS 2006

Condamine Gorge - XMAS / NEW YEARS 2006
Brother Robbie and I listening to the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race scheduled radio morning Check in. Those swags are very confortable.

Cold Night - Mum, Dad and Robbie at Lake St Clair on our Tassie Trip 2007

Cold Night - Mum, Dad and Robbie at Lake St Clair on our Tassie Trip 2007
It was a very cold night, but man that fire was bueatiful. Using the Sangean ATS-505 coupled with external 100ft wire for MW DXing.

New Years Eve 2005 - My Wife Tanya and I

New Years Eve 2005 - My Wife Tanya and I
You can see the FRG-7 we brought in my New Years as a Family. Starting with New Zealand / Melborne / Brisbane then lost count after that :) And it finished for me with BBC broadcast of chimes of Big Ben Clock from London.