Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2011 - Done for another year

Well All,

I've shut the Queensland HF Comms Coverage of Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2011 down for 2011. A quick review of my stream / coverage was that I more or less could only cover the 4483 khz nightly sked due to 6516 have the unbearable interference from 6518 khz.

However that said this year we had a total of 3 streams (4 including the parttime Offical stream) covering the HF Comms.

Brisbane, Qld Audio Stream (mine..)

http://s2h.listen2myradio.com/

Melbourne, Vic Audio Stream

http://melbourneradio.no-ip.org:88/broadwave.asx?src=1&rate=0

NSW Audio Stream

Peter Bye of vk2mpj on the NSW South Coast is once again providing Audio Stream for Sail-World http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=92269

The NSW stream stayed on 6516 khz were as the VIC stream covered both 6516 and the 4483 khz channels. Together the VIC and NSW streams were brillant and really made it possible to hear the HF Comms at all the Skeds and during the race.

A big thanks to them for their time and use of their own hardward and equipment to provide te audio streams.

The VIC stream is actually going to coninue on and attempt to provide coverage of the Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Race 2011 (http://blog.grantstowell.com/pittwater-to-coffs-harbour-ocean-race-2012) Stream Detail - http://blog.grantstowell.com/pittwater-to-coffs-harbour-ocean-race

Hope you all enjoy it :) and we'll defintely see your all next year and who knows maybe whenever there is another event during the year (ie Brisbane to Gladstone) I'll give it a go......

Have a very Happy New Year and a great 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!

AussieDrifter

Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2011 - Victoria Audio Stream

Bloody great news, @grantstowell based in Melbourne, Victoria is streaming the Race HF Comms from this QTH :)

You can tune in here - http://melbourneradio.no-ip.org:88/broadwave.asx?src=1&rate=0

2011 Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - Skeds

20111226 1905

Listen here http://soundcloud.com/ozidrifter/s2h-20111226-1905-sked - download here

The HF conditions started of fairly poor, you can just hear JBW broadcast his 2min pre sked call. at 2min JBW is a little stronger but surprisingly most of the yachts were fairly clear and JBW eventually had a fair signal. Sked lasted to 25min 30sec where JBW broadcasted the weather reports. At 28m 45sec JBW changed from 4483 khz to 6516 khz, had a fair signal there, and could be heard over the interference from 6518 khz.

Aurora was acted as relay for a couple of yachts and can be hear going clear with JBW at 31min. Wasabi position was finally relayed at 31min 45sec.

20111227 0005

Listen http://soundcloud.com/ozidrifter/s2h-20111227-0005-sked - Download here

A great copy of the 20111227 0005 sked. Only issues were a handful of yachts were faint or scratchy signals and even JBW had a tough time with them.

20111227 0735

Listen / Download here

A fairly poor copy of the sked received here in QLD, while a few yachts did come through clear, JBW appeared to be having issues with his transmission, his transmissions appeared to be clipped like there was battery issues. That said, I've upload the record audio. BTW the audio stream from Melbourne Victoria (http://melbourneradio.no-ip.org:88/broadwave.asx?src=1&rate=0) provided by @grantstowell was much cleaner and clearer, so remember if my stream is not the best try his or even the Official stream from the RSHYR web site.

20111227 1205

A vey poor to no copy of the Sked received in QLD. Both VIC: http://tinyurl.com/76swzhs and NSW http://tinyurl.com/6muh2de had some signal, except NSW feed / station had a severe interference that made audio tough to make out at times :( VIC signal was the best one out of the three to listen to comfortably :)

20111227 1705

Another poor copy to QLD, but mostly due to the series of storms around during the sked here in Brisbane. That said, NSW stream came through fantastically (thumbs up to Peter Bye of vk2mpj on the NSW South Coast), towards the end it was fighting a heavier static, but JBW booming through. VIC stream had clear signal and who could hear JBW and the yachts but the audio was faint. The joys of HF Radio. I'm so happy that there are multiple HF Comms streams covering the yacht race :)

20111228 0005

A great copy of the 20111228 0005 sked. Only issue was the static crashed from storms but overall great copy. I dont have access to Audacity so I've uploaded raw stream so you'll need to located the sked :)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

20111228 0735

Moderate signal,so did no worry about uploading sked mp3. VIC Stream was nice and clear.

20111228 1705

Was at work and still have not review my recordings, but if it was anything like yesertday, probably not worth uploading mp3.

20111229 0005

A good copy of the 20111229 0005 sked. Only issue was the static crashed from storms but overall good copy. NSW Stream seem to stay on 6516khz so nothing heard from the sked. VIC stream was a little weak at the start but sarted picking up near the end. VIC stream also had a interfence that made listening a little hard but atleast it did not have the lighting static crashes. I dont have access to Audacity so I've uploaded raw stream so you'll need to located the sked :)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

20111229 0735

Again very poor signals and interference from 6518 khz here in QLD. The VIC stream was brilliant. Only issue was JBW was having transmision issues and so Hobart Race Control had to manage the Sked. The NSW stream was good, however its DSP / filtering was making the listening a little harder / not as crisp as VIC.

Prerace Radio Check - Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2011

Well that's the "official" HF comms / radio check period for yachts competing in the 2011 Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race to check in with "Marine Resuce Newcastle".

I've worked my way through my recordings and located a few samples of the Yachts making their prerace radio checks, I've uploaded them here - http://soundcloud.com/ozidrifter/sets/sydney-hobart-yacht-race an online audio storage service provided by SoundCloud.

Enjoy :)

Preparing for Sydney To Hobart HF Comms Coverage

Hello All,

I've been a little quiet this year in regards to my Shortwave hobby, however with the up coming Sydney To Hobart Yacht Race 2011 (http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/) and my tradition of trying to provide a broadcast coverage of the HF Comms, what better reason to blow the dust of the radios and fire them up :).

I'm still located in Brisbane Qld, so as we all know that the coverage of the comms can be a little hit and miss. Even if I do have clear reception I'm plaqued with the following two sources of QRM

• I've got an issue with a broadband burst of static that has a pattern of 12sec of static (loud s9+) every ~60sec.  This appears to occur between 09:15 - 15:15 AEDST (08:15 - 14:15 AEST). It shouldn't impact the main Race Position reporting Skeds, but never the less pain the the backside if you just want to tune in and monitor the comms.

•  Our friendly interference from the clandestine Shortwave Station (Voice of People-Korea) that transmits on 6518khz which is also being blocked by a jamming station which just causing an god aweful of frequency wobble. This normally starts / fades in from ~1915 AEDST and lasts till it fades out 0700 AEDST (1815-0600 AEST).

Previously I have been using "ustream.tv - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sydney-hobart-yacht-race---hf-comms-6516--4483-kh" and while it is a fantastic service each time you attempt to view a saved recording or list on to listen to my feed you forced to watch a 30sec advertisement.  Now while that might not seem to bad, I thought why not try and see what else is on offer....  So this year I'm going to trial a different technology to broadcast the HF Comms audio.  I'm going to use "ShoutCast"  and a free hosting service "Listen To My Radio".

My feeds web page is: http://s2h.listen2myradio.com/ and the players on this page also point to the current server which has been allocated to me after I might stop / start my ShoutCast Service.

However I've embedded the player as follows to see if it will work, but its based on the link provided by shoutCat Yellow Pages.




Currently I've got feed monitoring 6516 khz for the pre-race radio checks which needs to be completed by the yachts before they compete.  The radio checks are schedule to ran from Dec 15th 2011 - Dec 22nd 2011. Lets see how the ShoutCast feed goes, worse case if it pans out to be too unreliable, I'll switch back to "ustream.tv" and we'll need to put up with 30sec adverts .

Odd Frequency for HLS

Guys,

I was monitoring 17 m band, when I came across the following morse code on 18057 khz "20110101 0353 UTC" (list here).  Not having tone, I had to view the recording's waveform to decode the morse, as my ears just weren't able to copy the signal :(

Anyway the messgae was repeating:

"CQ CQ CQ DE HLS HLS HLS QSX 12 MHZ"

Nothing fancy, I've seen the HLS and others using normal CW tone on lower frequencies and when I went googling, even "WWW.SHORTWAVEMONITOR.COM" did not have a listing of HLS in the 17 m band, but has it listed on lower frequencies as "pup'yong radio kor "

Hmmmm strange so thought I'd share that one with you's :)

Mark