MetaFilter posts tagged with shortwave

Interval Signals Online

jason's_planet — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:20:34 -0800

Interval Signals Online is a site devoted to "Interval signals, signature tunes, airchecks and identification announcements from international, domestic, and clandestine radio stations around the world" such as Radio Tirana, AFAN Radio of Antarctica's McMurdo Station, and Radio Greenland. (Last three links are automatic downloads). Tip of the hat to mykescipark.

¡Atención!", "1234567890"

rongorongo — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:31:28 -0800

Find a short wave radio and before long you should be able to tune into The Lincolnshire Poacher - the station plays an introduction comprising part of the eponymous folk tune followed by a robotic female voice reading strings of numbers: listen! So called Numbers Stations have been a mysterious constant of short wave radio for several decades. The Conet Project [previously 1, 2, 3] has made a collection of the recordings available allowing you to listen to "Ready! Ready! 15728", "The Buzzer" (especially mysterious), "Gong Station Chimes", "Magnetic Fields" and many others.... Nobody will admit to owning or running these stations - but, since the 70s, a small community of followers has been gathering information on them in sites like Spynumbers, in books like Simon Mason's "Secret Signals" and as samples that have made their way into tracks like "Gyroscope" from the Boards of Canada. NPR recorded the spooky "Shortwave Numbers Mystery" and The Washington Post profiled Londoner Akin Fernandez who was behind the Conet CDs. The most credible theory is that the stations are for the benefit of spies (for MI6 in the case of the Lincolnshire Poacher) and that they are broadcasting messages for use with one time pads. In the UK, by the way, you are breaking the law by listening to these transmissions - and, as a spokesperson from the British ministry of defence said (quoted by Wired), "These [numbers stations] are what you suppose they are - people shouldn't be mystified by them. They're not, shall we say, for public consumption." That's OK then. Message ends.

Listening to shortwave radio in 2008 is a willfully quixotic undertaking

ZenMasterThis — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:21:07 -0800

Waging a tiny rebellion via shortwave radio. "Missing the Internet's precision, what I think most recommends shortwave radio now is its offer of quest. It's in the hunting for something unknown that might not be there anyway, and if it is, may dissolve, sputtering, eaten by sunspots or zapped in static."

Shortwave and AM Radio from the Kitchen

dhammond — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 21:05:07 -0800

The Radio Kitchen is an mp3 blog dedicated to the late night wonder of listening to shortwave and AM radio, now and as it used to was. Brought to you by The Professor from WFMU's defunct AM and Shortwave Radio blog). Previously.

shortwave music

carter — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:47:09 -0800

shortwavemusic An audio blog of music and noise (and musical noise) found on the shortwave band.

Welcome To IOTA NA-178 Mission Control

jackspace — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 15:41:19 -0800

Welcome To IOTA NA-178 Mission Control On behalf of IOTA Ham operators WorldWide, the SouthEast Farallon Island - Project NA-178 HAMS HELPING HABITATS project (conducted by K6VVA & K9AJ) will assist the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge ("The Refuge") by transporting materials and equipment via helicopter from the mainland for an important habitat restoration project on SouthEast Farallon Island ("SEFI"), as well as the return of old unwanted infrastructure water pipe from the Island for disposal.

If you thought Eco-tourism was passe, try a DX-p e d i t i o n! Of course hams have also put their personal concerns aside for other things, such as helping provide emergency communications during natural disasters. One thing you might not realize is our penchant for broadband Internet via BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) may interfere with this hobby of radio enthusiasts.

rschram — Wed, 03 Jul 2002 12:26:04 -0800

E-mail Reaches the Unreachable via Shortwave in the Solomons
PFNet is an innovative development project which deploys a growing network infrastructure across the largely rural and remote communities of the Solomon Islands. "PFnet is based on a model where community-managed, operator-assisted email facilities provide all groups (even illiterates) the means to send messages and Internet emails. ... Owing to the formidable logistical barriers in this scattered island nation, the mainstay of the network uses HF/Wavemail; a well proven system short-wave radios in Pactor 2 mode." The organization is a finalist for the Stockholm Challenge, an award for innovation in IT development.
All a community needs is a shortwave radio, solar panels, and a computer running Wavemail to send email, and potentially more. The results are quite impressive: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

aaron — Tue, 08 May 2001 13:42:25 -0800

BBC to North America and Australia: Drop Dead. The BBC World Service is dumping all shortwave broadcasts to the US, Canada and Australia as of July. If you want to listen you'll have to get it off the net, or hope your local public radio station uses at least a few WS programs as cheap filler material. A couple hundred US stations do this, but did we mention they tend to do it at 3 in the morning? (Scroll down past the Angola stuff in the above link.)