All India Radio (DRM): April 14, 2014

Shola highlands are found in Kudremukh National Park, Chikmagalur which is part of the Western Ghats. (Photo source: Karunakar Rayker)

Shola highlands are found in Kudremukh National Park, Chikmagalur which is part of the Western Ghats. (Photo source: Karunakar Rayker)

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Mark Fahey, who has shared this Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) recording of All India Radio.

Mark explains:

"Almost every morning at 5:45AM (Sydney time) I have my first cup of coffee and eat breakfast and listen to the All India Radio Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) Hindi language evening broadcast to Europe. At this time of year in Australia (April) the broadcast starts in darkness and ends as the sun is rising. The broadcast originates from the Khampur (Delhi) transmission facility. 

I have a deep love for India and have spent a large part of my life working and living there, so I take every opportunity to listen to All India Radio in both DRM and analogue mode.

Digital DRM provides the opportunity for fade and noise free reception. But as you can hear on this recording, AIR introduces plenty of unintended noise into their programs even before the broadcast reaches the transmitting antenna. The 50Hz hum is a feature I notice in all AIR DRM broadcasts. On some occasions (perhaps every few months) they "forget" to patch the audio path correctly to the transmitter and all that is heard is the hum without any programming for the hour!"

This recording was made on April 14, 2014 starting at 19:45 UTC on 9,950 kHz. Mark received this broadcast at Freemans Reach, NSW, Australia (60 km North West of Sydney), on a WinRadio WR-G31DDC Excalibur Receiver and Wellbrook ALA1530 Loop antenna.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below. Please subscribe to our podcast to receive future recordings automatically.

The Mighty KBC

The Art of Noise kicks off this Mighty KBC broadcast. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

The Mighty KBC broadcast again early this morning (from 00:00-02:00 UTC) on their new summer frequency of 9,925 kHz. Their signal from Nauen, Germany was packing 125 kW--it was amazingly strong into North America. As we’ve come to expect, the KBC’s Giant Jukebox of music has a lot of rock-n-roll and Euro-pop variety, spanning the decades; DJ, "Uncle Eric" knows how to entertain and spin the tunes!

You can listen to the full recording below in the embedded player, or simply right click this link and save the MP3 file to your computer.

You’ll notice that Kim Elliott has another installation of digital text modes in this broadcast. Decode these digital modes using Fldigi from www.w1hkj.com. Be sure to check out Dr. Elliott's VOA Radiogram website for full details about this broadcast.

The Disco Palace (in DRM)

DiscoBall

Perhaps one of the things I love the most about SWLing is the sheer variety of broadcasters out there. We can sample diverse offerings across a broad spectrum--from the BBC World Service to Radio Romania International, from pirate stations to numbers stations. There's even The Disco Palace: a station that plays only disco music, and each show is mixed thematically. This station broadcasts online and over shortwave radio via DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale).

Last week--specifically, on March 15, 2013--I caught about thirty minutes of The Disco Palace broadcast and was able to record it from my Bonito RadioJet IF Receiver. Reception on 17,875 MHz was excellent, although the DRM signal wasn't quite strong enough for comfortable stereo decoding.

The following TDP recording starts around 2030 UTC (about halfway through the broadcast). Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

The Mighty KBC

tom-petty

The Mighty KBC broadcast again early this morning (from 00:00-02:00 UTC) on 9,450 kHz. Their signal was quite strong into North America and there was very little interference of any sort. As we've come to expect, the KBC's Giant Jukebox of music has a lot of rock-n-roll variety, spanning the decades.

And as I've mentioned before, perhaps what I love most about The Mighty KBC is their format; it harkens back to the day when my local radio stations had professional DJ's behind the mic, people who loved music and loved their job.  Thanks to Eric and The Mighty KBC for blasting the Giant Jukebox across the planet! I look forward to their broadcast every weekend.

You can listen to the full recording below in the embedded player, or simply right click this link and save the MP3 file to your computer:

You'll notice that Kim Elliott has another installation of digital text modes in this broadcast. At about 01:30 UTC, Olivia 8-2000 will be centered on 1500 Hertz, and PSKR125 centered on 2800 Hertz. At just before 02:00 UTC, images in MFSK32 will be at 1000 and 2000 Hertz, with another image in MFSK16 at 2600 Hertz.

Decode these digital modes using Fldigi from www.w1hkj.com.