The Radio Kitchen » gene scott

Adventures In Amplitude Modulation – Part 22

prof — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:33:11 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent a week around the July 4th holiday in Michigan. And many of those evenings were spent in my brother’s backyard scanning shortwave and the AM band. Although I’ve yet to dig into all the tapes, I really don’t recall any particular bandscan to be all that fascinating. To me, what makes a broadcast band tuning adventure memorable is ultimately a crap shoot. It’s a roll of the dice under the influence of atmospheric conditions and the happenstance of coming across interesting content. Better luck next time…

That’s not to say that in twenty or so hours of recording I didn’t capture some intriguing and revealing broadcasting along the way. But I was ultimately disappointed that most of scans didn’t stand out as being blogable or as significant audio artifacts. To me, there’s several factors that make a particular scan worth posting and discussing here. While it’s always exciting to come across viable signals from very far away (or from countries I’ve rarely if ever heard on shortwave), this is an English language blog and it seems imperative to present some radio English content in the mix (although foreign music programs often have a powerful charm all their own).

Of course, exotic non-English programming is part of what makes shortwave so interesting. But in the end radio is supposed to be a communication medium. When I turn on a shortwave set to explore I want to receive information and ideas from around the world, as well as log some far off programming I can’t understand. Actually my recent listening sessions upstate (for only two evenings) yielded more interesting scans, and I may return to those recordings in the next few weeks. Like I said, it’s always a crap shoot.

Most (but certainly not all) of what I did capture in English on shortwave during this were those damned US Christian shortwave broadcasters, as well as some decent AM DXing scans, which I have yet to revisit.

In this post I’m offering a late night scan of the 49 meter band (from June 30, 2006), which is primarily a ghetto of Jesus-casting in the US at that time. The 49 meter band (the frequencies directly surrounding 6000 kHz or so) is the most popular shortwave broadcast band overnight, but after midnight very few international broadcasters aim their mighty transmitters toward North America with English broadcasts (except Cuba and perhaps China, which never seems to stop broadcasting in English and dozens of other languages on shortwave). What you typically get in the wee hours are a few distant stations intended for other continents in between the stronger signals spewing English language Christian evangelism and propaganda, most originating from the US.

Although there have been rare instances where I’ve heard something actually inspirational or original from a Christian shortwave broadcast, I can’t think of any right now. In this scan, you get the usual– heaping helpings of righteous ignorance, lots of authoritarian blather, and some creepy xenophobia thrown in for good measure. At its worst, shortwave bible-banging is full of intolerance and disdain, if not hatred, for those who are the wrong color or don’t embrace the beliefs of the particular sect transmitting the propaganda at hand.

In this sampling you’ll hear a bit of that. So, let’s scrape the bottom of the 49 meter barrel, starting out just before 2:30 AM (0624 UTC) on Friday night (or Saturday morning) June 30, 2006 (or July 1 if you’re a stickler).

49 Meter Band (5765 to 6160 kHz) 07-01-06 49:05

(download)

5765 – WWCR (Nashville, TN) – Scriptures For America

It’s the “Scriptures For America” program, with Pastor Peter J. Peters of LaPorte, Colorado. Tonight he’s offering a replay of his Martin Luther King holiday special broadcast from January of this year. And what a tribute it is.

Okay, it’s not a tribute at all. This is a venomous indictment of MLK. Pastor Peters is a leading figure in the American “Christian Identity” movement, a racist theology based on the rather kooky theory that white folks, or “Aryans” (or just generally pale Americans) are descendants of the "lost tribes of Israel." That said, it doesn’t stop these bizarre Caucasoid practitioners from despising Jews (who one would assume they believe are actually their ancient cousins), and of course, loathing African-Americans (and basically all brown and black people). And that’s not all. Christian Identity types really HATE homosexuals, and many aren’t too fond of Catholics either. No surprise, a similar theology has been quite popular in South Africa as well.

Anyway, you get the idea. To make a long story short, Pastor Peters is a hateful little racist asshole who happens to have an international radio show. Funny how Peters barely mentions the civil rights movement (or any need for such a thing in America during MLK’s era) in this nasty diatribe. Nothing original here. It’s basically a restatement of the John Birch Society case against Martin Luther King that’s been passed around in racist circles for decades. Much of it is based on rumors based around the infamous FBI surveillance of King, under the pasty guiding hand of J. Edgar Hoover.

What made King such a bad guy to Peters and the Birchers? Well, apparently he was a naughty person first and foremost. But more importantly, they’re outraged that anyone would honor a communist sexual deviant, who was also a false prophet (whatever that means). And what really pisses off Peters? King’s “wild interracial sex orgies,” of course. (Of course, when Jeff Gannon, Karl Rove and George W all locked themselves up in the White House bathroom for an hour, that wouldn’t technically be "interracial.") To Peters the group sex thing is kinda bad, but it’s the skin color stuff that is almost too sinful for words. “Interracial marriage is a violation of god’s law,” Peters says. It’s “a ploy to weaken America’s strength!” No mention of bodily fluids.

What I felt was mildly amusing in all the hatred and spite, was that Peters actually decries the policies of torture and our loss of privacy rights under Bush, despite the fact that Bush seems as close to Peter’s beliefs as any US President in our lifetime. Perhaps he’s only concerned that government sponsored torture might not be used exclusively on black and brown people. Peters doesn’t seem to find any problem with the FBI snooping on King’s every move for years.

5850 – EWTN – Eternal Word Television Network (Vandiver, AL)

From scary racist Protestant blather, to equally frightening crap from this huge Catholic shortwave station in Alabama. On the phone is nasty old Phyllis Schlafly, who made a name for herself by fighting equal rights for women and public school sex education for decades. She also once said the atomic bomb was a gift from god. And lately she’s been promoting the idea that an independent judiciary is just a plain bad idea. According to Schlafly, some judges have too much power (i.e. independence), especially on the Supreme Courts. According to her recent book, these judges are “supremacists,” which is her terminology for what other rabid right-wingers refer to as judicial activists. It’s shorthand for judges who make decisions Phyllis and her ilk find distasteful, or somehow not Christian enough, whatever. It’s a catchy term, right?– supreme court, supremacists, super-bad… Easy to remember. However, if you happen to look up the word “supremacist” you’ll notice that it a tern defining certain humans who believe that their race, religion, belief system or culture is superior, or are more deserving of certain rights, privileges and freedoms than people who are not like them. So, Rowe vs. Wade was a matter of supremacy? Of what, secularism? Please.

Make no mistake about it. Half-wit theocrats like Schlafly and Peters are TRUE supremacists, and these days like-minded people who want to scrap our secular representative republic for something more like Taliban rule are working overtime behind the scenes to make this country a religious state. It’s happening within the Catholic and Protestant church in this country, and it oughtta scare the hell out of you. That is, unless you ’re a zombie too.

5920 – The Fundamental Broadcasting Network

Holy singin’ in a big room. How much joy can you handle?

5935 – WWCR – Gene Scott

Hearing an old-fashioned money grubbing (dead) preacher is kind of a relief after all that hate and prudish garbage. Even if it is a bunch of tired gobbledygook about how HE us gave his son, and that makes us givers, or something "axiomatic" like that. Amen.

5950 – WYFR – Family Radio

Spreading Harold Camping’s warped Christian message around the world in Español.

5965 – Radio Exterior de Espana

The first secular broadcast here. Lots of weather noise. Some guitar action.

5985 – WYFR – Family Radio

More Jesus for all garbage, in a Chinese language I believe. With the contact information given in slow distinct English.

6005 – BBC World Service (from Ascension Island in the South Atlantic)

If there was one blip in the news cycle that seemed to eventually snowball into what has become a huge ongoing human disaster in Lebanon, it was the capture of the young Israeli soldier mentioned in this newscast. That already seems so long ago.

And what is really irritating, especially in a time of a major world crisis, is that the BBC World Service is now difficult, and at times impossible, to hear in North America on shortwave. The BBC has decided that American shortwave listeners just aren’t worth the time or money. Sure, it’s still a great news source (much better than NPR), but it’s really not the world service it once was. I wonder if the planet really starts to go up in a ball of flames if the BBC might butch up and offer North America the English service they need and deserve via shortwave again. After all, If things get really bad shortwave could again become the only way to hear what’s happening around the globe.

Gosh, am I pessimistic today or what?

6030 – Radio Marti

It’s freedom lovin’ America, spreading democracy to Cuba via radio instead of using good old fashioned warfare and torture. Broadcasting from North Carolina, I believe this signal is being jammed by Cuba with their infamous “havana gurgle” machine.

6070 – Radio Mundial Mahanaim (Santiago, Chile)?

One thing for sure, this is NOT CFRX (a shortwave simulcasting relay of talk station CFRB in Toronto, which I did hear at other times at this frequency while in Michigan).

It’s a pop song, in Spanish with guitar (and perhaps flute) with hip hop overtones. Not that I’m crazy about this song, and the reception is piss poor, but in my opinion this one stop on the 49 meter band had more humanity and sanity than any other signal I came across that evening. However, the clip is short here.

6090 – Gene Scott

Beggin’ for money from the grave again. I wonder how many years it will go on?

6110 – RAI – Radio International Italy (Rome)?

Or maybe a Christian station in Chile. Not sure. Very poor signal.

6160 – Radio Habana Cuba

In English. AWFUL reception.

Thanks for listening!

(This post originally appeared in Beware of the Blog.)

Adventures in Amplitude Modulation – Part 12

prof — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:45:53 +0000

Well, it’s been a frustrating week here at my little Brooklyn Radio HQ. The main reason is that AM & shortwave reception has been just TERRIBLE. To be honest, I haven’t really dug into the shortwave frequencies much over this last week or so, but several stations I expected to quickly find haven’t been there and others are barely readable. And I can tell you definitively that reception on the AM band has been really awful. Dependable clear channel stations across the dial from places like Louisville, Baltimore, Toronto and Charlotte have been sadly difficult to discern out of the noise. Then again, there also seems to be a number of competing stations stepping on these AM giants, and barely audible stations I’m not familiar with have been showing up at other spots on the dial too. As I’ve made clear, I’m no radio scientist and I’ve decided not to spend a bunch of hours researching what’s going on out there so I might seem to know what I’m talking about. But what I can tell you is that for the last week or two there’s been a BIG change in radio propagation out there on medium and shortwave, but I’m sure that will all change again soon. If you’re interested, there may be some information on what’s been happening in outer space that’s altering radio reception here and perhaps at a few of these links here as well.

Then again, this is what makes listening to SW and AM interesting and drives some listeners crazy as well. It’s unpredictable. When some dependable stations can’t be found, often others that are often impossible to hear can be received. It’s an old and sometimes unreliable technology. You’ve gotta love it somehow to participate, and here in the short attention span US of A you’re in a minority if you do. If you care, go ahead and celebrate yourself. By the way, I also found an interesting primer on shortwave listening this week on the web here. And this guy had an interesting DX blog that he seems to have unfortunately abandoned which is still worth checking out. And here’s another interesting radio blog that someone sent me a link to as well.

The idea of this particular arc of blog posts has been to comb through the HF bands from my NYC home and attempt to ascertain the source of each frequency. Which brings me to my other big frustration– the research to make this happen.

These days the established shortwave bands have expanded a bit, and you find broadcasts before and after the official allotment for each band on the radio dial. In this post, the last station logged (Radio Tirana in Albania) is actually just past the high end of the 49 meter band (6200 kHz). I also logged a number of frequencies after that, however I spent WAY too many hours last night attempting to identify several stations and found nothing on the might internet that could assist me in any way. The radio I was using, the BCL-2000 is a single conversion receiver infamous for picking up distorted or weakened “images” of more powerful frequencies on erroneous spots on the dial. However, I’ve only experienced this problem in an obvious way on the AM dial, and I’m not sure if I could pick up a series of these images in a row on shortwave. So, if any of you more experienced SW listeners could assist me in getting an idea of what I might have picked up Wednesday night, March 1 between 7 and 8 p.m. EST at 6250 or 6295 (in Spanish), or 6375 (unknown language), 6415 (German), and 6555 (English probably from the U.S.) please send me an email here, or post a comment on this post. Any information or ideas would be greatly appreciated. And in general, please correct me if I’ve made some dumb error in my logging in this post. While I do the best I can, I’m an amateur at best and I’m not ashamed to get a little guidance from better informed radio folks. Again, you can email me here.

Anyway, here’s the rest of the 49 meter band scan recording from early evening 03-01-06 recorded here in NYC with my BCL-2000. I’m just using the whip antenna it came with and the recording is unedited. Nothing astounding here, just a typical night on the 49 meter band that almost anybody in the eastern U.S. could have picked up with an inexpensive shortwave set that evening. Unless I get some further elucidation on the frequencies I mentioned in the previous paragraph I’ll go on to another shortwave band next week.

Segment 2-49 Meter Band (5920 to 6215 kHz) 03-01-06 17:40

(download)

6075 – Deutsche Welle

Broadcasting in German, from Germany. They also broadcast from seven different relay sites around the world, and in many languages. It’s the news, apparently talking about our fearless leader visiting India.

6085 – WYFR (Family Radio)

Another one of those Christian wastes of bandspace on the shortwave dial, broadcasting from Florida USA. All you get here is a snippet of churchy singing. Hallelujah, amen and all that.

6090 – The Carribean Beacon (on the island of Anguilla)

It’s Dr. Gene Scott, who you can almost ALWAYS find on shortwave, usually on a few frequencies. Which is quite a feat considering he’s not really alive these days.

Actually, Dr. Scott just left the planet last year, and for a few months I was hearing a woman (which I believe was his most recent wife, Melissa Pastore) continuing his… ah, work on the radio. But lately, it seems that his organization has decided to carry on his worldwide ministry with recordings of the wacky old guy himself. Going through the dial at night, you can hear Scott hale and hearty on one frequency, and croaky and near death on another. From the grave Dr. Scott is still shouting at his listeners to “GET ON THE PHONE!” and pledge him some dough.

And hell, nobody could really replace Gene Scott, not even his porn star turned evangelist widow. When he wasn’t talkin’ about the lord and savior, he might lecture for a while about UFO’s or discuss the mysteries of the pyramids at Giza (Just LOOK at his website, where you’ll find no reference to his death either). Besides being a bit of a crackpot who made his living sapping cash from his followers, he was also a loud-mouthed vulgar hard drinking "man’s man" kind of guy, and at times a rather likable one in some strange way. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Scott, here’s some flavor…

Nice, eh? You can read more anecdotes about Mr. Scott that were posted in his memory here ,here and here. More Gene Scott blogging and links can be found here, and more clips from his TV show are available at this site. Werner Herzog did an excellent documentary on Dr. Scott back in 1980 (the above clip is from that film), and is worth searching out if you’re in the mood for Gene’s particular brand of spirituality.

And although I’ve gone on here at length about Dr. Scott’s career, the clip of him in this scan is woefully short (a half minute) and in very poor fidelity. I’m not even sure what he’s talking about. Sorry. I heard him SO often on shortwave, and over the last few years he had taken to droning on and on more than shouting and misbehaving in any real entertaining fashion. My general habit has been to keep scanning when I come across his voice on the dial, and that’s what happened here. I’m sure I have a some more compelling radio recordings of Dr. Scott around here somewhere.When and if I find one I’ll try to post it here. He was an interesting character.

6100 – Radio Canada International

It’s French. Something about television.

6110 – BBC World Service

Broadcasting from their relay at Ascension Island in South Atlantic. Language unknown (to me). Strange reverb on this one.

6135 – Deutsche Welle

In in German again. However, this time it’s coming from one of their relay sites in Portugal. Coming in clearly. Talking about Bosnia-Herzegovina…

6145 – NHK (Japan’s world service)

In English. Just the sound of this intrigued me right away. The sunny naivety of this woman at first made me think I was tuning into another Christian broadcast, but I was wrong. It’s the last episode of a monthly feature on Japan’s shortwave service– “Love and Hope For the Children.”

You hear just the beginning of this feature, introduced by Agnes Chan of UNICEF. Lots of reverb and sweetness. It’s all about flowers in your heart. It would be easy to cynical or turn on the irony receptor when you hear somebody so earnestly discuss the concerns about children around the world in trouble. I mean, when you hear a politician invoke the concerns of children you KNOW there’s an ulterior agenda. However, despite Ms. Chan’s almost unbearable sweetness, the topic is quite serious. There are many children all over the world in horrible circumstances. Yet, when I hear her say on the radio that it’s nice to see me again and thanking me for listening to this “show” over the whole year, I have to wonder why she either wasn’t coached on the realities of radio, or utilized on this series as a guest instead of a presenter. Nonetheless, she’s more real than just about anyone you’ll hear here in the USA. And that’s a good thing, to me.

6165 – Radio Netherlands

A review of the news and the beginning of a documentary in English. Radio Netherlands is a comprehensive international service in the mold of the BBC World Service. I’ve heard some great documentaries on shortwave (in English!) from Radio Netherlands over the years. They’re impressive, and one of the few international broadcasters that still make shortwave listening an informative and pleasant pastime.

Before the documentary on ethnic prejudice kicks in, they’re discussing a new scandal in the Dutch royal family. Apparently, a “princess” has returned to the fold after making secret tape recordings of conversations and arguments with the queen and apologized for making them. It all sounds rather seedy and a bit sad. As an American, I have a hard time understanding why some western democracies continue to embrace “royal” families and give a rat’s ass about what they say or do. In general, I’m all for tradition, but the ongoing narratives concerning kings, queens, princes and princesses seem so irrelevant and lacking in news value that I gotta wonder why anybody cares.

6180 – Radio Nacional Amazonia (Brazil)?

This is a bit of mess, but adjusting the antenna I believe I’m receiving some domestic shortwave from Brazil. Some singing here. It sure ain’t English. Very faint, by the way.

6215 – Radio Tirana (Albania)

From what I can tell, this is a broadcast in Albanian from Albania. I recently read a rumor online that Radio Tirana was getting rid of their English broadcasts on shortwave. I hope that’s not true. Albania, we need you!– in some small Balkan way.

Other posts in this series can be found here.

Thanks for listening.

(This post originally appeared in Beware of the Blog.)