The Radio Kitchen

So begins the first substantive post here at The Radio Kitchen. Welcome! This blog takes flight from my previous writing on the WFMU blog, specifically my “Adventures in Amplitude Modulation” series which featured AM & shortwave bandscans and airchecks, along with discussions of the content reception. Often, these audio captures were from DXing sessions, creeping along the dial looking for faraway broadcasts. And that’s what I’m serving up in this first post. 

This is a bandscan in three parts, trolling through the 49 meter band from the coast of Virginia last spring. I’m using my scanning toy of choice lately, a Degen 1103 portable receiver. It’s an able and relatively inexpensive Chinese portable, also available as the Kaito 1103 here in the states. The two or three times I’ve been able to get out of the city for a few days this year, I’ve brought the Degen and a couple other radios and recorded quite a bit of broadcasting. Some of which will become audio content here at The Radio Kitchen.

While the 49 meter band (5800 to 6300 kHz) isn’t the most popular shortwave broadcast band, it is the place where you’re most likely to pick up quite a number of signals at night, at least here in the eastern U.S. Somebody new to shortwave radio could be easily discouraged by the paucity of signals on many of the designated bands, especially during the day. However, if you’re rarely able to receive many stations on the 49 meter band at night, then you’re probably working with a lousy (or defective) radio. 

In searching for a bandscan to premier on the blog, I tried to find one with a lot of varied content and ended up choosing this one. In retrospect, quite a bit of the audio of this scan is a bit sub-par. But that’s part of the fun, both with this blog and DXing in general. As you venture to push the limits of radio reception you have to be willing to brave some weak signals and interference. I think that’s why you don’t find online audio accompanying DX logs on the web in general. It’s not pleasant listening. My compromise in posting DX bandscans has been to opt for the ones that generally have better audio quality. And I do what I can to digitally clarify the sound as well.

Nothing really cosmic occurs during this radio excursion, but there is stations you might find on the 49 meter band around 11 p.m. EDT. And if you’re a newcomer to shortwave, it’s important to note that the vast majority of shortwave broadcasting in the U.S. is Christian propaganda of some kind. And when you consider the fact that shortwave listening is far more popular in other countries, it’s kind of sad that the vast majority of programming we export on these bands consists of dogmatic diatribes and proselytizing.

Unlike most media programming, there is no foolproof source for identifying shortwave broadcasts. Schedules and frequencies change all the time, often without notice. In sorting out the reception in this bandscan I referred to both the “Passport to World Radio,” and the frequency lookup page at HFRadio.org. When I’m unable to discern the reception through those sources I often do an advanced Google search of the frequency on Glenn Hauser’s excellent “World of Radio” site. Another option is searching “rec.radio.shortwave” on Google Groups. And sometimes I can’t precisely confirm the reception anywhere, but I make a good guess considering all the evidence. If I make a mistake, I’d really appreciate a correction (send me an email), which I’ll note here.

49 Meter Band pt 1 - 5950 to 5875kHz 04-09-07 0258 UTC 

(download)

5950 - Radio Taiwan International (via WYFR in Okeechobee, FL)

It’s the end of Taiwan’s English language broadcast for North America, relayed from one of Family Radio’s Florida transmitters. Very clear and loud. International broadcasters in Western Asia who are serious about reaching the eastern two-thirds of America typically relay their English language (and Spanish as well) from some location in around eastern North America. The most popular relay location is Radio Canada’s transmitting complex in Sackville, New Brunswick. And some beam in from Europe as well. In my experience, it seems that the Rocky Mountains provide a formidable hurdle for radio waves coming my way on the east coast or the midwest. On the other hand, I suppose European broadcasts are a more difficult catch on the west coast. And unfortunately, it’s what prevents me from listening on North Korean’s English language broadcasts.

I think this is the first time I’ve noticed Christian shortwave superpower Family Radio renting out their equipment to anyone (possibly heathens!). I’ve often wondered how they afford all that electricity.

5960 - NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai, Japan)

5965 - Radio Exterior de Espana (Spain)

5975 - Voice of Turkey

It’s English language news from Turkey. The signal’s not bad and the interference is moderate, but the reception here is an odd combination of clarity and muddle. The Voice of Turkey comes in just before the three minute mark in this archive, and continues until the end for about twelve minutes.

It take some effort to listen all the details in this reception, but you can certainly sort out the spirit of the newscast. The barrage of bad news from neighboring countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran provide the majority of the events discussed. A sad litany of bombings and attacks dominate the news, along with associated political intrigue. There’s also some mention of Turkey’s pursuit of European Union membership, which has been a consistent topic (with much cheerleading in favor of their inclusion in the union) on Turkey’s English language programming for a while now. They want it bad.

The news is followed by a lightweight news magazine featuring pop culture info bits from around the world. Love the cheesy cinematic bumper music.

49 Meter Band pt 2 - 6000 to 6100kHz 04-09-07 0313 UTC 

(download)

6000 - Radio Habana Cuba

A sweet Cuban love song, with harmonic noises.

6005 - BBC (From Ascension Island in the South Atlantic)

6020 - China Radio International (from Sackville, Canada)

Clear and crisp Chinese programming.

6025 - Radio Budapest (faint Russian w/CRI on top?)

6040 - Vatican Radio (Sackville, Canada)

It’s the Catholic HQ, relayed from New Brunswick. Just the very end of some Easter thing. And then there’s their interval music and the turn of the station. Good reception. Happy Easter from Popeland!

6050 - HCJB (Equador)

It’s a Jesus ditty in Spanish I suppose. Reception okay.

6060 - Radio Habana Cuba

6065 - WYFR (Family Radio) - Florida, USA

It’s the Hallelujah Chorus. It’s Easter. It’s Family Radio.

6075 - Deutsche Welle (Germany)

6090 - Carribean Beacon

It’s Melissa Scott, the most celebrated widow in televangelism. While impossible to explain her late husband in a few sentences, I’ll just say that he was kind of the John Huston of broadcast evangelism– a crusty, profane, and ultimately esoteric old goat who commanded respect and lived life to the fullest. Did I mention he was a little kooky?

Gene Scott was an incredibly unique and strange religious broadcaster who’s first claim to national fame was via his California based syndicated TV show in the late 70’s and 80’s. An irreverent maverick on the televangelism scene, Scott was a seriously educated (able to read and interpret untranslated original biblical text) and a deep oddball scholar (willing to entertain all sorts of off-the-wall theories and perspectives). A true self-made man, Scott built a religious media empire through his surly and passionate on-air fundraising techniques. To get a flavor of the Gene Scott at his peak, check out a 1980 Werner Herzog documentary (“God’s Angry Man”) online. You can find torrent downloads, or at least YouTube edits from it, if you do a little searching around.

Although he passed away in 2005, until recently his website didn’t reveal that fact. Although I hadn’t been paying a lot attention, in my routine scanning of the shortwave bands after his demise I would occasionally come across his widow carrying on his rambling esoteric preaching style on his frequencies, but usually it was a recording of old fellah carrying on as if nothing had happened. And then I for quite a while, I didn’t hear Melissa Scott at all, just her late husband rallying his flock from beyond the grave. I don’t remember where I read it, but I seem to recall reading that there are literally tens of thousands of hours of Mr. Scott in the can over at his LA headquarters. Sometimes you hear the onry middle-aged preacher captured in Herzog’s film, other times you’d get a taste of the croaky rumbling and mumbling characteristic of his latter days. To my ears, his meandering preaching was a bit  boring and difficult to follow. Occasionally, it was intriguing. An exegesis on the apostles could drift into a conversation of the pyramids, extraterrestrials, or his beloved race horses. (To get a flavor of Scott, just, check out his old site pictured above, which his widow has taken offline.) He was a deep kind of guy. And more than any other media minister I can remember, old Gene was really a man’s man. And it wasn’t much of a shock for me when I found out that his purportedly brainy and obviously ambitious widow previously had a rather successful career in adult entertainment. In the movies she performed under the pseudonym Barbie Bridges. Now she’s found herself as the owner and figurehead of a far-fetched media ministry created by someone old enough to be her grandfather. It must be an interesting life.

In his heyday, Scott used to pull in a million a month through his brute charisma It’s easy to understand how she opted to continue Gene’s money machine on autopilot for over a year, running reruns of her late husband almost exclusively. From my experience in sampling the shortwave broadcasts from Scott’s empire this year, it seems that she’s been going live (or at least creating new broadcasts) to bolster revenue, and bring the ministry up to the post-Gene Scott era. The website has drastically changed, and now focuses on Mrs. Scott (with a small page on her late husband) and has far less features. It will be interesting to see if she can keep it up, and make the oddball media juggernaut of Dr. Gene her own. Or turn it into something else.

6100 - Radio China International?

49 Meter Band pt 3 - 6140 to 6180kHz 04-09-07 0336 UTC 

(download)

6140 - Radio Habana Cuba

Noisy and Spanish. A broadcast aimed at Central America.

6150 - Carribean Beacon

6165 - Radio Netherlands

6175 - Voice of Vietnam

6180 - Radio Habana Cuba

Technorati Tags: dxing, Shortwave, televangelism, turkey