9330 SuperPower Now On The Air

[tomservo]

I'd like to know where they're aiming that big ol' antenna during these tests, because their signal here on the Alabama gulf coast is so big for a few hours each night that it's overloading the AGC on my SDR. I was picking it up fairly clearly a few hours ago with a handheld receiver, while the antenna was still fully collapsed inside the radio.

A spot check of several online radios as of 0100 UTC had it with a decent signal into Chile, France, Qatar, India and New Zealand. It's definitely "getting out" — far better than the bailing-wire-and-chewing-gum setup they have for their regular programming on other frequencies, which run 50 kW. WBCQ on 7490 is barely audible here most of the time.

 

[Ai4i]

I'd like to know where they're aiming that big ol' antenna during these tests...

I would guess that would be transmitting in their licensed operating direction, likely toward northern Mexico.
When the AFRTS operated their network news and sports feed on 15,330 from Bethany to the Caribbean, their signal was as you described in Miami and they were running MUCH less power.

 

[gr8oldies]

As I recall, Bethany mostly aimed at South America, even with VOA programming

I would guess that would be transmitting in their licensed operating direction, likely toward northern Mexico.
When the AFRTS operated their network news and sports feed on 15,330 from Bethany to the Caribbean, their signal was as you described in Miami and they were running MUCH less power.

 

[Ai4i]

AFRTS transmitted to the Caribbean on 15,330 in the day from.Bethany and on 6,030 at night. 6,030 was either from Bethany or Greenville but Greenville was too close for nineteen meters. 6,030 was nowhere near as solid in Miami. I am a wastebasket full of useless memories.

 

[tomservo]

I would guess that would be transmitting in their licensed operating direction, likely toward northern Mexico.
When the AFRTS operated their network news and sports feed on 15,330 from Bethany to the Caribbean, their signal was as you described in Miami and they were running MUCH less power.

For A19, 9330 has about a dozen different ITU zones listed. It is a rotatable antenna, after all. Mexico would make the most sense considering the signal I heard, but looking at a map, their programming at various times is aimed at: Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada (all parts), Western Europe, Ireland/UK, West Africa, India, Malaysia/Indonesia, Australia, Eastern Russia, Japan and China.

With that setup and that kind of power, I don't doubt it'll reach those targets with ease even on "bad sky days" as I call them.

 

[davideduardo]

For A19, 9330 has about a dozen different ITU zones listed. It is a rotatable antenna, after all. Mexico would make the most sense considering the signal I heard, but looking at a map, their programming at various times is aimed at: Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada (all parts), Western Europe, Ireland/UK, West Africa, India, Malaysia/Indonesia, Australia, Eastern Russia, Japan and China.

With that setup and that kind of power, I don't doubt it'll reach those targets with ease even on "bad sky days" as I call them.

The big advantage that they have is a rotating antenna. They can adjust the directionality and beam in any direction and, apparently, beam width.

I'm familiar with the steerable arrays that HCJB used a the now-closed Pifo, Ecuador site. They had an array of 500 kw and 100 kw transmitters and lots of curtain antennae for different bands. The individual curtains could be combined to get different patterns. But it took hundreds of hectares of land to have all those sets, all the cables and towers. Of course, they ran quite a few transmitters at once, so it was even more complicated. The rotating antenna solves lots of those issues.

And 500 kw is enough to serve pretty much any place on the planet, but the frequency needs to be changed according to destination and time of the day and year. HCJB had several fulltime frequency coordinators who worked within the ITU system to determine the right frequency, power, antenna and schedule for each transmitter.

 

[Ai4i]

On a side note, "Heralding CJ's Blessings" had two mailing addresses:
Castilla 699, Quito, Ecuador
PO Box 699, Miami, Florids
Their program distribution facility in Miami is or was walking distance from WINZ's transmitter.

 

[tomservo]

The big advantage that they have is a rotating antenna. They can adjust the directionality and beam in any direction and, apparently, beam width.

I'm familiar with the steerable arrays that HCJB used a the now-closed Pifo, Ecuador site. They had an array of 500 kw and 100 kw transmitters and lots of curtain antennae for different bands. The individual curtains could be combined to get different patterns. But it took hundreds of hectares of land to have all those sets, all the cables and towers. Of course, they ran quite a few transmitters at once, so it was even more complicated. The rotating antenna solves lots of those issues.

And 500 kw is enough to serve pretty much any place on the planet, but the frequency needs to be changed according to destination and time of the day and year. HCJB had several fulltime frequency coordinators who worked within the ITU system to determine the right frequency, power, antenna and schedule for each transmitter.

I remember when HCJB was that kind of a powerhouse with multiple signals on the air. That was quite a station! Somewhere I have a QSL card from them, might've been the first one I got.

 

[davideduardo]

I remember when HCJB was that kind of a powerhouse with multiple signals on the air. That was quite a station! Somewhere I have a QSL card from them, might've been the first one I got.

The folks at HCJB were brilliant engineers. Several of them helped me build my first FM station, improving the transmitter design, making the antenna... we built it all locally from parts.

At one time in the early 60's RCA had a new 100 kw SW transmitter, but it would not work! They gave two of them to HCJB on the condition that if they made them work, the design changes were to be given to RCA. The HCJB engineers made them work and used them for decades!

Seeing their transmitter site was amazing. Even had its own dam for hydro power.

 

[Ai4i]

Digital shortwave radio be great except that consumer antennæ have shrunk so much, few people use them for TV reception, and still fewer would be willing to mount anything sufficiently large on their cars.

 

[davideduardo]

Digital shortwave radio be great except that consumer antennæ have shrunk so much, few people use them for TV reception, and still fewer would be willing to mount anything sufficiently large on their cars.

And it is easier to use a stream of a distant station than to try to tune it in on an RF device. Even in the car with new smart dashboards.

 

[tomservo]

And it is easier to use a stream of a distant station than to try to tune it in on an RF device. Even in the car with new smart dashboards.

I've owned smartphones for the last… 8 years or so now at this point, across many different devices on three different carriers and on exactly none of them have I ever been able to reliably stream live radio for any length of time while driving around in my car. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule but it seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth. Song-on-demand streamers like Spotify, Pandora and Amazon Prime Music, on the other hand, just work. But the live streams are always problematic for me. My first attempt I chalked it up to being on a regional carrier (Cellular South, now called C Spire) with their 3G CDMA network. But then I was on Verizon with great LTE coverage and had the same problems. Now I'm on T-Mobile and it's not really any better or worse than VZW for streaming except in the boonies.

DRM is not as bad an idea as HF enthusiasts make it out to be. It's just a perpetual chicken and egg situation. There are no broadcasts because there are no radios because there are no broadcasts! Listeners in the US also complain about how difficult it is to decode the few DRM broadcasts that exist, and blame the technology when the reality is they are not beamed to us at all, so getting anything at all digitally is a gift. New Zealand uses DRM to feed some FM stations on remote Pacific Islands; it's only 50 kW and doesn't quite reach the west coast to be very reliable. Romania uses DRM with 300 kW but it's for Europe, so the east coast can sometimes get decodes. But again, we're not the target area.

The few times there have been DRM demos aimed to the US in recent times, I've had no trouble at all decoding them. Unfortunately they were generic loops for demo purposes at HFCC meetings in Miami. I don't have a DRM capable radio but an SDR plus DREAM software (free) in Windows makes it possible.

WINB is currently the only US station testing DRM, but I'm not sure why. It's beamed to Europe and has the same sub-telephone line quality of their analog broadcasts. I think it's also 50 kW, and it's a harder catch overseas.

WBCQ's new Continental may be DRM-ready, seems like I read that it was an optional extra card, so maybe one day they can add that.

For anyone that's curious what DRM via DREAM and an SDR is like, here's a video of a newscast I got from Radio Kuwait last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ5-FDiAnrE

This does include some dropouts, and it's just like an HD2 subchannel with IBOC: it's there or it isn't. The audio is a bit hot, but otherwise it sounds fairly clear for being on 17 kbps.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I've owned smartphones for the last… 8 years or so now at this point, across many different devices on three different carriers and on exactly none of them have I ever been able to reliably stream live radio for any length of time while driving around in my car. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule but it seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth. Song-on-demand streamers like Spotify, Pandora and Amazon Prime Music, on the other hand, just work. But the live streams are always problematic for me. My first attempt I chalked it up to being on a regional carrier (Cellular South, now called C Spire) with their 3G CDMA network. But then I was on Verizon with great LTE coverage and had the same problems. Now I'm on T-Mobile and it's not really any better or worse than VZW for streaming except in the boonies.

DRM is not as bad an idea as HF enthusiasts make it out to be. It's just a perpetual chicken and egg situation. There are no broadcasts because there are no radios because there are no broadcasts! Listeners in the US also complain about how difficult it is to decode the few DRM broadcasts that exist, and blame the technology when the reality is they are not beamed to us at all, so getting anything at all digitally is a gift. New Zealand uses DRM to feed some FM stations on remote Pacific Islands; it's only 50 kW and doesn't quite reach the west coast to be very reliable. Romania uses DRM with 300 kW but it's for Europe, so the east coast can sometimes get decodes. But again, we're not the target area.

The few times there have been DRM demos aimed to the US in recent times, I've had no trouble at all decoding them. Unfortunately they were generic loops for demo purposes at HFCC meetings in Miami. I don't have a DRM capable radio but an SDR plus DREAM software (free) in Windows makes it possible.

WINB is currently the only US station testing DRM, but I'm not sure why. It's beamed to Europe and has the same sub-telephone line quality of their analog broadcasts. I think it's also 50 kW, and it's a harder catch overseas.

WBCQ's new Continental may be DRM-ready, seems like I read that it was an optional extra card, so maybe one day they can add that.

For anyone that's curious what DRM via DREAM and an SDR is like, here's a video of a newscast I got from Radio Kuwait last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ5-FDiAnrE

This does include some dropouts, and it's just like an HD2 subchannel with IBOC: it's there or it isn't. The audio is a bit hot, but otherwise it sounds fairly clear for being on 17 kbps.

I think WINB's DRM is only 15kw.. i think...

 

[tomservo]

I think WINB's DRM is only 15kw.. i think...

That would explain a lot.

I still haven't figured the purpose of their "half audio, half unused data" carrier setup, either. All I can get from anyone is "unspecified data use" but it's clearly just idle carriers on the lower half of the DRM constellation.

 

[boombox4]

The folks at HCJB were brilliant engineers. Several of them helped me build my first FM station, improving the transmitter design, making the antenna... we built it all locally from parts.

At one time in the early 60's RCA had a new 100 kw SW transmitter, but it would not work! They gave two of them to HCJB on the condition that if they made them work, the design changes were to be given to RCA. The HCJB engineers made them work and used them for decades!

Seeing their transmitter site was amazing. Even had its own dam for hydro power.

Didn't someone at HCJB invent the quad antenna? I recall reading that in a quad antenna book.

 

[channel99]

...
WBCQ's new Continental may be DRM-ready, seems like I read that it was an optional extra card, so maybe one day they can add that.

...

Their new transmitter includes DRM as standard equipment - what is optional, amazingly, is SSB:

https://contelec.com/419-420drm

Somewhere I saw a post quoting Alan Weiner that he had not made a decision about using DRM. Even it is used only one hour a day, it would created some interest in the US.

 

[Ai4i]

Didn't someone at HCJB invent the quad antenna? I recall reading that in a quad antenna book.

Yes, to prevent arcing with the amount of power they used in the thin air at their height

Somewhere I saw a post quoting Alan Weiner that he had not made a decision about using DRM.
Even if it is used only one hour a day, it would create some interest in the US.

Especially on forty-nine meters or a tropical band where it would not skip over a lot of area.
He would really only need to blanket less than a thousand mile radius to cover most of the North American population.
On those low bands, I hope that DRM has extended duration time diversity redundancy and maybe a low bit rate.

 

[kf4rca]

9330 SuperPower Update

Testing is almost complete. World Last Chance Radio is scheduled to take over July 8, 2019.
Programming will be beamed to the Middle East in English and Arabic.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Didn't someone at HCJB invent the quad antenna? I recall reading that in a quad antenna book.

It seems that my acquaintance who has several NCE-FMs knew someone in Elkhart, IN associated with HCJB, who assisted him with transmitters and antennas. My acquaintance now has his own full scale antenna range and builds and proofs FM DAs there. You're right, they're brilliant at HCJB. There's also a guy in New Jersey who wrote the book on negotiating the FCC Rules for NCE-FM interference with Channel 6. As I recall, he had some SW and DRM ideas also.

Some of the radio engineering thinkers are Yoda like, but if you convince them you are knowledgable and worthy like Luke, they'll go to the ends of the earth to help you.

 

[schmave]

Is he not on 24 hours a day? I just tried picking up 9330 from the Rockport, Maine SDR and nothing was present.