broadcast radio

4 Articles

The First New Long Wave Radio Station Of This Millennium

August 11, 2024 by 34 Comments

The decline of AM broadcast radio is a slow but inexorable process over much of the world, but for regions outside America there’s another parallel story happening a few hundred kilohertz further down the spectrum. The long wave band sits around the 200kHz mark and has traditionally carried national-level programming due to its increased range. Like AM it’s in decline due to competition from FM, digital, and online services, and one by one the stations that once crowded this band are going quiet. In the middle of all this it’s a surprise then to find a new long wave station in the works in the 2020s, bucking all contemporary broadcasting trends. Arctic 252 is based in Finland with programming intended to be heard across the Arctic region and aims to start testing in September.

The hack in this is that it provides an opportunity for some low-frequency DXing, and given the arctic location, it would be extremely interesting to hear how far it reaches over the top of the world into the northern part of North America. The 252KHz frequency is shared with a station in North Africa that may hinder reception for some Europeans, but those with long memories in north-west Europe will find it fairly empty as it has been vacated in that region by the Irish transmitter which used to use it.

So if you have a receiver capable of catching long wave and you think you might be in range, give it a listen. Closer to where this article is being written, long wave stations are being turned off.

Harris & Ewing, photographer, Public domain.

The ZX Spectrum Takes To The Airwaves Again

May 9, 2024 by 11 Comments

A perk of writing for Hackaday comes in the vast breadth of experience represented by our fellow writers. Through our colleague [Voja Antonić] for example we’ve gained an unparalleled insight into the cutting edge of 8-bit computing in 1980s Yugoslavia, of his Galaksija home computer, and of software being broadcast over [Zoran Modli]’s Ventilator 202 radio show.

We’re strongly reminded of this by hearing of the Slovenian Radio Študent broadcasting the classic Slovenian ZX Spectrum text adventure game Kontrabant 2, at the behest of the  Slovenian Computer History Museum. It’s been four decades and a lot of turbulent history, but once again 8-bit code will be heard on FM in Europe.

Some of our younger readers may never have experienced the joy of loading software from cassette, but in those days it represented a slow alternative to the eye-wateringly expensive floppy drives of the day. The software was represented as a serial bitstream translated into tones and recorded on a standard cassette recorder which was standard consumer electronics back then, and when played back through a speaker it was an ear-splitting sound with something in common with that of a modem handshake from a decade or more later. This could easily be transmitted over a radio station, and a few broadcasters tried experimental technology shows doing just that.

We haven’t heard from any listeners who managed to catch the game and run it on their Spectrum, but we hope that Slovenia’s retrocomputing community were out in force even if Audacity and a n emulator replaced the original hardware. Given that more than one hacker camp in our community has sported radio stations whether legal or not, it would be nice to hear the dulcet tones of 8-bit software on the airwaves again.

Meanwhile if cassettes are too cheap for you, feast your eyes on Sir Clive’s budget storage solution.

Thanks [Stephen Walters].

A Very 21st Century Receiver For A Very 20th Century Band

January 9, 2024 by 24 Comments

The FM broadcast band has been with us since the middle of the 20th century, and despite many tries to unseat it, remains a decent quality way to pick up your local stations. It used to be that building an FM broadcast receiver required a bit of RF know-how, but the arrival of all-in-one receiver chips has made that part a simple enough case of including a part. That’s not to say that building a good quality FM broadcast receiver in 2024 doesn’t involve some kind of challenge though, and it’s one that [Stefan Wagner] has risen to admirably with his little unit.

Doing the RF part is an RDA5807MP single chip radio, but we’d say the center of this is the CH32V003 RISC-V microcontroller and its software. Twiddling the dial is a thing of the past, with a color display and all the computerized features you’d expect. Rounding it off in the 3D printed case is a small speaker and a Li-Po pouch cell with associated circuitry. This really is the equal of any commercially produced portable radio, and better than many.

Even with the all-in-one chips, there’s still fun in experimenting with FM the old way.

An Epic Tale Of Pirate Radio In Its Golden Age

June 28, 2022 by 29 Comments

With music consumption having long ago moved to a streaming model in many parts of the world, it sometimes feels as though, just like the rotary telephone dial, kids might not even know what a radio was, let alone own one. But there was a time when broadcasting pop music over the airwaves was a deeply subversive activity for Europeans at least, as the lumbering state monopoly broadcasters were challenged by illegal pirate stations carrying the cutting edge music they had failed to provide. [Ringway Manchester] has the story of one such pirate station which broadcast across the city for a few years in the 1970s, and it’s a fascinating tale indeed.

It takes the form of a series of six videos, the first of which we’ve embedded below the break. The next installment is placed as an embedded link at the end of each video, and it’s worth sitting down for the full set.

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