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Vatican Radio to suspend 50% of SW & MW transmissions from July 1st

While most of Rome’s focus this week is on IEC 2012 in Dublin Ireland, some bad news not buried from the Holy See is that they are dropping Europe & American broadcasts of Vatican Radio on shortwave & mediumwave from July 1st 2012.

The Hooters – Satellite from Hooters Music on Vimeo.

Full details
http://www.news.va/en/news/vatican-radio-new-communications-strategies

On July 1st, Short and Medium Wave broadcasts from Vatican Radio???s Santa Maria di Galeria Transmission Centre, to most of Europe and the Americas, will be suspended. These areas of the world are already well served by Vatican Radio???s local rebroadcasting partners and by widespread internet access to its services and language programming.

The reduction of Short and Medium Wave broadcasts to these areas accounts for about 50% of the Centre???s transmission time and will allow Vatican Radio to restructure the Centre according to more innovative technological criteria. Short Wave broadcasts will be further reduced over the next few years ??? but not at the expense of those poor, needy and suffering parts of the world (like Africa, the Middle East and Asia) which have no alternative means of receiving news of the Church and the voice of the Pope.

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very strange radio occurrence hit Irish air space on Saturday – have a listen

On Saturday June 10th 2012 you might have noticed your FM radio turned into what normally happens on Shortwave Radio.

Science bit: The E layer of the atmosphere became ionized and reflected back FM signals that normally travel out to the moon and into outer space. This is known as Sporadic E. coz its rare and Layer E. 🙂 here is my recording.

If you can speak Italian, please help me identify this station so I can write to them and share this recording.

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Belfast’s Blaw-Knox Radiator

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photo via http://radiomap.eu

If you have ever driven into Befast from the South you may have seen this antenna at Sprucefield and wondered what is that for? Well I did, all too often. I knew it was for radio transmitting, but I never knew what kind. Was it broadcast radio? was it for utilities such as army? That’s what I used to think when I was younger and there was more army about. But its design was a clue to its use. The diamond shaped antenna that is fatter at the middle is an antenna design classic that adorns QSL cards & Radio Billboards (of yesteryear) the world over. The answer to my question was that it is in use for regional broadcast radio.

Analogue radio

FrequencykW[1]Service
720 kHz10BBC Radio 4
909 kHz10BBC Radio 5 Live
1089 kHz12.5Talksport
1215 kHz16Absolute Radio
1341 kHz100BBC Radio Ulster

Built in 1936 this radio relic is still of great use today. via bbceng.info The ‘Blaw-Knox’ mast and the ‘anti-fading’ characteristic! From an engineering point of view, the ‘big fat middle’ of the Blaw-Knox mast, just near the ‘point of maximum aerial current’, seems just ideal, as any radio engineer will confirm! Its original frequency was 977 ‘Kc/s’ (kHz) and the overall length of the mast at commissioning was just a little over 500 feet in height. It was commissioned as ‘the BBC’s first anti-fading aerial’ (Pawley p94). The ‘Anti-fading’ characteristic is often associated with the strong visual impression that these ‘Blaw-Knox shaped’ radiators impose upon one’s psyche. Ostensibly, it seems completely logical that the radiator’s complex and unique mechanical shape would be the reason for such desirable anti-fading properties. Incredibly, this is not the case! In fact, no aspect is more misunderstood about the whole Lisnagarvey site than this very point! Any ‘anti-fading’ characteristics that the tower may have had nothing in the least to do with its cigar shape! In fact, the ‘unique shape’ of such radiators was proven to actually degrade their performance instead of enhancing their characteristics!

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Remembering Philip Greene

Legendary Irish sports commentator Philip Greene (90) passed away in May 2011.

RTÉ reported Sunday, 15 May 2011

The death has taken place of Philip Greene, who was best known as a soccer commentator on RTÉ Radio, as well as being as Head of Sport with the station. Greene began his RTE Radio career in the 1940’s. He was editor, producer and presenter of the popular Sports Stadium programme. His first commentary on a soccer international was the game against Argentina at Dalymount Park in 1951. A life-long Shamrock Rovers and Manchester United supporter, he also wrote a column in the Evening Press newspaper. Although best known as a soccer commentator, Philip Greene also commentated on athletics and cricket. He covered his last soccer international for radio in 1985, the year of his official retirement.

hear Philip Greene in action in this 1957 recording. Ireland v England World Cup qualifier in Dalymount Park. An injury time (90th minute) England equaliser puts Ireland out of qualification for the 1958 world cup finals.

from the Irish Times May 19th 2011

Eoin Greene … recalled the time his father had done a broadcast for the BBC on the Belgium-Ireland European Championships qualifier in 1986 when he and his brother, who were with their father for the commentary, were told to keep quiet until after the match. When the match ended 2-2, his father put down the microphone and told his children to “turn up the volume on the television”. He had covered the match from home.

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Lee de Forest 1873-1961

Lee de Forest, 1873-1961, was an inventor and scholar who made significant contributions to the science of electronic communications during the first three decades of the Twentieth Century. He held numerous patents on the technology of radio, television and film.

via leedeforest.org

Lee De Forest, father of radio died 50 years ago this week. De Forest test transmitted from the Martello Tower in Howth in Dublin to the British Navy in the Irish Sea in 1903.