I remember years ago coming across a site that I was really excited about. It was a newspaper directory and listed all of the newspapers that had websites around the world. You could search by country, language, etc. Then of course, there have been the radio and tv directories. I have tried to glean some here of course. But recently I received an email that I just got around to reading with a link to a media directory that covers everything…. newspapers, magazines, video, audio, blogs, etc. I see a limited number of countries so far, but this is a good start at what could be one of the most comprehensive sites of it’s kind. Online media – is a Directory of media: newspapers, magazines, radio, blogs and
television. It deserves to be bookmarked and revisited and I’ll be adding it to the links in the sidebar here.

One of the features I really like with the new GRE PSR-300 scanner that I’ve been testing is the signal strength meter. On the display there is a big S when your receiving a transmission followed by 0-5 bars to indicate signal strength. Why is this such a good thing. Well for starters it makes comparing antennas easier. Frequencies that you’re used to seeing one or two bars on you will be able to compare a second antenna and see if you get 2 or 3 bars or the same 1 or 2 bars of signal strength. I’ve already used this to compare two rubber ducky style stock antennas and concluded they were about the same. Subjective listening comparison is just not quite the same. maybe there’s more static but a louder signal on one or the other. It can be very subjective. Of course, 5 bars isn’t a perfectly well tuned and calibrated way to measure, there can still be subtle differences that aren’t picked up on a 5 bar scale. There is another VERY useful reason that I’m glad this is a feature though.

Interference. I’ve had a source of rf interference in the house that with the old scanner I just couldn’t pinpoint. I was able to approximate which room the interference was coming from, but even by moving the radio in and out closer to the objects I suspect were the culprits I still couldn’t pin down what the interference was coming from.

I suspected the fuse/breaker box since every electric wire in the house passes through. That didn’t seem to give the highest readings, the desktop, the server, the laptop…. nothing really seemed to be THE answer. With the S meter though I figured it out.

I have 2 linksys wrt54gl routers (with dd-wrt firmware installed.) One acts as a router and wireless access point in the attic. The other acts as an openvpn host in the room right next to the computers/server/fuse box. It turns out that the thing is putting out RF around 146mHz for a short range. (The span of a room or two in the house.) It may be more broadband though because it seems to open or break squelch on several scanner frequencies throughout the VHF spectrum and even in some of the lower frequencies when the scanner is in the same room.

I picked 146mHz out because that’s close to one of the local repeater frequencies and that squelch ALWAYS breaks when I’m near that dd-wrt linksys router. I’m sorry to find out those boxes are so noisy RF wise. I depend on that one for my vpn link when I’m away from the house, but I may have to go back to my previous method for remote vpn access. I’m not quite sure what to do with the attic device given that wireless has become somewhat of a necessity at the house for my work now.

Anyway, IF you had a directional antenna you could make use of the S meter to even more precisely pinpoint interference or transmission sources. I can think of quite a few good uses for that… most of them though do revolve around identifying interference which in regards to radio listening has been my number one annoyance from shortwave now up into VHF and UHF.

A while back I posted about whether or not amateur radio was still relevant and I think it is…. that post has had a fair amount of interest and I thought it would be worthwhile to dig deeper and look at some of the reasons why both amateur radio and shortwave are and should still be relevant today and need to be viable methods of communication for us in coming years. I can see why some may look on this as a “tinfoil hat” article. I really am working not to be paranoid, but realistic.

If you look at the history of humanity freedom is an aberration. The vast majority of human history there have been an elite few that have controlled the masses. Only in recent times have there been strong, viable democracies and republics which allow the people to govern by choosing their representatives. Yes, there were ancient democracies, but history records what happened to them. We are in a golden age of democracy and freedom, but if you look around the world that is simply not the case for all people. Sadly, it may not be the case for the west in the future, just as ancient democracies lost freedoms and changed, so might ours.

What does freedom have to do with radio? Take a look at Iran. The protesters of the green movement have been using cellphones and the internet to coordinate and pass information. These are two types of communication that the government can VERY easily control, filter and limit. The internet can be filtered, yes there can be ways around content filters, but access can be blocked, addresses of those trying to bypass the filters can be found. Cell phones typically have gps in them, have to communicate through centralized towers and they leave records of when calls were made, approximately where and how long, who was called, what number the call was from, etc.

Even here in the US, cell phone records are used in criminal investigations there’s a recent cnet article on a collation of cellphone records from cell towers near a string of bank robberies. Those records were compared and there were 2 phones that had made calls around the time of all 12. Now, this is certainly a use that most people would support, but what if such tactics were used to track organizers of anti government protests? That’s not something you would expect to happen HERE (although it’s possible), but around the world there are many places that might be expected.

In Venezuela recently several cable television operators were shut down after failing to broadcast a Presidential address. Hugo Chavez is continuing his consolidation of the media under government control. This followed him making them National broadcasters in the weeks prior. It also follows the broadcast license (over the air) being pulled in the years prior. When dictators come to power, communications are usually the first thing that they need to consolidate to make sure they can control and hold on to power. It’s no surprise that Venezuela is going to be pushing their own cell phone. I’m sure it gives them better control over that communications method.

So, why is shortwave radio and amateur radio important in this context. It’s relatively easy to broadcast shortwave radio to a large number of people. I’ve pointed out before the relatively cheapness of the receivers. Jamming of transmissions is possible (as Cuba has shown), but over large territories is much more challenging. Not to mention that frequencies can change to avoid the jamming and you have a cat and mouse game of moving frequencies and attempts to jam. Even with jamming though it’s hard to jam everything. Especially for larger coverage territories this is a challenge.

Satellite tv is an alternative, but that in recent weeks has been in the news for the Iranian government tampering with Farsi language satellite broadcasts. For that matter you once again have a single point of failure that is difficult to replace (and may be controlled by someone other than the group that wants to send their signal out.)

Amateur Radio much like any radio transmission can be tracked, but it takes effort in the field at the time of the signal being broadcast. It’s not something that can be automated like the tracking of gps on cell phones. (Which track their location as long as they are powered on.) In many ways, these communications methods are fantastic tools for maintaining the hope of freedom throughout the world.

So, there you have a deeper look at why Amateur Radio and shortwave still should be relevant in todays world. Of course, we all hope that this current era of freedom and democracy continues for our children and grandchildren. We hope that not only here in the west, but around the world, true freedom spreads to all peopls, but the sad fact is that history teaches us that may not be.

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Update –

I could cover a bit more of why jamming is not as effective with shortwave as things such as web filtering, etc. Radio antennas can be made directional and with a good directional antenna it would be possible to receive signal from the broadcast source and reject from the jamming equipment. Of course, it’s also possible that the jamming station is in the same direction as the broadcasting station….. in that case you can try different antenna designs that accept either ground wave propagation or sky wave depending on the source of the interference.

I found some interesting sw radio anti jamming links this evening that give some good details on how to construct an antenna to help counteract sw radio jamming…

radio free asia sw radio anti jamming antenna

SWradioafrica.com has similar

And there’s this site on the Noise Rejecting Horizontal Loop antenna. They are all very similar – the first two of course are identical.

I’m sure there are other designs to reduce jamming, but these will give you a start on sw radio anti jamming.

I mentioned in the last post that one of the things that I was surprised by was the feel that it wasn’t as durable a plastic cover on the GRE PSR-300 as I recall on the older (80s/90s era) Radio Shack/Uniden handhelds. I can’t tell you how many times the old Uniden has taken a fall from a bookshelf, table, attached to me…. not a crack. We have two small kids in the house so I have a tendency to place things like this out of reach and I have used headphones with the scanner to avoid disturbing others/them disturbing my listening. However…. This earplug attachment has at times had unfortunate falls of about 3 and 1/2 to 4 feet at the most onto a hardwood floor. That has happened countless times to the old uniden without a crack and once to the GRE.

This morning I discovered the crack. One of the side plastic panels had a sliver of a crack down it that I caught on a piece of cloth. So the fall did a bit of external damage, no internal damage noted though. I used plastic adhesive to heal up the crack and have been trying to find more secure ways of positioning it. So, I guess you could say I’m a bit disappointed in the plastic covering, but after all the internal electronics are the really important part and they haven’t suffered for it. (The first scratch is always the hardest….)

So…. other critical comments. The manual. Like I’ve said before I feel like I’m old school when it comes to manuals, I’d love to see a full 300 page book with schematics. That much said, this manual feels more like a quick start guide to me. I wondered for the better part of a day and a half about the big letter G in the display as this was scanning, since there were other things to explore I passed on that issue and had entered frequencies to scan.

I found a bit of interference on one or two frequencies and instead of adjusting squelch I had read that there was a per channel attenuation and a global attenuation. All I had to do (according to the manual) to enable attenuation for a SINGLE channel was to press the ATT button while the channel was displayed. So, I browsed (or paused) at the channel(s) with interference and pressed Att. The A showed up in the display indicating attenuation, but when I started scanning again or changed frequencies it was still there. For some reason it was global attenuation. I poked at it a bit, reread the manual, tried 5 different ways to get to the frequency and press the Att button and then finally tried following their instructions for the global attenuation. I pressed F (function) and then ATT and lo and behold the big G disappeared and the A along with it. I NOW had per channel attenuation.

Okay, it would have been nice if that could have been a bit clearer in the manual. I know I was skimming, but I don’t recall seeing a note that global attenuation was enabled by default. I suppose the big thing that I missed here was the usual electronics practice of showing a sample screenshot of the display and explaining each and every symbol as well as when you will see it, what it means, etc. For that matter I still have one I want to figure out.

Another knock against the manual is that I’m pretty sure I saw a procedure for checking battery strength. I stumbled across it as I was mis-pressing keys and either online or in the manual had seen the instructions for getting back to it. Unfortunately the contents of the manual is sequentially organized and there are no such headings as “battery” or “battery meter” or anything closely useful. I tried a search, but again didn’t find the instructions. I skimmed through page by page again and couldn’t locate. I searched online and couldn’t find an explanation.

In sum, I stumbled across it again by trial and error. (What had me stumped is for some reason you have to be in program mode to get it… press pgm then F (function) and ent. It doesn’t work while it’s scanning, seeking, sweeping or in manual tune mode only in programming mode (?!?!) So another wish I would have is that they could be kind enough as to give a reference chart of the different key short cuts and what they do in one nice organized list. Sadly, though… the manual disappoints.

It makes me think that I may need to start a page here with details on the keyboard shortcuts for this as well as some basic instructions. I’ll add that to my list of planned write ups in coming weeks. SOOOO this has been a critical post and I imagine you’re thinking that I have buyers remorse at this point. Well, I don’t. I’m not one to let a shallow manual discourage me as you can see I’ve poked around and found how to do what I was looking for. I’m sorry to see the external case crack so easily, but from what I can tell it didn’t crack the interior housing which looks more spartan and durable and less curvy than the exterior (such that it is.)

Still I have tried to get all of the big criticisms that I’ve found into one post here and have quite a few positive things to say in upcoming features. This really is a good receiver and has some great features that I really appreciate. Stay tuned for the next in the series….

This is going to be a long series. I am going to be spacing things out a bit and so I’m starting this post on January 1st. It will likely publish on the 30th. I’m going to delve into quite a few aspects of the GRE PSR-300 in greater detail in future posts, but this is going to be a more general writeup.

First let me start by saying wow to scannermaster.com I think I ordered about 1PM on the 28th and the thing was in my hands at 4PM on the 30th of December. UPS certainly had a big hand in that as well as simple geography, but that is impressive. Orders before 3pm ship the same day and they do it (as long as there’s no extra programming needed.)

The scanner itself. Nice packaging, glossy shop display box that I could spend a little while reading as it covers the basic features. Included AC adapter, scanner, antenna, manual, warranty card, alkaline battery holder (black) and rechargeable (yellow) battery holder. I had ordered the DC adapter extra. I’d love to see both included for device like this…

Now, the old scanner I’m used to is a Uniden Bearcat handheld BC65XLT Portable Scanner. It was made in the late 80s/early 90s and I imagine “they don’t make them like that anymore”. My first impression of this unit is that it was a bit smaller, similar boxy scanner look (which is just fine by me.) The plastic felt a bit flimsy in comparison to the old, but I liked the overall look of it. (I’d like a more sturdy case, but other than that things look good.)

So, I found 4 alkaline batteris and got it setup, powered it on and tried the weather radio. (Of course, I attached the antenna as well. It’s the stock rubber duck antenna for now.) Within a couple seconds I was listening to our local NOAA weather radio with more clarity than I’ve been able to in the past from the house. The speaker on the PSR-300 is nice and I was able to crank up the volume without it losing clarity like the old Uniden.

At first the keypad and other buttons (30) is a bit overwhelming, but after a bit of time to work through the features it settles in and makes good sense. Now, I’m not new to scanners, but trunking is new to me. I had not ordered a computer/programming cable thinking I would prefer to program manually. The programming took a few minutes to get the hang of, but I spent the better part of the evening plugging in the amateur radio and other uhf/vhf frequencies that I have collected over the years and was soon pulling in signals from repeaters that I hadn’t heard before. On the frequencies I have picked up before it seemed to be as good (or better) than the clarity on the Uniden.

Headphones are full stereo (the uniden had diminished Right channel for some reason.) At this point I’ve tried out the AC and DC adapters and have now swapped to rechargable batteries which are charging currently while the unit is on.

Now, I plan to use future posts to detail some of the programming process and I’m trying to make this just a “first impressions” post. Overall though the first impressions are very good. Although the case seems flimsy it has already had one fall of about 4 and 1/2 feet (ear plugs can be a bad thing sometimes.) The good news is that I think I hurt my ear (as the earplug yanked out) more than the scanner (which landed with a solid smack). So, that plastic is a bit better made than I thought. Good!

One critique so far is on the manual. There have een some things that I’ve tried to find in the manual and can’t. There is no index (although I’ve tried searching the pdf of it some as well.) One thing that is disappointing is that there is no “legend” of display items which so many electronic products do. There was one glyph on the display that I wondered for the better part of a day and a half what it was for and finally discovered it on my own. Yes, I did look in the manual, I went through the manual several times, and searched online several different ways, but finally had to figure it out myself.

For my taste a manual should be there for the hard questions, the more in depth answers such as “what the heck is that G for”. Of course, I found the answer and will talk about that in a future post. So, I’d love to see a more detailed manual. Unfortunately so many electronics manufacturers are getting away from “real” manuals. I hope they will start reversing that trend!

I have not ordered a data cable yet although I have resolved that I should if for no other reason than to backup my configuration in case the unit ever needs to be re-initialized. It would not be fun to have to enter everything a second time. I have also ordered another antenna. I wanted to start out with the stock antenna so I would have a good baseline for comparison with the old Uniden (which also has a stock rubber ducky antenna). I have ordered one though that I will ALSO be reviewing here and hopefully it will be available for me for use on a number of handhelds for some time.

Once you’ve programmed in a few frequencies and text tags in it really is not a problem to deal with for manual programming. It can get a bit tedious, but really I feel more comfortable tagging channels on this than I ever have text messaging on a cell phone. I’ve even gone so far as to configure the FIPS for SAME coverage and a couple of trunking systems (which I’ve been able to monitor as well.) There are really too many features to talk about in just one post (or 5) and so I’ll go ahead and wrap this one up here. Overall I’m very pleased and already have a few ideas of some of the details I’m going to look at in future reviews.

Just wanted to post this – we’ve had a tornado warning this evening and after hearing all sorts of interference on the local weather radio from 99.9 Kiss FM (which I wondered if it was because of my receiver)… I noticed that they were repeating the time over and over instead of the usual weather warning and alert information. From another source I’ve found that the NOAA weather transmitter WXL56 at Mount Pisgah (which transmits on 162.400 Mhz) was damaged in the recent winter weather storms. I heard the information while monitoring one of the South Carolina weather radio channels (simulcast with their local weather radar on cable.)

Below the fold is the official statement.

000
NOUS42 KGSP 241240
PNSGSP
NCZ033-048>053-058-059-062>065-501>510-SCZ002-003-251200-

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG SC
1230 PM EST SUN JAN 24 2010

…NOAA WEATHER RADIO FOR ASHEVILLE NC STILL OFF THE AIR…

THE NOAA WEATHER RADIO ALL HAZARDS TRANSMITTER…BROADCASTING
FROM MOUNT PISGAH AND SERVING THE COUNTIES OF THE NORTH CAROLINA
MOUNTAINS AND FOOTHILLS WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE BROADCASTING PROBLEMS
TODAY. THE SIGNAL IS INTERMITTENTLY OFF THE AIR AND AT TIMES HAS A
COMMERCIAL RADIO SIGNAL IN PLACE OF WHAT SHOULD BE WEATHER RADIO ALL
HAZARDS. EQUIPMENT AT THE SITE HAS BEEN DAMAGED IN A RECENT WINTER
WEATHER EVENT AND REPAIRS ARE SCHEDULED. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY
INCONVENIENCE THAT THIS MAY CAUSE TO OUR LISTENERS.

$$

SBK

This from… this link. It would be nice if the above information had been posted to the online information for the zip codes in the coverage area at weather.gov…. glad to finally know why the thing has seemed flaky lately (and why the music has been bleeding in.)

Since the shortwave spectrum includes a lot of amateur radio and other communications space outside of the broadcast shortwave stations, I’m compiling a list here of resources that give collections of important frequencies to monitor during emergencies. Some of these are active during hurricane season, many of the nets listed may make routine practice nets to make sure they are ready in the event of a hurricane, earthquake or other disaster.

Some of these are organizational or military frequencies.

Bill Sparks – Hurricane Frequenceis

The monitoring times – top 1000 HF frequencies

ARRL

arnewsline.org

Southgate Amateur Radio Club News

The following groups or networks are amateur radio related groups that use amateur radio to assist in emergency communications in times of man made or natural disasters or other events which may disrupt traditional communications.

SATERN – Salvation Army Team Emergency Response Network

International Radio Emergency Support Coalition

RACES – Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service

Amateur Radio Emergency Service

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