New website of All India Radio, Raipur

New website of  All India Radio (Akashwani) Raipur (Madhya Pradeah) was inaugurated on Friday, August 15th 2014 by Shri K.K.Singh, Deputy Director General (Engineering) and Head of the Office.

 

The excellently designed website offers extensive information for listeners about All India Radio Raipur's activities, program schedule, advertisement rate cards, engineering/administration/organizational set up, staff details, audience research unit, news unit, infrastructure & broadcasting facilities. There is a separate photo gallery highlighting the activities of the station.

 

The new website can be accessed at : http://airraipur.org/index.html

 

Photo's and media coverage of inauguration is available at :  http://airraipand r.org/picture_gallery5.html

Explore the century-old mystery of numbers stations

Some time after World War II (if not earlier), shortwave radiobroadcasts started appearing with no obvious purpose. A synthesized voice, usually female-sounding, would read out a list of numbers or seemingly random words, sometimes accompanied by morse code with a nonsensical translation. It is widely assumed that the stations are used in spycraft, but no country or intelligence agency has ever admitted to being the source, and their true function remains unknown.

Read more at :

http://www.avclub.com/article/explore-century-old-mystery-numbers-stations-207413

Airspy

Good news, Airspy is coming!

Today, august 2 2014, we finished validating the last technical details and started preparing the production with our partners at Itead Studio and we should have a first batch of 500 units available soon. An email should be sent to the registrants with a link to purchase Airspy directly from Itead's website.

Our special thanks to all the folks on the IRC channel #airspy @ freenode who supported the project from the beginning and helped with code, testing, ideas and encouragements.

What is Airspy?

Airspy is a very tiny (5×3 cm) software defined radio receiver capable of sampling 10MHz of spectrum anywhere between 24MHz and 1.7GHz. It is the fruit of countless hours of head scratching, fiddling and experimenting with the cutting edge Radio and DSP technologies. We believe it will change the way radio professionals and enthusiasts see the spectrum beyond 30MHz.

Frequency hopping GSM signals Early prototype Fitting in the new aluminum enclosure FM Broadcast band in Paris, 1.5km away from the Eiffel tower antennas GSM Band with strong signals 

Technical specifications:

24 – 1750 MHz RX range with no gaps

3.5 dB NF between 42 and 1002 MHz

12bit ADC @ 20 MSPS (80dB SFDR, 64dB SNR, 10.4 ENOB)

Cortex M4F @ 200 MHz and up to 204MHz with Multi Core MCU (dual M0)

1.5 ppm clock

1 RTC clock

External clock input (10 MHz to 100 MHz)

10 MHz panoramic spectrum view with 8MHz alias/image free

IQ or Real, 16bit fixed or 32bit float output streams

No IQ imbalance, DC offset or 1/F noise at the center of the spectrum

that plagues all the other SDRs

Extension ports: SGPIO, 2 x ADC channels, 2 x programmable clocks

Possible usages:

Spectrum Analyzer,

Fast scanner,

Radio surveillance,

Direction Finding,

Passive Radars,

ADS-B,

FM Radio,

Analog TV,

Digital Terrestrial TV,

Ham Radio,

Heck, this is a software defined radio! The only limitation is your imagination

May be you will want to get one or two boards to experience the joy of listening to the radio waves like nobody did before and with software you can hack by yourself? Then register so we can let you know when

the product is ready for purchase! Our special thanks to the all folks who helped debugging and improving the project.

(Source : airspy.com)

Voice of America Ends Greek Broadcasts

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 11, 2014 - After 72 years on air, the Voice of America Greek Service -- one of the longest-running language services -- is signing off today for the last time, bidding adieu to loyal listeners in Greece, Cyprus, and beyond.

VOA Director David Ensor called the Greek Service "a small but mighty group of talented, dedicated journalists, who for over seven decades served as an unbiased, objective news source."

The Greek Service was established on November 1, 1942, and went on to cover historic turning points of modern Greece, from the civil war in the late 1940s to the accession to the European Union, and most recently the country's struggles to remain an integral part of the E.U.

The Greek Service was among the first services at the Voice of America to transition to exclusively affiliate-based broadcasting in the early 1990s. One of VOA's smallest language services, the staff provided regular and ad-hoc content to its affiliate stations in Greece, with unique perspectives on U.S. politics, coverage of issues concerning the Greek-American community, and live Q&As during major global news events.

Ioannis Spanolios, general manager of one of VOA's first-ever affiliates, SKAI Radio and TV in Greece, said, "We are saddened because our collaboration that lasted close to a quarter century has come to a close...because we are losing a valuable news source from the other side of the Atlantic."

VOA Greek Service Chief Anna K. Morris said of her time with the Greek Service, "I feel absolutely privileged to have been given the opportunity to present American perspectives to Greek audiences for over 22 years."

(VOA Press Release)

From vinyl to CDs to digital, the evolution of radio

Despite being over a century old, radio broadcasting is still one of the biggest forms of communication for many today.

 

Radio has come a long way since its invention, and companies such as Clear Channel Communications are helping to shape and evolve this tried-and-true technology in several ways.

 

Read the full story at :

 

http://voidlive.com/music/vinyl-cds-digital-evolution-radio/

To Be Where the Audience Is — Report of the Special Committee on the Future of Shortwave Broadcasting

WASHINGTON (August 1, 2014) — The Broadcasting Board of Governors today released "To Be Where the Audience Is," a report that found shortwave radio to be essential to listeners in target countries, but of marginal impact in most markets. The report's recommendations came after a comprehensive review, grounded in audience-based research, of the efficacy of shortwave as a distribution platform for U.S. international media.

 

"Shortwave radio continues to be an important means for large numbers of people in some countries to receive news and information," said Matt Armstrong, who chaired the BBG's Special Committee on the Future of Shortwave Broadcasting, which issued the report. "However, many of our networks' target audiences have moved to newer platforms including TV, FM and digital media. This report maps a way forward for U.S. international media to remain accessible for all our audiences."

 

Research-based evidence of media trends suggests that the increased availability and affordability of television, mobile devices and Internet access has led to the declining use of shortwave around the world. Still, the report finds that substantial audiences embrace shortwave in Nigeria, Burma, North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Cuba and other target markets for the BBG.

 

At the same time, the committee's recommendations make clear that the BBG will need to continue to reduce or eliminate shortwave broadcasts where there is either minimal audience or that audience is not a U.S. foreign policy priority. It also ratifies reductions that were made in redundant signals in 2013 and further cuts in transmissions that were made in 2014.

 

Even with these recent reductions, the BBG makes programs in 35 of its 61 broadcast languages available on shortwave where there is a strategic reason to do so.

 

The report notes there is no evidence that shortwave usage increases during crises. At such times, audiences continue to use their preferred platforms or seek out anti-censorship tools to help them navigate to the news online, including firewall circumvention tools or offline media including thumb drives and DVDs.

 

The Shortwave Committee report will be discussed at the August 13 public meeting of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

The report can be accessed here.... 

http://www.bbg.gov/about-the-agency/research-reports/board/