AOKI A20

AOKI A20

AOKI A20 Frequency schedule is avaialble at :

http://www1.s2.starcat.ne.jp/ndxc/pc/nd/nxa20.zip

(Alokesh Gupta)

CNR A20

CNR A20 SCHEDULE

http://www1.s2.starcat.ne.jp/ndxc/cn/cnra20.htm

(Alokesh Gupta)

RNZI A20

RNZI A20

29 Mar 2020 - 25 Oct 2020
UTC       KHZ   TARGET          DAYS

--------------------------------------
0000-0458 13840 Pacific         Daily
0459-0658 11725 Pacific         Daily
0659-0958 5945  Pacific         Daily
0959-1258 5945  Solomon Isl/PNG Mon - Fri
1259-1958 6170  Pacific         Sat
1259-1650 6170  Pacific         Sun-Fri
1651-1735 6115  Cook Isl/Samoa/Tonga Sun-Fri DRM
1736-1835 7285  Cook Isl/Samoa/Tonga Sun-Fri DRM
1836-1958 9760  Cook Isl/Samoa/Tonga Sun-Fri DRM
1959-2158 11725 Pacific         Daily
2159-0000 13840 Pacific         Daily

Submit reception reports at :  https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/qsl/new

(Alokesh Gupta)

CRI A20

CRI A20 SCHEDULE

http://www1.s2.starcat.ne.jp/ndxc/cn/cria20.htm

(Alokesh Gupta)

What Is Replacing Shortwave?

What Is Replacing Shortwave?

A joint effort is necessary to bring the digitization of radio to a successful end

With the number of shortwave broadcasters dwindling, particularly in the Western world, Ruxandra Obreja, chair of the DRM consortium, looks at how to best fill the lingering gap in wide-range coverage. She believes a global effort is necessary to successfully implement digital radio and ensure it also reaches the desolate, rural areas that need it most. 

Read the RadioWorld blog here :

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/guest-commentaries/what-is-replacing-shortwave 

All India Radio curtails it's services due to lock down in India

On 22nd March, 2020 Government of India announced complete lockdown in 75 cities all across India upto 31st March, in a bid to contain the further spread of the Covid-19 virus . It's an unprecedented situation wherein except essential services, all shops, offices,factories are closed and prohibitory orders issued for general public.

In view of this following orders have been being issued with immediate effect across all stations of All India Radio :

1. The national spectrum of broadcast will be limited to Vividh Bharati Service originating from VBS Mumbai and News Services originating from AIR Delhi.

2. Regional services can relay content as related to above ( SL number 1) with local news, subject to feasibility.

3. All National Programmes of Spoken Word, Music, Sports & other categories stand cancelled till further orders.

4. All other services of All India Radio stands in abeyance until further orders.

5. All ESD (External Service Division) services and all transmitters dedicated to ESD stands suspended with immediate effect.

6. All Pure DRM mode operations suspended, DRM transmitters may be operated on analogue / simulcast mode to relay the National News Service subject to local circumstances and conditions

(Alokesh Gupta) 

Airspy YouLoop antenna is on sale

Airspy has finally managed to get a few hundreds YouLoop units built professionally and shipped to their US distributor as well as RTL-SDR Blog's store. Most of them were already reserved, and they are building a few more.

Shop at AirspyUS : https://v3.airspy.us/product/ant-youloop-1/

Shop at RTL-SDR Blog : 

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/shop/

- OR -

Build one by yourself: https://airspy.com/youloop

Description

- Electrically balanced passive loop design with low loss RF transformer to cancel the responses to electric fields.

- Ideal for noisy environments where electric-field sensors like the mini-whip antennas are impracticable.

- High Performance DX when used with a low noise preamplifier.

- High quality 2 meters (approx. 6 feet) transmission line included.

- Frequency Range: 10 kHz to 30 MHz

- Usable in FM/VHF as a folded dipole up to 300 MHz.

- Maximum power: 250 mW

Specifications

- HF Response: 10kHz to 30 MHz

- VHF Response: up to 300 MHz

- Maximum Power: 250 mW

- Passive Design

- No Tuning required

- Low Loss BALUN with 0.28 dB loss type

(Via Airspy list)

IRRS announces special SW broadcasts & QSL for corona virus outbreak

While most of Northern Italy has come (nearly) to a halt due to the recent coronavirus outbreak, NEXUS-IBA, IRRS (The Italian and Irish Radio Relay Service) has just extended  global coverage with daily broadcasts to reach out to Europe, the Middle East, Asia/Pacific and Africa with daily news and commentaries on COVID-19 in English.

A new program aired via IRRS-Shortwave is called "War Room Pandemic" and produced in the USA by Steve Bannon, political advisor, media executive, former investment banker and former White House Chief Strategist.

War Room Pandemic presents the latest news and opinions on the effects of the coronavirus around the world.

New global frequencies on Shortwave

War room pandemic can be heard on new (daily) frequencies as of Feb. 21, 2020 (@ 150 to Europe and Africa and 250 kW to Asia):

9640 kHz (1400-1500 UTC) to Asia and Middle East

7290 kHz (1800-2000 UTC) to Europe

9660 kHz (2000-2100 UTC) to Africa

594  kHz (2100-2200 UTC/2200-2300 CET) AM/Medium Wave to N Italy and Southern/Central Europe

More details at IRRS blog :    https://nexus.org/coronavirus-qsl/

Updated B19 frequency schedule at:    https://nexus.org/schedules

On the occasion IRRS has released a new QSL card which is available electronically for all reception reports.

Additionally, new broadcasts have been started as of today March 4, 2020 in Oromo language to Ethiopia on 11990 from 1500-1600 UTC (@ 250 kW).

You may send your reception report for these broadcasts to reports@nexus.org. IRRS will gladly acknowledge all verified reception reports with new electronic QSL.

When requesting our QSL card, please consult Privacy Policy at https://nexus.org/privacy and learn how IRRS processes your personal data according to the GDPR.

Source : https://nexus.org/coronavirus-qsl/

Fraunhofer IIS brings comprehensive MPEG audio codec suite to NXP Semiconductors

Erlangen, Germany: Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, inventor of mp3 and primary developer of the xHE-AAC and MPEG-H Audio standards, announced that NXP® Semiconductors will leverage Fraunhofer's MPEG audio SDK. This software package covers four generations of audio codecs: legacy MPEG Layer-1/2/3 as well as the next-generation MPEG-H 3D Audio standard and the AAC codec family, including xHE-AAC. NXP will incorporate these codecs into its multimedia system solutions, which raise the bar for audio quality in home entertainment products, such as set-top boxes, soundbars or smart speakers.

Fraunhofer IIS has more than 30 years of experience in the development and optimization of audio codecs and has already licensed its software to over 1000 companies. "NXP's SoC products provide a compelling platform for Fraunhofer's MPEG audio decoder SDKs and will drive the rapid market adoption of our audio solutions by the leading consumer electronics manufacturers," said Dr. Nikolaus Färber, Head of Audio for Embedded Systems department of Fraunhofer IIS.

"The MPEG audio codecs from Fraunhofer IIS are an excellent fit for our high-quality multimedia systems solutions," said Rob Oshana, Vice President of Software Engineering R&D from NXP. "We plan to fully integrate MPEG-H 3D Audio, xHE-AAC and the legacy codecs into our Immersiv3D™ audio solution for i.MX 8M SoCs."

NXP also plans to leverage the Fraunhofer MPEG-H Audio System Trademark Program to test its MPEG-H decoder implementation. This will indicate to manufacturers that NXP's decoder implementation fulfills all mandatory requirements of Fraunhofer's MPEG-H Audio System trademark program.

About MPEG-H Audio

MPEG-H Audio, substantially developed by Fraunhofer IIS, is the industry's most advanced audio system for UHD-TV and streaming. It supports both immersive sound and the ability for users to adjust elements in the audio to their preferences. MPEG-H has been on the air since 2017 on all TV networks in South Korea under the new ATSC 3.0 standard. It has also been selected for new broadcast standards to be launched in China and Brazil and is the distribution format of the new immersive music streaming service 360 Reality Audio. Fraunhofer offers MPEG-H software implementations for many popular CPU, SoC and DSP platforms. It is widely deployed today in TV sets, premium soundbars and high-end smart speakers.

About xHE-AAC

xHE-AAC is the ideal solution for digital radio broadcasting and for adaptive audio and video streaming services over the Internet, thanks to its coding efficiency (with a bit rate range from 12 kbit/s to 500 kbit/s and above for stereo services) combined with seamless bit rate switching over DASH and HLS as well as mandatory MPEG-D DRC loudness and dynamic range control. The codec is natively supported by the Android 9 and 10 operating systems, as well as iOS 13 and Amazon Fire OS 7.

(Press Release)