Going to resurrect this blog

I was last on the blog in 2010!  I'm going to go back to occasional posts, but I'll be expanding my observations to include podcasts that would be of interest to those who are fond of "legacy" shortwave radio.

Terry O'Reilly to host CBC Radio One's "Q" tomorrow (October 26th)

The CBC Radio One program on advertising and marketing, "The Age of
Persuasion", which normally airs for 20 weeks per year, is one of my
favorites.

Its host, Terry O'Reilly, will be hosting the CBC weekdaily
arts/culture/entertainment program "Q" on Tuesday, providing us "AOP"
fans a chance for a between-season "fix" of Mr. O'Reilly's wit and
wisdom.

Check out http://www.cbc.ca/q/ and also
http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/blog/2010/10/19/post/

Still Gaga Over Radio (from the Belfast Telegraph)

See http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/features/still-gaga-for-radio-14981255.html

Note the dates October 28th - 30th -- an interesting event
co-sponsored by RTE and BBC Northern Ireland is coming up...

Two BBC World Service programs will be produced in coordination with
the event: an edition of "World Have Your Say" and "The Forum".

BBC DG interviewed on NPR's "On The Media"

See http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2010/10/08

Mark Thompson, the BBC's Director General, is interviewed; a good
discussion covering several topics including the World Service.

Worth a listen.

"Remix Radio" from PRX -- interesting new concept I hadn't seen before

If you've participated in the swprograms list before or read my NASWA
Journal columns, you've seen me mention the "Public Radio Exchange"
before; they are a content clearinghouse for independently-produced
programming available to public radio stations as well as individual
listening.

PRX has launched a live stream called "Remix Radio" that provides a
continuous stream of programming from the programming available at
their website.

It strikes me as a "pot luck" opportunity to sample something random
that you might not otherwise check out in your usual "appointment
listening".

It isn't 100% spoken word -- it's more of an "interesting sound"
format...but my impression is that it's primarily spoken word...

http://www.remixradio.org/

Old Time Radio resource: "When Radio Was"

http://www.radiospirits.com/onradio/ontheradio.asp?source=wrw&pcode=WRW2008

A random browse led me to this website -- appropriate for fans of
old-time radio.

The daily syndicated program airs on WVXU-FM; WVXU also airs the
Saturday evening two-hour ediiton.

WVXU streams its audio...with no evidence that this program is blocked.

Richard

BBC World Service: "Global Business" interviews Matthew Szulik, Chairman of Red Hat

In the current edition, host Peter Day interviews Matthew Szulik, Chairman of Red Hat, the most visible software vendor for Linux for business. I know many shortwave enthusiasts are also Linux
enthusiasts; Szulik sounds like an interesting guy.

Peter Day does a good job staying out of the way to let Szulik talk...something Mr. Day doesn't always do well...

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003r602#synopsis

Richard

Worth a listen: BBC Radio 4: "MI6: A Century in the Shadows"

Radio 4 has begun a three-part documentary series commemorating the 100-year anniversary of MI6, the UK's analog to the USA Central Intelligence Agency. Considering the importance that radio has played in the communication of information between field agents and headquarters, folks here might find it worth a listen. Bletchley Park - the codebreaking center for British intelligence - is mentioned in the first episode of the series.

The first episode, "Gadgets and Green Ink", is available on-demand until roughly 0900 UTC on Monday, August 3rd; that's when the second episode, "Heroes and Villains", goes to air; that episode will then be available online for a week.

Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ls8ll

CC Wifi radio now can incorporate your Pandora account...free of charge for first 40 hours/month

If you can access Pandora's online streaming music discovery service where you live, and you own a CC Wifi radio, you can now add your Pandora account settings to your CC Wifi radio.

You'll need to upgrade the firmware on the WiFi radio, then log into the Reciva website and update the "My Radios" link, even if you aren't making a change to the radio. Apparently that step is needed for Reciva to recognize that you've upgraded the firmware.

Then you should see a link within "My Stuff" called "My Pandora"; you can then enter your Pandora ID and password, and all your Pandora channels will be available on your WiFi radio.

Bandwidth for Pandora is only 64k mpbs, but the audio quality seemed decent for me.

It's also worth noting that folks listening to Pandora for more than 40 hours/month will be asked to pay 99 cents to continue to listen that month once their listening hours exceed 40. This is a result of the recent SoundExchange copyright deal with web radio providers; see
http://mashable.com/2009/07/07/internet-radio-deal/ .

Also...I've started a new Internet e-mail reflector group specifically
to discuss Internet radio including Wifi devices.

Check out http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/internetradio
for more details or to sign up.

BBC Radio 4's "This Sceptred Isle" being aired on BBC Radio 7

BBC Radio 7 is a service of BBC Radio devoted to spoken-word programming, primarily programming that has aired previously on other BBC Radio services -- primarily Radio 4.

"This Sceptred Isle" is an audio history of the UK that has aired since 1995 on Radio 4, and the series has been rerun on Radio 7 since 2008.

The program airs weekdays, with each 15-minute program devoted to a single year in the history of Great Britain. The 20th Century series of programs has just begun this past week.

The series airs twice daily on Radio 7 -- at 1400 BST, repeated 0400 the next morning; that converts to 1300 and 0300 UTC.

Programs are available for one week in the iPlayer archive.

"Americana": The USA through British eyes

In my regular trawl of the BBC Radio 4 website the other day, I came across a recently-launched program, "Americana", that you may enjoy. The program is a weekly magazine of stories about the USA; quoting the program website, "Americana hopes to answer these questions by telling you what America is talking, arguing, fretting, laughing and, yes, dreaming about. We hope to surprise, entertain and inform. And by letting America itself do most of the talking we promise never to be dull."

The program airs Sunday evenings 715 PM BST, or 1815 UTC; the program is available via podcast and on-demand via the BBC iPlayer.

So far, all episodes since the program's May 31st launch have remained available for on-demand streaming.

BBC switches to the Flash player as its basic audio platform…one step forward, two steps backward?

Back in the dark ages of streaming audio in the mid-1990's, the predominant media format was Real Audio; Windows Media was clearly in the minority, and MP3 had not yet become the de facto encoding standard for compact discs ripped for PC audio platforms.

Over the years, Windows Media and MP3 appear to have captured a significant chunk of the streaming audio market, based on my casual, unscientific observations. A recent arrival for streaming audio has been embedded Flash audio, developed by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe, the folks who developed the PDF format.

The BBC has kept with RealMedia for its default audio format, even as these other audio formats gained traction. However, since early June, the new default embedded audio player on the BBC website is Flash-based. This upgrade was implemented at the same time that the BBC increased the audio bandwidth for most of its programming; the result is high-quality audio across the BBC's universe of programming, and across the Mac OS, Windows, and Linux operating systems, all of which appear to handle Flash media with no issues. Thankfully, RealMedia and Windows Media streams are also available, at least for the World Service.

So far, so good, right? Yes, as long as you use your PC - whether desktop, laptop, or netbook - as your listening platform. Those of us who capture audio to our PCs and then transfer it to portable devices (MP3 players) have been inconvenienced by the switch - as most streaming audio capture software packages don't handle Flash streams well. Replay Media Catcher appears to capture the BBC's Flash audio fine. What it doesn't do, though, is transform the audio into the MP3 format that is common across portable audio players, whether you're talking the Apple iTunes or a budget MP3 player. The built-in audio converter in Replay Media Catcher can't handle the BBC flash audio; you need another Applian software product, Replay Converter, to convert the Flash (.flv) audio into MP3. Further, you need the current version of Replay Converter (v3.37), not the prior version (v2.80). I've updated both software packages to their current versions, and I can now capture Newshour - which is not directly podcast - and save to my MP3 player.

The use of the Flash streaming format is also problematic for Internet radios - none that I know of directly handle Flash-formatted content. Thankfully, the RealMedia and Windows Media formats appear to remain available, and the URLs for these haven't changed. No word as to whether these secondary formats will remain available for the foreseeable future. However, when I tried to listen to either the RealMedia or Windows Media versions of a recent on-demand edition of Newshour, I received error messages stating that the content wasn't available. I notified the World Service website team of the problem, but as of June 24th the problem had not been corrected.

Don't throw away your Internet radios due to the increased usage of Flash Audio / Video just yet; I know of very few web radio stations that don't offer alternatives to Flash streaming audio, and some that do have worked with the Internet radio database vendors (specifically Reciva) to provide URL information for non-Flash streams that Internet radios can handle.

Radio / TV Cameroon online

Quick: Who was the colonial power in this African country? France? Great Britain? Germany? How about all of the above? Why is this paragraph nothing but questions?

Anyway, the ODXA's Harold Sellers passed along a tip for online English-language audio from the state-run Radio TV Cameroon, available at http://www.crtv.cm/ . Click on the link labeled , then look for the entries. You'll be able to listen to three daily newscasts (6:30 AM, 3 PM, 7 PM local time) that are archived for at least three weeks back. Each newscast runs anywhere from 14 to 28 minutes in length; a recent 3 PM newscast ran 28 minutes. For local news from an African perspective, this is a very good online choice.

It appears Radio TV Cameroon uses a Flash-based media player, which might prove problematic for WiFi radio users; my favourite program for capturing Flash-based audio for later listening via MP3 is Replay Media Catcher, a $40 piece of software that does a very good job of capturing Flash media - an area where other software falls down on the job. Check out Replay Media Catcher at http://applian.com/download-videos/ ; a Google search will also bring you there straightaway.

John Tusa's 3-part audio documentary "Iran: A Revolutionary State" now available at BBC Radio 4

Currently available from the BBC's domestic spoken-word Radio 4:

"Iran: A Revolutionary State", a three-part documentary series that aired Monday through Wednesday of this week.

BBC Radio 4 programs are usually available for on-demand listening for one week following their original air dates, so you'll need to visit the Radio 4 website promptly to catch these programs.

John Tusa was the well-respected managing director of the BBC World Service from 1986 to 1993.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lp5jz for access to the documentary series.

Radio Netherlands resurrecting its documentaries

Radio Netherlands, the Dutch international broadcasting service, has an extensive audio documentary archive. For several years a weekly 30-minute audio documentary on a global issue was presented.

Radio Netherlands is resurrecting some of these documentaries for weekly airing during the current broadcasting season.

Check out "Classic Dox" here: http://www.rnw.nl/radio-program-list/8510 for the weekly edition,
available via shortwave radio, World Radio Network (on Sirius/XM and streaming) as well as via Radio Netherlands' own website.

The archive was not brought over directly to the new Radio Netherlands website, but can be found here: http://static.rnw.nl/migratie/www.radionetherlands.nl/documentaries/index.html-redirected

Thanks to the Audio Documentary enthusiasts' website http://www.audiodocumentary.org for this info.

CBC Radio's summer schedule begins June 29th

There are two documentary series airing as part of the CBC Radio One summer schedule -- Global Perspectives, the international co-operative that has aired programming on stations such as the BBC World Service, Radio Australia, and New Zealand National Radio; also, Crossing Boundaries, billed as a showcase of public radio documentaries.

Details here.

The BBC World Service comes to your cellphone

Back in the mid-1990s, when webcasts were in their infancy, shortwave radio enthusiasts quickly pointed out that webcasts weren't portable -- one was tethered to their Internet connection via a desktop or laptop PC. Fast forward a dozen years...the predominance of Wifi technologies has launched untethered laptops and spawned a generation of Internet radios. Shortwave enthusiasts could still claim that shortwave radios provided unmatched portability.

Enter cellular broadband technologies...you can now install a USB card into a laptop computer and obtain relatively high-speed Internet access anywhere you can get cellphone access. AT&T has featured the former newsman Bill Curtis in a series of commercials touting where he's "found the Internet" using his AT&T laptop card. Verizon has a technology that allows you to create a personal Wifi "hotspot" which, in theory, could provide Internet connectivity to a battery-powered Internet radio.

If you live in India and have Reliance Mobile phone service, you can now access the BBC World Service via your cellphone 24/7 using the "R-World" service. Who needs a stinkin' radio, anyway?

Details here.

CFRX is back on shortwave!

After being missing for several years due to transmitter problems, Canada's CFRX, the 6070 kHz shortwave relay of domestic MW station CFRB, is now back on the air, and some early hiccups appear to have settled out. On the air since 1937, CFRX provides an opportunity to "eavesdrop" on one of Canada's largest cities, and can be a decent diversion, especially during the day. Its programming is a mix of news and talk, like that of many MW stations south of the border nowadays.

Yes, CFRB webcasts too...see www.cfrb.com/

BBC World Service Talking America bus tour complete

The BBC World Service "bus tour" of the USA, involving journalists representing many of the BBC's domestic and foreign-language services, has recently wrapped up its west-to-east journey, and there are three 25-minute programs in which the presenters reflect on key highlights from each region they visited. From the main BBC World Service website, search for "talking America" - that's the quickest way to reach the three-part audio programs.

Brain of Britain in full swing (on BBC Radio 4)

As the BBC World Service increased its emphasis in news and current affairs programming, one of the casualties was its light entertainment and comedy programming; the best-known of this genre was Brain of Britain, the general knowledge quiz that originated on the domestic BBC Radio 4 service. While you can't hear Brain on the World Service, you can still listen live and on-demand via Radio 4's web stream.

Brain of Britain has been around in one form or another since 1953; it has aired since 1967 under this title. The host, Robert Robinson, has held that position for more than 30 years.

Brain airs live Mondays at 1330 UTC, with a repeat Saturdays 2300 UTC, if your primary means of listening to Radio 4 is via its live webcast; the most recent edition is available on-demand as well.

Brain of Britain will crown its champion on January 24th, 2009.

You can Google "brain of Britain" as a phrase to quickly reach the website, or go directly to www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/brainofbritain/ .