Thanksgiving has come and gone. Doesn't seem as cold as it should be this time of year. Global Warming. Sorry, polar bears. Well, not too sorry.
The start of the new liturgical year is today. Ordinary Time has ended and we're now in Advent. A good time to stop and reflect. Like New Year but without the parades, parties, drunk drivers or football games. Yay!
I made a time-and-temperature kiosk display using a television I won in a drawing, a Raspberry Pi and these instructions. I leave it up when I'm not using the RPi for something else. Pretty straightforward and I'm reasonably pleased with the outcome.
I wonder why time and temperature is so important to me. Maybe I had a thing for the 'time and temperature' lady on the phone when I was little. Or maybe I was deprived. Maybe we were so poor we couldn't afford to find out what time it was and how cold or warm it was.
I snuck a few feet of antenna wire outside to improve shortwave reception. Dramatic improvement.
Speaking of shortwave, I've been hearing a man speaking letters and numbers on 4724 kHz, USB. I recorded an example so you didn't think it was another voice in my head.
If you know what this is, please let me in on the secret. Probably something mundane but I am curious.
In case you're wondering, I was using an Afedri-Net SDR receiver on a Dell laptop with a micro-balun and a random length of wire antenna.
If you've gotten to the point where you've gotten the SDR dongle and upconverter and want to swim out into deeper waters, take a look at the Afedri. It's not cheap and it ships from Israel so repairs could be a PITA. There's no front-end filtering so it's open to everything in the RF spectrum. (Well, there's another wad of cash for a preselector.)
But the guy ships the units ASAP and it seems like a quality build. But best of all, it's a great set of ears. And I've had a few. This is a lot different from the tabletop or portable receivers I've used. Just a whole different vibe. Like going from an all-in-one stereo unit to a component system. Lots of little hassles but lots of flexibility.
I like the metal case of the Afedri and of course the Ethernet connection is dabomb. I can view the entire AM broadcast spectrum at once. And with the laptop I still have the WiFi connection for internet access.
More later. God bless. And Happy New year! YAY! :)
That's an EAM (Emergency Action Message) on 4724Khz which is transmitted by the US Military (HF-GCS) HF Global Command System, which
ReplyDeletecontains a high priority and time sensitive message and transmits instructions for
their operations. These messages are a high priority since they are also used for
strategic military operations including nuclear attacks if it was ever needed, and
because of this the format and complete accuracy of the message is necessary.
http://www.numbers-stations.com/media/articles/EAMs.pdf
Thanks, Crawler. Interesting information in that pdf. I also pick it up on 8992 kHz USB. I've got dozens of recordings. It was making me nuts. I appreciate the guidance!
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