VOA Radiogram promotes World Radio Day this weekend

Hello friends,

Happy World Radio Day!  World Radio Day will be Monday, 13 February, and it will be mentioned this weekend on VOA Radiogram.

Also this weekend, we will transmit samples of text in Chinese, Russian, and Persian. For these alphabets to display correctly, Fldigi should be configured to the UTF-8 character set (Configure > Colors & Fonts > adjust Rx/Tx Character set to UTF-8, if it is not there already). Your operating system might also need font support for non-Western languages. If the Chinese, Russian, or Persian text is seen as a series of boxes in the Fldigi receive pane, copy and past those boxes to a word processor, and the text might display correctly. At the bottom of this email is a picture off what the received text in the three languages should look like.

There will be four MFSK32 images this weekend, but they will not be transmitted until the second half of the show.

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, program 202, 11-15 February 2017, all in MFSK32 except where noted:

 1:45  Program preview
 3:05  China to vet online content and services
 6:11  Experiment with non-Latin alphabets**
10:17  Olivia 64-2000: ESA to help NASA
15:53  MFSK32: SSTV from the International Space Station*
19:58  Video of Radio Australia shortwave shutdown*
22:30  World Radio Day*
26:41  Closing announcements

* with image

** use UTF-8 character set

Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com.

VOA Radiogram transmission schedule (temporarily expanded):

UTC Day	UTC Time	kHz	Transmitter	Target	Also try in …
Saturday	0930-1000	5865	North Carolina	Americas	Asia-Pacific, Europe
Saturday	1600-1630	17580	North Carolina	Europe	Americas, Asia-Pacific
Sunday	0230-0300	5745	North Carolina	Americas	Europe
Sunday	1930-2000	15670	North Carolina	Europe	Americas, Asia-Pacific
Sunday	2030-2100	11580	WRMI Florida	Europe	Americas
Sunday	2330-2400	11580	WRMI Florida	Americas
Monday	2000-2030	3975	IBC Italy	Europe
Wednesday	2100-2130	3975	IBC Italy	Europe

The Mighty KBC broadcast to North America will be Sunday at 0000-0200 UTC (Saturday 7-9 pm EST) on 6145 kHz, via Germany. A minute of MFSK32 will be transmitted at about 0130 UTC. Reports to Eric: themightykbc@gmail.com . See also http://www.kbcradio.eu/ and https://www.facebook.com/TheMightyKbc/ . 

DigiDX is taking a few weeks off, hence the VOA Radiogram transmissions via WRMI and IBC.  See http://www.digidx.uk/ and https://www.facebook.com/digidx/

Italian Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) has digital modes as follows:
EVERY WEDNESDAY ON 3975 KHZ 20.30-21.00 UTC in MFSK32 and OLIVIA 16-500
EVERY FRIDAY ON 9955 KHZ 02.25-02.30 UTC in MFSK32
EVERY SATURDAY ON 1584 KHZ 21.25-21.30 UTC in MFSK32
EVERY SUNDAY ON 7730 KHZ 00.55-01.00 UTC in MFSK32
EVERY SUNDAY ON 6070 KHZ 11.30-12.00 UTC  in MFSK32 and OLIVIA 16-500 (VIA RADIO BCLNEWS)
For the complete IBC transmission schedule, including voice broadcasts, visit  http://ibcradio.webs.com/

Winter SWL Fest.  I am planning to attend the Winter SWL Fest, March 2-4, 2017, at Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. Hope to see you there. Information at  http://www.swlfest.com .

Thanks for your reports from last weekend. (Or, if you are in Europe and tuned in Sunday at 1930 UTC on 15670 kHz,  reports of attempted reception.) Now that I've finally responded to the reports from program 198, I'll start with the program 201 reports and work backwards.

I hope you can tune in and write in this weekend. 


Kim Andrew Elliott, KD9XB
Producer and Presenter
VOA Radiogram
voaradiogram.net

Twitter: @VOARadiogram  (especially active just before, during, and after broadcasts)

PS: A few operating notes:

• For best Olivia 64-2000 performance, turn Fldigi's squelch (SQL) off.
• The RSID at 1500 Hz sometimes mixes with the transmitter hum, most noticeable at 360 Hz, to move your receive audio frequency down to 1140 Hz, resulting in no decode. To prevent this, in Fldigi: Configure > IDs  > RsID > unselect Searches passband.  Your center audio frequency will wander no more than +/- 200 Hz.
• Fldigi automatically saves your decoded MFSK images as png files in the folder \fldigi.files\images\ (in Windows; folder names might be different with other operating systems). You can attach those png files with your reception report.
• The VOA Radiogram Twitter account @VOARadiogram is especially active before, during, and after the broadcasts. You don't need a Twitter account: just go to https://twitter.com/voaradiogram and refresh it occasionally.
• (Kim Elliott)