London Shortwave
@londonshortwave.bsky.social
Shortwave Radio Enthusiast based in London, UK. AirSpy+SpyVerter, FCDPro+, Lowe HF/PR-150, Tecsun PL680, DX Engineering NCC1, two Wellbrooks 1530S+, EN/RU/ES. Blog at londonshortwave.com
🎙️ One-two, one-two, is this thing on? It’s been a minute! Late to the party but here’s uConsole CM4 running CubicSDR with #AirSpy HF+ Discovery.
August 23, 2025 at 12:31 AM
🎙️ One-two, one-two, is this thing on? It’s been a minute! Late to the party but here’s uConsole CM4 running CubicSDR with #AirSpy HF+ Discovery.
New blog post: RNZ Pacific ringing in the New Year
blog.londonshortwave.com/2024/12/rnz-...
#shortwave #dxing #spectrumcapture
blog.londonshortwave.com/2024/12/rnz-...
#shortwave #dxing #spectrumcapture
December 31, 2024 at 6:52 PM
New blog post: RNZ Pacific ringing in the New Year
blog.londonshortwave.com/2024/12/rnz-...
#shortwave #dxing #spectrumcapture
blog.londonshortwave.com/2024/12/rnz-...
#shortwave #dxing #spectrumcapture
🇳🇿 RNZ Pacific welcoming 2025 and some 20m ham band activity recorded with the above set-up.
December 31, 2024 at 2:09 PM
🇳🇿 RNZ Pacific welcoming 2025 and some 20m ham band activity recorded with the above set-up.
December 31, 2024 at 11:14 AM
🇳🇿 Ringing in the New Year with RNZ Pacific @rnz.co.nz.web.brid.gy
December 31, 2024 at 11:11 AM
🇳🇿 Ringing in the New Year with RNZ Pacific @rnz.co.nz.web.brid.gy
Had a great time capturing the 31 meter band for 3 hours this afternoon using my Pi Zero 2W portable recording contraption and @airspy.com HF+ Discovery with the new firmware. Flawless baseband AGC despite a very hot antenna (2x6m dipole) AND the HF preamp being on. #PortableSDR #SDR #Shortwave 📡
December 14, 2024 at 9:33 PM
Had a great time capturing the 31 meter band for 3 hours this afternoon using my Pi Zero 2W portable recording contraption and @airspy.com HF+ Discovery with the new firmware. Flawless baseband AGC despite a very hot antenna (2x6m dipole) AND the HF preamp being on. #PortableSDR #SDR #Shortwave 📡
The PiZero 2W spectrum recorder runs for 7 hours on two 18650s & a step-down 5V converter (which doesn’t seem to add measurable noise on HF). And of course the batteries are hot-swappable as the unit has its own small UPS battery. The only limitation is the amount of free space on the MicroSD card 📡
December 12, 2024 at 12:10 AM
The PiZero 2W spectrum recorder runs for 7 hours on two 18650s & a step-down 5V converter (which doesn’t seem to add measurable noise on HF). And of course the batteries are hot-swappable as the unit has its own small UPS battery. The only limitation is the amount of free space on the MicroSD card 📡
🇮🇳 I miss having All India Radio's English language service in abundance on shortwave! This is a recording from 17/08/2015 at 1900z on 11670 kHz, received indoors using a FunCube Pro+ dongle and a Wellbrook ALA1530SP loop antenna.
December 7, 2024 at 10:26 PM
🇮🇳 I miss having All India Radio's English language service in abundance on shortwave! This is a recording from 17/08/2015 at 1900z on 11670 kHz, received indoors using a FunCube Pro+ dongle and a Wellbrook ALA1530SP loop antenna.
Bluesky Roast 😂😅
Shortwave Shakespeare: An Enthusiast’s Frequency Of Witty Waves
Tune in for the delightful broadcasts of London's very own shortwave sage!
Vibe Check
"A charming mix of nerdy passion and down-to-earth commentary, wrapped in radio waves."
blueskyroast.com/roast/london...
Shortwave Shakespeare: An Enthusiast’s Frequency Of Witty Waves
Tune in for the delightful broadcasts of London's very own shortwave sage!
Vibe Check
"A charming mix of nerdy passion and down-to-earth commentary, wrapped in radio waves."
blueskyroast.com/roast/london...
December 7, 2024 at 4:39 PM
Bluesky Roast 😂😅
Shortwave Shakespeare: An Enthusiast’s Frequency Of Witty Waves
Tune in for the delightful broadcasts of London's very own shortwave sage!
Vibe Check
"A charming mix of nerdy passion and down-to-earth commentary, wrapped in radio waves."
blueskyroast.com/roast/london...
Shortwave Shakespeare: An Enthusiast’s Frequency Of Witty Waves
Tune in for the delightful broadcasts of London's very own shortwave sage!
Vibe Check
"A charming mix of nerdy passion and down-to-earth commentary, wrapped in radio waves."
blueskyroast.com/roast/london...
🇨🇺🇨🇺🇨🇺🇨🇺 (11760 kHz - 02/07/2015 2323z)
December 7, 2024 at 12:41 AM
🇨🇺🇨🇺🇨🇺🇨🇺 (11760 kHz - 02/07/2015 2323z)
🇨🇺 I've been digging through my old archives and my very first spectrum recordings. Here's Radio Habana Cuba's broadcast on Fidel Castro's 89th birthday (11670kHz - 06/08/2015 0101z). I captured this indoors with a Wellbrook ALA1530-SP antenna and FunCube Dongle Pro+. #Shortwave #SDR #SpectrumCapture
December 6, 2024 at 5:28 PM
🇨🇺 I've been digging through my old archives and my very first spectrum recordings. Here's Radio Habana Cuba's broadcast on Fidel Castro's 89th birthday (11670kHz - 06/08/2015 0101z). I captured this indoors with a Wellbrook ALA1530-SP antenna and FunCube Dongle Pro+. #Shortwave #SDR #SpectrumCapture
🇧🇷 Rádio Nacional da Amazônia on 04/12/24 at 2200z on 11780 kHz. Captured with the battery-powered Pi Zero 2W, AirSpy HF+ and 2x6m dipole in a local park. #PortableSDR #SpectrumCapture #Shortwave #HF #DX #AirSpy #PiZero2W #PiZero
December 5, 2024 at 12:39 AM
🇧🇷 Rádio Nacional da Amazônia on 04/12/24 at 2200z on 11780 kHz. Captured with the battery-powered Pi Zero 2W, AirSpy HF+ and 2x6m dipole in a local park. #PortableSDR #SpectrumCapture #Shortwave #HF #DX #AirSpy #PiZero2W #PiZero
1/2 After a few charge and discharge cycles, the 4xAA Eneloops support the built-in battery for longer: the recorder kept going for 4 hours and 10 minutes. That's long enough for most of my park outings! Here's the resulting capture from last night. The system is good to go! 🚀
December 1, 2024 at 7:21 PM
1/2 After a few charge and discharge cycles, the 4xAA Eneloops support the built-in battery for longer: the recorder kept going for 4 hours and 10 minutes. That's long enough for most of my park outings! Here's the resulting capture from last night. The system is good to go! 🚀
2/2 setting the centre frequency and starting the recording:
December 1, 2024 at 2:16 PM
2/2 setting the centre frequency and starting the recording:
1/2 Just playing around with recording some medium wave spectrum off my YouLoop installation on the balcony. Testing power-on and boot-up:
December 1, 2024 at 2:16 PM
1/2 Just playing around with recording some medium wave spectrum off my YouLoop installation on the balcony. Testing power-on and boot-up:
Final version of the UI (for now). Battery indicator, remaining recording time available & the duration of the current recording (in hh:mm). The Pi boots into this UI and triggers airspyhf_rx to record with the selected parameters if a HF+ is connected. The screen has minimal 🔋 impact when sleeping.
November 30, 2024 at 6:47 PM
Final version of the UI (for now). Battery indicator, remaining recording time available & the duration of the current recording (in hh:mm). The Pi boots into this UI and triggers airspyhf_rx to record with the selected parameters if a HF+ is connected. The screen has minimal 🔋 impact when sleeping.
Experimenting with a new physical interface for the spectrum recorder. Added an option to switch off the backlight to save battery (& when I send the UI to “sleep” this way, I also change the controller polling interval from 0.1s to 1s to reduce Python’s CPU usage). These things matter on Pi Zero 2W
November 30, 2024 at 3:44 AM
Experimenting with a new physical interface for the spectrum recorder. Added an option to switch off the backlight to save battery (& when I send the UI to “sleep” this way, I also change the controller polling interval from 0.1s to 1s to reduce Python’s CPU usage). These things matter on Pi Zero 2W
4/4 Next steps are adding a physical user interface and building a weatherproof enclosure. I’ve experimented with e-ink touchscreens but they are very laggy and driving them consumes tons of CPU! Stay tuned for more updates. Some alternatives are mini-OLED, TFT and even segment displays 😀
November 26, 2024 at 4:23 AM
4/4 Next steps are adding a physical user interface and building a weatherproof enclosure. I’ve experimented with e-ink touchscreens but they are very laggy and driving them consumes tons of CPU! Stay tuned for more updates. Some alternatives are mini-OLED, TFT and even segment displays 😀
3/4 Here’s a recording I made in my local park last Friday. New Zealand was coming in nicely! The baseband file is saved onto the same microSD card that the Pi boots from, so the card has to be fast and preferably class A2 for more efficient random writes (the OS keeps interrupting sequential I/O).
November 26, 2024 at 4:23 AM
3/4 Here’s a recording I made in my local park last Friday. New Zealand was coming in nicely! The baseband file is saved onto the same microSD card that the Pi boots from, so the card has to be fast and preferably class A2 for more efficient random writes (the OS keeps interrupting sequential I/O).
2/4 Currently there’s no physical UI so I trigger airspyhf_rx by SSHing into the Pi via wifi from my iPhone. A few years ago
@lambdaprog.bsky.social suggested modifications to the code that enabled baseband recordings to be made in raw file format that could be opened in SDR#. I ported them over.
@lambdaprog.bsky.social suggested modifications to the code that enabled baseband recordings to be made in raw file format that could be opened in SDR#. I ported them over.
November 26, 2024 at 4:23 AM
2/4 Currently there’s no physical UI so I trigger airspyhf_rx by SSHing into the Pi via wifi from my iPhone. A few years ago
@lambdaprog.bsky.social suggested modifications to the code that enabled baseband recordings to be made in raw file format that could be opened in SDR#. I ported them over.
@lambdaprog.bsky.social suggested modifications to the code that enabled baseband recordings to be made in raw file format that could be opened in SDR#. I ported them over.
1/4 This is my most portable shortwave spectrum capture contraption yet. A Pi Zero 2W rigged up to an AirSpy HF+ SDR. The Pi has a Waveshare UPS HAT with a small capacity LiPo battery — enough for 70 mins of recording. It is further supported by 4 AA Eneloops, adding 100 mins of extra recording time
November 26, 2024 at 4:23 AM
1/4 This is my most portable shortwave spectrum capture contraption yet. A Pi Zero 2W rigged up to an AirSpy HF+ SDR. The Pi has a Waveshare UPS HAT with a small capacity LiPo battery — enough for 70 mins of recording. It is further supported by 4 AA Eneloops, adding 100 mins of extra recording time
As recommended by Paul PD0SWL on Twitter/X, I looked for a small tuned MW loop at home and found my Tecsun AN-200 that has a wired connection port. Excellent results: easy to de-emphasise intermod source so it disappears and reception much better than w/ whip. (Video: mastodon.radio/@LondonShort...)
January 1, 2024 at 8:55 PM
As recommended by Paul PD0SWL on Twitter/X, I looked for a small tuned MW loop at home and found my Tecsun AN-200 that has a wired connection port. Excellent results: easy to de-emphasise intermod source so it disappears and reception much better than w/ whip. (Video: mastodon.radio/@LondonShort...)
3rd gen Belka is a little hot on the whip on MW. There’s intermod from a strong nearby station on 558 kHz (Panjab Radio) that can be eliminated with the help of a simple attenuator. Surprisingly, the built-in “sensitivity” setting doesn’t address this problem (video: mastodon.radio/@LondonShort...)
December 28, 2023 at 6:59 PM
3rd gen Belka is a little hot on the whip on MW. There’s intermod from a strong nearby station on 558 kHz (Panjab Radio) that can be eliminated with the help of a simple attenuator. Surprisingly, the built-in “sensitivity” setting doesn’t address this problem (video: mastodon.radio/@LondonShort...)
The 3rd generation Belka is a nice little radio. Testing in a London park, I did notice some overloading / images on medium wave (not shown here). Not sure if the source of those are strong VHF, shortwave or medium wave signals. Will do some tests with preselectors to find out.
December 11, 2023 at 3:49 AM
The 3rd generation Belka is a nice little radio. Testing in a London park, I did notice some overloading / images on medium wave (not shown here). Not sure if the source of those are strong VHF, shortwave or medium wave signals. Will do some tests with preselectors to find out.
3 years, 3 models ❤️
December 8, 2023 at 10:14 PM
3 years, 3 models ❤️