Medium Wave Diary

This is the first entry in the new blog. This used to appear as the webmaster’s blog on the Medium Wave Circle website when I acted as the Circle’s webmaster.

More to follow…

Started work on the new website mediumwaveradio.org yesterday. Over the next few weeks more content will be added. I have decided to write this site with php as it will enable changes to be made more quickly. I am still styling the site so you may notice a lot of changes between visits.

The On-line receiver wil be transferred to this site very soon away from the Medium Wave Circle site. Circle members who already have password will still be able to access the receiver.

Finished porting over the On-line Receiver site to the new domain. The restyle has meant a lot of changes to the layout. Now I can start on the new content at last.

A lot of new content has also been added to www.g8szx.mwcircle.org/ about the move of MSF to Anthorn. Worth a quick read.

Noticed both my radio controlled clocks have lost the MSF signal. According to the test schedule at the NPL site Anthorn should be radiating at 100% power today from 10:00 until 14:00. I measured the signal level earlier at -90dBm. Anthorn is over twice the distance away from me than Rugby, so I hope that Anthorn is actually on a lower power level, otherwise my clocks are going to struggle in the future.

A copy of the test schedule can be obtained from http://g8szx.mwcircle.org/  

Looks like the MSF transmission from Anthorn yesterday was not at full power. Thats a relief. I was just about to but my two clocks on E-bay before the rush! Further info at www.g8szx.mwcircle.org/

Another 11 copies of Medium Wave News have turned up dating from December 1959 thru April 1960. These have been scanned info .pdf documents and no doubt will be released by the Circle sometime in the future. If it was up to me I would put them on the website now, but it’s not.

In the February 1959 issue there is an interesting bit about the editor Ken Brownless in which he says a lot about himself.

“Amongst Friends, being another article in this series, contributed this time, by your Editor, who first took a real interest in radio just over 21 years ago when receivers with the S.W. band included became popular. A real interest in M.W. DX came at the end of the war. Since then a lot of time has been spent in M.W. listening. Some of the “hot” DX heard here includes signals from the U.S.A. West Coast, Peru, India, Philippine Is., Okinawa and Formosa. Most of these have been logged on the Eddystone 680X. There is also a 740 receiver, kept as a standby. During the summer of 1958 a Grundig TK20 tape recorder was brought. Besides letters on tape to other enthusiasts, a library of music, both of popular and classical music including compositions by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Mozart, Beethoven and Johann Strauss, has been made.

My first M.W. Editorial effort was the B.S.W.L. column. followed by the I.S.W.L  M.W. News, which was taken over from Carl Shapiro. It was from this newsletter that M.W.N. in its present basis was formed aftera breakaway from the I.S.W.L. In addition to the main hobby of radio, I also have a large collection of stamps of the U.S.A. which occupies some of my time. Another interest is Continental travel, my favourite country being Switzerland. Time has also been spent in Belgium, France, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria and Germany. My work is at Rowntree’s in the Traffic Department.”

Seems my optimism about 11 new issues of MWN’s was misplaced. When I came to add the new .pdfs to the archive 6 issues were already there! So only five to add. All is not totally lost as the duplicates were of better quality. We are still missing a big chunk from 1961 to 1964 so the search continues.

There was no test from MSF Anthorn yesterday, but it is confirmed that Wednesdays transmission was at half power. There is some interesting feedback at David Tower’s site, that I maintain on his behalf, at www.g8szx.mwcircle.org/page13a.php .

Work is progressing on the new site, I am currently looking at ways to display the information in a more friendly user way. Hope to publish the first results this weekend.

Probably “off topic” but tonight sees the launch of Skynet 5A, which is a British military satellite, on an Ariane 5 ECA rocket. The lift off is between 10:25 and 10:58 tonight from Kourou, French Guiana. There is a live Internet feed at http://www.videocorner.tv/index.php?langue=en

Opps got the date wrong yesterday for the Skynet launch, this is tonight!

 I received an e-mail from the General Editor of the Circle this morning in which he instructs me not to make any changes to the Circle website as the Circle has total copyright over the site. This is total rubbish as the site design is entirely my own work as is a lot of the content. As a number of members sites are provided as sub-domains of the Circle domain this would also involve those sites as well!

Just for the record the Circle site is hosted on a server for which I pay for. The Circle has never contributed to the running costs. I am also instructed not to make links to any other of my sites. The only link is to the use of the On-line Receiver which is entirely owned and paid for by myself. The link is provided for members who use the receiver to obtain information on it’s use.

The reason I resigned as webmaster was in protest of some very strange decisions that are being made by self appointed Officers of the Circle. This is just another example. Perhaps there should be some other resignations.