VOA Radiogram for the weekend of 31 August and 1 September 2013 included a Base64-encoded image of a VOA logo. Base64 is a means of including an image within the html code of a web page instead of referring the browser to the URL of an image elsewhere on the server. The latter is not an option on shortwave.

The problem is that Base64 requires many characters to produce even a small image, and given the speed of most of the digital text modes used on VOA Radiogram, it would be very time consuming.

This past weekend, we wanted to test the RSID, the brief signal at the beginning of a digital transmission that automatically changes the mode on the listener’s decoding software, for both MFSK64 and MFSK128. MFSK128, at 480 words per minute, is fast enough to make the transmission of a Base64-encoded image somewhat practical.

At that speed, however, the MFSK128 has a rather high failure rate on shortwave. It would be amazing if any of these MFSK128 Base64 logos survived, but some did.

Each of the following was 31 August 2013, 1600-1630 UTC, on 17860 kHz.

First, Guy, KC5GOI, in Texas:

Michael in Germany:

Roger in Germany:

The rather small VOA logo required all of the code below, which even in the 480-word-per-minute MFSK128 mode takes more than three minutes to transmit:

On the other hand, the SVG-formatted VOA logo below, created by UK listener Mark Hirst, only required fifteen seconds to transmit:

Tim, K0RUS, in Colorado has produced this YouTube video of his reception and decoding of VOA Radiogram on 31 August 2013, 1600-1630 UTC (not 1400 UTC), on 17860 kHz:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML58F6kAeZ8

Anthony Spinelli in New York has posted this video of his reception 1 September 2013 at 1930-2000 on 15670 kHz:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=og1jKgrxUKI

OM5NA in Slovakia provides this video of decoding the minute of MFSK32 on The Mighty KBC, 31 August 2013, 1132 UTC, on 6095 kHz via Germany:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi5H3APfgW8

This weekend’s VOA Radiogram will include sample text in Vietnamese and Russian. Vietnamese has all sorts of diacritics, and Russian uses a Cyrillic alphabet, so this will be a real workout for your decoding software. Your character set should be UTF-8. In Fldigi, this adjustment is via Configure > Colors & Fonts.

The program will also attempt to improve the performance of RSID (Reed-Solomon Identification), the brief signal at the beginning of a digital mode transmission that automatically switches decoding software to the correct mode and audio frequency. I produced the program using Fldigi 3.21.74AB. You will need Fldigi 3.21.73 or newer for the MFSK64 and MFSK128 RSIDs to work correctly. If you have a previous version of Fldigi, or another decoding software, I have provided time for the mode to be changed manually. 

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, 31 August/September 1 2013:

2:55  MFSK16: Program preview

3:10  MFSK32: Vietnamese and Russian text samples

2:58  MFSK32: Discussion of RSIDs

1:50  MFSK64/Flmsg: VOA News re dung beetles*

  :56  MFSK32: Image of dung beetle

3:07  MFSK128/Flmsg/Base64: VOA blue logo*

2:16  MFSK64: VOA News re China hack attack

2:38  MFSK32: VOA Khmer radio photo contest

2:31  MFSK32: Image of submitted radio photo

1:10  MFSK16: Closing announcements 

  :15  Surprise mode of the week

*To make Flmsg work with Fldigi, in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS, under Reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your Flmsg.exe file is located. 

VOA Radiogram transmission schedule

(all days and times UTC)

Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz

Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz

Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz

Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz

All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.

Please send reception reports to radiogram (at) voanews.com

VOA Radiogram for the weekend of 24-25 August 2013 is featured in YouTube videos.

From Lorenzo in Italy for the Saturday 1600-1630 UTC broadcast on 17860 kHz:

youtu.be/e0-gi1AvY00

From Matt in Quebec, using a receiver in Nova Scotia, for 1930-2000 on 15670 kHz:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bUqKhd8l2w

From Tim in Colorado, same broadcast. This is a good example of decoding text in marginal reception conditions:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YEf5mMOI2M

During his reception of the Chinese text sample on 24 August 2013, during the 1600 UTC broadcast, 17860 kHz, Fiorenzo Repetto in Italy saw blocks instead of characters in his Fldigi receive window.

He copied and pasted those blocks to Google Translate, which duly translated the content into English:

He also dropped the blocks into Microsoft Word, and the proper Chinese characters appeared:

We will transmit another sample of VOA Chinese text on this weekend’s VOA Radiogram. If blocks appear rather than Chinese characters, try copying and pasting those blocks to a word processor to see if the characters appear.

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, 23-24 August 2013:     

2:20  MFSK16: Program preview

1:46  MFSK32: Chinese text sample*

6:33  MFSK32: VOA News re robot, with image

6:39  MFSK32: VOA News re Kepler Telescope, with image

4:32  MFSK64/Flmsg: RFE/RL News re left-handers in former USSR**

1:18  MFSK32: Image accompanying left-hander story

1:11  MFSK16: Closing announcements

1:24  MFSK16: VOA Radiogram logo (500x44)

 *Use the UTF-8 character set. In Fldigi: Configure > Colors & Fonts > Select Char Set. Close and restart Fldigi between VOA Radiogram broadcasts.

 **To make Flmsg work with Fldigi, in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS > Under reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your Flmsg.exe file is located.

And this just in from W1HKJ, author of Fldigi:

MFSK-64 RsID will not be decoded on fldigi versions post 3.21.72

If you manually switch to MFSK-64 and do not catch the leading text stream for the flmsg data transfer, you should immediately hold the control key down and left click on the waterfall signal.

That will do a playback of the prior 2 minutes of audio stream.  The MFSK-64 decoder will catch the leading text and then proceed as normal.  This technique will insure that fldigi will open flmsg with the decoded flmsg text stream.

Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com

VOA Radiogram transmission schedule
(all days and times UTC)
Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz
All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.

Dezider, OM5NA, in Slovakia, produced this YouTube video showing the first VOA Radiogram experiment with Chinese text. It was 18 August 2013 during the 1930-2000 UTC broadcast on 15670 kHz, transmitted from North Carolina. An MFSK32 image of the VOA Chinese logo is first, followed by the Chinese text:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHjFp6oIssg

Denis, IV3PGQ, in northern Italy, provides this video that starts with a VOA Spanish news story and. later, the Chinese text. It was received 17 August 2013 during the 1600-1630 broadcast on 17860 kHz:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFiYJ3mV39A

Also from Denis, this video from 18 August during the 1930 UTC broadcast on 15670 kHz. It’s one minute showing various images and text during the program:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAObvmCfIRI

Gilles in Montreal  produced this video from 18 August 2013 during the 0230-0300 UTC broadcast on 5745 kHz. It starts just as the MFSK64 VOA news stories are beginning:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8DncrTjCAo

Timothy, K0RUS, in Colorado, recorded the same 5745 kHz broadcast, from the VOA Spanish news story to the end. In his video, the Chinese characters appeared as blocks, but the characters appeared correctly for me decoding from Timothy’s audio. If you want to try this at home, be sure to use the UTF-8 character set:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAtk07hTiSs

VOA Radiogram on 17 and 18 August will include our first attempt to transmit Chinese characters. (It’s part of a VOA Chinese story about the future of BlackBerry.) And there will be a VOA News story in Spanish. To view the Spanish accents and the Chinese characters, your character set should be UTF-8. In Fldigi: Configure > Colors & Fonts to change the character set.

The broadcast will also include an Flmsg VOA News story including an SVG-formatted VOA logo created by Mark Hirst in the UK. If you have Internet Explorer, and cannot see the logo, try renaming the Flmsg file with an .xhtml suffix.

If you listen to more than one broadcast of VOA Radiogram this weekend, close Flidigi and restart it between broadcasts. This is because something in Flmsg turns off the UTF-8 character set, even though Fldigi is still configured for UTF-8.

Two of this weekend’s VOA News stories on VOA Radiogram feature VOA journalists who are radio amateurs. VOA Asia correspondent Steven Herman, W7VOA (@W7VOA), is interviewed about his visit to North Korea, and George Putic, KI4FNF, wrote the story about the renewed search for extraterrestrial life.

And there will be a VOA News story about a way to keep older brains healthy – other than experimenting with digital modes.   

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, 17 and 18 August 2013:

3:04  MFSK16: Program preview
4:50  MFSK32: VOA Spanish logo and news re VOA app
1:46  MFSK32: VOA Chinese logo and sample text
3:26  MFSK32: VOA News re benefits of hot chocolate
1:22  MFSK32: VOA Radiogram logo and addresses
4:43  MFSK64: VOA’s W7VOA visits North Korea
1:18  MFSK32: Photo of W7VOA in Pyongyang
3:28  MFSK64/Flmsg*: VOA’s KI4FNF on search for extraterrestrials
1:18  MFSK32: Photo of Gemini Observatory
1:12  MFSK16: Closing announcements
0:16  Surprise mode of the week

*To make Flmsg work with Fldigi (both can be downloaded from w1hkj.com), in Fldigi: Configure > Misc > NBEMS – Under Reception of flmsg files, check both boxes, and under that indicate where your Flmsg.exe file is located.

As always, reception reports are much appreciated and should be sent to radiogram@voanews.com

VOA Radiogram transmission schedule
(all days and times UTC)
Sat 1600-1630 17860 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1300-1330 6095 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz
All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.

Gerhard, W6XH, who is the IBB engineering supervisor of the VOA Radiogram project, recently purchased a 1938 Philco console radio.

He used it to receive and (with the help of a laptop PC) decode MFSK on VOA Radiogram during the weekend of 3-4 August 2013.