Fortunately, Tropical Storm Hermine did not disrupt last weekend’s broadcasts of VOA Radiogram from the Edward R. Murrow shortwave transmitting station in North Carolina. 

We did have a problem with severely slanted MFSK images. I noticed these during the Saturday 0930 UTC transmission, and reports from listeners showed a similar slant. After that broadcast, I experimented with the speed of the recording, settling on a speed reduction of -0.222% to straighten the images. That’s the same as configuring Fldigi for a -2220 ppm Rx sound card adjustment. I sent these parameters in an email to VOA Radiogram listeners, and for the rest of the weekend, I received nice, straight images attached to reception reports. This turned out to be a good real-time problem solving exercise. (This weekend, don’t forget to return Fldigi to Configure > Sound Card > Settings > RX ppm = 0 or whatever it was before last weekend.)

What caused the slant? I upload VOA Radiogram as a wav file to the transmitting station. They burn the wav file to a CD, which is played out through their patch panel. On Friday, 2 September, the audio file was burned to a CD on a Mac computer that is not usually employed for this task. There may have been a sampling rate conflict somewhere in the chain.

This weekend, let’s hope for unslanted images. The entire program will be in MFSK32. One “twist” in the show will be ASCII art at 21:14. You will need UTF-8 (Fldigi: Configure > Colors & Fonts > Rx/Tx > select UTF-8 in the Rx/Tx Character set menu.) You will also need a monospace font such as Courier (adjust that, if necessary, just under the Fldigi Rx/Tx Character set menu).

You’ve probably noticed the new VOA Radiogram waterfall ID at the beginning, and sometimes the end, of the program. That excellent ID was contributed by VOA Radiogram listener Merkouris, SV2HWM, in Greece.  

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, program 180, 10-11 September 2016, all in MFSK32 centered on 1500 Hz:

 1:39  Program preview

 2:58  Europe may declare American lobsters an invasive species*

 6:20  South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping financial woes*

12:40  Russia’s Daldykan River turns red*

16:23  Turkey seizes Deutsche Welle interview video*

21:14  ASCII art**

26:21  Closing announcements*

* with image

** Use UTF-8 and monospace font, e.g. Courier

Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com

VOA Radiogram transmission schedule
(all days and times UTC):
Sat 0930-1000 5745 kHz
Sat 1600-1630 17580 kHz
Sun 0230-0300 5745 kHz
Sun 1930-2000 15670 kHz
All via the Edward R. Murrow transmitting station in North Carolina.

The Mighty KBC moves to a new frequency this weekend. The KBC broadcast to North America will be Sunday 0000-0200 UTC (Saturday 8-10 pm EDT) on 6145 kHz, via Germany. A minute of MFSK32 will be at about 0130 UTC. Reports for this KBC reception to Eric: themightykbc (at) gmail.com .

DigiDX will transmit MFSK32 and probably other modes:

Sunday 2130-2200 UTC, 15770 kHz, via WRMI Florida

Sunday 2330-2400 UTC, 11580 kHz, via WRMI Florida

Monday 2000-2130 UTC, 6070 kHz, via Channel 292 Germany

For schedule updates, visit DigiDX at http://www.digidx.uk/  or https://www.facebook.com/digidx/

IBC (Italian Broadcasting Corporation) has a broadcast to Europe on 6070 kHz, Wednesdays, 2000-2200 UTC, with MFSK32 and Olivia 16-500 at 2030-2100 UTC. And IBC has added MFSK32 transmissions via WRMI in Florida: Friday 0125-0200 UTC on 9955 kHz (Thursday 9:25 pm EDT), part of its 0100-0130 broadcast. And Saturday at 0155-0200 UTC (Friday evening 9:55 pm EDT), on 11580 kHz, part of its 0130-0200 broadcast.  See http://ibcradio.webs.com/ for the complete schedule and contact information