RSID: <<2020-11-27T00:31Z MFSK-32 @ 9265000+1500>>

Welcome to program 180 of Shortwave Radiogram.

I'm Kim Andrew Elliott in Arlington, Virginia USA.

Here is the lineup for today's program, in MFSK modes as noted:

  1:45 MFSK32: Program preview (now)
  3:02 Damaged Arecibo radio telescope will be dismantled*
  9:15 MFSK64: Newest Radio Shack revival will be online*
15:14 This week's images*
28:05 MFSK32: Closing announcements

* with image(s)


Please send reception reports to radiogram@verizon.net

And visit http://swradiogram.net

Twitter: @SWRadiogram





From New Atlas:

Second cable failure marks the end for famous Arecibo radio
telescope

David Szondy
November 20, 2020

The Arecibo Observatory's famous 1,000-ft (305-m) radio telescope
is to be demolished after a second support cable failed. An
assessment by the engineering firm of Thornton Tomasetti has
determined that the radio dish and its 900-ton instrument
platform are too unstable to be safely repaired.

Once the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world, the
Arecibo radio telescope has been in service for 57 years. It's
funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated
by the University of Central Florida for astronomy, planetary,
solar system, and geospace research, as well as gathering data
for the SETI project to seek out extraterrestrial civilizations.
In addition, it was a filming location for the science fiction
film Contact and the James Bond thriller Goldeneye.

All that came to a halt in August when an auxiliary cable failed
and came loose from one of the support towers, tearing a 100-ft
(30-m) gap in the lightly-built dish. The NSF decided to repair
the dish and commissioned a survey, but on November 6, a second
cable snapped unexpectedly despite being well below its believed
breaking strength. Inspection of other cables found that some of
the main cables had wire breaks and auxiliary cables were
slipping from their sockets.

The upshot of this is that the radio telescope is too unstable to
be safely repaired and could collapse at any time. The
Observatory is therefore working on plans for dismantling the
giant instrument while temporarily closing other site
installations and moving equipment that might be destroyed if the
telescope falls apart catastrophically.

After the demolition is completed, the science and education
centers will be restored.

"Over its lifetime, the Arecibo Observatory has helped transform
our understanding of the ionosphere, showing us how density,
composition and other factors interact to shape this critical
region where Earth’s atmosphere meets space," says Michael
Wiltberger, head of NSF's Geospace Section. "While I am
disappointed by the loss of investigative capabilities, I believe
this process is a necessary step to preserve the research
community's ability to use Arecibo Observatory's other assets and
hopefully ensure that important work can continue at the
facility."

https://newatlas.com/science/arecibo-radio-telescope-demolished-second-cable-failure/

See also:
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=301674



Image: Aerial photo of the Arecibo Observatory in happier times
...





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RSID: <<2020-11-27T00:39Z MFSK-64 @ 9265000+1500>>


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From Science X:


Left for dead, twice, RadioShack gets another shot online

Matt Ott
November 24, 2020

RadioShack, a fixture at the mall for decades, has been pulled
from brink of death, again.

It's the most prized name in the basket of brands that
entrepreneur investors Alex Mehr and Tai Lopez have scooped up
since the coronavirus pandemic bowled over the U.S. retail sector
and sent a number of chains into bankruptcy protection. Those
brands so far include Pier1, Dressbarn and Modell's.

Mehr and Lopez plan to make RadioShack competitive again, this
time online, rather than on street corners or in malls. However,
unlike RadioShack's glory years, it's Amazon's world now.

The big question is: How much value does the RadioShack brand
have when the prized target audience of millennials or Gen Z have
likely never owned a radio, let alone stepped inside a store?

"It's a very thin line between being iconic and being dead," said
Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys Inc., a
marketing and research consultancy. "Being iconic a lot of the
time just means people have a memory of it. I'm not sure that
just remembering something is leverageable enough to be able to
convert something into success."

Success is something that's been in RadioShack's rear-view mirror
for quite some time. The company, which would celebrate its 100th
birthday in 2021, appeared to be on top of the tech world in the
pre-personal computer days of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the
place kids and hobbyist would go to buy radios, walkie-talkies
and all the parts to fix them, or even build them themselves.

Somewhere along the way, "The Shack" got lost. Unable to
capitalize on the PC boom that began in the mid-eighties, it also
found itself largely on the outside of the portable device
revolution of the aughts and drifting toward irrelevancy. It
booked its last profit in 2011. After store redesigns and other
changes failed to draw customers, the Fort-Worth, Texas company
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2015 and then again
two years later.

Mehr and Lopez have no designs on rebuilding the brick-and-mortar
RadioShack empire. But they say there is a path back to
profitability, and it all starts with the name.

"We bought the raw material to build a big business," Mehr said.
"Brand means trust. And the brand is very, very strong. I have
quantifiable data that the brand is very strong."

Mehr said REV's formula for measuring public opinion of a brand
differs significantly from the way other experts value such
things, including their own polling and analysis of how the
company might work in a specific "ecosystem."

The plan, in short, is to build a vast online marketplace on top
of the RadioShack brand. Trust in that name will get consumers to
the site, where the quality and variety of merchandise will
dictate whether or not shoppers click the "Buy" button, they say.

Since it was founded in 2019, REV has been in the hunt for other
names that could once be described as "household." It's turned
Pier1, Dressbarn and Modell's into online-first businesses.

Other bankrupt retailers have found a second life online. The
overhead is low and there are people who remain loyal to the
brand, even after the store lights go out. But they are typically
much reduced affairs. American Apparel, which went bankrupt and
closed all its stores a few years ago, now sells hoodies and
sweatpants online. Toys R Us, which closed its doors two years
ago, opened a couple of small stores and it has a website.
However, the Toys R Us site redirects those who want toys to
Amazon.com.

REV says that its much leaner RadioShack will sell from its own
website and an Amazon storefront. RadioShack was the place to go
for batteries, phone chargers and headphones. Those are products
that Amazon sells under its own brand name in vast quantities.

And therein lies REV's Sisyphean challenge. Megachains like
Walmart and Target have been able to slow Amazon's encroachment,
but Amazon is the ultimate disrupter. It has upended industries
from tech and grocery, to global shipping.

If Amazon is the biggest threat to some of America's largest
corporations, what are the prospects for a relic from the 1980s?

"Amazon is the Death Star," said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the
marketing strategy firm Metaforce. "They have everything and it's
easy and fast. There's no need to go to your corner RadioShack to
find something, or even to RadioShack online."

Yet Mehr doesn't look at Amazon as a competitor. Rather, he said,
it's another channel where RadioShack can sell its products.

"It's like a big mall with a lot of traffic," Mehr said. "So I
think of Amazon as a partner, and I've done that in other brands,
too. So this is yet another distribution channel for us."

REV bought RadioShack from General Wireless Operations Inc. for
an undisclosed amount this year. The former owners have retained
a minority stake, betting on the social media marketing expertise
of Mehr and Lopez.

The new owners say they hope to have RadioShack.com open for
business by the end of the month. About 400 RadioShack locations
remain open, but operate independently from the REV-owned parent
company.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-left-dead-radioshack-shot-online.html

 

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This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK64

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This week's images ...

Retiro Park in Madrid, in a thick fog, November 17.
https://bit.ly/366pAge ...

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"A snowy owl peers out in a residential neighborhood where it's
been seen for over a week in Seattle" https://bit.ly/2J7wQzD ...

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"The light tunnel at the launch of Edinburgh zoo’s Christmas
Nights event. https://bit.ly/378xSTP ...

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Eilean Donan Castle illuminated in red to support the
Scottish Poppy Appeal. https://bbc.in/2V0rMzh ...

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Sunset in Southwest Washington DC, November 19.
https://bit.ly/362pFS0 ...

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Our painting of the week is "Gobble" by Jessica Mingo.
https://bit.ly/364fkoA ...


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Shortwave Radiogram returns to MFSK32 ...


 

RSID: <<2020-11-27T00:58Z MFSK-32 @ 9265000+1500>>



This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK32 ...

 

Shortwave Radiogram is transmitted by:

WRMI, Radio Miami International, wrmi.net

and

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Please send reception reports to radiogram@verizon.net

And visit http://swradiogram.net

Twitter: @SWRadiogram or twitter.com/swradiogram

I'm Kim Elliott. Please join us for the next Shortwave
Radiogram.

RSID: <<2020-11-25T21:48Z MFSK-64 @ 7780000+1500>>

http://www.rhci-online.net/html/RNEI10/rnei10-edit.html

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kp1ths8jmrjhuzo/201102175732-rnei10.7z?dl=0

http://www.rhci-online.net/html/RNEI10/rnei10-edit.html

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kp1ths8jmrjhuzo/201102175732-rnei10.7z?dl=0