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RSID: <<2016-08-13T00:31Z MFSK-32 @ 7730000+1500>>


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This is WRMI, Radio Miami International, transmitting in the
MFSK32 mode from Okeechobee, Florida, USA.

In March 2013, the Voice of America began transmitting text and
images, using digital modes borrowed from the amateur radio
community, on a 50-year-old analog AM shortwave transmitter
heretofore used only for voice and music.

This was beginning of VOA Radiogram, a weekly program that is
broadcast every Saturday and Sunday.


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VOA Radiogram has demonstrated that analog shortwave transmitters
can be used to broadcast text and images. They can be a
substitute when or where the Internet is not available.

Text via shortwave can also be useful for transmitting detailed
information, such as names, URLs, and playlists.

An important advantage of text via shortwave is that content
can often be received successfully in marginal conditions in
which conventional voice broadcasts are difficult to understand.

If reception conditions are very poor, the content does not drop
out. Some of the text is still received.

Text via shortwave can be received unattended, for example,
while the listener is at work, or sleeping, to be read later
at a convenient time.


Uses existing transmitters and receivers

Text and images can be broadcast on any existing analog shortwave
(or medium wave, or longwave, or FM) transmitter. No modification
or additional exciter is required. Just play the tones out the
same as any voice or music program audio.

Text and images via analog radio can be received on any existing
shortwave radio, including radios with no SSB capability.


Sending Pic:270x180;

The audio from the radio must be fed to a personal computer, or
to an Android device, where free software decodes the modes and
displays the text and images.

Most VOA Radiogram listeners use Fldigi from w1hkj.com. You are
now watching the decoding of this text using the Fldigi software.

Other decoding software is available, including MultiPSK. For
Android devices, TIVAR (Text and Images via Analog Radio) is
available.

Usually, the shortwave audio is fed to the computer using a patch
cord. If that is not possible, "acoustical coupling" may be used:
Simply place the radio's speaker near the built-in mic of a
laptop PC or Android device.

Because text and images are broadcast on an AM transmitter, the
listener can receive using AM, USB, or LSB.

 

MFSK32 is our favorite mode

During its first year on the air, VOA Radiogram did side-by-side
tests of the various digital modes: BPSK, QPSK, MT63, DominoEX,
Thor, Olivia, and MFSK. After several weeks, MFSK32 -- about 120
words per minute -- was found to provide the best combination of
speed and performance, i.e. providing successful decodes under
typical, less than perfect shortwave reception conditions.

If good (better than average) shortwave reception conditions are
expected, for example within Europe during the day on 6 MHz, a
faster version of MFSK can be used.

Let's try it. WRMI now changes to MFSK64, 240 wpm. The mode will
begin with its RSID. Fldigi's RxID will use the RSID to
automatically change its mode ...




RSID: <<2016-08-13T00:38Z MFSK-64 @ 7730000+1500>>


This is WRMI, Radio Miami International, Okeechobee, Florida,
USA, transmitting in MFSK64.

If reception is not good at the moment, this MFSK64 text will
probably show a few errors.

Sample text:

     Radio Miami International was founded in 1989 by Jeff White
     (currently General Manager) and Kiko Espinosa (chief
     engineer, who passed away in 2005). RMI began broadcasting
     in 1989 via hired airtime on other shortwave facilities in
     various locations. Eventually, White and Espinosa applied
     for a license from the U.S. Federal Communications
     Commission to put their own station on the air from Miami,
     and they brought two additional partners into the company.
     In June of 1994, WRMI went on the air.

Other MFSK "flavors" include MFSK128, 480 wpm, which is
probably useful only on local MW, LW, or FM signals. There is
also MFSK16, 55 wpm, which can be effective in difficult
reception conditions.

WRMI now returns to MFSK32 ...




RSID: <<2016-08-13T00:39Z MFSK-32 @ 7730000+1500>>




This is WRMI transmitting in MFSK32.


Another bonus of MFSK is its ability to transmit images ...


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The MFSK images can be any size or perspective. VOA Radiogram
usually limits photo size to no larger than 300 x 200 pixels, or
200 x 300 pixels, which requires about three minutes to transmit.

The pictures can often be fuzzy due to shortwave conditions, but
the text received 100% because of the forward error correction
built into the text version of the MFSK modes.


We usually transmit our modes on a center audio frequency of 1500
Hz. The audio frequency can be placed anywhere from 500 to 2500 Hz.

Let's move the MFSK32 up to a center audio frequency of 2200 Hz.
Again the RSID will signal the frequency, and the RxID will
automatically move Fldigi to that frequency.

Moving the audio frequency higher can be useful if you are
expecting annoying co-channel interference ....



 

RSID: <<2016-08-13T00:43Z MFSK-32 @ 7730000+2200>>


This is WRMI in MFSK32 centered on 2200 Hz.

Most voice and music occurs at frequencies below 1500 Hz, so
moving the digital mode frequency to a higher audio frequency can
help escape the noise.

Sample text:

     The station broadcast with a 50,000-watt Wilkinson AM50,000B
     transmitter, as well as a 5,000-watt auxiliary transmitter.
     WRMI had a corner reflector antenna beaming 160 degrees
     toward the Caribbean and Latin America, and a yagi-style log
     periodic antenna beaming 317 degrees toward North America.
     The two antennas were used at different times of the day,
     meaning that certain hours were beamed to North America and
     other hours to the Caribbean and Latin America.

Another way to overcome co-channel interference is to use a
mode that occupies the entire 2000 Hz available in each sideband of a
shortwave broadcast transmission.

Let's try Olivia 64-2000: 64 tones, 2000 Hz wide. It's slow,
about 25 wpm, but amazingly robust in difficult reception
conditions ...
 

RSID: <<2016-08-13T00:45Z OL 64-2K @ 7730000+1500>>
 

This is WRMI in Olivia 64-2000 (mixed with Slim Whitman).

Sample text:

     In December of 2013, Radio Miami International purchased the
     former Family Radio shortwave station in Okeechobee,
     Florida, and we moved all of our transmissions to the new,
     much larger facility in Okeechobee. Our transmitter site in
     Hialeah (Miami) was closed), although we maintain an office
     and a studio in Miami.


WRMI now returns to MFSK32 ...
 

RSID: <<2016-08-13T00:48Z MFSK-32 @ 7730000+1500>>


This is WRMI in MFSK32.

If the software is configured for the UTF-8 character set, the
digital modes can be used with languages with diacritics, for
example, Czech ....

ČRo Vltava a ČRo Radio Praha (zahraniční vysílání) vyhlásily anketu zahraniční Čech roku.

And even non-Latin alphabets ...

Астрономы считают, что комета растворилась на подлете к Солнцу.

美国泳坛新秀莱德基赢得奥运会女子400米自由泳金牌。


Transmit a web page

If plain text can be transmitted via shortwave, so can html code.
Using Flmsg, an add-on to Fldigi, a formatted web page opens
automatically in the listener's browser.

Here's an example: First the code, then the formatted page will
display:

 

Try it!

Shortwave broadcasters: It's not difficult to transmit text and
images via analog radio.

Here are the basic steps:

1) Copy content from a website or an electronic document to the
transmit pane of Fldigi. That's the blue area below.

2) Click the T/R button, at the bottom right of the Fldigi
interface, to begin "transmitting." More likely you will record
the tones using Fldigi's built-in wav recorder, or the audio
recorder of your choice. Then use an audio editor to compile the
segments and to delete any mistakes.

3) Play out the tones like any voice or music content.

If more shortwave broadcast stations transmit text and images,
even if only for a few minutes a week, this will encourage
developers to create simplified software and apps. It might also
encourage receiver manufacturers to include the ability to decode
and display text and images on future shortwave radios.

If you have any questions, contact Kim Andrew Elliott at VOA Radiogram:

radiogram@voanews.com

http://voaradiogram.net

VOA RADIOGRAM TRANSMISSION SCHEDULE

(days/times UTC)

Saturday 0930-1000 on 5745 kHz
Saturday 1600-1630 on 17580 kHz
Sunday 0230-0300 on 5745 kHz
Sunday 1930-2000 on 15670 kHz

All via the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in North Carolina.



This is WRMI

Radio Miami International

transmitting from Okeechobee, Florida, USA

Please send reception reports to info@wrmi.net

Thank you for listening and decoding.



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DRM-images   -   received via EASYPAL/DSSTV on 7058 kHz/LSB  [2016-08-15]          (FRG-100 / Dipol for ~7 MHz)

Here are two pics of  DL7VOE  [Wolfgang Oelschlaeger, D-15732 Schulzendorf, Germany]  concerning   WRMI / TIVAR  :

http://www.rhci-online.net/radiogram/VoA_Radiogram_2015-03-21.htm#DL7VOE

http://www.rhci-online.net/radiogram/VoA_Radiogram_2016-03-05.htm#DL7VOE

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                                            http://www.kbcradio.eu/

RSID: <<2016-08-14T00:31Z MFSK-32 @ 9925000+1500>>

    re-designed for non-autoplay - because there is another inline frame with a video-autoplay in the VOA-radiogram area.......

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RSID: <<2016-08-13T16:01Z MFSK-32 @ 17580000+1500>>


Welcome to program 176 of VOA Radiogram from the Voice of
America.

I'm Kim Andrew Elliott in Washington.

Here is the lineup for today's program, all in MFSK32 centered on
1500 Hz:

  1:34 Program preview (now)
  2:54 Pinatubo eruption hid rate of sea level rise*
  8:58 Do black holes have black door?*
12:49 No new stars at Milky Way's center*
16:31 Method to convert CO2 to fuel
18:19 Flmsg: Hubble Telescope gets extension (video)
19:56 FCC action on amateur radio digital modes*
23:58 Special WRMI broadcasts showcase digital modes*
25:30 Closing announcements*

* with image


Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com.

And visit voaradiogram.net.

Twitter: @VOARadiogram







VOA NEWS

Mt. Pinatubo Eruption Hid Rate of Sea Level Rise

Kevin Enochs
August 10, 2016

The 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines was the
second largest of the 20th century. The eruption, according to
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), ejected more than five cubic
kilometers of material into the atmosphere, some of it nearly 35
kilometers into the atmosphere. "Fine ash fell as far away as the
Indian Ocean," according to the USGS, "and satellites tracked the
ash cloud several times around the globe."

Around Mount Pinatubo, a blanket of ash, in some cases over 200
meters thick filled deep valleys, and the violence of the
eruption reduced the mount to a volcanic caldera (crater), 250
meters shorter than it had been before the eruption.

New research released Wednesday says that the volcano not only
covered up a huge area of the Philippines.

It has also been covering up evidence of sea level rise.

Blanket of cooling ash

The new study was led by the National Center for Atmospheric
Research (NCAR) and is published in the journal Scientific
Reports.

It notes there has been general agreement that sea levels over a
little more than two decades have been fairly consistent, rising
about 3 millimeters per year.

But the paper notes that we first began measuring the rate of
rising sea levels in 1993, just two years after the eruption of
Mount Pinatubo when the effects of that eruption were still
having a significant impact on the environment.

According to the USGS Web page, "Nearly 20 million tons of sulfur
dioxide were injected into the stratosphere in Pinatubo's 1991
eruptions, and dispersal of this gas cloud around the world
caused global temperatures to drop temporarily (1991 through
1993) by about 1°F (0.5°C)."

Those colder temperatures literally slowed the rate of sea level
rise, skewing statistics from the get-go. One of the authors of
the research John Fasullo from NCAR told VOA, "The main point of
the paper is that the eruption changed the timing of sea level
rise since 1991 and thus prevented an estimate of
acceleration..."

Sea level rise accelerating

Three millimeters a year admittedly isn't much, but Fasullo says
it's likely going to get worse. "In the absence of a major
volcanic eruption," he says, "we can expect progressively
increasing rates of rise in the coming decades." He says it's
hard to predict exactly how much faster sea levels will rise in
the coming years, and natural variability in the weather will
impact the rate.

But he adds the important thing to take away from his new work is
"acceleration is real and ongoing and that the timing of the
eruption of Mt Pinatubo has limited our ability to quantify
acceleration directly from the altimeter record."

Fasullo told VOA that climate scientists all over the world are
working on getting new numbers that are "the focus of significant
field work in Greenland and Antarctica, and major modeling
efforts."

http://www.voanews.com/content/mount-pinatubo-climate-change/3459069.html

Image: The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 ...


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This is VOA Radiogram from the Voice of America.

Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com.


The following stories are from

VOA SCIENCE WORLD BLOG

Rick Pantaleo
August 5th, 2016


Do Black Holes Have Back Doors?

Most people describe a black hole as a cosmic object with gravity
so strong that it sucks in any kind of material that comes close
to it.

What happens to stuff that is pulled into a black hole?

Some scientists think that matter that enters a black hole gets
crushed into a tiny point at the center called a "singularity"
and is destroyed.

A new Spanish study proposes that matter may survive its trip
into a black hole and then exit out its other side.

The study suggests that the black hole's singularity could be
compared to an imperfection in the geometric structure of
space-time such as a wormhole.

According the researchers, after an object enters the black hole
it would be stretched or "spaghettified," which allows it to
enter the wormhole. The object would then be restored to its
normal size after exiting the wormhole.



Image: A computer-generated image of the light distortions
created by a black hole ...


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Study: No New Stars at Milky Way's Center

A new study finds a huge region at the center of Milky Way is
devoid of young stars.

A team of Japanese, South African and Italian astronomers,
writing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
found that there are no Cepheid stars an area that extends to
some 8,000 light years from our galaxy's center.

Cepheid stars are said to repeatedly pulsate in brightness and
are quite young, between 10 and 300 million years old, compared
to our 4.6 billion year old sun.

Astronomer Giuseppe Bono, one of the study's authors, said their
research shows there has been no significant star formation in
this large region of the Milky Way for over hundreds of millions
years.

The researchers analyzed observations made in the near-infrared
light range, since looking for stars so deep in the galaxy can be
difficult.

Accumulations of interstellar dust can block out light and can
hide many stars from view.




Image: An artist's impression of the implied distribution of
young stars, shown as blue stars, plotted on the background of a
drawing of the Milky Way.

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Scientists Develop New Method to Convert CO2 into Fuel

A number of studies have linked increases in atmospheric carbon
dioxide with global warming and climate change.

Because of this, scientists have focused a lot of their research
efforts in trying to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

In process known as photosynthesis, trees and other plant life
take CO2 in the air and with help from the sun converts it to
sugars that store energy.

Now, a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne
National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Chicago,
offers a new method that could allow for the conversion of carbon
dioxide into a usable energy source in a manner similar to
photosynthesis.

Trees and plants use natural enzymes to help spark the CO2
conversion to sugars.

The study proposes the use of a metal compound called tungsten
diselenide to help convert the greenhouse gas into usable fuel
such as methanol.

http://blogs.voanews.com/science-world/2016/08/05/black-hole-back-doors-ios-atmosphere-no-new-stars-in-galaxy-center/  (with links)





VOA NEWS

Hubble Space Telescope Gets New 5-year Contract

JoEllen McBride
August 11, 2016

An autoplay link to the video version of this VOA News story
is transmitted in Flmsg format:


 

 

This is VOA Radiogram from the Voice of America.

Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com.


From ARRL, the (US) national association for amateur radio, news
about the digital modes:

FCC "Symbol Rate" Rule Making Proposal Open for Comment at Least
Until October

08/10/2016

In a July Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in WT Docket
16-239, the FCC proposed to revise the Amateur Service Part 97
rules in response to the ARRL's so-called "Symbol Rate" Petition
for Rule Making (RM-11708), filed in late 2013. The proceeding
will remain open for public comment at least for another 60 days,
since the NPRM has not yet appeared in The Federal Register, thus
starting the 60-day clock.

ARRL had asked the FCC to change the Part 97 rules to delete the
symbol rate limits in §97.307(f) and replace them with a maximum
bandwidth for data emissions of 2.8 kHz on amateur frequencies
below 29.7 MHz.

In its NPRM, the FCC proposed to eliminate the current baud rate
limitations for data emissions, consistent with ARRL's Petition,
but it declined to propose a bandwidth limitation for data
emissions in the MF and HF bands to replace the baud rate
limitations.

The official deadline to file comments will be announced when it
becomes available. The ARRL plans to comment in the proceeding.

With links to FCC documents:
http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-symbol-rate-rule-making-proposal-open-for-comment-at-least-until-october

See the ARRL website for other news about HF (shortwave) and
about SSTV from the International Space Station ...

http://www.arrl.org/news/haarp-facility-to-reopen-in-2017-under-new-ownership

http://www.arrl.org/news/now-free-of-haarp-us-air-force-still-wants-to-tinker-with-the-ionosphere

http://www.arrl.org/news/slow-scan-television-transmissions-from-iss-set-for-august-15-16

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This weekend through Tuesday, WRMI, Radio Miami International,
will transmit special broadcasts showcasing digital text and
images via analog radio.

For details and the schedule, visit:

http://voaradiogram.net/post/148784430842/wrmi-will-showcase-digital-modes-via-analog-radio

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Please send reception reports to radiogram@voanews.com.

And visit voaradiogram.net.

Twitter: @VOARadiogram

Thanks to colleagues at the Edward R. Murrow shortwave
transmitting station in North Carolina.

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

This is VOA, the Voice of America.




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