The first iteration is up on the swlfest.com web site. Be advised that this
schedule is tentative and subject to change. A less annotated version appears
below.
————————————
2017 WINTER SWL FEST EVENTS AND FORUMS SCHEDULE
(As of 24 January 2017. Tentative and Subject to Change)
Thursday, 2 March 2017
1200 Registration Table and Exhibit Room Open (until 1700)
1300 “Broadcast Towers I've Known and Photographed" – Scott Fybush provides
a visual tour of broadcast transmitter sites including several shortwave
facilities he’s had the privilege of visiting lately.
1430 “Radio on the Road” – Once again, travel the world of radio with Janice
Laws and Steve Karlock in this popular continuing Fest series. Janice has now
visited 84 countries and made many recordings and videos of local stations
she’s heard during her travels. Including hot tips on how to make the most of
your vacations and radio listening hobby, updated for this 30th Fest!
1600 “Getting Started with RTL-SDR” - RTL-SDR refers to a class of hardware
devices based upon a particular DVB-T CODFM demodulator with a USB interface.
While designed to receive off air digital television outside of the US ATSC
system, hobbyists have found for several years that it makes for a great
receiver for VHF and up. Dan Srebnick covers how to get started with free(ly)
available software, and describes some interesting uses of this low-cost
receiver platform.
1700 Dinner on Your Own
1930 Registration Table and Exhibit Room Re-Open (until 2100)
Hospitality Room and Receiver Demonstrations Open (until 2400)
2000 “Radio 101 - The Past, Present and Future of Radio for Newbies and
Significant Others of Radio Geeks" -- Charles Hargrove introduces the
uninitiated to the history and science of radio, describing what is out there
to hear and what new developments are on the horizon. From shortwave to
scanners, satellite TV to covert communications, there is much to receive and
view the world without having to wait for "film at 11" from your local news
outlet.
Friday, 3 March 2017
0800 Registration Table Opens (until 1200)
Exhibit Room Opens (all day)
0830 “What’s Up at RFA?” – Our good friend, Radio Free Asia Program and
Operations Support Director AJ Janitschek, returns with a report on how RFA is
faring in its efforts to provide reliable news and information to Asian nations
lacking free media. He’ll also unveil a little surprise for DXers on the
occasion of the 30th Fest!
0930 “Internet DXing” -- Radio listening is changing. We can now stream
global broadcasters and those former tropical band stations on our smartphones,
tablets and desktop computers. However, there are many stations that the big
aggregators like TuneIn, vTuner and Shoutcast miss in their postings. Tracy
Wood demonstrates how to hunt down those illusive Internet “DX targets” using
search engines, HTML deep dives, packet sniffers, scripts and online geospatial
tools The “Joy of DXing” truly has returned, albeit it’s now Internet-style!
1100 "Pirate Radio Year in Review" – George Zeller leads our annual
discussion of the year in pirate radio--oriented both toward veteran pirate
DXers and also newcomers to this aspect of the radio hobby--including official
announcement of the 2017 class of inductees into the North American Pirate
Radio Hall of Fame.
1200 Lunch on Your Own
Hospitality Room and Receiver Demonstrations Open (until 1330)
1315 Registration Table Re-Opens (until 1500)
1330 “Going Digital: Better Scanning in the 21st Century” -- Tom Swisher
leads our annual session devoted exclusively to scanners where up-to-date
methods for scanning modern communication systems will be demonstrated and
discussed.
1500 “Farewell to the BBG: What's Ahead for U.S. International Media and the
VOA?” -- U.S. government-funded media -- VOA, RFE/RL, RFA, Radio/TV Marti, and
MBN -- are all impacted by legislation signed by Barack Obama in one of his
final acts as president. Our good friend and former VOA White House,
Congressional and Foreign Correspondent Dan Robinson reviews recent events and
offers his views on where things are headed.
1630 "Defining Radio in Software” -- Mark Phillips provides a “1000 mile
view” of what SDR (software defined radio) is, what it does, how we use it all
the time without realizing and why it's really quite a significant milestone in
SWLing.
1730 Dinner on Your Own
Hospitality Room and Receiver Demonstrations Open (until 2400)
1900 Informal Radio Swap Meet Starts (in the Exhibit Room)
2000 “Zenith ‘Long Distance Radio’ and the Highway to DXing” -- The early
(1919-1925) work of Zenith Radio Corporation poured gasoline on the flames of
early DXing and helped spread the fire to the masses. With a description like
that, there has to be an interesting story in there somewhere and Harold “Dr.
DX” Cones, one of the notorious Gang of Three who invented the Fest, is just
the one to tell it.
2115 THE ANNUAL SHORTWAVE SHINDIG! David Goren. (Description pending; will
include a live broadcast via WRMI Radio Miami International, times and
frequency TBD.)
Saturday, 4 March 2017
0800 Registration Table Opens (until 1000)
Exhibit Room Opens (all day)
0830 SWLing in Japan: Past, Present and Future – We are pleased to welcome
once again our friend Toshimichi Ohtaké, joined this year by Sakaé Obara,
representing Japan Shortwave Club (JSWC) and discussing the current state of
the hobby there. SWLing was very popular among teenagers in the country during
1970s-1980s, and that influences the hobby still today.
0945 FM Broadcast DXing – Russ Edmunds (description pending)
1000 Silent Auction Opens (location TBA)
1100 "Pirate Radio in Continental Europe - A Personal View” – Andy Walker
returns with Chris Ise, who have “crossed the pond” to discuss the free radio
scene in Europe of the last 25 years. Chris has operated 'pirate station' Crazy
Wave Radio (CWR) for around 24 years and was one of the main organizers of
Level 48, a network of European pirate operators broadcasting on public
holidays in the mid-90s. He was also involved with the infamous Radio San
Marino broadcast of 1998. In 1999 he was part of the crew on Offshore 98, the
last illegal broadcast station from the North Sea. He will be more well known
to American DXers as the 'DJ' voice of Mystery Radio which broadcast on 6220khz
a few years ago. He has visited most of the major pirate stations throughout
Europe over the years and has many photos, plus some video footage of their set
ups. We are honored that they chose to join us for the 30th.
1200 Lunch on Your Own
Hospitality Room and Receiver Demonstrations Open (until 2400 or
later)
1330 Espionage and Numbers Stations: Behind the Numbers – We're all familiar
with "numbers stations", which have broadcast, encoded messages to spies since
the start of the cold war. Web sites have been devoted to cataloging the
broadcasts, which appear to originate from almost every major (and many minor!)
world powers. But who actually are these numbers stations intended for? Matt
Blaze will examine (declassified) spy cases, how numbers stations have been
used, how the messages are encoded (and why it's considered both secure and
practical), how they sometimes fail, and why they've endured for so long.
1500 Collective Intelligence, Augmented Technologies and Super-Dark Denim --
We lament that as a breed we are dying out. Radio Australia has gone,
interference is high and Norway is switching off all of its FM transmitters -
for good! With such decay surely this must be the time of Armageddon. Actually,
no says Mark Fahey who honors us again by returning from Oz for the 30th.
Never before has so much been happening, he argues. There is a tsunami of
super-dark denim wearing people, with cool haircuts using our receivers and
antennas in amazing ways. Their ideas leverage a blend of technologies and
there now are many thousands of SDRs deployed on the planet doing all types of
cool things. The range of applications is amazing. This presentation will be a
real eye-opener to the power of low cost shortwave radios and their amazing
application when augmented with other datasets and technologies.
1630 Silent Auction Ends
Exhibit Room Closes
1800 Cocktail Party
1830 Annual Banquet
Keynote Speaker: Thomas J. “Skip” Arey, N2EI -- ARRL
Southern NJ Section Manager
and Author of “Radio Monitoring: A
How To Guide” and longtime contributor to various
radio-related publications.
Topic: “A 30 Year Retrospective of the Fest”
2100 The Raffle
2400 The Midnight Ride of Pancho Villa (?)
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