Being a SWL

One of my hobbies was Short-wave Radio where you can listen to stations from around the World, learning about people, places and lives often different from you own and maybe have a request read out.

It's something I did from the age of eight where as a young boy I'd listen to Transworld Radio moving on the the Shortwave Merry-Go-Round show on Swiss Radio International a couple of years later and joined a 'ham radio' Society as a teenage boy.

If you gave a report of how well you received that station together with comments on the show you listened to then often you'd get colourful postcards and assorted goodies.

Doing this requires a certain level of organizational ability to recall where on the dial the station is and what the best time to listen happens to be because radio waves using these frequencies aren't just received  at a line of sight way, they're reflected making it easier to receive at certain times compared to others and also as the seasons change the best frequencies to reach people vary so you have seasonal changes to note down.

Over the years I've had many receivers from older table top tube sets from the 40's & 50's right through until I became poorly(tm) some 15 or so years back a Yaesu FRG 7000 semi professional communications receiver with matching VHF convertor  and antenna tuning unit that lent itself also to listening to shipping and 'ham radio' (those funny people the British comedian Tony Hancock sent up in a timeless TV comedy episode!).

Recently a family friend who was going through some major problems gave me  scarcely used 'new' short wave radio as the nature of their condition's was such they'd just 'lose it' destroying anything they couldn't get on with a hammer. This was one a good many things at risk of destruction. It's made by Etón and it's called the E5.

Anyway it's a small unit covering both the traditional 'AM' broadcast Bands -  that's to say Medium Wave plus Long Wave - and continuous shortwave coverage right up to 30 Megahertz taking in the popular 49, 41, 31, 25 and 17 Metre shortwave broadcast bands traditionally broadcast using Amplitude Modulation (A.M).

It also covers the Ham Radio bands coming complete with the Beat Frequency Oscillator to resolve the way Hams transmit talk (using SSB) or use Morse Code (C.W.) with a fine adjuster so it doesn't sound like Mickey Mouse as well as CB Radio although at least in the UK it sounds a bit dead around here.

For good measure it has  stereo FM radio with a headphone output coupled with a output to plug into an external amplifier or recorder which is handy.

What I like about is it's very easy to tune stations in as you use a wheel while looking at the frequency display and you can store up to 700 stations in a memory in 100 pages of 7 entries which is sufficient to cover several frequencies used by one broadcaster per page.

It's less fiddly than my communications receiver to use as they've removed most of the knobs I struggled to turn although the performance isn't quite as good on the very noisiest signals but you can use as a portable for listening to local stations first thing catching up with travel information saving you from having to have a separate set just for that.

Reception with the rod antenna built in is surprisingly good.

Some have complained the buttons are a bit close most likely men with the build of a lumberjack but with my small paws they fit perfectly so I'm enjoying re-connecting to this hobby of mine on something I can now use.

Arrietty

I had this for a while but forgot to write about it with having a damaged disc on arrival to deal with.

Arrietty is  based upon the classic English children's book The Borrowers by Mary Norton, this adaptation takes the action to Tokyo where Arrietty's family are discovered in a mansion by Sho, a young boy.

The anime was developed by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi being released on dvd and blu ray January 9th in the UK.

This anime is well up to the Studio Ghibi standards being a largely faithful retelling of the original story but with a poignant ending as Arrietty realizes she and the Big People have to live alone departing with gifts from Sho.

Recommended to all.

A playing, making, thinking little Tammy

 

In all this talk about regressed life, the idea of making things hasn't really been explored much and yet however imperfect my actual childhood was it did involve making things from kits and so a return to making things from something like this really would make sense no least in developing my co-ordination, imagination and problem solving skills.

Doing that would help in my more adult side of life that I cannot escape too because such skills are transferrable

Classical music volume 2

The last time I mentioned classical music on here was last year where I mentioned some of disc I'd bought and some I'd replaced.

Since then I've been working slowly on my collection which goes back to the early days of the compact disc after a childhood of vinyl and cassettes both looking at replacements as well as new recordings to me. 

An instrument I do like is the is the horn and I picked up a recording from 2007 by the trumpet player Tine Thing Helseth with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra  that has various works on it on Simax PSC 1292.

It features Haydn's trumpet concerto (see below), Albinoni's  plus two by Johann Baptist Georg Neruda and Johann Nepomuk Hummel and is a super audio cd thatr plays on regular players like mine.

We'll start with Handel where having last year replaced one cd of the Water Music I was looking at replacing a single cd with one of his Opus 3 and three  of his Opus 6 Grand Concertos on Naxos I bought in 1989. The recording quality was good the players very good but somehow the conductor doesn't really bring the compositions to life.

I recently bought the recordings made in 1964 and 1968 by the Academy of St Martins in the Field who play with modern instruments (I don't like 'original' as a rule) conducted by Sir Neville Marriner that have the complete set of compositions on three cds.

Originally made for Argo the sound is very well balanced and these a lovely performances well worth the modest price of this set in the Decca Originals series (475 867-2)

Haydn is a near contemporary who was under represented in my collection with a cd of cello Concertos and one of series of discs put out by the HMV stores in the early 1990's with his 94th Symphony and the Trumpet Concerto.

I had the 94th Symphony recorded by the English Chamber Orchestra with Jeffery Tate conducting but didn't get the whole set originally issues as separate full price cds between 1987 and 1992.

This was different to the his Mozart series I did get at the time and wrote about in 2005 and having looked at the merits of buying the originals used or a new repackage decided on the latter as they are straight reissues from the original digital masters.

I bought the 2008 re issues on Classics for pleasure as a set of two double cds at 'bargain price' of the London symphonies so-called cos he wrote them while performing in England as I liked the version of the 94th I had (Classics for pleasure 5 21855 -2  &  2 28369 -2).

While in the mood I added a set of his String Quartets part of  series by DG where older discs are packed in a small box with notes at 'bargain price' performed by the Amadeus Quartet that I used to borrow a lot from the local library but never got around to owning (DG 477514-2) so knew I'd like these performances.

Schubert's symphonies were something I grew up with and I had a series of recordings on cd conducted by Michael Halasz with 5 &8 by the Slovak Phiharmonic and the others by the Failini from Hungary from the mid 1990's. The 9th by the Failini just failed to bring much of the character out of it being a disappointment and the 5 &8 could of been better. 

I could of just replaced the 9th but looking into to it it would of cost almost as much as buying a replacement set and as I wasn't too happy with the 5&8th  I bought the older Berlin Philharmonic performances conducted by Karl Boehm whose work I loved for just under a tenner used.

Having listened to the set I feel he finds that much more detail in the score it's much more sorted overall.(DG 471 307-2 4 cds)

Lacking a set of his String Quartets on cd I added the Melos set from the 60's and 70's whose playing is gorgeous on DG (463 151-2 6 cds) and I was able to get for about £15 new.

Debussy is the kind of French music I like very much inspired by the Impressionists and I had picked up the HMV store compilation in 1992.
That contained some recordings by the French National Radio Orchestra (O.R.T.F.) conducted by Jean Martinon from 1974/5 I liked.

It happened that in EMI's Gemini series there are two double cd sets entitled "Orchestral Works -1/ and -2" of all their recordings which could be had for a darn cheap 4.93 each care of Amazon taking in La Mer, Prelude á l'aprés-midi d'un faune, the Petite suite, Children's corner (with the irresistible Golliwogs cakewalk) plus less performed works ,. with each disc containing over 70 minutes worth of music something a of a bargain I thought.