Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

Another reason I listen to these overseas radio is that I get to discover music I've never heard of. It was through Radio Prague that I learned about Manon Meurte.

This week they played the debut album of Vesna, who have a pop song in Eurovision this year. While the pop song didn't grab me several songs on the debut album, Pata Bohyne, were incredibly beautiful and actually got me to stop cleaning to listen.

Never heard of these folks before, but I very much want to listen to them now.

The full broadcast is here: https://english.radio.cz/broadcast-english-02122023-8774851

https://youtu.be/fRZYo9AljXQ

Most of the house has had a good deep cleaning. Everything but the office. Gonna work on the office tonight, but don't plan to finish it before bed.

Plan for tomorrow is to reseason the comal with some rust remover (it's not got bad rust or anything, just a light orange coloring, but I'd rather it be seasoned with no rust on it at all).

Was listening to Radio Habana Cuba while cleaning house today, and I stopped for a second when they announced they have a set of X-Men stamps. Then went into a deep dive of who and what the X-Men were.

Wasn't expecting that.

And the Games Database is complete. I have 1488 games, of which I've completed a paltry 106. I'm workgin on three games right now, and have officially abandonned one of them for being far too hard.

Wanna take a look?. Google makes the sheet look ugly, but it's far more readable in Libreoffice Calc on my end.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qkFBSWrdQ9vxgXUTV0CuHb5flNCDBpng_0k6M9I9GU4/edit?usp=sharing

Going through my old DOS/Windows archives, and forgot about this completely bonkers and massive tradrmark violation of a game: Rom Check Fail. Warning: staticky sound and random intervals (on purpose!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdcABPCjn0k

Last Night's Dr Who was "Father's Day."

I remember when I first saw this, it was the first of the New Who episodes I really felt I'd connected with, and I thought "Okay, this new show's gonna be alright."

On the re-watch the episode is actually incredibly powerful, and I might even put it above The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances as Eccleston's best. But really, it's not Eccleston that makes the show. It's the dynamic between Pete and Rose Tyler than sells it. And while Jackie is pretty unlikeable for most of the episode, when she comes around to Rose, it really does feel like an earned heartfelt moment.

A really REALLY good episode.

@sclower @ke7zum - I got some really good stuff this morning on 7255 7390 7410 9760 9800 11570 11660. Reception in Seattle isn't normally very good, but these were coming in so clear this morning they could have been local AM stations.

@kf4yfa - For me, the thing that got me into DXing was picking up KIII out of Corpus Christi in San Antonio. KENS in San Antonio wasn't showing Saturday Morning cartoons at the time, but KIII was showing the same ones. I thought it was a new station until I saw "Corpus Christi." Since then, I've been into getting long range signals. :)

Downside was, until I got into Shortwave, I never got another log distance signal for thirty some years....

@kf4yfa - C Crane. They make good stuff for sure!

@kf4yfa - If they're much like SDR Sharp, I can't imagine that they'd do well for screen readers since so much of the information is delivered graphically through waterfall graphs. It might be best to get an real electronic radio.

@kf4yfa - I have two radios.

One is specifically for Shortwave, and is no longer made: Sony's ICF-SW7600GR. It's an AM/FM/Shortwave reciever, but sadly isn't made anymore. You can still find it out there, but it's expensive.

The other is an all purpose SDR radio, but needs a few pieces to get it completely working for shortwave: Nooelec's 820T2. But for it to work, you'll need to plug it into a computer, and for shortwave reception you need an upconverter (I use Nooelec's "Ham It Up" upconverter). You'll also need software to listen in - I used SDRSharp. It's a lot to configure for shortwave, but the upside is you get a massive chunk of radio band to listen into (25MHz - 1750MHz, and everything below 25Mhz with the upconverter).

@kf4yfa - No license. I'm not interested in broadcasting, just listening. I used to DX TV and radio signals as a kid, and Shortwave scratches that same itch. :)

Since I was up this morning, I opened up the shortwave and checked to see what I was missing being a night owl. Apparently I was missing pretty much everything. Super clear signals, many overlapping each other, and several clear as a bell. I'm gonna have to see about setting up a time to record some of these while I'm asleep.

I got seven stations that were not just recognizable, but perfectly listenable like any local AM Station: Radio New Zealand (which comes in like gangbusters most anytime of day), KNLS out of Alaska, Voice of America out of the Phillipines, and China Radio International out of Jinhua and Shijiazhuang. Given that the only station I'd actually listen to was Radio New Zealand, it's not changed much, but my options are better.

My body WANTS to sleep from 8AM to 4PM. Even with the layoff, I'm trying to keep to 4AM-Noon. A wake up at 1PM? Close enough after the last 36 hours of sleep struggle.

Well seeing that my sleep schedule is completely trashed, I may as well watch the sunrise. Cause the McDonald's won't open for another fifteen minutes.

Gotta get those McGriddles when you're awake for them.

Burning off the last of the Threadgill's homemade dinner in one go.

A++ Would cook again.