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Text © Copyright 1997 by the Virtual Publishing Company.
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Review: VLF Radio! The Sounds of Longwave

With Sample Audio Clips Online!

By Ed Mitchell, KF7VY, Ham Radio Online

Kevin Carey, WB2QMY, a columnist for Monitoring Times Magazine has put together an audio cassette tape of the fascinating signals found only on the frequencies between 0 and 500 kHz. Carey's tape includes extensive commentary on the history of these signals, plus tips on listening to these signals yourself. Further, Carey provides information on a number of references where you can learn more about listening to the world below 500 kHz.

Of particular significance is that rapid technology change has rendered many of these signals obsolete - or soon to be obsolete. His tape captures for posterity the world of very low frequency transmissions. As such, his tape is a contribution to the history of radio itself.

Carey provides details - and audio samples of - many different types of longwave tranmissions including:

  • Maritime distress
  • Navigation beacons
  • Automated and transcribed weather broadcasts
  • delta GPS or GPS correction signals
  • Longwave AM commercial broadcasts
  • "Lo'fers" - low frequency experimenters band (unlicensed operation)
  • Loran
  • Omega (which I understand is being discontinued this fall)
  • Military RTTY and the encrypted "GWEN" systems
  • Time and frequency standard stations
His tape includes frequencies and tips for listening in to these kinds of transmissions. I first listened to this tape while commuting to and from work and have listened to portions of the tape for a 2nd and third time. Finally, I was sufficiently motivated to start listening to the world below 500 kHz myself - and quickly spotted many of these interesting signals.

If, like most readers of the web site, you are a radio fanatic, you may wish to suggest this tape as a Christmas gift idea. Carey's tape can be ordered from:

Kevin Carey
P.O. Box 56
West Bloomfield, NY 14585 USA

Cost is U.S. $11.95, which includes postage to the U.S.

About The Online Audio Samples

Taking advantage of the unique capabilities of the multimedia Internet, we are providing a review that includes snippets of audio from his tape (with permission). Each of the selections we've included here runs about 15 to 30 seconds. These audio selections are in RealAudio format. You'll need the RealAudio player version 3.0 or newer available from Progressive Networks. Many popular browsers include a built-in player for ReadAudio format files so you may already have the RealAudio player on your system. If not, download from Progressive Networks.

Please note that we do not have the RealAudio streaming server. The included files are in "download" format which means they will download to your system in about 15 to 30 seconds (at modem speeds), and then begin playing in RealAudio. If your browser asks if wish to "Open" or "Save it to disk", choose "Open" to begin playing the audio stream.

These files were digitally recorded from the analog audio tape and then digitally modified using CoolEdit 1.0 digital mixing software to optimize for RealAudio. The RealAudio 3.0 encoder was used to compress the original digital audio files into the RealAudio coding format.

Audio Sound Clips

If you do nothing else, be sure to listen to some of these sample clips, especially Selection 9. Selection 9 is a sample of the eerie and spooky radio signals generated by the Earth itself.
  • Selection 1- Sample of the Introduction, narrated by Kevin Carey.
  • Selection 2- Intro - continued. Many of these signals are no longer available.
  • Selection 3- Intro to 500 kHz/600 meters. Also see the multi-part series of articles here in Ham Radio Online, "The Story of U.S. Coast Guard Radio Operations", by Jeff Herman, KH2PZ / KH6, for a fascinating look at USCG operations on 600 meters.
  • Selection 4- 600 meters US Coast Guard traffic.
  • Selection 5- The world's last navaid of this type.
  • Selection 6- Russian example of this navaid (no longer exists).
  • Selection 7- GWEN - Ground Wave Emergency Network (encrypted data) of the US Air Force.
  • Selection 8- The sounds of the well known Loran navigation system.
  • Selection 9- Mysterious "whistlers", "spirits" and "tweaks" - the sounds of the Earth.
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