Mike Masnick writes in TechDirt about how politicians are blaming words sent by radio waves for the multiple murders at schools, grocery stores, houses of worship and other so-called "soft" targets around the nation, rather than guns. For instance, Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker said on Fox News last week that the solution to school shootings involves "a department that can look at young men that's looking at women that's looking at social media." Click here to play an excerpt of Walker's statement. Of course, Masnick points out, a government department that is looking into the speech of people also is taking away constitutional rights. Meanwhile, The Washington Post lists all the social media sites used by the recent mass shooters. "Both the Uvalde, Texas, shooter and the one in Buffalo, used a combination of disappearing video-app Snapchat, Instagram direct messages, chat-app Discord, and social-app Yubo to meet people and share their violent plans with acquaintances. In the case of the Buffalo shooting, the gunman also used video streaming platform Twitch to publicize his deadly attack," Masnick wrote. "It’s weird to blame the tools for the actual communications, but that always seems to be the focus." Read more about this story in TechDirt.

ProPublica takes a deep dive into the rollout of 5G wireless technology and how that affected airplanes. The Federal Aviation Administration objected to the Federal Communications Commission’s authorization of 5G networks near airports, but the story paints both agencies as incompetent industry toadies. There is no problem with the 5G technology, but with the altimeters of planes. They are often older, and not designed for our new digital world with more radio signals whizzing all around. The FAA was concerned that altimeters on planes, used in automated aircraft landings, would accidentally receive 5G radio signals, and not give pilots proper readings. Aviation experts warned of “catastrophic failures leading to multiple fatalities," the story says. In January, an agreement was struck, with Verizon and AT&T temporarily not turning on more than 600 5G transmission towers near the runways of 87 airports and reducing the power of others. ProPublica trace the entire story revealing "profound failures" at the FCC. On July 5 the temporary agreement expires, but aviation officials say it would take at two years to replace the older altimeters. "The rhetoric of the FCC chief is almost identical to that of the industry she regulates. As recently as last month, Jessica Rosenworcel, the Biden-appointed FCC chair, dismissed aviation concerns as, in effect, a shakedown — a ploy to get telecom companies to fund a nationwide upgrade of airplane equipment," the story says. Even if another agreement is struck in July, "T-Mobile and other wireless companies are approved to roll out additional 5G service at the end of 2023, using a C-band frequency even closer to the one used by the airplane safety equipment," ProPublica reports. “The wireless companies have made it very clear they’re not going to agree to an open-ended situation,” one FAA official told ProPublica. “They seem willing to go past July 5, as long as they know how far past. But they’re making clear their patience is not infinite.” Click here to read the entire ProPublica story.

Inside Radio reports that National Public Radio host Terry Gross won this year's Peabody Institutional Award. Gross started in radio in 1973 at public radio station WBFO in Buffalo. In 1975 she moved to WHYY in Philadelphia as producer and host of Fresh Air, which was then a local, daily interview and music program. In 1985, WHYY expanded a weekly half-hour edition of the show nationally by NPR. "Fresh Air" became a daily, one-hour in 1987. The show became the first non-drive time show in public radio history to reach more than five million listeners weekly in the fall of 2008. The video above includes Stephen Colbert introducing Gross for the award.

Jo Constantz claims at Bloomberg that New York City removed its last freestanding public pay phone from city sidewalks on May 23, moving it into the Museum of the City of New York exhibit, “Analog City.” The phone booths, at many locations, are being replaced with digital Wi-Fi kiosks. “Truly the end of an era but also, hopefully, the start of a new one with more equity in technology access,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine Tweeted. The digital kiosks include free phone-call capabilities, interactive maps, and USB charging stations. While New York City may be removing all of its pay phones, they are still on sidewalks elsewhere. Right on the sidewalk on N. 4th Street in Hudson across from the WGXC studio, there is a pay phone.

Matthew Rozsa reports at Salon that the radio signals that humans have sent the farthest distance may be having problems getting any further. On Sept. 5, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 space probe, which has now traveled 14.5 billion miles away from Earth. Radio signals to and from the Voyager 1 now take 20 hours and 33 minutes to reach each other. Voyager 1 is so far away it has left our universe, and is now in the interstellar void of the Milky Way. But it is losing power, and the interstellar void seems to be creating havoc. "The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data," NASA said on its website. "But readouts from the probe's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don't reflect what's actually happening onboard." Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, explains further. "We're also in interstellar space – a high-radiation environment that no spacecraft have flown in before. So there are some big challenges for the engineering team. But I think if there's a way to solve this issue with the AACS, our team will find it." The Voyager 1 probe is so far into space that astronomers can now hear the "hum" that our solar system produces as the spacecraft travels outside of it. The hum is "interstellar gas," also known as plasma waves, "It's very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth," said Stella Koch Ocker, a doctoral student in the Department of Astronomy and Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science. "We're detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas." Scientists may keep hearing that hum through 2025, when the radioisotope thermoelectric generators will no longer have enough energy to keep transmitting. Read more about this story at Salon.

In the analog era of broadcasting, television stations transmitting on Channel 6 could also be heard on 87.7-FM. WRGB-TV in Albany, for instance, used to be heard on both Channel 6 television, and 87.7-FM, on radio receivers that could be tuned below 88. But since the full-power television stations switched to digital broadcasts, now all that is heard on FM there is static. In July 2021, all of the remaining analog low-power television stations, except 13, were required to convert to digital. That means there is just static on the dial, or pirate radio stations, on 87.7-FM around the country, except for 13 stations. That could change. The Broadcast Law Blog reports that the Federal Communications Commission has issued a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for its June 8 open meeting on a proposal to authorize low-power TV stations operating Channel 6 to continue to provide an analog audio stream on FM radios at 87.7. The broadcast industry calls these stations "Franken-FMs," since they are both television and radio stations. More importantly, the FCC proposal also asks for comments about whether, with the elimination of most Channel 6 television stations broadcasting audio on 87.7-FM, the frequencies 82-88 MHz could be used for more radio stations in geographic areas where it is not currently used for TV services. So, in Albany, where you could once hear the audio from the Channel 6 TV station, a new FM radio station could possibly be broadcasting in a few years.

Current reports that in October last year South Dakota Public Broadcasting hired Stel Kline, who is transgender and uses they/them pronouns. They lasted at the radio network through April this year. “My position has been terminated despite being told there was nothing for me to improve on at a recent quarterly review,” Kline wrote April 18 on Twitter. “I was told the reasoning is that I am not objective and have a problem with authority." The working relationship did not begin well. An announcement of Kline's hiring in SDPB’s member magazine was to include the use of they/them pronouns and a reference to Kline’s drag name. But Current obtained an email from Fritz Miller, SDPB director of programming and communication, objecting to that. “I’m suggesting that we dump the ‘they’ pronouns and use their last name throughout the article,” Miller wrote. “… I understand and appreciate that Stel is comfortable with sharing that information, and is doing what they can to live their true self, but I fear that the more hate-mongering segment of our population will seize upon this stuff and make it the issue du jour.” Kline says, “Through this very first day on the job, it was just glaringly evident to me that personal bias clouds judgment in this workplace.” In January 2022 during a quarterly review, Cara Hetland, SDPB’s director of journalism content, told Kline that they had nothing to improve upon in their performance. But when Kline was fired, Hetland said their retweet of a Dec. 1, 2021, message by an NPR journalist was an example of inappropriate social media use. That Tweet was about a Supreme Court hearing about a Mississippi abortion law, that included a picture of a sign with text stating “women are not the only people who get abortions.” Previously Kline had been told to share their experiences as a trans person in South Dakota on social media. In another Tweet Kline wrote, “In my interview I was very clear that as a trans person I am unable to be impartial about attacks on my humanity. Objectivity is not a static identity, but when wielded as such becomes the language of those with the most power.... Declaring someone not objective is a selective practice used effectively to exclude POC / queer journos.” Read more about this story at Current.

Anyone who needs to know what time it is, and does not have a clock, or a watch, or any sort of computer, can still find out. The U.S. Naval Observatory still maintains a phone number, 202-762-1401, where anyone can call and hear the exact time. The Navy has several other time numbers, some just for modems. And Jock Elliott reports in the SWLing Blog that there are several shortwave radio stations also set up with only the time of day, repeating endlessly, as content. "The National Institute of Standards and Technology (part of the U.S. Department of Commerce) maintains a couple of stations devoted to broadcasting time announcements, standard time intervals, standard frequencies, UT1 time corrections, a BCD time code, and geophysical alerts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," Elliott writes. WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado, is one station, radiating 10,000 watts on 5 MHz, 10 MHz, and 15 MHz; and 2500 watts on 2.5 MHz and 20 MHz. WWVH, based in Kekaha, Hawaii, transmits 10,000 watts on 10 MHz and 15 MHz, and 5000 watts on 2.5 MHz. "WWV uses a male voice; WWVH, a female voice. They are staggered in time so that they don’t talk over each other. While doing research for this blog, one afternoon on 5 MHz and 10 MHz, I could hear the female voice, followed by the male voice, so I was hearing both Hawaii and Colorado," Elliott writes. There is also a Canadian time station, CHU, transmitting 3000 watts on 3.33 and 14.67 MHz, and a 5000 watts on 7.85 MHz in English and French from Barrhaven, Ontario. And there is also a time station beaming from Moscow, Russia that transmits on 9996 and 14996 kHz. Read more about this story at the SWLing Post..

Radio World reports that at its May 19 meeting the Federal Communications Commission is set to allow FM broadcasters to use computer modeling software for their directional antennas. Currently, FM radio stations using directional antennas must provide physical measurements to verify their directional pattern. So stations, or more often antenna manufacturers have to build a full-size mockup of the antenna or a scale model, which is very expensive. WGXC, for instance, needs a directional antenna for a signal that is sandwiched between the Christian station WPGL north of Schenectady, and New York City's WFUV, and hemmed in by the Catskill and Berkshire mountains. But technology has improved since WGXC first went on the air in 2011, and after this proposal is approved stations can instead submit computer-generated proofs of FM directional antenna patterns instead of the more expensive models. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said that this draft order would, “decrease regulatory costs and bring our FM regulations in line with other broadcast services.” Read more about this story at Radio World.

Randy J. Stine at Radio World breaks down the results from the TechSurvey from Jacobs Media showing the COVID-19 pandemic lowering the amount of radio listening. The 12 percent drop in radio listening in the past year is mainly due, the survey reports, to less time spent in cars. “Since COVID, listening less in the car and lifestyle changes are the top reasons people are listening less to the radio,” said Fred Jacobs, president of Jacobs Media. Many people now work from home, who did not before, and others have changed jobs or professions since the pandemic began. While some are listening to the radio less, others surveyed said they now had a stronger bond with their favorite local station. “In a strange sort of way, some radio stations have actually benefitted from COVID in terms of making that closer connection to their audience when they needed it most,” Jacobs said. Folks surveyed felt a stronger bond, mostly, to local stations. “Overall, the local piece turns out to be a very important factor here,” Jacobs says. Read more about this story at Radio World.

On May 15, Swiss voters approved a four percent tax levy on international streaming services there, to be invested in local film production, with 58.42 percent of voters favoring the measure. Switzerland is the latest European country to support local TV and film production and boost locally-produced content by taxing the international streaming services, such as Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and others. "This result underlines the cultural importance of film-making in Switzerland," Swiss Interior Minister Alain Berset told a press conference on May 15. The international companies can buy locally-made shows, make programmes themselves in the country, or put the money into an investment fund. "We believe that good stories can come from anywhere, and we have already invested in content from Switzerland in the past," a Netflix spokesperson said. Portugal already passed a similar law, with streaming service providers paying one percent of their income to the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisuals. France and Italy also already make streaming services invest a proportion of their revenues in European content in local languages, while Denmark and Spain are considering similar proposals, Reuters reports.

Ars Technica reports that President Joe Biden heaped praise this week on the opponents of his nominee for the Federal Communications Commission, Gigi Sohn. Technology policy, though, is not Biden's priority right now, as raging inflation and Russia's invasion of Ukraine are taking up much of the president's time. Biden announced that Comcast, Charter Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon, and 16 other ISPs, "committed to offer all Affordable Connectivity Program-eligible families at least one high-speed plan [with download speeds of at least 100Mbps] for $30/month or less, with no additional fees and no data caps." the White House said, crowing about a policy to help consumers through inflation. The Affordable Connectivity Program provides eligible households with discounts of $30 a month, so many consumers will get free plans. "You're really changing people's lives. You really are," the president said to the big broadband providers. Instead of short-term announcements such as this, Biden could be passing long term solutions at the FCC if Sohn was confirmed to give Democrats a majority of the FCC commissioners. "Some of the Internet service providers appearing at this White House event are sabotaging President Biden's FCC even as they pose for today's photo op," Free Press VP of Policy and General Counsel Matt Wood said yesterday. "These voluntary commitments form a strange juxtaposition to the aggressive delay efforts orchestrated by the very same broadband providers, wireless carriers, and broadcasters the FCC regulates to stall the confirmation of Gigi Sohn, a strong consumer champion, to the agency," Public Knowledge said. Biden waited almost a year to even nominate Sohn, on October 26, 2021. The Senate Commerce Committee sent the nomination to the full Senate on March 3, but Democratic leaders have not brought the nomination to a vote. "The Biden administration took a painfully long time to nominate the most obvious candidate for the position—Gigi Sohn—and has done precious little to have her confirmed in a reasonable time frame. Though it would be easy to blame Republican opposition, the truth is that it simply does not appear to be a priority for the administration," said Community Broadband Networks Program Director Christopher Mitchell. Ars Technica also reports that Biden, in March 2021, promised to prioritize municipally owned networks, nonprofits, and co-operatives in a $100 billion broadband plan. Congress eventually only voted for $65 billion, and did not give municipal networks priority.

Radio Insight reports that since President Donald Trump signed the 2020 PIRATE Act, the Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau has begun to send warning letters not just to folks they believe are operating pirate radio stations, but also to the owners of the properties the FCC believes are hosting the broadcasts. Four real estate owners getting the letters now have ten days to respond to the FCC that they are addressing the issue. Edwin and Joyce Pitt of Baltimore, MD; Maria V. Hernandez of Kissimmee, FL; Richard Manson of Philadelphia, PA; and Kent and Deanna Coppinger of the Jefferson RV Park in Summerville, OR got the letters that read, in part, “You are hereby notified and warned that the FCC may issue a fine of up to $2,000,000 if ... we determine that you have continued to permit any individual or entity to engage in pirate radio broadcasting the property that you own or manage." The new law Trump signed includes draconian $2 million fines for pirate radio operators, or property owners. It was co-sponsored by Rep. Paul Tonko, who represents Albany County and much of the Capitol District, where there has not been any pirate radio activity reported in many years. While there has not been any local pirate radio activity to get Tonko's attention, he did receive $7,000 in donations during the 2016 campaign from the National Association of Broadcasters, a virulent anti-pirate radio organization. But Inside Radio reports that the new law so far is toothless. The COVID-19 pandemic limited field work by FCC agents, and the FCC says it does not have the manpower to fully implement all of the 2020 PIRATE Act's mandates. And they also say they don't have the money to hire new agents. "President Biden’s proposed spending plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 would increase the FCC’s budget by 4.3 percent in the coming year.... Under the Biden proposal, the Enforcement Bureau would receive an increase of $5 million to implement the new law and to hire the 15 new employees," Inside Radio reports. David Goren, a pirate radio expert who runs pirateradiomap.com, says that the FCC's new giant fines may be working, or pirates may be changing channels and locations. Goren told Columbia Journalism Review last year that, "Recently the FCC sent notices to three stations in Queens, to landlords. There is a station in Queens that I’m able to hear in Brooklyn, probably six miles away, this Ecuadorean station. They were on the air when the notices came out, and they were on the air for several days after, but now they’re no longer on that frequency, so they may have felt some pressure to shut down and move."

Radio Today reports that London's Resonance FM celebrates 20 years of broadcasting this month as one of the world's most creative radio stations. Around the world Resonance FM is known for its radio art, and in England it is known one of the first stations in an experimental program to allow community radio there. “Resonance delivers Arts and Culture on-air through performance, audio arts projects and the wildest cultural conversation anywhere on radio,” said Helen Boaden, former Director of BBC Radio. The station has aired shows such as "Shut Your Eyes to Art" which was a talk show broadcasting from the Tate Modern museum with blindfolded participants who have never met, and are given no topic of conversation. Resonance FM also airs several shows that are also on WGXC, including the field-recordings-as-composition show "Framework," and "Radia," where a show from one of a network of art-interested radio stations around the world contribute an episode each week. Resonance FM has been called “The best radio station in London” by The Guardian and “The UK’s most creative independent radio station” by the Daily Telegraph.

Progressive activists and proponents of net neutrality are now openly questioning why the Joe Biden administration is doing so little to support its nominee to the Federal Communcations Commission, Gigi Sohn, Common Dreams reports. The digital rights group Fight for the Future tweeted May 5 that, "Joe Biden and Sen. [Chuck] Schumer promised to restore net neutrality. But instead they're sitting on the sidelines while Big Telecom mounts a massive dark money funded smear campaign against their nominee to the FCC, Gigi Sohn." Net neutrality is creating an even playing field for the internet, not a place where the companies with the most money get the fasted speeds. Fight for the Future director Evan Greer said May 5 said the Trump administration's FCC, "repealed it, Dems promised to restore it, and they've so far failed to do so by caving to industry pressure and slow-walking" Sohn's nomination. "The only reason for this is corruption. Plain and simple," Greer said, adding that it is a "good time to remember that Comcast, AT&T, Verizon etc. are huge donors to Democratic leadership and candidates. They've got their hands all up in there." The Obama administration passed net neutrality in 2015, and Sohn was largely the author of those rules. Now she's being attacked by the the Fraternal Order of Police, who claim her, "forceful advocacy of end-to-end encryption and 'user-only-access'" and employment history, public policy stances, and social media activity "indicated serious animus towards law enforcement officers and the rule of law." Techdirt founder Mike Masnick says that, "The smear campaign against [Sohn] has been beyond ridiculous.... Everyone who knows anything about her knows that it's pure nonsense, that she's beyond qualified, and that she will do an amazing job. The smear merchants are doing it because they know she'll do a good job." Karl Bode, writing in Techdirt, blamed the Democrats. "It took the Biden administration nine months to even nominate Sohn, giving the telecom industry… ample time to galvanize opposition." The Biden administration also isn't defending Sohn publicly, or pushing to move the Senate confirmation voting process forward. "The phony appeal of authoritarianism can only be defeated if the [Democratic National Committee] shakes off corruption and truly represents the public interest," Bode added. "You don't accomplish this by letting a hugely popular media and telecom reformer drown under unopposed GOP/telecom propaganda attacks."

On May 6, 1937 one of radio's most famous broadcasts was recorded. The hydrogen in the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg burst into flames as the new airship attempted to land in Manchester Township, New Jersey, killing 36 people. Herbert Morrison's eyewitness report for radio station WLS in Chicago of the Hindenburg disaster was not broadcast live, but recorded for a report that was broadcast the next day, and has lived through the ages. It aired on other radio stations, and the audio was dubbed onto newsreel footage and shown in theaters. While the scale of the sinking of the Titanic was slightly larger, this was the first major disaster with a narrator calling the play-by-play, with a visual recording synched. Few people at the time had ever witnessed or listened to 36 people die at once in a terrifying scene that rivals today's Hollywood special effects. And Morrison's radio narration was the first time listeners heard someone in real time explaining what was happening during a deadly disaster, not explaining it afterwards. Watching the Challenger space shuttle disaster, or the World Trade Center fall, are modern day broadcast comparisons. While today's anchors and correspondents can keep calm in most any circumstance, Morrison's call of the accident is more human, as he is clearly overwhelmed by what he is seeing, making the "oh the humanity" phrase ring through the years.

Here is the transcript from Wikipedia:
"It's practically standing still now they've dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship; and (uh) they've been taken ahold of down on the field by a number of men. It's starting to rain again; it's... the rain had (uh) slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are just holding it (uh) just enough to keep it from...It's burst into flames! Get this, Charlie; get this, Charlie! It's fire... and it's crashing! It's crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! It's burning and bursting into flames and the... and it's falling on the mooring mast and all the folks between it. This is terrible; this is one of the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world. Oh it's... [unintelligible] its flames... Crashing, oh! oh, four or five hundred feet into the sky, and it's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. There's smoke, and there's flames, now, and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast. Oh, the humanity, and all the passengers screaming around here! I told you; it – I can't even talk to people, their friends are on there! Ah! It's... it... it's a... ah! I... I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: it's just laying there, a mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and the screaming. I... I... I'm sorry. Honest: I... I can hardly breathe. I... I'm going to step inside, where I cannot see it. Charlie, that's terrible. Ah, ah... I can't. Listen, folks; I... I'm gonna have to stop for a minute because I've lost my voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed."
— Herbert Morrison, Transcription of WLS radio broadcast describing the Hindenburg disaster.

Motorola’s $130 car radio in 1930 for a Model A Deluxe coupe cost $540 and was the first commercially successful car radio, according to Car and Driver magazine. Inside Radio reports that many radio business officials continue to worry about the threat to the dominance of AM and FM signals in those vehicles. “What's driving a lot of these threats is the fact that you have 12 large global technology audio companies coming into the dash very aggressively to steal your listeners,” said Joe D’Angelo, Senior VP of Broadcast at Xperi, a company working with broadcasters to maintain radio's dashboard dominance. Apps such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto on a dashboard screen look like what consumers see on their smartphones. There's also Android Automotive, an operating system which gives Google control, and, of course, any Bluetooth connection gets listeners any sound those phones can also receive. Currently AM/FM radio continues to lead in-car listening with 56 percent of audio time there tuned in over the air, and, increasingly, through Bluetooth radio signals. Of course, 56 percent is a lot smaller then the old days when singing was radio's only competition in a car. Xperi is asking what information people in cars listening to the radio want on their dashboards. Emergency weather information, song information, game scores, and the name of the host all scored high. Xperi CEO Steve Newberry said, “We are in the process of embracing the screen-ification of radio, helping the industry move from being an audio medium to being a medium that can compete with Spotify, Pandora, and SiriusXM and all of our other competitors that we have on the dashboard.”

James Careless reports for Radio World that the British Broadcasting Corporation's World Service has turned 90 years old. It began as the “BBC Empire Service” in 1932, sending shortwave signals around the globe. “Created 10 years after the BBC itself was founded, the BBC World Service was there to send ‘voices out of the air,’ which sounds like a poem by Keats but are actually the words of King George V,” said Stephen Titherington, senior head of content for BBC World Service English. “Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall it has had a different relevancy to people in terms of sharing what is happening within the world, with also a chance for people to add their voice to what needs to be heard.” The BBC World Service provided alternative information to people in fascist countries in the 1930s and 1940s, then pivoted as a Cold War broadcaster, and now beams in signals to conflict zones in Ukraine, Yemen, Palestine, and Afghanistan. Lately it has focused on local broadcasts and streaming media while cutting back on shortwave, and ending shortwave service to North America. “One thing that has been consistent over the years is the BBC’s commitment to independent news,” said Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott, retired Voice of America audience research analyst/radio host and now producer/presenter of “Shortwave Radiogram,” heard on shortwave stations WINB and WRMI. The Voice of America, a similar radio service from the United States, always seemed more like a propagandists than the BBC. “To be sure, the BBC European services had partisan commentaries during World War II, but the news remained factual, mostly. Since World II, BBC World Service has been the de facto standard for comprehensive and objective news,” Elliot says. As of late 2021 the BBC broadcasts in 40 languages including Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Serbian, Telugu, Tigrinya, and Yoruba. In March, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the BBC World Service announced it is broadcasting, "four hours of English news daily on two shortwave frequencies, both of which “can be received clearly in Kyiv and parts of Russia,” said a BBC media release. The shortwave frequencies are 15735 kHz operating from 1400 to 1600 UTC and on 5875 kHz from 2000 to 2200 UTC. “The audience for the BBC’s Russian language news website more than tripled its year-to-date weekly average, with a record reach of 10.7 million people in the last week (compared to 3.1 million). In English, bbc.com visitors in Russia were up 252% to 423,000 last week," a BBC press release said when the war was two weeks old. Elliot agrees that the service is often most needed where it is least wanted by the local government. “We have seen, in more and more countries, censorship and blocking of the internet. Shortwave can deliver information across national boundaries independent of the internet. Satellite television also sidesteps the internet, but satellite dishes are conspicuous. Shortwave reception is simpler, cheaper … and more discreet. (And) My ‘Shortwave Radiogram’ project shows that text and images can be transmitted by old analog shortwave transmitters, and received on any shortwave radio, with decoding by an app on a PC or mobile device,” Elliot says. Read more about this story at Radio World.

In popular culture, the wireless, untethered charger for a phone is like a hovercraft, something long promised, but never delivered. Last week, though, Wi-Charge founder and chief business officer Ori Mor gave an interview to TechCrunch where he claimed that Belkin would release a specific, “center-stage consumer product” to charge phones remotely later this year. But the next day, however, Belkin spokesperson Jen Wei said nothing is imminent. "Currently, our agreement with Wi-Charge only commits us to R&D on some product concepts, so it’s too early to comment on the timing of viable consumer products," Wei told Ars Technica. "The Belkin method is to thoroughly investigate technology viability and perform deep user testing before committing to a product concept. Here at Belkin, we only launch products when we confirm technical feasibility backed by deep consumer insights." What we do know about that research and development is that Wi-Charge's technology has a small, mounted transmitter plugged into an AC or DC outlet to "convert electricity into safe infrared beams," the company's website says. The transmitter sends up to one watt of power to devices holding a Wi-Charge receiver within a 40-foot range and line of sight. The radio wave receivers then turn that light into power to charge phones and computer notebooks. Infrared waves are electromagnetic waves that have frequency range around 300 GHz, and can only travel a short distance. A Belkin official makes clear this cable- and pad-free wireless charging technology is coming soon, just not right away. "We are excited to uncover the full potential of Wi-Charge’s unparalleled over-the-air wireless charging technology,” said Brian Van Harlingen, the CTO at Belkin. “The future of charging has been transitioning from wired to wireless for years now and we anticipate over the air wireless charging to accelerate this evolution."