The XHDATA D-608WB - a radio for every application · Wednesday July 24, 2024 by colin newell
It is not everyday that a radio drops into my lap for the purposes of testing and day to day use.
So it was to my delight when the good folks at XHDATA contacted me with an offer: “Let us send you a radio. You put it through its paces. See what it can do. And put a review on your DXer.ca website.”
Hey! I can do that. So here goes.
The XHDATA D-608WB radio is described more as an emergency radio than a standard counter-top or totable radio.
Its dimensions make for an item that fits comfortably in the hand – at 15 cm long, 7.5cm wide and 4 cm deep it has a place in every emergency pack.
Why should everyone have this radio in their emergency kit?
The radio covers AM, FM, Shortwave and the weather band with impressive sensitivity. I had no trouble capturing all of my regional AM stations — and after sunset, all the clear channel stations were loud and clear – many from over 1000 miles away.
The FM sensitivity was comparable to all of my larger portable.
Sound quality is great for such a small package and is pleasant enough for hours of listening.
Shortwave sensitivity and selectivity was surprisingly good for a radio that appears to try to do everything.
All of my regional weather band stations (within 70 km away) came in crystal clear.
There are hundreds of memories available on the XHDATA D-608WB for your fav stations. The XHDATA D-608WB has auto-add of stations to memory during scanning! XHDATA did not appear leave out any desired features with this radio.
The radio is powered by a rechargeable battery. It can be charged via a USB cable (supplied), via solar cells built into the radio or from a hand-crank generator also integral to the radio! The radio comes with an Tri-level LED reading light (integrated underneath the solar panel array on the top of the radio! The radio comes with a very bright emergency light (or torch as some call it…)
The radio is also a selectable Bluetooth speaker — with great audio quality. So, you can pair it with your iPhone or Android device and any PC, Mac or Linux desktop/laptop! Not only that, when it is paired with your phone you can actually accept phone calls! I tested it. It worked flawlessly!
While watching YouTube on my iPhone (and paired with the XHDATA D-608WB radio, one can fast forward and skip between videos with buttons on the XHDATA D-608WB! What a great feature.
So. Bluetooth speaker – this opens access to unlimited podcast listening.
What’s more, the XHDATA D-608WB accepts the TF card – so fill your boots with MP3 audio and Podcasts! This radio just keeps getting better!
I recently travelled to Calgary, Alberta, Canada (a one hour flight from Victoria B.C. where I live…) and the XHDATA D-608WB radio came along with me. Airport security did not bat an eyelash at the radio — to them it appeared to be just that, a travel radio.
In conclusion, the XHDATA D-608WB is for all intents and purposes, the Swiss Army knife of radios – it does almost everything anyone would want out of a travel or emergency radio. I found no fault in the radio and give two solid thumbs up for this product — and look forward to sampling and testing other XHDATA products!
Stay tuned for a YouTube video on this product on my YouTube channel and a subsequent podcast!Colin Newell in a resident of Victoria B.C. Canada – on the West Coast – on Vancouver Island. His features on tech and pop culture have been featured on national media outlets across Canada and the U.S. since 1995!
Instant Pot Living - Delicious Lasagna in 45 minutes · Monday April 22, 2019 by colin newell
I have been a fan of good pasta since I was eating solid food. My mom made me spaghetti and meat balls when I was still in the high chair and I have photos of yours truly eating this dish with my bare hands!
I have evolved a bit in the intervening years and, for me, the delight in eating tomato based pasta dishes has never waned.
We have been using the wonderful Instant Pot for almost a year now and finally got around to attempting a lasagna.
This recipe did not disappoint – and my thinking now is: Why make a huge batch that you invariably need to freeze when you can cook one up that is good for one big family meal or (in our case) enough for 2 with several servings left over.
Let’s dig in!
Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
8 oz ricotta cheese
1.5 cup mozzarella cheese – divided in half
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese – divided in half –
1 egg
Italian spices – Oregano and Basil
Salt and Pepper to taste
No-boil lasagna noodles
1 jar pasta sauce
1/2 box thawed spinach
Prepare spring-form pan with tin wrapped around the outside and oil spray the inside.
Brown the ground beef (salt and pepper to taste)
Combine all of the ricotta, half of the mozzarella and parmesan cheese, egg, and the spinach. Mix it together.
Take dried lasagne noodles, breaking into suitable shapes to fit bottom of spring-form — this your first layer.
Open jar of pasta sauce.
Put enough sauce to cover first layer of noodles (1/3 of jar)
Take two ladle fulls of ground beef to spread over your layer of pasta sauce.
Take 1/2 of the egg cheese mixture and place on top of the meat layer.
Repeat sequence again: Noodles, sauce, ground beef, cheese mixture.
Add last layer of noodles and pasta sauce.
Take the rest of the cheese mix left over and place on top.
Create a “hood” of aluminum foil (oil sprayed on the inside – so cheese doesn’t stick…)
Add 1 cup of water to bottom of instant pot.
Place springform pan in silicone sling.
Lower sling onto Instant Pot trivet.
Set to high pressure for 20 minutes. Natural release for 11 minutes.
Remove from instant pot – put on baking sheet – remove tin foil hat – broil for 5 minutes to brown cheese.
Serve with garlic bread and/or Caesar salad. Serves 6.
Living with the Zoom H24 24-channel digital recorder · Monday March 5, 2018 by colin newell
Recently one of my colleagues at the University of Victoria loaned me one of his studio tools that he was thinking of parting with – The Zoom H24 24-channel digital portable recorder.
Now for the record, way back when I first started recording multi-track style I was using a cassette tape based TASCAM 244 – 4 tracks of audio on a cassette… and that was mono tracks. Granted, the Beatles recorded some amazing music on recorders not much bigger than that… but I am not them.
Anyway. Armed with a couple of good microphones, headphones, a guitar, ukulele and a bass guitar I came up with a bunch of sample demos (warts and all…) way faster than I could have on my PC based audio work-station. Here is one. Trust me: Listen on headphones or ear buds!
Gear: APEX Floating plate microphone and Shure SM81 condensor microphone.
Cort acoustic guitar, Kala Ukulele, Godin bass – and three vocals provided by yours truly.
The Zoom H24 digital recorder is jam packed with features and to be honest, I likely utilized less than 5% of its capabilities. For instance, the R24 offers eight inputs on combo connectors that can accept either XLR or ¼” balanced or unbalanced cables.
Click on any image for the bigger view!
All inputs can handle mic/line/instrument level signals, and Input 1 can also handle low impedance signals from passive electric guitars and basses.
I took advantage of the phantom power (+24 or +48 volts) which can be applied to up to six inputs, allowing the use of professional grade condenser and floating plate microphones. I use Chinese made APEX cardioid patterned plate microphones at around 1/10th the price of a German made Neumann U-87 (which sounds utterly dreamy with the right voice!) and for my voice, it’s just fine. I use the SM81 for picking up some of the features of my acoustic guitars but plugging directly into the R24 works just as well.
The Zoom H24 can record 8 tracks at the same time and works really well if you are a band that wants good isolation for fine tuning after a recording session. I found that I could easily eat up 8 tracks with just a couple of guitars or a ukulele and some vocal harmonies. Another great feature is the ability to bounce, swap or transfer tracks around with the press of a button. Example: I have my microphones plugged into inputs 2 and 3. When I get the take that I am happy with, I “bounce” those tracks over to Channels 4 and 5 and carry on (having now left tracks 2 and 3 to record on again.)
The Zoom H24 has velocity sensitive drum pads and built in rhythms – and I never got anywhere near them. There are hundreds of effects for most electric stringed instruments and a wide variety of mastering algorithms for mix-downs that I could literally fill a page commenting on. Bottom line: If you are a singer or guitar player or podcaster who wants to produce broadcast ready materials or demo’s worthy of a listen with the pro’s, this could be the right tool for you.
In the following “sample” I used a single APEX microphone to record one lead vocal, two harmonies, 3 tracks of guitar picking or strumming, an electric bass track and a ukulele – there is at least one jarring rhythmic error in this track but you get the general idea. Singing and playing aside, it is pretty amazing what you can do quickly.
The manual is fairly helpful but you do need some background in the concepts of recording and mixing – and there are a few useful YouTube videos for getting started.
A little bit of CBC radio history fades away · Thursday February 23, 2017 by colin newell
If you are much under the age of 40, the concept of “radio, the medium that reaches the masses” is probably not a thing that resonates with you.
But for many residents of British Columbia, over the last 70 years, if you lived in an out of the way place, CBC Shortwave on 6160 Khz was likely your only source of news, commentary and entertainment. This service has been on for as long as I can remember. I was a 12 year old when I first discovered CBC 690 in Vancouver was being relayed by a low powered transmitter out on the mudflats of Richmond, British Columbia. It was part of my daily routine as a kid living on the West Coast to see how the news of the day sounded, as transmitted through a crackly and occasionally fading shortwave transmitter.
In the last year, however, amidst one more trim to CBC services, the Shortwave service quietly faded into history for British Columbia. And sure, it is easy to say, in an era of satellite and internet communications, “who listens to the radio anymore anyway?”
Well, through the years, this little 1000 Watt transmitter covered British Columbia and the Pacific North West with a pretty darn good signal – often being heard around the World. It served the fishing fleet in the Pacific, hunters and trappers in the wilds of British Columbia, geologists and foresters working in places served by nothing more than fresh air, sunshine and moon light.
But time moves on. In 2017, our news stories comes at us in 140 character snippets on our social media and video footage is viewed in HD quality on our smart phones. Heck, we hardly need television anymore.
Illustration below – Telus composite Cell coverage for British Columbia – around 15% of the Province has high speed cell coverage.
There was a time, when radio was king and the hardy and adventurous among us kept in touch the old fashioned way and listened to the sweet sounds of the CBC via radio skip. Many of us still do that in some of the more isolated nooks and crannies of this great province via the old style CBC AM radio service. For those of us who tuned the CBC with a multi-band transistor radio, a cranky ionosphere often made for quirky sounding audio and the fading associated with signal conditions gave this regional broadcaster a very retro and way back sound.
Quote from radio operator VE7SL – “Located on the mudflats of far western Richmond (Steveston) and a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean’s Georgia Strait, CKZU’s gets out very well for its compartively small 500W transmitter.”
Photo by Mark Matilla – VA7MM of the CKZU Antenna Array
In the last year, hobbyists and radio amateurs were noting that the little signal from Vancouver had been struggling after 7 decades on the air – a power supply component was creating distortion that was making the signal unlistenable. The decision was made. The plug was pulled. There was likely nary a moment when an outdoors person or fisher looked up from their work to note that CBC’s long range regional service was gone.
When contacted and asked about the regional radio service (via a CBC insider), the engineering department responded… “It’s broken, old and there are no parts…” Right.
Steve VE7SL of Mayne Island continues… “It appears to confirm the rumor that the antenna system consists of a two-wire beam (using wide-spaced folded dipole style elements) … one element being driven and the other element being a reflector. According to Mark, the orientation would beam the relayed CBU-690 signal up the coast of British Columbia and not towards the SE as the original Google photo appears to indicate. It is certainly a well ‘overbuilt’ structure. No doubt its height contributes to its ability to radiate a good signal all around North America (and Europe).”
On the other coast, in Newfoundland, it’s a different story. Private radio broadcasts began on the rock in 1932 but in 1939 the government of the day took over radio. A shortwave service began there in 1940 and used different frequencies depending on the time of day. Newfoundlands finest hours happened in 1940 as debate started about what would become of this British colony including thoughts cast towards joining the U.S.A. as a new state! Through the years equipment was updated and many radio stations carrying national broadcasts were added to the out of the way places in Newfoundland. That being so, Labrador, its own territory with its own special needs was covered by station CKZN out of St. Johns and future plans are to consider fully supporting regional shortwave broadcasting to reach the nooks and crannies of this rugged area.
So, what of British Columbia? At 365 thousand square miles (Newfoundland and Labrador are 165 thousand square miles combined) you would think we would be still worthy of regional shortwave radio service. There are, arguably, thousands of square miles of this great Province with little or no cell coverage and certainly no radio coverage during the day or night. So the question remains – why has CBC British Columbia simply gone “Meh…” as their primary and only regional Shortwave transmitter has puffed out? I’d love to know.
I’m not going to be bitter about it. CBC Shortwave service in B.C. is gone, but not forgotten. Thank you CBC. For decades of service to the small places and reaching the hardy faces of those brave souls who tamed the rugged vista that is British Columbia. Your radio waves are gone, but we will remember the good times when you brought the news, entertainment and music into the distant hills and valleys of this most rugged of Canadian provinces. But if you want to re-think this loss of service or entertain ideas about bringing it back, I am all ears!
Video below – CKZU 6160 khz as picked up in Japan
Update – By 1946, CBR operated a shortwave relay for remote areas of British Columbia using the call sign CBRX and operating on a frequency of 6160 kHz (in the 49m band). The call sign changed to CBUX in 1952 when the AM station became CBU. In 1965, the call sign changed to CKZU, recognizing that the ITU prefix CB was not assigned to Canada, but to Chile. The transmitter operates at 1000 watts and is located adjacent to CBU’s AM transmitter.
Colin Newell is a long time Victoria resident who finds stories in the odd places… and tries to tell them like it is…
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Local artisan series chapter one - Alfons Furniture · Monday August 8, 2016 by colin newell
When we first moved into our new house, one of the first neighbours to pop by was Alfons.
He lives on the street parallel to our and shares part of a back fence. An enthusiastic gardener and outdoorsman, Alfons represents all the good things about good neighbours – engaged, good humoured and genuinely interested in what is going on in the World around us.
As it turns out, Alfons is a fine furniture maker and designer – a guy who makes some very unique and breathtaking pieces that would grace and compliment any home or business. He completed an apprenticeship program in fine furniture in Germany in 1987. After several years working with a variety of senior masters in the craft, he returned to school to obtain a Master’s Diploma in furniture making.
Alfons came to Canada in 1998 and honed his craft in several different work shops in the Victoria area before setting up his own woodcraft design lab in 2005. Alfons focus is on traditional European design and the Contemporary interpretations within North America.
Alfons’s shop and ideas area is in the heart of Rock Bay in an old multi-storied warehouse that contains guitar makers, digital labs and an assortment of high end maker spaces.
We had lunch together recently after getting a tour of his unassuming work space and environment where many of his great ideas come together. There was something about the positive energy and youthfulness of the space that resonated with me – and I imagine that this contributes to the overall quality of everything that comes from this building and his creation space.
What I also discovered about Alfons is his acute ability to listen and provide instant feedback on what I may have been trying to convey on some of my design ideas – which is an immensely valuable skill when designing items of furniture that may reside in a home for 100 years or more.
As Alfons pointed out to me over lunch at the Salt Chuck Pie nearby, “The customer relationship is the most important key to succeeding in virtually any project… whether it is building the perfect piece of fine furniture for their home… or making their computer work better in their business…” Yes indeed, I can certainly relate to that!
Have a look at Alfons’s website and photo gallery – I think you will agree that he builds and designs some of the most remarkable pieces of furniture in the South Vancouver Island marketplace.
You can find Alfons online or make an appointment with him via – Alfons Laicher
Alfons Custom Furniture & Woodwork Inc. – 2614 Bridge St. #223 • Victoria, BC • V8T 4S9
Phone: 250-361-4119
Email: Alfons@AlfonsFurniture.com
This is Chapter One of an ongoing series of artisan conversations – with the creators, makers and ideas people of Vancouver Island.
