Saturday night (in a shortwave) style

On Saturday 5th October at 2200 UTC/ 2300 UK there’s a new transmission from DJ Frederick’s Free Radio Skybird on 6070 khz on shortwave. The later time which will help propagation hopefully is broadcast by Channel 292 and if you haven’t a shortwave set can also be heard on the SDR link on their site here.

This month’s programme will feature: Justin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory, Steve with Mini-indie radio and our very own One Deck Pete presenting the Skybird Mailbag. They will also play his “Solar minimum but the music’s maximum” mix that has tunes from: Froth Whitlam, Dasya, Andre J Kwenda and a worldwide exclusive from Madtone.

The programme will be available on DJ Frederick’s Soundcloud page the day before, if you want to hear the show in quality stereo. We here prefer it intermingled with the sounds of the ionosphere. Tune in and turn on whichever way you fancy!

Also this weekend coming sees the re-transmission of Free Radio Skybird’s Remixed show on Sunday 29th September at 0800 UTC (0900 UK) on 7440 khz which will feature One Deck Pete’s “Sounds of the shortwave” mix.

#shortwavesnotdead #freeradioskybird #madtone

And the final result just in…

Okay, so something got to it before we did (pesky squirrels!) and it is looking a bit bruised but the excellent beefsteak Thompson & Morgan trial tomato is a winner. This specimen is next to a 50 pence piece and weighs 500 grams, that’s half a kilogram! You would be mad not to try these next year. The plant required minimum fuss, some support, regular water and a weekly comfrey feed. What a tom!

Do(ing) it properly

And as we said in the last missive, we’re going to post up stuff to remind ourselves where and when we’ve put plants & seeds in as it’s handy for us to know that sort of thing (as we usually forget!)

When the sun was out yesterday a couple of cloves of the garlic (Marco) we got at Shannon’s were popped into the South Suburban planter we found in a skip which has a couple of Egyptian onions seedlings in there already.

The onions sets we got too were put in today (when it didn’t rain) by the silver birch and the lone lettuce from the Thomson and Morgan seed trials. On the left is the Autumn Champion and Electric Red on the right. Apart from putting those in, it was just a little bit of tipping around and the odd bit of weeding. At least we know where we’ve put stuff now!

By the way, Happy Autumn Equiknoxx to all for tomorrow!

Plant variety of the week

We’re not massive Hydrangea fans here at Weeds even though we’ve got one but we do love any plant variety called Red Reggae. This is from a new range of plants in the marketplace especially for music fans of all genres called “Music Collection”. We’re now eagerly awaiting the Buddleia “Intelligent drum and bass”, Daffodil “Dead bonkers gabba” and Rudbeckia “Not so soppy cuddlecore“. We’ll keep you informed!

Do we know (where we put) our onions?

We’re great at forgetting when and where we sow/plant things and after telling someone that the other day, they suggested we keep a gardening diary or “you could even start a blog, you’ll enjoy that”. Oh dear, we didn’t have the heart to tell them we’ve been doing one for a few years!

Well, we’re making a fresh start and from today logging everything plantwise we buy and also where we put it/them. This morning seen us buying some garlic, red and white onion sets to be put in for over the winter from our favourite garden centre Shannon’s. If all goes well we’ll clear some space this weekend and whack them in. You will be informed (complete with the actual date, time and location co-ordinates)!

Last tango, ladies and gentleman please

Here’s a lovely slo-mo track by Dasya called Tango on the street on the Young NRG label out of Italy. If all goes well, this excellent track will be aired on the next One Deck Pete mix “Solar minimum but the music’s maximum” on Free Radio Skybird on Saturday 5th October at 2200 UTC (2300 UK time) on 6070 khz in the 49 Meter band if you love your shortwave radio or via www.channel292.de

Rock the papaver

Watering the garden at the ungodly hour of 8.15 this morning we were treated to the sight of the excellent Danish Dwarf Poppy purchased from ebay earlier this year. This poppy was sown in the usual Weeds way of sowing flowers that is, thrown randomly anywhere in the garden and duly forgotten about. Months later they usually come back to suprise us! We love poppies here at Weeds!

Most of them (radio pirates) are quite normal people

DJ Frederick’s Free Radio Skybird returns to the shortwaves on Sunday September 1st 2019 via http://www.channel292.de/ on 6070 kHz at 1900 UTC (8pm UK time).

With a mixture of features and music, the hour transmission will include One Deck Pete’s “Soothing sound of shortwave”, Steve with Mini indie radio and Justin Patrick Moore from Sothismedias with another episode of the Radiophonic Laboratory.

Last month we had listeners in New Zealand, Northern Canada and Italy (QSL and soundclip here) to name but a few places. Come on, what’s better than listening to a radio broadcast with audio that has fading, co-channel interference and sounds like it had a journey via the ionosphere rather than something that’s been streamed in crisp dolby stereo? Who said shortwave radio is dead? #freeradioskybird #shortwavesnotdead #madtone