At 12.30pm today Catriona Shaw presents a new radio play titled ‘Mein Name Gisela DK9JE’. More details below:
“I’ve been doing quite a lot of research into ham radio and recently stumbled across a couple of SSTV images featuring a woman called Gisela, call sign DK9JE. After a little more investigation, I found this post on a forum:
Hallo Gerd, Du wirst es wohl nicht glauben, aber manchmal schaue ich zu, was Theo so am PC macht. Das ist eine gute Sache, denn dann geht er nicht so oft in den Keller zum Bier trinken hi. vy 73 GiselaDK9JE
Eintrag vom: 01-Feb-2005 / Eingetragen von: Gisela Linder DK9JE
It says ‘hello Gerd – you won’t believe it but I’m sometimes watching what Theo gets up to on the PC. Its good, because then he doesn’t go down to the cellar so often to drink beer.’
Mein Name Gisela DK9JE is An experimental radio play featuring the character Gisela, a YL living in Berlin. The play is made up of a mix of narrated text and SSTV sound signals and images. Gisela DK9J is a middle‐aged woman whose husband, OM Theo, is more interested in his hobby (and beer) than in interacting with his wife. As her relationship with OM Theo fades, she whiles her time away communicating with ham radio antenna she finds erected throughout the city. If she can talk to the antenna, the physical forms housing her husband’s voice, then maybe there’s still hope for reconciliation.
The piece is a combination of fiction and reality. Gisela’s story is (partially) concocted, but the dialogue she has with the antenna is essentially the sound of B/W sketches and detailed observations of real ham radio aerials around Berlin, converted into bitmap images and transcoded into SSTV sound signals. Using the program MMSSTV, Gisela’s shrill, ca. 8-second dialogue can be decoded and Viewed live during the broadcast.”
For those listeners who are up for the challenge the SSTV signal files can be downloaded here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pj9lb2ui0aclv9i/AADVpNbZcwdA_1oOoryIEnaQa?dl=0
– and the program that can be used to decode the .MMV files can be downloaded here:
http://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php
Its only compatible with PC. Its very simple to use. Download, install, open – ignore the box that says enter call sign (just click enter to make it go away). Then click on the ‘RX’ tab above the graphics box and click on ‘Auto’ to the right of that. Click on ‘Lock’ at the bottom. Then go to file and select ‘Play sound from file…’ – then you select one of the .mmv files. The image will start to show up slowly as the program decodes the signal.
Here is an example of a sketch that Gisela would speak.
