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I got the G6 BA edition yesterday. I haven't picked up much other then Preachers though. And I can't get anything on the AIR channels.
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Feb 24, 2009 00:05
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Madcatz7 posted:I got the G6 BA edition yesterday. I haven't picked up much other then Preachers though. And I can't get anything on the AIR channels. Air traffic can be pretty sporadic, especially if you don't live near a big airport. Start local and look up the frequencies to the closest airport. If the tower has an automated terminal information service freq see if you can pick that up. If not they you might not be able to hear tower traffic but should still be able to pick up the planes. Then look for TRACON approach and departure frequencies to and from that airport. Further out are the ARTCC frequencies split up by 20 or so cities around the country. You can find those here
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Feb 24, 2009 00:51
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Madcatz7 posted:I got the G6 BA edition yesterday. I haven't picked up much other then Preachers though. And I can't get anything on the AIR channels. Posted a few pages ago, but well worth the re-post: http://www.airnav.com/airports/ ...will help out all the new G6 owners in finding their local airport channels. Air Force One flew into my local airport a couple weeks ago. Sad I missed it, though I doubt they'd use regular air traffic control, would they? Edit: Man, normally Cuba comes in for me so clearly you'd think they were transmitting from my kitchen. Tonight, every station sounds like a mariachi band wrestling feral cats and an Imperial Probe Droid in a 55 gallon drum. What gives? JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Feb 25, 2009 |
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Feb 25, 2009 02:12
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adamj1982 posted:I know it is probably in the thread somewhere.. but what are in RTTY and morse signals? Weather information? Sometimes you can find some seriously bizarre stuff. I mentioned it in this thread a long time ago, but I was picking up an alphabetical list of english words in morse. It just faded out after a while. I wonder if it could have been one of those creepy beacons that were mentioned a long time ago. The one found strung between two palm trees on that desert island was some weird poo poo. Now that I'm getting some experience in microcontrollers, I think it would be fun to make one myself.  .
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Feb 25, 2009 02:36
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Edit: Man, normally Cuba comes in for me so clearly you'd think they were transmitting from my kitchen. Tonight, every station sounds like a mariachi band wrestling feral cats and an Imperial Probe Droid in a 55 gallon drum. What gives?
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Feb 25, 2009 03:32
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nmfree posted:If you're talking about RHC, their 6000kHz frequency usually sounds bad (it's usually undermodulated); I almost always listen to the parallel frequency of 6140kHz. Their signal on 6000 is usually strong until 4-5 UTC. Then it seems to drop out or become covered in noise. This is especially annoying as it seems to get worse around the time DXer's Unlimited comes on. I am still on the hunt for the RFI. Tonight I will shutdown all my pc related equipment and unplug it. If that doesn't eliminate it, I'm down to it having to be my neighbors. Hunting down the RFI is huge to me because I plan to upgrade my HAM license to a general next month. I'll need good reception. Another question for longer term guys, I'm using my 2m J-Pole outside to help pickup (mostly because it gets a better signal with less noise then being inside). This is what will happen. I will hook it up and as soon as the feed makes contact to both my Yaesu and my G6, reception improves (but with quite a bit of noise). If I then close up and tighten down the jacket for the coax, my signal levels drop dramatically. Can anyone explain what is happening here?
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Feb 25, 2009 21:43
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Posted a few pages ago, but well worth the re-post: As long as they're American, more or less. e: Are there any ones like that anyone knows covering Asia? sub supau fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Feb 26, 2009 |
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Feb 26, 2009 06:32
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TetsuoTW posted:As long as they're American, more or less. So some good news. I have found much of my RFI in my room. Most of it is caused by the UPS and the wireless router or its power source. Everything else was small potatoes in comparison. I'm going to try another transformer for the router. Any other ideas? My VX-7R doesn't cause any noise no matter what frequency I'm using.
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Feb 26, 2009 21:40
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HFX posted:So some good news. I have found much of my RFI in my room. Most of it is caused by the UPS and the wireless router or its power source. Everything else was small potatoes in comparison. I'm going to try another transformer for the router. Any other ideas? I'd suggest reading "A Ham's Guide to RFI, Ferrites, Baluns, and Audio Interfacing" by K9YC. He covers the basics of how FRI is generated, and different strategies to solve it. edit: Also, Palomar Engineers has a short guide to eliminating RFI that's pretty good, too. nmfree fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Feb 26, 2009 |
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Feb 26, 2009 22:53
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Some of the guys of my club recently told me to check out Ham Radio Deluxe. It seems to be a phenomenal program for decoding Amateur digital modes. I recommend you pick up the full cd worth if you like decoding the digital signals. Also, is anyone else finding the atmosphere very noisy tonight? At first I thought it was just my home, but switching over the club radio, I find it is full of static also.
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Mar 10, 2009 06:34
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http://www.woot.com/
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Mar 13, 2009 06:01
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I was about to post that. Grundig G4 on Woot for $100. My local Radio Shack has the G6 Buzz Aldrin Edition for $100 so I don't know if that is a good deal or not, it doesn't have the MP3 player and flash memory.
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Mar 13, 2009 11:32
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If you want an MP3 player, get a friggin iPod. The G4 doesn't have full SW spectrum coverage and no SSB. Fail.
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Mar 13, 2009 17:53
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AstroZamboni posted:If you want an MP3 player, get a friggin iPod. The G4 doesn't have full SW spectrum coverage and no SSB. Fail. Really the only cool thing about it is the ability to record what you hear.
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Mar 13, 2009 17:54
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blugu64 posted:Really the only cool thing about it is the ability to record what you hear.
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Mar 13, 2009 19:56
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I went ahead and got one of the G4's - I already have a G5, and everyone was really late in pointing out the faults of the G4  I'm not to upset, I like having a spare radio, and I like the whole recording thing. (But I do already have a frigging ipod  )
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Mar 14, 2009 16:40
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Any idea what I was hearing here? (52 second snippet) http://www.perverseengineering.com/aud/november1echouniform.mp3 Frequency 7126, at 2212z last Saturday. It sounds like I'm hearing one side of a conversation, because you'll hear a "Bravo Canada Mexico, again?", nothing, and then the N1EU response. If anyone wants more, I've got about 10 minutes of it.
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Mar 14, 2009 17:34
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Any idea what I was hearing here? (52 second snippet) This is why got into radio! My first thought was military, but I don't know what that "Canada Mexico" stuff is. I'm guessing some kind of non-NATO/Civilian phonetic alphabet. To make a wild guess I'd say it is aviation radio signals.
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Mar 14, 2009 20:48
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You're hearing radio hams on the 40 metre amateur band engaging in a contest (you can hear the call "CQ CONTEST" a few times towards the end of that snippet). The NATO-alphabet stuff that's called out is peoples' callsigns (or fragments of callsigns). The guy calling QRZ is asking for a reply (it sounds like he has a partial callsign from someone and is asking for confirmation). You can hear him saying "you are fine-nine in New York" at one point - he's giving an indication of the readability and signal strength of the guy who contacted him (readability 5 is "excellent", signal strength 9 is also excellent). In these contests the idea is to make contacts as far away as possible, which is why quite often when you overhear them you can only hear half of the conversation - the other resopondant may be simply too far away for you to hear his signal. (edit) oh, and the reason you're hearing a lot of non-NATO phonetic alphabet stuff is because a lot of hams are just plain sloppy and make it up as they go along or just use their own version.
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Mar 14, 2009 20:57
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Illegal Clown posted:This is why got into radio! My first thought was military, but I don't know what that "Canada Mexico" stuff is. I'm guessing some kind of non-NATO/Civilian phonetic alphabet. To make a wild guess I'd say it is aviation radio signals. What throws me is: November Echo Uniform is standard alphabet; Bravo is, but Canada Mexico is not. I agree, sounds like some sort of aviation call-and-response. I think I hear "flying into NY" at some point. Like I said, if anyone wants more to go on, I've got lots of it. EDIT: ah, "five-nine", not "flying". Also, explanation of weird non-standard alphabets. Thanks, stinky ox! This will seem E/N and off topic, but I promise, there's some SW content to it: I have a horrible phobia about dentists; I haven't gone in over ten years. Just typing about the dentist makes my palms sweat. Some friends organized an intervention of sorts, and set up an appointment for me since I would never do it myself. They drove me to the appt and held my hands the whole time. I'm in the chair, and the dentist is doing the periodontal probing which involves shoving a so-called "blunt" instrument up my gums. It's traumatic, I'm crying as much as one can with their mouth wide open. As he goes along, he makes notes to the hygienist. "25: 3,2,3. 24: 4,3,4." He gets done with with the bottom row and we take a break. I'm hysterical, until my friend in the room with me says, "When he counts off, it sounds like a number station." "Ask him to do it in a female Cuban accent, and this will suck much less!" I exclaim, and then laugh my rear end off after all that stress. It was much needed comic relief. tl, dr: Numbers station joke diffuses stressful medical procedure; JD shares pointless story with fellow SW goons. JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Mar 14, 2009 |
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Mar 14, 2009 21:20
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JacquelineDempsey posted:What throws me is: November Echo Uniform is standard alphabet; Bravo is, but Canada Mexico is not. I agree, sounds like some sort of aviation call-and-response. I think I hear "flying into NY" at some point. Like I said, if anyone wants more to go on, I've got lots of it. Yes, you thought the same thing I did, "Flying into NY." I don't know crap about civilian stuff or Ham radios, but that's why the military says "niner" to make it clear. It's funny how on radios the simplest most mundane thing sound awesome and important. Just telling someone you laundry list sounds like you're calling in an air strike or attacking the Death Star. Also, I loved that dentist story. It was great.
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Mar 14, 2009 22:55
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JacquelineDempsey posted:What throws me is: November Echo Uniform is standard alphabet; Bravo is, but Canada Mexico is not. Canada and Mexico are used by some non NATO countries along with con testers. You'll end up with both. However, that is prime ham calling room.
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Mar 15, 2009 07:16
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stinky ox posted:You're hearing radio hams on the 40 metre amateur band engaging in a contest (you can hear the call "CQ CONTEST" a few times towards the end of that snippet). The NATO-alphabet stuff that's called out is peoples' callsigns (or fragments of callsigns). The guy calling QRZ is asking for a reply (it sounds like he has a partial callsign from someone and is asking for confirmation). You can hear him saying "you are fine-nine in New York" at one point - he's giving an indication of the readability and signal strength of the guy who contacted him (readability 5 is "excellent", signal strength 9 is also excellent). This is exactly right. The first time I heard a QSL Contest I wondered what the hell I had stumbled upon. I could tell that it was very specifically contained to the ham bands, but it was ALL OVER the ham bands I was able to pick up that night. At the time I had never heard of a QSL contest before, and I was wondering why all of these people were using a completely arbitrary homebrewed phonetic alphabet that would not be consistent from a person message to message. The next day I asked my friend Mr. B (see my "Tales from the museum" thread for more about him) about it, since he's an experienced ham and longtime SW enthusiast and he explained to me all about these contests, which he referred to as "QSL Clusterfucks."
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Mar 16, 2009 05:20
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edit: whoops wrong thread.
HFX fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Mar 16, 2009 |
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Mar 16, 2009 19:54
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I just picked up a G6 BA edition for $99, turned out to be much smaller than I expected. Also a copy of Passport for $22.95. I haven't picked up much yet, but I'm gonna try a long wire antenna and mess around late at night.
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Mar 22, 2009 03:46
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It's burgin' time! 
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I heart bacon posted:I just picked up a G6 BA edition for $99, turned out to be much smaller than I expected. Also a copy of Passport for $22.95. I haven't picked up much yet, but I'm gonna try a long wire antenna and mess around late at night. That was my first impression. "Good god, its tiny! Where do they keep the ferrite rod in this thing? Wrapped up in a Calibi-Yau manifold?" Edited for spelign. AstroZamboni fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Mar 22, 2009 |
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Mar 22, 2009 04:17
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You can put me down for another $90 (Grundig G6 BA Edition) and copy of Passport ($16.95). My grandfather was a big SW enthusiast and I vaguely remember him tinkering around with his huge radio as a kid. I've been wanting to get into it ever since I learned about numbers stations, and now that I'm needing to brush up on my Russki for work, what better way than to listen to crazy broadcasts from halfway around the world? My radio arrived tonight. The first international station I was able to decipher was Deutsche Welle on 9775 KHz at 0012 GMT. Maybe I'm looking stuff up wrong, but according to Passport that frequency for DW is being broadcast all the way out of Kigali, Rwanda. And I'm in Southern USA  My other finds were Radio Habana via Cuba on 11760 KHz, Portugal Radio International on 11885 KHz, and China Radio International via Canada on 6040 KHz. No Russian stations or numbers stations yet, but the sun just went down here and there's plenty of scanning to do!
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Mar 26, 2009 02:42
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I put a long wire up over the roof. So far today I grabbed RS-15's beacon at 29352 USB, and spanish numbers on 5883. Freakin sweet... I think I need to string out a longer wire for this and see what I get on my next night off.
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Mar 27, 2009 08:54
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I heart bacon posted:I put a long wire up over the roof. So far today I grabbed RS-15's beacon at 29352 USB, and spanish numbers on 5883. Freakin sweet... I think I need to string out a longer wire for this and see what I get on my next night off. Random bits of wire can be fun. I had about 200 ft of speaker wire strung out of my radio room and along the fence in my back yard... picked up all sorts of stuff that way until birds decided sitting on my wire was fun and they broke it 
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Apr 2, 2009 17:17
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Argh I am so mad I got outbid on a Sony SW7600GR last night. Anyone here selling one or know where to find a cheaper one?
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Apr 3, 2009 20:30
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Well, I saw a Grundig G5 today at Radio Shack and bought it. Add 130USD to the drain fund list. I was going to go for the less expensive, larger Grundig, but remembered that the G5 came well recommended by this thread so I got that one instead.I look forward to my SWL experiences.
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Apr 4, 2009 03:18
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When I got my copy of Passport, it was dead on winter. Now that's it's spring, I find myself wondering about the broadcasts listed with different freq's for summer and winter. Is it that they transmit on different freq's seasonally, or they're transmitting on both but can't be heard on certain continents during certain seasons? Is there a distinct switchover point, or should I just be trying 'em all during the spring? It's no skin off my nose to try for them, I'm mostly just curious how this works.
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Apr 8, 2009 00:50
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JacquelineDempsey posted:When I got my copy of Passport, it was dead on winter. Now that's it's spring, I find myself wondering about the broadcasts listed with different freq's for summer and winter. Is it that they transmit on different freq's seasonally, or they're transmitting on both but can't be heard on certain continents during certain seasons? Is there a distinct switchover point, or should I just be trying 'em all during the spring? It's no skin off my nose to try for them, I'm mostly just curious how this works. The lower ones will switch frequency in the north hemisphere do to the bands becoming a lot more noisy as spring continues into summer. As a ham, 160 (~2.5Mhz) meters is next to unusable right now unless you are running a lot of power for short distances. 80/75 (3.5-4.0Mhz) is also not very good unless you have a big amp do to the noise floor now being at S4 almost every night and occasionally becoming higher. 40m (7.0-7.3mhz) is currently mixed at the moment. Plus the broadcasters in the 7100-7200 range have almost left for the exception of a few whose countries did not agree to the new rules.
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Apr 8, 2009 03:10
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Is it that they transmit on different freq's seasonally, or they're transmitting on both but can't be heard on certain continents during certain seasons? HFX posted:do  due
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Apr 8, 2009 07:22
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nmfree posted:The first, rather than the latter, not only because of what HFX said, but also because of the time shift of DST, which ties in because the later local sunset means one can use higher frequencies later in the day. Thanks. I really should proof read my post a couple times. Interestingly enough, I have been learning that my brain often makes mistakes for words related in some fashion. Learning morse code and watching my typing has been the indicators. HFX fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Apr 8, 2009 |
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Apr 8, 2009 20:55
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Madcatz7 posted:I got the G6 BA edition yesterday. I haven't picked up much other then Preachers though. And I can't get anything on the AIR channels. I have a G6 BA as well and I can't pick up ANYTHING except the regular AM and FM bands in my area. Don't know what I am doing wrong and this is very frustrating. Edit: I guess I need to spring for Passport and a good antenna. b0nes fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Apr 10, 2009 |
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Apr 10, 2009 12:50
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b0nes posted:I have a G6 BA as well and I can't pick up ANYTHING except the regular AM and FM bands in my area. Don't know what I am doing wrong and this is very frustrating. Where have you tried listening? You may have a large amount of RFI causing you to overload the circuits and thus you will hear nothing else. You can improve reception by getting or making an antenna that rejects noise / making the antenna resonant for where you want to listen to. I do know in my apartment conditions are often horrible except to listen to the giant shortwave AM guys. However, sneaking away a bit, I can often get a lot more and that's just on the normal antenna. The G6 is a nice radio. My only complaint being that the SSB functionality could be a bit better. I would love it to have a little more selectivity and a narrow filter. It might also be usb only, which sucks if you are listening to hams below 20m (except for 60m).
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Apr 10, 2009 16:32
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AstroZamboni posted:Its official: The E5/G5 has gone the way of the Dodo in Eton/Grundig's product line. To replace it, they brought out this beast at CES: I'm looking to replace my non-SSB Grundig S350 with a decent SSB receiver. The G3 is slated to be for sale in the next month or two, should I wait and get one or just get a Sony ICF-SW7600GR? They look to have comparable features, other than the RDS, which I don't care about.
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Apr 23, 2009 18:46
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The only thing I don't like about the receivers that just say ssb is that they seem to be USB earlier. I realize it now that I have my ham rig and try tuning both in to the same qso's. This is fine for most broadcast and above 20 meters, but you are out of luck otherwise.
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Apr 24, 2009 04:45
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Hope this post isn't inappropriate but I figured this was the best place for it. I was inspired by this thread to buy a Grundig G5 and Sony AN-LP1 active antenna. Since purchasing this, I have used it a total of 3 times. I just didn't catch the bug. If anyone is interested, I'll let the G5 go for $75 and the AN-LP1 for $50. I'm not positive that those are acceptable prices (I just did a Google search for the G5 and the cheapest I saw it was $129, and I couldn't find a price on the antenna at all and I don't remember what I paid for it). If anyone's interested, PM me for more info.
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May 2, 2009 22:14
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