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foobar posted:Hey, how did the ANLP antenna end up working for you? Works great! Had too much stuff to pack up (and an expectation of not much free time) to bring my radio/antenna down here for the month we'll be here, but what can you do? When I get back to CO it should be good listening weather still, I hope!
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Jan 1, 2010 19:59
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Doc Faustus posted:Double post! Is nobody else trying to listen to stuff over the Holidays? China Radio was playing Christmas Carols! No new radios for Christmas? How much room do you have? You can make a decent antenna if you have a loft access or outside access. Your biggest things are if you need to reject noise, increase gain, or in general just have size. Magnetic loops work well too and can be dressed up to look good even inside your house. For the jack, check around and buy one and then solder it onto what you need. wasabimilkshake posted:I'm thinking about picking up the Grundig G6 as a foray into the mysterious world of shortwave radio. It's $92 right now on Amazon, and $75 from L.L. Bean. At home, the G6 would would probably get noise from the stations in the receiver. In fact, for a normal radio station 50K - 100K watts (especially in the FM range) being that close at all times would worry me from exposure limits standpoint. Do you have any issues with your AM/FM radios, TV's, etc? Computer noise depends. A good computer case and wires doesn't emit much noise at all. However, wall warts for them are often horrible as are laptops. The other thing is you won't get great reception inside of a building for the most part. SW are notoriously bad at penetrating the metal supports in most buildings. HFX fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 1, 2010 |
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Jan 1, 2010 21:26
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Wow...i am in the British army working for the Royal Corps of Signals. I never ever realised there was such a community for this kind of stuff !
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Jan 1, 2010 21:53
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wasabimilkshake posted:I'm thinking about picking up the Grundig G6 as a foray into the mysterious world of shortwave radio. It's $92 right now on Amazon, and $75 from L.L. Bean. That tower might just be a studio-transmitter link tower. If there are no other antennas on it that is probably what it is. They use it to transmit their broadcast signal from the studio to the tower. This signal would probably be in the VHF or higher range at a lower power level than their actual transmitter. This would cause much less interference to your radio than an AM station would.
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Jan 2, 2010 00:47
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drat it all, I went ahead and ordered the G6. Add another $75 to the money drain pile.quote:That tower might just be a studio-transmitter link tower. If there are no other antennas on it that is probably what it is. They use it to transmit their broadcast signal from the studio to the tower. Now, why do I get the feeling that I'm about to spend more money hacking together a ghetto antenna that a passing hobo will eventually tear down and poop on?
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Jan 2, 2010 03:15
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HFX posted:How much room do you have? You can make a decent antenna if you have a loft access or outside access. Your biggest things are if you need to reject noise, increase gain, or in general just have size. Magnetic loops work well too and can be dressed up to look good even inside your house. For the jack, check around and buy one and then solder it onto what you need. So, since I first posted about antennas I did go ahead and solder together a ~40' random wire antenna. Haven't attached a ground yet, though. First day I got it working was overcast and it only got worse, so I haven't had much chance to really test it. My thinking on buying an Antenna is that while I may be able to get the same reception from 500' of speaker wire as I could from a $100 antenna, the "real" antenna is going to look a hell of a lot nicer, as well as being easier to work with. edit: In short, I'm willing to pay more money to get equal or better performance from a smaller package edit2: Anyone have an address for sending QSL reports to Voice of Korea? Doc Faustus fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 16:17
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PS Airband is AM. Moonie, tell us more about what you do. I briefly flirted with signing up for the Signals but I'm a pussy nerd.
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Jan 3, 2010 00:10
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Doc Faustus posted:My thinking on buying an Antenna is that while I may be able to get the same reception from 500' of speaker wire as I could from a $100 antenna, the "real" antenna is going to look a hell of a lot nicer, as well as being easier to work with. Doc Faustus posted:edit: In short, I'm willing to pay more money to get equal or better performance from a smaller package Doc Faustus posted:edit2: Anyone have an address for sending QSL reports to Voice of Korea? quote:Voice of Korea Note: I've heard of people waiting a year or longer to receive a QSL from VOK simply because of the language barrier and the very convoluted path that letters between DPRK and "the West" have to take due to the diplomatic situation.
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Jan 3, 2010 02:32
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wasabimilkshake posted:I'm thinking about picking up the Grundig G6 as a foray into the mysterious world of shortwave radio. It's $92 right now on Amazon, and $75 from L.L. Bean. drat you... Add another $75 from me as well. I was up in the air between the 7600GR, the G6 and the G3 until I saw that price. quote:Finally, a simple question: is shortwave dead? This article probably isn't doing much for shortwave radio sales. It may be true that some international stations have stopped broadcasting in recent years, but you still have the crazy preachers who won't go anywhere as long as they can keep paying the power bill. Just tonight on 7050 I was listening to a preacher using shortwave to cast out the demons that had entered the listener's bodies from such sources as prescription medicines, hearing people talk about other religions, and listening to Elton John's back catalog. I was almost a believer until he wanted to cast Unicron out of my body. That was the last straw.
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Jan 3, 2010 08:54
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That and it just isn't camping unless you've got the tropical tunes of radio havana playing. (if someone could direct me to a shortwave ska station camping would be even better) blugu64 fucked around with this message at 09:07 on Jan 3, 2010 |
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Jan 3, 2010 09:01
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I've always found number stations creepy and strangely fascinating. Whenever I listen to some YouTube recordings of them, my eyes start to tear up. Maybe because I expect to hear some Eldritch abomination speaking at any time. Anyways, I live in Poland. Is there a point in buying a Grundig G3 (it's really expensive)? Will I get to hear a decent amount of creepy stuff? Or is Central/Eastern Europe not populated by those waves as richly as US is?
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Jan 3, 2010 17:56
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I've wanted to get into SW listening for awhile but I never got around to it. After reading this thread I've just bought an E5 for about $140, even more to be added to the stats.
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Jan 3, 2010 22:13
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Splash Damage posted:I've always found number stations creepy and strangely fascinating. Whenever I listen to some YouTube recordings of them, my eyes start to tear up. Maybe because I expect to hear some Eldritch abomination speaking at any time. You actually have more and better number stations than we do in the US.
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Jan 4, 2010 04:32
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Ed Mc Dead posted:I've wanted to get into SW listening for awhile but I never got around to it.
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Jan 4, 2010 05:57
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hobes posted:Any reason you didn't spring for 10$ more and get the G3? Well its a matter of availability, I'm in the UK and from where I live its difficult to get things delivered cheaply despite the internet, so I had to go for the E5.
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Jan 4, 2010 15:32
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I thought I would update for the Antennas the following advice. If you put black wire in a tree or up high, it becomes almost invisible to many people especially after a little while. The other poster was correct about the beverage antenna. It is a phenomenal antenna. Another trick is to figure out what stations you like to listen to the most and cut the wire to match that length or a even division of that length. This will make the antenna wire want to resonate on those frequencies. While this is more key for those of us who broadcast, it helps reception also as the incoming signals will excite the wires. Another trick is to put your wire broadside to where you want to receive signals from. If I want to receive signals from Europe, I will usually do slightly better with it oriented north to south rather then east west. However, South America, Canada, and the Caribbean are best north to south. Another trick is to have both a vertical antenna (these work great if you have a pool or tree to put the upper end in, and then you bury the radials) and a horizontal. Switch between the two to see which one works better.
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Jan 7, 2010 05:56
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I have an old chain link fence gate hanging around. I also may have a roll of chain link hanging around too, but I'm not sure. Would this make a good antenna?
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Jan 7, 2010 10:14
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Jesus you just made me realize that I have a huge metal shack behind my house. ...could I?
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Jan 7, 2010 20:31
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Ed Mc Dead posted:Well its a matter of availability, I'm in the UK and from where I live its difficult to get things delivered cheaply despite the internet, so I had to go for the E5. From what I read the E5 is better then the G3 anyways. The sync detector in the G3 is poo poo and with a total redesign of the radio it actually performs worse. If they ever fixed the sync and improved performance then the G3 would be worth the price. The Running Man posted:I have an old chain link fence gate hanging around. I also may have a roll of chain link hanging around too, but I'm not sure. Would this make a good antenna? Worth a try, I've used the gutters on my parents house with some luck. The great thing about shortwave is trial and error in trying to cool in cool poo poo! I'll do an op soon since I've been playing with this stuff since like middle school and joined this forum because of this thread 
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Jan 8, 2010 16:41
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HFX posted:If I want to receive signals from Europe, I will usually do slightly better with it oriented north to south rather then east west. However, South America, Canada, and the Caribbean are best north to south. Another trick is to have both a vertical antenna (these work great if you have a pool or tree to put the upper end in, and then you bury the radials) and a horizontal. Switch between the two to see which one works better. Right now I have about a 75 foot string of speaker wire strung from my shed to my house - north/south. Now I'm thinking about trying to run a string of wire east/west also. Would combining them (like an 'L' shape) work or should I have them set up seperate? Also, how would bare copper wire work? I came into some of that during plant construction.
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Jan 9, 2010 05:37
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It's burgin' time! 
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I heart bacon posted:Right now I have about a 75 foot string of speaker wire strung from my shed to my house - north/south. Now I'm thinking about trying to run a string of wire east/west also. Would combining them (like an 'L' shape) work or should I have them set up seperate? Also, how would bare copper wire work? I came into some of that during plant construction. Either way or you can try a quad skyloop which seems to work well in most directions. I actually would not recommend bare copper wire as it will cause shorting during times of wet weather (thus you won't get as good a signal). On the other hand, it may improve it by turning it into something like a beverage antenna. I've had it work both ways for reception.
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Jan 9, 2010 10:36
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I heart bacon posted:Right now I have about a 75 foot string of speaker wire strung from my shed to my house - north/south. Now I'm thinking about trying to run a string of wire east/west also. Would combining them (like an 'L' shape) work or should I have them set up seperate? I heart bacon posted:Also, how would bare copper wire work? I came into some of that during plant construction. HFX posted:I actually would not recommend bare copper wire as it will cause shorting during times of wet weather (thus you won't get as good a signal). On the other hand, it may improve it by turning it into something like a beverage antenna. I've had it work both ways for reception. P.S. I ♥ bacon, too.
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Jan 10, 2010 04:24
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This is the closest thread I can post this in, but I really really want a P25 Digital Scanner, but really really don't want to spend the bank on it. I guess you gotta pay if you want to play with the big boys eh?
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Jan 10, 2010 04:40
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nmfree posted:It depends on how you feed your flat V. If you tied a common end together and had that hooked to one side of your feedline, it would kind of do what you're trying to do. However, if you feed the lines in parallel (each side hooked to opposite halves of ladder line, or it might work the same way if fed with coax), your best reception will actually be between two wires on many frequencies. Personally, I'd just solder them together and stretch the (now) single wire as far and as straight as I could N/S, since I'm not big into listening to South America. I do care about conductivity, since all of my antenna's are transmission ones. I was mentioning conductivity because it sounded like he wanted to drape it over a tree. While this isn't terrible, trees (especially pine trees) when wet can often completely wipe out an antenna. You will want to use insulators on the ends and not have the wire touch anything or minimalist things. The beverage portion that I mentioned comes from occasionally, dropping a high resistance wire from the main antenna (like if it was in a tree), will cause the SNR to increase dramatically on such reception antennas. With the ladder line and a flat top T it sounds almost like you were describing a G5RV which you can make resonant on several bands. HFX fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jan 11, 2010 |
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Jan 11, 2010 14:11
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Clip of a new shortwave station to hit the airwaves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhCM8R8bx8Q Soon to be another Tennessee WWCR type outfit (meaning religious loonatics preaching poo poo unto the world!). Thus far they've been able to squeak 12.5 KW out of the old KAIJ transmitter before some other part dies. http://www.wtww.us
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Jan 11, 2010 15:55
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Just got my first-ever QSL response! CRI sent me a postcard, calendar, and some sort of cutout things that I'm not quite sure what to do with. All told, very cool of them. Got me to throw up my antenna again and take advantage of the awesome weather. Picked up Radio Espania at 0000 UTC, and now Voice of Vietnam at 0100 UTC. Listed in on bits and pieces of other broadcasts, but the signal wasn't clear enough to listen to for an extended period. Sadly, Radio Espania was on 6055, which means that Radio Havana (6060) was bleeding over pretty badly into their signal. Voice of Vietnam is much clearer, though it's on a repeater from Canada. Inexplicably, signals repeated from Canada come in much clearer than Radio Canada.
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Jan 12, 2010 02:12
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Doc Faustus posted:Just got my first-ever QSL response! CRI sent me a postcard, calendar, and some sort of cutout things that I'm not quite sure what to do with. All told, very cool of them. Got me to throw up my antenna again and take advantage of the awesome weather. Picked up Radio Espania at 0000 UTC, and now Voice of Vietnam at 0100 UTC. Listed in on bits and pieces of other broadcasts, but the signal wasn't clear enough to listen to for an extended period. Congrats! I did a QSL of CRI 8 years ago in high school, even today they keep sending me stuff! Every season I get their magazine called "The Messenger" and every year a calendar and a schedule. I'm probably on some government list because of it! 
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Jan 12, 2010 04:27
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I finally caught my first voice numbers station broadcast tonight. I've run across M8 a few times while scanning, but caught V2a tonight broadcasting on 5880 KHz. I'm assuming the transmission started around 7:00 UTC since it ended around 7:45 UTC. I missed out on the beginning, but did manage to catch the end. Many thanks to Wasabimilkshake for posting that link to the Grundig G6 on sale over at L.L. Bean. Picking up that thing was the best purchase I've made in a while. I was concerned about it being too sensitive since I live in Jersey and have to deal with overpowered signals from both NYC and Philly, but even without an external antenna I'm getting more than I was with my old DX-394. Last night I was able to catch VVW on both 5000 and 10000 KHz, which has never happened before. I was also able to catch the English broadcast from Voice of Turkey with minimal interference. I posted back in the day that I was going to send my DX-394 to Lowbander for modification, but it never made it out. I'm now kicking myself since the lousy reception I've always had was completely due to the lovely way RS made the first version of that thing. Tonight when I hooked my slinky dipole up to the DX, I could barely hear V2a on 5880 since there was massive bleed-through from the fundie preacher transmitting on 5890. Meanwhile, the G6 was sitting not 3 feet away, happily spitting out Spanish numbers just using the built in whip antenna. EDIT: Maybe some of you can answer this for me... I've noticed that on the G6 the 'Auto Search' feature likes to jump past large chunks of frequencies (e.g.: 26150 - 30000, 150 - 2400, 3400 - 3900) that are manually tunable. Researching some of these 'blank spots', I see that they are listed as 'fixed service', 'aeronautical mobile, 'maritime mobile', or 'government use'. Some of these are obviously not going to mean much to me (I doubt listening in on the Forestry Service from 29700 - 29800 is very exciting), but some of them would be nice to scan through on without having to do it manually. Do any of you know if there's a way to turn off the filter that skips these when auto scanning? EDIT TWO: Eton/Grundig replied to my email. The auto search skips over anything that isn't a 'major shortwave broadcasting band' and there is no way to configure it to scan all frequencies, so manual tuning is required. Looks like I will be getting the DX-394 modified after all... BigHustle fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jan 14, 2010 |
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Jan 12, 2010 09:53
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Now is a good time to be tuning through your bands. There should be quite a bit of emergency traffic for Haiti. Excerpt from frequencies: be aware of the emergency operations on the following frequencies: 7.045 and 3.720 MHz (IARU Region 2 nets), 14.265, 7.265 and 3.977 MHz (SATERN nets), and 14.300 MHz (Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net). The International Radio Emergency Support Coalition (IRESC) is also active on EchoLink node 278173. Arnie Coro will be heard quite a bit.
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Jan 14, 2010 16:53
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I've been following the Haiti situation listening to BBC-WS around midnight on 5875. I think that transmitter covers eastern Asia but comes in surprisingly well on my Degen 1103 in Maryland. Before midnight 5875 is home to "World Harvest Radio" religious shenanigans but you should be able to tell the difference 
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Jan 16, 2010 20:20
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It's been fun listening to the military coded messages. The other night was pretty active, though the speaker kept messing up the authentication and had to start over several times. Then I tried to listen for some emergency stuff, but all I got were some old redneck sounding guys chatting. Spent a half hour trying to tune the right spot on the SSB to get that one too.
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Jan 16, 2010 20:49
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Radio Nowhere posted:I've been following the Haiti situation listening to BBC-WS around midnight on 5875. I think that transmitter covers eastern Asia but comes in surprisingly well on my Degen 1103 in Maryland. Before midnight 5875 is home to "World Harvest Radio" religious shenanigans but you should be able to tell the difference :v:
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Jan 17, 2010 02:11
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Last night I found something out.  The Buzzer(UVB-76) spoke once more!According to this YouTube video, UVB-76's fourth known break in its weird little pattern of maybe-world-ending-failsafe-activity happened this past September. Like, holy poo poo! I wish I still had my G6. I think I'm going to track one down for cheap using some money I've got from Christmas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSN8ebNTXaY
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Jan 17, 2010 03:12
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Fredrick posted:Last night I found something out. Welp, that sure puts me in a  mood!
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Jan 17, 2010 21:21
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Fredrick posted:Last night I found something out. I'll have to check their signal on Global Tuners more often. It's probably been mentioned here before but Global Tunes is loving awesome for apartment dwellers like me whose shortwave portables only receive awful neighborhood interference from everyone's HDTVs and computers! 
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Jan 19, 2010 01:02
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It's they are obviously concerned about the earthquake machine that after hitting haiti and iran is about to target russia.
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Jan 19, 2010 02:13
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Radio Nowhere posted:I'll have to check their signal on Global Tuners more often. It's probably been mentioned here before but Global Tunes is loving awesome for apartment dwellers like me whose shortwave portables only receive awful neighborhood interference from everyone's HDTVs and computers! As a ham I feel you. My noise floor usually is S7 with all filters engaged.
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Jan 19, 2010 17:59
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Radio Nowhere posted:I'll have to check their signal on Global Tuners more often. It's probably been mentioned here before but Global Tunes is loving awesome for apartment dwellers like me whose shortwave portables only receive awful neighborhood interference from everyone's HDTVs and computers! I've been using global tuners for quite a while, if you can find a receiver that uses the unreal streaming audio the latency is really low and you can use 'em propery for scanning.
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Jan 19, 2010 21:56
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blugu64 posted:This is the closest thread I can post this in, but I really really want a P25 Digital Scanner, but really really don't want to spend the bank on it. I guess you gotta pay if you want to play with the big boys eh? I was in the same boat as you. I hated the fact that the cheapest one I could find was on sale for $399. But if you live in a large city, it is soooo worth it. I'm in the DC area and listening to anything here other than cab companies or aircraft REQUIRES a digital trunking scanner. The two digital scanners radio shack has (which are really GRE scanners) will sometimes go on sale for $399 (they are regularly $499.) Also check scannermaster, they have the GRE-600 (which is same as the radio shack pro-197) for around $450, and it comes with a USB programming cable. If you get one, you really really really should program it with software designed for your scanner (I use Win500 for the RS-197/GRE-600.) You should also get a subscription to radioreference.com ($15) so that you can download trunking tables and frequencies directly into the scanner. High-end trunking scanners can be programmed from the front control pad but the instructions are invariably written by an Asian with horrible command of English so you will likely pull your hair out. Not to mention that even once you get the hang of it it is incredibly tedious. Get the software and a USB cable.
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Jan 21, 2010 15:18
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It's no Conet Project but I got this CD about a month ago. It's an audio sampling of time stations WWV/WWVH through its history. From tick tick tick to beep beep beep and from morse code time stamps to "At The Tone". Okay maybe it's not really that exciting but a nice CD add for any shortwave addict. Samples: http://www.last.fm/music/Radio+Station+WWV/At+The+Tone+%28Selections%29 Hard Copy: http://dodgeblog.nfshost.com/wordpress/?p=435
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Jan 23, 2010 22:01
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