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HELLS loving YES.
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Feb 28, 2013 17:54
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 23:50 |
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I've spent the last few days listening to China Radio International, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America, ABC Australia and trying but not really succeeding at listening to Voice of Korea (interference and really bad tone) with my FT-747GX. Just a 5 meter whip antenna and I can receive the world!
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Mar 30, 2013 17:28
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I picked up my Conet Project re-issue last saturday 
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Apr 3, 2013 20:17
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biglads posted:I picked up my Conet Project re-issue last saturday I got mine yesterday in the mail 
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Apr 4, 2013 04:12
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Can you still download the whole thing for free like in the past?
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Apr 4, 2013 09:20
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thehustler posted:Can you still download the whole thing for free like in the past? http://gog.is/conet/project/free/download
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Apr 4, 2013 09:28
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Cool article in the Washington Post the other day about a spy for Cuba that used shortwave and numbers stations in her work. link
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Apr 24, 2013 01:47
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Bought a G3 from amazon for $94.87. I've always been curious about those old weird radios with the huge spectrum, and scanners. It should be here on Wednesday and I guess I'll turn it on and see wth. I'll probably be building a magloop antenna after that because well it seems cool and it's in the op so it has to be good. I have a friend that is a HAM in a different state and it would be cool to eventually get into that.
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May 6, 2013 22:27
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Accursed posted:Cool article in the Washington Post the other day about a spy for Cuba that used shortwave and numbers stations in her work. Fascinating read. Thanks for that.
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May 7, 2013 08:12
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I'm making a long wire antenna for my attic. The instructions say 50' to 75'. Would it matter if I use 100ft? I'm looking at 18AWG Enhanced Loud Oxygen-Free Copper Speaker Wire Cable for $10.41 on monoprice. When I connect the ends to a connector can I just use any ole 3.5mm plug I have laying around? Those plugs have two connections in them, should I just bridge and solder everything to the same path, or seperate the two wires to the two connections on the plug? Also, should I use a balun like this one: http://www.winradio.com/home/lwa.htm Thanks.
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May 9, 2013 22:57
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The thing about longwires is that the length optimizes it for a certain range of wavelengths. 100ft puts you into territory better used for MW. Best to use the recommended length.
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May 10, 2013 00:08
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Citycop posted:I'm making a long wire antenna for my attic. Like AstroZamboni said, in this case longer wouldn't be better. However, you might want to consider getting that 100 ft. run and splitting it in two to make a second longwire running perpendicular to the first one to catch signals in the opposite direction. A longwire with the end points north and south will pick up signals coming from the east and west. Running a second one east to west will get you signals coming from the north and south. That or you could make a dipole antenna with less than 100 ft. of wire and have something a little more balanced. Also, the antenna jack on the Grundigs are attenuated to prevent overloading. They also can't take a super powerful antenna, so you might want to limit that longwire to around 30 ft. If you do want a longer one, you might want to try connecting an alligator clip to one end and attaching the longwire to the extendable antenna with that. quote:When I connect the ends to a connector can I just use any ole 3.5mm plug I have laying around? Yes you can use any plug lying around, but you have to make sure you're using the wire that connects to the tip of the plug. Just tape off or cut off the wire for the ground. That or run up to RadioShack and pick up a mono plug for a couple of bucks to eliminate the guesswork. quote:Also, should I use a balun like this one: I would try the antenna without a balun and see what kind of signal you get. A balun like that would knock out some interference and probably net you some gain, but then you'd need to make or build a feed line to go from the BNC connector to a 3.5mm plug. Whether you make one or cobble something together using adapters, you're adding in connections. Every time you add in a new connection point, you lose some signal.
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May 11, 2013 14:03
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I've had two cheap handheld SW receivers for a couple years and love them. Lately, I've been wanting to record some of the things I hear digitally for a noise project, but can't seem to figure out how to do it. I played around with a program called fldigi, but it seems designed for transceivers and assumes a technical competence I admittedly do not have. Of course, I know there are online receivers, but I was kind of looking to use my handheld so as to record what I'm getting through my handhelds and all the strange interference. Any idea how I could do that? Is there any such program that can capture SW in real-time? I imagine there's got to be a better way than holding a microphone next to the radio. (Apologies if this has been answered already. I read the OP and skimmed the first and last pages of the thread - 3 years and she's become a big beasty) Dicere fucked around with this message at 07:17 on May 12, 2013 |
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May 12, 2013 07:15
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Dicere posted:I've had two cheap handheld SW receivers for a couple years and love them. Lately, I've been wanting to record some of the things I hear digitally for a noise project, but can't seem to figure out how to do it. Try Audacity. It may have a bit of a learning curve, but you can't beat the amount of powerful tools it offers for free.
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May 12, 2013 07:21
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Ah ha. Had the wrong inputs selected in Audacity. There was my problem. Yeah, I use Audacity a lot, and yeah, there's a learning curve. Dicere fucked around with this message at 12:27 on May 12, 2013 |
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May 12, 2013 12:21
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Is an SDR receiver overkill for Shortwave listening? Because I just stumbled onto the fact that USB TV tuners based on the Realtek RTL2832U or E4000 chip could be a SDR?! http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/06/getting-started-with-rtl-sdr/ Citycop fucked around with this message at 08:40 on May 13, 2013 |
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May 13, 2013 08:12
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It isn't overkill since you get features like the spectrum that are normally only found in $10000 HF transceivers, but it won't you much good for HF since it's limited to at best 30 MHz, just above the top edge of the shortwave bands. Get one to listen to air-band, Business Band VHF, marine VHF if you're near a harbor, police radio and such, there's even some progress towards decoding GSM cellphone traffic. Be aware that it has essentially no input filtering which means you'll very often hear strong signals on the "wrong" frequency, sometimes even hundreds of MHz off. I think there are some other solutions for SDR on HF bands, but they are far more expensive so you might be better off buying a decent radio instead.
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May 13, 2013 09:19
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Dicere posted:I played around with a program called fldigi, but it seems designed for transceivers and assumes a technical competence I admittedly do not have.
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May 13, 2013 10:55
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longview posted:I think there are some other solutions for SDR on HF bands, but they are far more expensive so you might be better off buying a decent radio instead. If you're handy with a soldering iron the SoftRock RX Ensemble II receiver kit is $70 and covers the ham bands.
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May 13, 2013 18:07
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MisterOblivious posted:If you're handy with a soldering iron the SoftRock RX Ensemble II receiver kit is $70 and covers the ham bands. The chances of me building that and actually getting it working are pretty slim. I was especially discouraged when it started talking about winding the coils yourself and the requirement for at least 3x magnification for soldering the smd's. I'm seriously considering returning my G3 as I become increasingly convinced the external antenna jack is broken. Anything I plug into it kills the reception. I created a 50 foot long line last night and hung it up outisde and connected it to the external antenna spot. The reception went DOWN, but connecting it to the onboard antenna netted a very very small increase in reception. I also tried connecting a standard TV antenna with the two extendables and the loop in the middle. That also killed reception. Maybey I am just terrible at making antennas. Citycop fucked around with this message at 21:08 on May 13, 2013 |
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May 13, 2013 21:04
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I had very similar experiences with long wires and I thought the antenna jack was broken as a result. That all changed when I built the magnetic loop.
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May 13, 2013 21:47
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longview posted:It isn't overkill since you get features like the spectrum that are normally only found in $10000 HF transceivers, but it won't you much good for HF since it's limited to at best 30 MHz, just above the top edge of the shortwave bands. There are some reasonably priced DIY/kit/commercial upconverters and IIRC certain models with specific tuners can be modified to tune down to DC.
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May 13, 2013 23:29
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Citycop posted:The chances of me building that and actually getting it working are pretty slim. I was especially discouraged when it started talking about winding the coils yourself and the requirement for at least 3x magnification for soldering the smd's. Meh, winding inductors isn't so bad. I'm not sure why ham guys make such a big deal 'bout it. Then again, my first job out of highschool was an inductor/transformer manufacturer. SMT might be a pain but there's more than one way to skin that cat. There are ways to solder every component at the same time at home. Keep in mind that a lotta hams are half blind elderly men. We're talking about a hobby where the average age is in the 50's.
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May 13, 2013 23:39
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Well I'm sending the Grundig back to Amazon today for a full refund, they are good like that. On the RMA I just quoted the "external antenna port does not work properly". I can tell that the G3 is just not going to be enough for me and at the price point it's at I don't want it gathering dust. I don't really want anything portable anyway, I want features, and most importantly, a more robust antenna input. I'll be ordering a Aferdi SDR-Net shortly as it seems to be the only decent assembled sub $300 SDR option. Also I can use an ethernet cable to connect it right at the input to my longwire in the attic and not run it near any electrical wires. I have 100' of 18awg speaker wire that I plan on splitting into two wires, for two 100' long wires like this:  What is the best way to splice the two wires into the coax antenna input? Is there some sort of connector that I can screw into a splitter then into the coax?
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May 15, 2013 00:56
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Citycop posted:The chances of me building that and actually getting it working are pretty slim. I was especially discouraged when it started talking about winding the coils yourself and the requirement for at least 3x magnification for soldering the smd's.
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May 15, 2013 02:43
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Citycop posted:Well I'm sending the Grundig back to Amazon today for a full refund, they are good like that. On the RMA I just quoted the "external antenna port does not work properly". I can tell that the G3 is just not going to be enough for me and at the price point it's at I don't want it gathering dust. I don't really want anything portable anyway, I want features, and most importantly, a more robust antenna input. I'll be ordering a Aferdi SDR-Net shortly as it seems to be the only decent assembled sub $300 SDR option. Also I can use an ethernet cable to connect it right at the input to my longwire in the attic and not run it near any electrical wires. Cleanest and quickest way would to be like a 3 foot jumper cable with the connector you want on one end (don't care about the other end), cut off the other end, strip the coax and get your wires connected up and insulated. One wire to the braid, one wire to the center.
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May 15, 2013 16:09
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It's 1:36 am in the Midwest. It's thunderstorming. And, after a year of casually (very casually) listening to shortwave, I have finally heard a number station. It's a series of numbers in Spanish followed by what sounds like a data burst. It has been going for like a half hour now. Band 5 - 12.12 MHz.
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May 16, 2013 06:38
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That sure sounds like v02. If your radio is hooked up to your pc, try recording it. The digital burst mode they use is called RDFT and I'd love some more opportunities to try to decode them.
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May 16, 2013 15:04
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I've got it on .mp3, but I don't have premium, so how would you like to make the exchange?
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May 16, 2013 16:01
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If you can put it up on SoundCloud or something, I'll take a listen when I get home.
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May 16, 2013 16:09
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If you have broadband, a format like AIFF would be better I think, since MP3 inherently tries to accomodate the human ear in its compression and some data modes might not compress well.
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May 17, 2013 00:35
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Here's the link to the file I mentioned. I'm going to play around DIGTRX tonight to see what I can do with it. https://soundcloud.com/maltster/numbers-more I'll remember the format in the future. Had I been more awake and not more-than-a-little creeped out, I would have saved it as an audacity project. All of the other stuff I use audacity for gets saved as an .mp3 and so it was sort of a force of habit kind of thing. Dicere fucked around with this message at 00:45 on May 17, 2013 |
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May 17, 2013 00:42
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Possibly no one cares, but I have been intrigued by RTTY since I found it. This is a recording I did of DWD. It's 50 baud RTTY I was able to decod with MultiPSK 11039 kHz Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), the German Weather Service 5/19/2013 @ 23:50 hours https://soundcloud.com/texasnewbie/11039-khz-deutscher A sample of the output looks like: code:also Wefax is cool as poo poo I'm getting weather maps off 7881.03 kHz with Fldigi! 
Citycop fucked around with this message at 07:38 on May 20, 2013 |
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May 20, 2013 05:54
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I use 10100.8 kHz as a test station since it's always transmitting and pretty much always loud and clear. I used SeaTTY to decode, but never could get the Fax option to work.
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May 20, 2013 10:34
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Six years. This thread has been active for six years. Jesus Penis, we all need to get lives.
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Jun 11, 2013 02:18
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Considering the decline in shortwave broadcasting that may happen sooner than you think.
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Jun 11, 2013 05:23
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nmfree posted:Considering the decline in shortwave broadcasting that may happen sooner than you think. That said, why don't you guys look into Amateur (Ham) Radio? I don't dig some of the old fart goofiness that goes on (like the OMG TEOTWAWKI EMCOMM bullshit) but over all the years, the mystique of talking to random people in far off places over these mysterious 'things' in the air has never really gone away, and that's mostly what drew me to SWL in the first place (I grew up in the rural south, CB was a way of life well into the 90s).
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Jun 11, 2013 06:44
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Flipping through Netflix "The Numbers Station" movie is available now. It never even came to theaters here, maybe going straight to Netflix is a sign of the movie's quality. I'll still watch it though because it deals with shortwave/number stations damnit!
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Jun 11, 2013 13:00
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I watched it yesterday. I've been waiting fifteen years for some filmmaker to get wise and make a spy thriller about number stations. When it finally happened, it was really kinda pretty bad. A person actually reading numbers into a microphone? A number transmission only five digits long? Sigh.
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Jun 11, 2013 15:20
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 23:50 |
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I don't see how anyone who saw the trailer could see that movie as anything other than a color-by-numbers action movie. e: unintentional pun
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Jun 13, 2013 01:44
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