I love the idea of shortwave but all I ever pick up are Jesus channels.
Bring Back Shortwave
21–30 of 115 posts
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#22I love the idea of shortwave but all I ever pick up are Jesus channels.
http://www.short-wave.info/
There are other broadcasts too. You just have to listen during certain periods as they mayn't be up all the time. The website above allows you to figure out what you can receive at your location.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#23seems like shortwave can come back if 2 things come back
* access to electronic components [ie something like radioshack used to be being accessible]
* local governments stepping back of regulation of airwaves a hint
unless you have one or both of those things, shortwave is useful only iff the government collapses
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Height isn't going to make any real difference for shortwave reception unless you're seriously high up and putting up a very efficient antenna like a dipole. At that point it's kind of moot, as you don't need an efficient antenna anyways to receive shortwave.
I've read (but not tried) that what works is a verrry loooong wire strung up like between trees or in a barn.
as a ham, I highly recommend K9AY receiving loop antenna. you can find instructions online. it's a loop antenna design that's steerable via DPDT switch and has directional noise rejection. it also takes up less space horizontally than an efhw.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#25In the early 2000s I was lucky enough to travel the world for work. I was a football nut and always carried a Sony radio so I could pick up the BBC World Service.
I vividly remember turning it on late in a Sunderland vs. Newcastle match. I was in central Bogota, Colombia. Struggling for reception, knowing we'd gone 1-0 down early in the match, I can still hear the commentator: "and who would have thought, after going one-nil down at St. James' Park, Sunderland would be two-one up". I shouted out loud like a lunatic. We won the game.
I've strung wire coat-hangers from windows in Nigeria, Ukraine, and Macedonia all trying to improve reception so I could listen to a football match.
There's a romance there that internet streaming will never touch.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#26Honestly if we could just make the pirates around 6950 a little more tacitly legit (I mean it's clear the FCC doesn't care, but a little more wink wink nudge nudge might be cool), that would go a long way towards a shortwave revival. Some of the most fun listening is pirate broadcasts in the shortwave bands. Maybe even something like non-commercial ham-esque licenses that also allow people to play music?
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never been able to pick up anything on my SW radio with its integrated antenna. What am I doing wrong?
It helps to be high up and to have an unobstructed view. An antenna extension ( https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/sgn-ant-60 ) would help. Even better would be an active antenna. I have only heard great things about the MLA30+ though I don't own one myself. WWCR (4840) has always been the easiest broadcast for me to pick up in the US.
The MLA30+ is ok if you throw away the crappy bias tee power injector that comes with it and replace the coax with something a little more durable.
There's other gear like the cross country wireless loops that aren't much more expensive that perform much better, at least in my experience.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#28> Britain and most western countries have put all their eggs in one large basket: that of digital communications. In a time of global conflict, this could be a risky and painful prospect.
There's a scene in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) where a man (Jewish) is listening to the events of WWII play-out over shortwave. He is living at the moment in relative safety but he understands from what he hears that change is afoot in his country.
At the risk of sounding like a prepper, it was clear to me then that having a radio capable of long distance reception was a very valuable thing to have around.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#29I love the idea of shortwave but all I ever pick up are Jesus channels.
I'm in Europe, so it's mostly Chinese propaganda in various languages that you pick up on shortwave around here. There's exactly one American broadcast you can get here and that is, you guessed it, a Jesus channel.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#30SDR has started me on the path of exploring the radio spectrum, I encourage anyone who is interested in radio who has not tried it to get a cheap SDR dongle and give it a spin.