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Bring Back Shortwave

spectator.co.uk

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Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#31

Post by ggm »

I used to get the woodpecker, and some very ominous semi-continuous monotonous hums in human hearing ranges with occasional tweedle. And the lincolnshire poacher. Or, something very like it.

This was 70s Edinburgh, with a long-line antenna strung from my window to a tree about 50m away. I tried to make a dipole out of it, not sure it really worked. The radio was WW2 bomber surplus store, about 15U high and probably some precursor to a 19" rack width. you swapped out brick sized tuning blocks to reset it's frequency bands and then used a blade-overlap condenser tuner. I also used bakelite headphones, no soft foam. Hardcore! We had a better one downstairs with a vernier which tuned more accurately, consistently and it did MW for BBC radio. When FM became more common we got a small philips and it sat next to it, doing the hard work.

Shortwave picked up a lot. I was too young to understand what QSL cards would be about otherwise I would have some.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#32

Post by ahazred8ta »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #13
cf100clunk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding simply stringing long wire, if you have a huge, flat land area and don't mind overhead wires, erect a rhombic antenna on dedicated poles for extremely high gain but with a few downsides worth reading about, such as the sheer size needed for shortwave. Don't string wires between trees as they are guaranteed to snap in the wind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhombic_antenna

To my knowledge there is basically one person doing non-commercial work with rhombics in north america: https://www.k0uo.com/ The same guy also owns an airport from what I recall.

At some overseas US military bases they have a huge dual rhomboid for HAM / MARS.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#33

Post by baskinator »

hilbert42 wrote: post #19

Those who've had experience with either transmitting or receiving on the HF band and or lower frequencies (≤30MHz) and who've knowledge of ionospheric propagation just know that short, medium and longwave RF bands are still essential in this digital/cable/satellite era for reasons that when all other communications systems have failed then communications on these frequencies will still be reliable. Moreover, in warti…

A ham technician license is pretty easy to obtain in the US, and a handheld radio can be had for cheap. HF takes a little more hardware though.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#34

Post by _def »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #30

SDR 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.

You can even try some websdr servers, it can be really fun, even/especially(?) if you don't really know what you are doing

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#35

Post by don-code »

jen729w wrote: post #25

In 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…

While admittedly not at all the same, there was a certain romance shared by all listeners of a Boston-local FM radio station, WFNX. Whereas many commercial radio stations broadcast with tens of thousands of watts, FNX made do with a Class A broadcast license, limiting them to around 3000 watts of power. This made picking up the station a challenge for all but the closest listeners.

My particular romance was taking a pair of TV rabbit ears and hanging them out the window by the twin-lead cable, much to my mother's chagrin.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#36

Post by BoredPositron »

jen729w wrote: post #25

In 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…

Yep, was my gateway to the world as little boy before the internet/bbs came around.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#37

Post by TylerE »

kanbankaren wrote: post #22
y33t wrote: post #21

I 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.

That website is broken. When you drag the dot it says to reload the page for the change to take effect...and then when you do the dot snaps right back to africa.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#38

Post by frrlpp »

ggm wrote: post #31

I used to get the woodpecker, and some very ominous semi-continuous monotonous hums in human hearing ranges with occasional tweedle. And the lincolnshire poacher. Or, something very like it. This was 70s Edinburgh, with a long-line antenna strung from my window to a tree about 50m away. I tried to make a dipole out of it, not sure it really worked. The radio was WW2 bomber surplus store, about 15U high and probably s…

Wow, that would be a National HRO receiver. Quite capable radio.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#39

Post by II2II »

TylerE wrote: post #37
kanbankaren wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That website is broken. When you drag the dot it says to reload the page for the change to take effect...and then when you do the dot snaps right back to africa.

It works under Firefox. That said, I don't know how reliable the predictions are. My SWR is packed away at the moment.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#40

Post by [deleted] »

TylerE wrote: post #37
kanbankaren wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That website is broken. When you drag the dot it says to reload the page for the change to take effect...and then when you do the dot snaps right back to africa.

[deleted]
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