71–80 of 115 posts
If you want to start, the top is to buy a Belka DX (probably the best portable shortwave in the market) but also ATS-25 or a SI4732 based radio that costs less 50$ on Ali.
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…
You covered all the points I was going to make. As part of the pre-internet generation that grew up with radio and a ham radio operator since my school years this is second nature and common sense to me. It is interesting that governments have long recognised the power of shortwave such that they have restricted what a citizen can do with it. In wartime, ham radio is usually made illegal. The recipient of a broadcast…
Yeah in a couple of years it'll just be Radio Caroline and various small-time pirates on AM. Even the venerable longwave transmitter for Radio 4 is getting shut down in a couple of months sadly.
Can't help feeling this is all a bit short-sighted, it's not like you can do anything else with those bands and if things go sideways it's a reliable way to reach a lot of people without power. Personally if we can't keep our medium and long wave transmitters on economic grounds I think those bands should be opened to unlicensed hobbyists, it'd be an excellent technical and artistic opportunity that would allow for actual broadcasting rather than just two-way communication. I doubt there'd be a huge issue with interference as few people have the room to put up a 150' quarter wave, and if copyrights were a material issue rights holders would have gone after public SDRs capturing the broadcast bands years ago.
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…
>very ominous semi-continuous monotonous hums could be buzzer perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76
I love the idea of shortwave but all I ever pick up are Jesus channels.
Time to set up more shortwave radio stations then (assuming that's allowed etc) with different content.
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And I believe you don't even need a technician license for just listening in.
You do not! You can get started for as little as $17: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074XPB313 For the other amateur radio operators on the site, the UV-5Rs from the main Amazon seller all comply with spurious emissions regs - the ones from AliExpress are hit or miss. Plus searching YouTube with 'Baofeng UV5R' will turn up a ton of material including explaining why people should care about the spurious emissions.
The UK's last remaining shortwave transmitter site has a power output of nearly 3 megawatts across ten HF transmitters. For all the romance of shortwave, it's an incredibly inefficient way to serve an ever-shrinking listener base. I can see the case for analog radio as an emergency communications system in regions with unreliable infrastructure. I can see the case for limited-area shortwave transmissions to serve pop…
It's extremely efficient and doesn't harm anything else. What would you replace it with?
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I have never been able to pick up anything on my SW radio with its integrated antenna. What am I doing wrong?
Check for noise sources (tube lights, solar equipment) as well. A friend had an old thinkpad and the psu brick was so noisy, it was blanking out my radio within 6-10 meters…
Having a shortwave (with a decent antenna) is fun. You twiddle the dial and find all kinds of goodies. Pretty soon you'll be scouring teh interwebz for programming schedules.
I have never been able to pick up anything on my SW radio with its integrated antenna. What am I doing wrong?
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…
Access to the internet is like when you use cheats in a game and it ruins the fun.