It reminds me of the song by Van Morrison about listening to (I presume shortwave) radio… “Athlone, Budapest…”
Bring Back Shortwave
91–100 of 115 posts
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#92SDR 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.
That's what got me into amateur radio - with your SDR you can receive signals from the ISS repeater, and watch the frequencies change due to the Doppler effect.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#93Earlier 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?
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…
IIRC Ethernet over the Main Electricity can interfere with Shortwave as well.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a bad choice, but the tiny tecsun radio I have has a telescopic antenna that is about 3 ft long when extended. It receives shortwave very well. If there is some distant broadcast (maybe overseas) that you want to receive you can definitely build a very efficient antenna system for that broadcaster's frequency. Be prepared to shell out well over $10,000 for this.
What kind of equipement one would need for that ? Also interested in what kind of equipment broadcasters use - it's some off the shelf stuff ?
For reception, a tower with a 3 element Yagi antenna with a rotator so you can point it in exactly the right direction.
Although I think you can do it cheaper - people have had a lot of success with a Beverage antenna. It takes up a lot of space though!
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
My plan for the apocalypse is to take down a "prepper".
Like how humans’ strategy to eat protein is to take down vegetarian animals - let them do all the hard work and then use the result yourself :-)
The zombies might be the apex predators in the apocalypse, but I will want to stay as close to the top of the food chain as possible.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#96In 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…
shoutout fellow Mackem! not often spotted on HN!
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#97In 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…
shoutout fellow Mackem! not often spotted on HN!
Whose keys are these keys? ;)
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#98I recently picked up a Qodosen SR-286 compact radio that supports LW, AM (MW), SW (HF), and FM but not aircraft/VHF bands, sadly.
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#99In 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…
Idk, it was pretty fun when all my friends were huddled around a single phone on the subway to watch the World Cup final on grandmastreams123321.xyz, with a second tab open on soccerplus321123.ru as backup
Re: Bring Back Shortwave
#100When I was a kid my dad gave me his war surplus radio. He had been a communications officer in WWII. It was a huge metal box with a separate speaker. Inside it was full of tubes, wires and other stuff. I knew nothing about it so I turned it on, ran a wire outside for an antennae and started spinning dials and flipping switches. It kept me amused for years. Eventually I stumbled across actual broadcasts such as BBC and Radio Luxembourg. But the funniest was the English language Radio Moscow. It was filled with vignettes of happy working couples in their modern apartment living a fulfilling life in the Soviet Union. The stuff was risible to even a child in the 1950's...