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Joined: Feb 2010
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Thinking of getting a shortwave receiver for Christmas. But wondering these days if there is anything worthwhile being broadcast. I figure ya'll are the kind of dudes who'd know this.
Thinking it would be cool to get a different slant on world news and unusual music.
I'm in the US mid-west. I'd get a pretty good radio if I get one.
Thanks and Merry Christmas in advance.
- Bud
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I think any news service you can get is on the net.
Shortwave was the only way to go a few decades ago if you wanted to listen to propaganda or lived in some remote joint.
Now guys on traplines are taking in sat dish, flat panel, and a small generator so they can watch house while skinning furs.
No more telling stories and keeping oral history going, you can learn everything in the comfort of a log shack at the treeline with PBS and fox news. On a trap line you have to watch fox, it just seems right somehow.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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BBC news alone is worth listening to shortwave. I was a big fan of shortwave as a child, since I grew up in the Adirondacks with not much local radio that was worthy. That was 50+ years ago and there was a lot more on shortwave then, but it's still a fascinating way to hear other perspectives.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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In Canada we get BBC and BBC Canada on cable. Not that that's cheap, but for now it's a diversion. I tried an hdtv antenna and got 4 channels. Now if you live in a high rise in Toronto you can get lots of channels, though I doubt BBC is coming on board the list of broadcast channels any time soon.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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I was introduced to SW in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. I listened to Fidel Castro every night on a Knight Kit superhet receiver that I had built. He would rant and rave about the Yankee imperialist. I got my ham ticket in 67. I don't have a decent antenna now, but it seems that I'm finding a lot less on SW now. Of course a good antenna at a decent height makes all the difference in the world.
Don S.
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Shortwave I'm pretty sure is still good, loads of radio hams still broadcast and their chatter is interesting at times. I'd get a receiver with the capability of receiving SSB ( single side band )
Used to have a Cobra 147 GTLDX tranceiver many years ago, and whilst that wasn't exactly amateur radio, it WAS CB radio. Ended up a few years later having chatted to
all but two of the States in the USA. Alaska & Hawaii. Spoke all over Canada, had regular sceds with friends in the West Indies who I actually met years ago.
Depends what you want the receiver for. I'd love to get back into it myself but just don't have the space
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Thanks a bunch ya'll!
Been looking at Sony ICF-SW7600GR model. I had a cheap Grundig ($30 US) once and it picked up a little bit. Everbody on Amazon liked the Sony.
- Bud
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There's lots of shortwave weird number station stuff rebroadcast on the internet. Can't remember the website - I have it bookmarked on a different machine (I know, gotta do the cloud based bookmark thing one day).
-Scott
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Grundig makes great shortwave radios.
One important feature to look for is that it has a terminal for an external antenna. Shortwave reception is dramatically improved with a long wire antenna outside, or even a metal roof.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Matt, with shortwave, isn't there some weird formula to determine the length of the wire you need to run? I remember once for fun a buddy and I took his shortwave radio and made a clip on system for his antenna jack. Then we went to a water filtration plant that had a fence around the perimeter with barbed wire around the top and clipped the antenna to a wire that had to run close to a mile with no breaks in it. Just because we could!!!
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I was a shortwave fan many years back. I was always fascinated listening to the 'Atomic Clock' from Fort Collins, BBC, Radio Moscow, VOA broadcast to eastern block countries...it was fun. My shortwave was a little battery operated hand-held Sony and had an antenna that could be extended. No need to hook it up to an external antenna and picked up plenty of stations. You need to learn what frequencies to scan at particular times of day as the sun is a determining factor.
Now I'm hooked on internet radio. I have a Logitech Squeezebox - one of the apps being TuneIn Radio (www.tunein.com). If you can't find something interesting there, well... I think now the iPhones, etc have apps to access Tunein and others. Seems to be the way to go. Of course, you need access to the net. When an EMP takes out the net, a shortwave will be handy though.
R
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432/freq. in Mhz would give you a resonant half wave.
Not all that critical for SWL.
Don S.
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Or 428/frequency. Sure, as the frequency goes up, optimum antenna length gets shorter. But with 1/2 wave and other variations, and with the frequency range of shortwave being so large, just string a long wire between two trees, tap into the middle, and have fun.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Don and Matt both got at least one question on the Technician Class Amateur Radio License test wrong *grin*.
The correct formula for a half-wave dipole is 468/frequency in MHz. The answer derived from this would be in feet.
Ex:
Let's say that the frequency of interest is 10MHz (which would be WWV time standard's freq. in USA)
468/10 = 46.8 feet
So if one constructed a dipole antenna that was 23.4 feet on each side, the antenna would be close to resonance at 10MHz.
However, for receiving only, or Short Wave Listening (SWL) purposes, there really is no need for a resonant antenna and such is not critical. Rule of thumb is longer is better, higher above ground is better. But one can do a LOT of shortwave listening using the telescoping rod antenna that is typical in the modern solid state shortwave listening receivers.
--Mac
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I have one at our cabin, a battery powered one. We learned about the big east coast blackout one year at breakfast. Of course the only thing powered in the place was the radio, so what did we care? 2 weeks with nothing but the lake, the sun, and canoes was always my kind of entertainment.
It's almost winter. I can tell by the number of posts in the other forum. And you can hear the gnashing of teeth from here. Sooner or later most of them will figure out that the C: drive is not the G: drive, or that the feature they want to turn on the water sprinklers when someone plays I'm in the Mood is not a feature that is ready yet.
And things will calm down.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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I'd a trio 9R59DS receiver just after I left school. Listened for hours. When I worked in the Shetland islands I used to listen to the various fleets of trawlers heading out to sea, some very colourful language to say the least, but entertaining. What joy when I first picked up radio Australia !! I also remember hearing King Hussain of Jordan when he used to broadcast as a radio ham, and imagine my thrill when I received a QSL card back from him about a year later ! WOW !
I was hooked. I think that's where I got my love of radio presenting from
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I'm wiping the egg from my face here, Mac. After posting, I realized that I had misstated the formula, but I didn't get around to editing it. Sorry about that.  Don S.
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And I mistyped 428 for 468. With shortwave, it really doesn't make a significant difference.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Rubberball103
I still have my Sony ICF-SW7600 which I bought in 1990. It is still going strong although lately I have not strung up an antenna to get SW. I use it in my office for FM local stations. Great little radio!
Mine came with a thickish booklet showing all the shortwave stations of the world, including the timetables, stations guide and frequencies list. The appendicies list long wave, medium wave and FM stations. I suppose that most of the listed stations are now defunct in this age of satellites.
Kevin
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