log your SW catches here:)

[poltergeisty]

Heard he went with the rocket...

[nickcarr]

Is anyone else able to hear 4885khz AM?

It's coming in fairly weak but I can tell it's a Spanish station. I must be getting multiple hops because it's consistently fading in/out. The male speaker is speaking very fast. Sounds rather strange. Possibly a sporting event?

WRTH 2009 lists possibilities as 3 low-power Bolivian stations.


-Nick
Seattle, WA

[ka3jjz]

Hmmm...if it was Bolivian, then you got a goodie, because Bolivia is a VERY hard country to hear on HF. I have heard R Diff Acreana from Brazil (in Portugese, natch) on that freq on a semi regular basis in the eves, (R Clube do Para - also a Brazilian - is also a commonly reported Brazilian here) but you're on the west coast. And yes, things get rather hectic when sporting events are broadcast. Wait until you've heard your first 'goooooaaaalllllll' (hi). Brazil has a pretty heavy presence on this part of 60. 73 Mike

[ridgescan]

Hey Nick-give us a time window on that one so I can give it a try here

[ridgescan]

18:10UTC @ 7315KHz Radio China Intl. to the middle east..only 2-5 on the meter very weak.

[nickcarr]

Originally Posted by ridgescan

Hey Nick-give us a time window on that one so I can give it a try here

Ah well I thought my post time would be sufficient indicator.

Anytime after 5pm PDT it seems to come alive. As of right now at 831pm, it's sounds like music.

[nickcarr]

Originally Posted by ka3jjz

Hmmm...if it was Bolivian, then you got a goodie, because Bolivia is a VERY hard country to hear on HF. I have heard R Diff Acreana from Brazil (in Portugese, natch) on that freq on a semi regular basis in the eves, (R Clube do Para - also a Brazilian - is also a commonly reported Brazilian here) but you're on the west coast. And yes, things get rather hectic when sporting events are broadcast. Wait until you've heard your first 'goooooaaaalllllll' (hi). Brazil has a pretty heavy presence on this part of 60. 73 Mike

Mike, you're correct. I mis-read my WRTH guide. I think it is that same Brazilian station. I wonder what kind of antenna they use. At 5kw, you'd think it would come in much stronger.


-Nick

[ka3jjz]

If they are running 5kw - I kinda doubt it, but I suppose... anyway, most of these tropical stations are using simple dipoles,verticals or similar, I'm certain. Remember they're really not looking for DXers to hear them - they just want to cover their local area, and not much else. Some of these transmitters are refitted PTP jobs, so what they are listed to run might not necessarily be what they are actually running.

73 Mike

[ridgescan]

Radio Ausralia, 9710KHz, caught at 1705UTC. Broadcasting from Australia to Asia. News. Kind of weak, so I used USB with some pbt, and tuned .06 up from 9710 for best modulation. (wish I could still post vids)

[KI6ABZ]

I unrolled a 50' speaker wire in the back yard, strung it between the house and a tree.

caught a bunch of CW on 3510 and at least 3 hams talking about the band plan on 3766. Apparently, they'd been consntantly pushed around by contesters, and one of them fired up FM in the DX Window (3755-3800 kHz). Interestingly enough, none of these guys ever ID'd. I finally caught a callsign in passing. (I have identified 4 different voices at this point.)

Between 04:45 and 05:30 UTC from San Diego:
Found some not quite intelligible stuff from Australia on 15515, news from Havana on 6010, a German language program on 6170, a woman discussing a story on 3510, and a harmonic of a local radio station on 3800.... that's annoying, since it's right at the 80 meter ham band.

This was the first time I've ever used a real SW radio - Grundig Satellit 750

[ridgescan]

Originally Posted by KI6ABZ

I unrolled a 50' speaker wire in the back yard, strung it between the house and a tree.

caught a bunch of CW on 3510 and at least 3 hams talking about the band plan on 3766. Apparently, they'd been consntantly pushed around by contesters, and one of them fired up FM in the DX Window (3755-3800 kHz). Interestingly enough, none of these guys ever ID'd. I finally caught a callsign in passing. (I have identified 4 different voices at this point.)

Between 04:45 and 05:30 UTC from San Diego:
Found some not quite intelligible stuff from Australia on 15515, news from Havana on 6010, a German language program on 6170, a woman discussing a story on 3510, and a harmonic of a local radio station on 3800.... that's annoying, since it's right at the 80 meter ham band.

This was the first time I've ever used a real SW radio - Grundig Satellit 750

Some of us here were wondering about that Grundig a while back-did you just get it?
The point of this thread is to sort of show that SW is alive and well-and you certainly contributed some good catches...the "woman discussing a story"-was that a broadcast or was it amateur?
If you have a digital camera, could you put up a video of that thing in the "show off your shack" thread...I'd like to see the Grundig in action!

[gcgrotz]

Originally Posted by KI6ABZ

I unrolled a 50' speaker wire in the back yard, strung it between the house and a tree.

This was the first time I've ever used a real SW radio - Grundig Satellit 750

there ya' go!

Just shows that you don't need a lot of fancy stuff to have some fun on SW.

Now rip that speaker wire down the middle and splice it together and you'll have 100ft. Throw it to another tree or just let it hang down.

For a while after I moved here 3 years ago, I used some wire stapled to the wood fence about 35-40 feet. Had no problem picking up Radio New Zealand in the a.m. here in VA.

[KI6ABZ]

Originally Posted by ridgescan

Some of us here were wondering about that Grundig a while back-did you just get it?
The point of this thread is to sort of show that SW is alive and well-and you certainly contributed some good catches...the "woman discussing a story"-was that a broadcast or was it amateur?
If you have a digital camera, could you put up a video of that thing in the "show off your shack" thread...I'd like to see the Grundig in action!

Sure thing. I'll try to dig out the camcorder and do a quick run-through sometime over the weekend.

If you're thinking about the Grundig, I can say that it's a nice unit to use. I really like the control knob, and the audio is good. Probably the only thing that I didn't like was the BFO: the "fine tuning" knob for SSB use. It takes a fine hand to get the knob tuned just right; I'd much rather see this be a 3-turn pot to make it easier to zero in on the frequency.

The only thing that frustrated me was that I couldn't plug it directly in to the computer. It does have a pair of RCA line outputs, but the computer introduces too much RF noise. I'm going to try using my external USB Sound Blaster or my Lexicon Omega and see if that makes a difference.

My other choice was the portable Sony radio, and after using the Sony for a little while, I'm glad I went with this one. The Sony is nice, but the Grundig is just more fun to use.

[ridgescan]

0500UTC-7245KHz Deutche Welle (Germany) to Africa via a relay in Rwanda! World news. The carrier is unusually "wavy"-compared to most of my catches.

[ridgescan]

0445UTC-12035KHz, BBC to Africa via relay in Cypress (Mediterranean) super wavy and weak modulation-had to go USB, .030 up freq, choke up the RF gain, and tweek the PBT a tiny bit to get a read!

[tekshogun]

Heard Radio China in english, 27-March-2009, 00:00 EST on 6.02MHz, east coast United States

[KI6ABZ]

Caught some callsigns on 20 meters CW and RTTY over the weekend. Furthest away was Florida.

Rtty and CW is fun to monitor. I haven't heard any PSK yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

Would anyone like a tutorial on how to grab digital Ham signals?

[WisconsinRailfan]

Originally Posted by KI6ABZ

Caught some callsigns on 20 meters CW and RTTY over the weekend. Furthest away was Florida.

Rtty and CW is fun to monitor. I haven't heard any PSK yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

Would anyone like a tutorial on how to grab digital Ham signals?

I use Ham Radio Deluxe, what software are you running?

[KI6ABZ]

I'm experimenting with HRD; I just learned about it recently.

I'd been using a program called HamScope. It was the first program I found back in 2005 when I got my license, it's pretty good, but I'm going to start playing with HRD. It seems to be the new de facto standard, and the price is outstanding.

[KI6ABZ]

dang... I started using the Digital Master program that comes with Ham Radio Deluxe. That's a nice program.

I re-oriented my receive antenna tonight; it now goes perpendicular to the nearby power lines, and I threw up a 15' line connected to the shield on my coax feedline, essentially turning my long wire antenna in to an offset dipole.... it cleaned up the signal quite a bit. I can get the beacons on 5 and 10 mhz very clearly in the evening, and I got a good, clean signal on 15 Mhz this afternoon.

I started listening to digital modes on 7 Mhz and 33.5 Mhz... i caught callsigns from people all over.... i got stuff in Maryland, Washington, Idaho, Florida (very weak), Central Mexico, and I heard some voice traffic coming from Virginia. I also caught the ARRL broadcast (broadcast in Morse Code) from the ARRL headquarters.

I get my new transceiver on Thursday. i can't wait to see what I can get when I have a tuner and a receiver with filters and DSP.