Got a Radio

[tneff]

Thanks for all the info and help , picked up a Grundig G5 today. Will start with this one and see what I can learn, hit a few stores today while I was doing service calls. It's amazing what little these people know about radios, the G5 seams to be a neat radio for it's size. Just got done reading the manual, now we'll see if I can find something to listen to. Can already see that I'm gonna have to add another antenna outback, once again I appreciate the info and help to get me started.

 

[Shortwavewave]

Thats great, what have you been listening to?

 

[ka3jjz]

As a hobby, HF is far less well known in the US then say in Europe or Asia. Part of that is because we don't have any HF broadcasters that send their programs out domestically (before I get nailed for this, I'm quite aware that the VoA and various bible thumpers are not hard to hear in the US....) Therefore the general public is not aware that it even exists.

The G5 (or Eton E5) is a nice place to start. If you are looking for SWBC, Prime Time SW just posted the B05 schedules on their website, and already there have been several changes. You can see that on the DX Listening Digest Yahoo group. Our SWL Monitoring Wiki has these particulars, and much more. It's under 'special topics' at the bottom (you can get to the wiki by simply clicking on 'wiki' in the blue toolbar)

73s Mike

 

[tneff]

The info posted by members here and the Wiki, have been a VERY valuable tool and educational. As far as to what I am hearing, LOL I have no clue. Don't speak the languages that I have been hearing, still tinkering. Trying to pick up some marine chat if I can find it.

 

[ryangassxx]

Glad to hear you picked up a radio.. Thats a good one too. The G5 is a very highly rated radio..

Couple rules of thumb,..

Try listening right around sunset and sunrise,.. Thats when results are best.. Nighttime in general is also when you'd want to be listening. Day time HF monitoring is going to be very noisy.. When I was first starting out I used the time stations as a gauge as to what bands were going and which weren't.. Check on 2500khz 5000khz 10000khz 20000khz.. If you can hear the time stations on any of those freqs, thats a pretty good indication where you should be tuning.. After a while, you'll get a better feel for what bands are active at certain times a day, as you'll eventually also learn about propagation.

 

[tneff]

Thanks Ryan, that does help.

 

[tneff]

Look like I have 2 radio's now lol, just won a DX 440 on ebay. Forgot I bid on it

 

[ka3jjz]

ryan and tneff - Conditions on HF are heavily influenced by activity on the sun - or in our case, lack of activity. In addition, being day or nite plays a very important role. In general, listen on freqs above 10 mhz or so during the day, below at night. We're stuck in the solar rut of low activity at the moment, but when the new cycle starts up - most seem to think sometime next year - that's when things will get interesting.

We have a couple of links on HF propagation in our wiki - under 'special topics' and 'propagation'. To be successful in this game, you need to understand the basics - you most certainly do not need a degree in solar physics!. Propagation on HF is a totally different deal than on the scanner bands, and you need to think in somewhat different terms than you're probably used to. 73s Mike