Noob needs HF advice

[Michiganrailfan]

I'm new to shortwave, but seasoned at scanning. I bought a HomePatrol, after having a Radio Shack digital trunking scanner for 3 years.

I'd like to get my feet wet with shortwave radio by starting with a good receiver that I can listen to late at night while in bed. I don't have a lot of free time on my hands.....so the late night bedside radio looks good to me.

I checked out lots of reviews online, and am leaning towards something in the middle - something well above the cheapie portable but well below the big bucks tabletop. I'm guessing a good middle place is a radio costing around $100? Or do I need to spend more?

After reading lots of reviews, I started looking at two Radio Shack items: the Grundig G6 Buzz Aldrin edition (on sale for $60) and the Grundig S350. As you can imagine the reviews are mainly good. What turned me off about the S350 was the wobbly tuning knob....seems like a cheap mechanical bearing. So I bought the Buzz Aldrin.

I get it home and it performs great - as long as I'm 20 feet outside the house - inside noise is very bad at my house. So, I went back to the web, read more about antennas and noise, and basically followed the directions: try shutting off everything electrical in the house, one thing at a time. Well, I did this, and the noise level is still pretty bad. I'm better off listening to the radio outside.

On the web, I read there are many ways to fight this problem - use of an exterior antenna seems to be the best. I'm looking for advice on this. I like what I read about closed loops: they're less prone to noise. They're also simple to build: stretch a wire in a delta configuration between poles (or trees) in your back yard. The taller the better. Does anyone have one in Michigan?

Today I returned Buzz Aldrin ... I want to take my time learning about what to do next. I didn't like Buzz's small display. And I need smaller hands to push the tiny buttons. I'm looking for something more beefy. Any advice on a better model? Anybody have anything for sale?


Thanks

 

[SCPD]

Rf noise is a major PITA the best bet is make sure whatever radio you buy it has some sort of Noise Blanker. Wifi/Cable Modems/USB hubs are make a massive amount of RF noise. Try to stay away from the portables. 2 Good low priced desktop radio that you can find on the used market for under 200 is the ten-tec 1254 and rs dx-394. Both super radios. I have major RFI here at my house and my dx394 did not pickup anything. The 1254 did a little but my kenwood r-600 is a rfi whore she just loves it.

Good luck and welcome to the SW forums

 

[k9rzz]

As always, you get what you pay for. Also, you also have learned that outdoor antennas always hear better than indoor antennas. It doesn't necessarily have to be elaborate, just away from houses.

There's no free lunch!

Sounds like you've got something in your house that's still plugged in and still generating RF. If you want peace, you've got to find it.

I'm old school - I suggest Kenwood R-1000 YouTube - Longwave DXing - Kenwood R-1000

A great rig, and there's one on Ebay right now: kenwood r-1000 items - Get great deals on Electronics, kenwood r 5000 items on eBay.com!

Sensitive as all get out - takes very little wire to pull in the DX.

 

[SCPD]

I like the kenwoods also but they due have a bad drifting problem cause of there age.

 

[LtDoc]

There are quite a few very nice older receivers that should work well for you. The older they get, the larger they get too. At some point there is a switch in construction technology, as in SMT to 'dead bug' wiring, to tube type receivers, and the hybrids. And naturally, there are some that are 'better' than others. The name brands are generally 'nicer' than the less well know brands, and that opens up a huge selection range. Unless you are specifically interested in some bands, a 'general coverage' receiver will cover much larger frequency ranges.

So, depending on what your requirements are (size, convenience, etc.) the possibilities are much larger than you might think. If accuracy is a biggy to you I would stay away from the tube type receivers, or the really older ones in general. Drifting is a fact of life, just depends on waiting till the thing get's 'warmed up', to some undetermined extent.

The antenna is the one thing that will make more difference than anything else. Bigger and higher is usually 'better' than shorter and lower, and outside is always better than indoors. Happily, receivers are less 'picky' about impedances and resonance. Which just means that dang near anything will 'work' to some extent. There are 'pros/cons' for the various 'styles' of antennas, just depends on the room you have available and your intent. If it will conduct electricity, it can be an antenna or a part of an antenna. that opens up some really 'odd' workable antennas! An imaginations can be a 'terrible' thing!

Nothing 'new' in any of this, you probably knew some of it already...
- 'Doc

 

[k9rzz]

I like the kenwoods also but they due have a bad drifting problem cause of there age.

First I've heard of that. My R-1000 was very solid. Swan radios were known for drift until you warmed them up, and there's nothing wrong with that in winter! Another plus for the tube type boat anchors as well!

 

[Michiganrailfan]

Great discussion everyone. Thanks for the welcome, thanks for the help.

 

[Token]

First I've heard of that. My R-1000 was very solid. Swan radios were known for drift until you warmed them up, and there's nothing wrong with that in winter! Another plus for the tube type boat anchors as well!

Pretty much all of the tube radios, like the Swans, drifted significantly as they warmed up, but the Swan was especially noted for drifting even after hours of on time. The Swans were so noted that the Swan 250 was called by many the "Swan Too Drifty". There were ways to make tube radios more stable at all temps, and thus not drift, but that increased cost and so you typically only found it on very top shelf radios. Even those shifted somewhat on warmup, but sometimes by a small enough amount that if you were not looking for it you would not notice it.

When my station was all tube I tended to leave the primary radios on 24 hours a day. And yes, it was the warmest room in the house in the winter. When there was 4 to 6 feet of snow on the ground it was a pretty toasty place to hang out...lol. While I still own a lot of tube rigs (Hallicrafters, Hammarlund, National, Heathkit, Philco and Drake are the main brands I have in the collection, but there are a smattering of others) I almost never turn most of them on anymore, just a couple are still used regularly, and that mostly because I enjoy the sound of them.

And solid-state rigs drift with temperature also, but the drift rate tends to be smaller, and most are unnoticeable after a minute or two of "on" time. Still, if you are going to align a radio, it should be on for 30 minutes or so before you adjust anything, specifically so that it is at or near normal operating temp.

Many of the high stability frequency options you can buy for radios today are simple ovens, sometimes combined with designs or parts that are less drift prone. The reference oscillator is kept at a constant temperature above what might be expected for ambient, and so the temperature induced drift is controlled, because the “drifty” part is at a stable temp.

Yes, the Kenwoods (and Yaesus, and Icoms, etc etc) drifted, even when brand new. The R-300 quite a bit, the R-600 less so, and the R-1000 less yet, the R-2000 still less, and the R-5000 least of all in that line. Much like the Yaesu FRG-7 series, the FRG-7 had some pretty noticeable drift, the FRG-7000 less, the FRG-7700 less yet, and the FRG-8800 least of all in the series. The FRG series continued in the FRG-100, and you could say that was the most stable of the line, but I don't really think of it as part of the same line.

I suspect, but do not know for sure, that this progression and reduced drift is caused by two major factors. Techniques change over time and the radios went from traditional VFO designs to VFO with a digital readout added to fully digital synthesized designs, each step getting more stable or being more quickly noticeable to the operator and so he/she could cancel it out without thinking. And as time went on and electronics advanced the radios used less energy, less energy means less heating, and that means fewer or slower temperature changes within the case.

T!
Mohave Desert, California, USA

 

[jackj]

I've never tried a loop antenna but from what I have read they can be used to cancel out noise. They are most sensitive in the plane of the loop while canceling signals in a plane perpendicular to the plane of the loop. They don't pick up signals as well as a 1/2 wave dipole and that's why most of the commercially manufactured ones use a preamp. You can try building one but I think that you will be disappointed with any that don't have a built in preamp.

Most of the radios built in the last 20 or 25 years won't have much of a problem with frequency drift so I wouldn't worry about it. Even the cheap ones will be pretty stable after about 10 minutes of use. Look on e-Bay or some other auction site, you should be able to get a 1st class receiver that is 10 years old or so for about half of it's new cost. Good luck and good listening.

 

[k9rzz]

My takes on loops: Have made many wire loops of varying sizes from 7 ft rotatable, multi-turn to a full wave 40m wire which kicked a**! Are they quiet? I guess so but if you have a noisy power line nearby, you're going to hear it. They do have a null on each side, but it is VERY narrow, very deep, and otherwise the loops are pretty much omni directional. Have never needed a pre-amp on any loop, even the 3 ft box loops for BCB. If your receiver has a pre-amp, that will do. Do they work less than a 1/2 wave dipole? I never found that. My best antennas ever were loops!

However - for any noob: string a wire out the window and get it away from your home electronics. Don't worry about anything else. Simple, enjoy!

 

[majoco]

xeno194 said
"I like the kenwoods also but they due have a bad drifting problem cause of there age".

News to me too. Iv'e had an R2000 since new in the early 80's and it's always been spot on after 5seconds or so, just the settling time of the CIO and PLL's. I tune WWV on 5MHz with the receiver set to 4.999MHz USB, then measure the audio tone with a freq counter - it settles about 985Hz - turn the receiver off for a few hours but leave the counter on - turn on again and within 20 seconds it's back to 985Hz - no drift there!

It tunes in 50Hz steps, so I'm not overly concerned about the 15Hz off!

 

[Token]

My takes on loops: Have made many wire loops of varying sizes from 7 ft rotatable, multi-turn to a full wave 40m wire which kicked a**! Are they quiet? I guess so but if you have a noisy power line nearby, you're going to hear it. They do have a null on each side, but it is VERY narrow, very deep, and otherwise the loops are pretty much omni directional. Have never needed a pre-amp on any loop, even the 3 ft box loops for BCB. If your receiver has a pre-amp, that will do. Do they work less than a 1/2 wave dipole? I never found that. My best antennas ever were loops!

There are loops and there are loops. As a simple mater of physics a physically small loop (lets say 1/10 wave or less) will not work as well (capture as much energy) as a 1/2 wave dipole at the frequency the dipole is designed for. However, a full size, full wave loop will capture more energy, working "better" than the 1/2 wave dipole. My favorite 80M antenna is a full wave horizontal loop.

What loops tend to do, both large and small, is be lower noise than long wires or dipoles. This means they can exhibit higher signal to noise ratios, even when, as is the case of a small loop, they do not capture as much energy as a 1/2 wave dipole. This also means they can push signals below the noise floor of the RX that a full sized antenna would make usable, if this is a problem or not is going to depend on many variables, and it will be for some and not for others. The amplifiers that are used in most small loops you can buy commercially are there to bring the signal level back up to about what it would be if it was a “full sized” antenna.

When people use MW BCB loops, either with a preamp or not, they tend to think "wow, that works better than my 67' half wave 40M dipole" (or whatever half wave dipole/wire SWL antenna they might have). But in reality it is an improper application of the 67’ antenna working against a proper application of the loop. Would you expect a 33’ 20M dipole to work on 40M as well as a proper 67’ 40M dipole would? The loop might indeed have a much better SNR in the AM broadcast band than the 40M 1/2 wave and not a great deal less overall signal, but it is not picking up signals as weak (low signal level) as a full size ½ wave dipole cut for that portion of the MW BCB band would. Lets face it, few people have ½ wave dipoles in excess of 400 feet long, the length required for about mid MW BCB, and at the low end of the MW BCB region you would be talking a half wave dipole antenna over 860 feet long.

A well designed, physically small, loop will have a couple of very deep and fairly narrow nulls. These nulls can often be used to null out offending stations or noise in adjacent channels or even on frequency, allowing the desired station to be better heard…as long as the desired and offending are not on the same bearing. This means that in crowded conditions such as MW BCB they prove a very useful tool.

Physically small antennas are always a compromise. Yes, size really does matter in an antenna. Reduced size antennas should really only be used as a primary antenna when you do not have the space for a full sized one, you can not afford a full sized one, or a full sized one is impractical. You should never expect a reduced size antenna to perform as well as a full sized one when the full sized one is operating in it designed or optimal range of frequencies.

The paragraph above does not mean that reduced size antennas cannot have some desirable attributes, as is the case of a small loop on MW BCB. Sometimes those attributes, such as nulling with a small loop, can make reduced size antennas worth having, even when you have the full size antenna also. For example, each of my 450 foot and 300 foot Rhombics can be shorted at the termination end (I have a remote relay on each, allowing the termination end to be one of three states, terminated, open, or shorted), converting them into fairly decent, if a bit squished, loops, each of about 1000 or 670 feet circumference, or each a full wave loop at about 1000 kHz and 1500 kHz. But, my 1 meter per side loop is still worth having, at times digging out stations the full size antenna can not, not because the loop is “better” but because it has different operating characteristics that can be exploited to the users benefit. The big loops bring the signal in at greater levels, often hearing stations the small loop cannot, but the small loop can often allow me to separate out stations on a crowded freq, making things readable that the big loop turns into a loud mush.

T!
Mohave Desert, California, USA