Hey, maybe if I listen to them every day I’ll learn to understand Portuguese. 🙂
Shortwave expectations
- Thread starter ditto1958
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I like hearing CRI's music that they play in their broadcasts to Europe and South America. They have a lot of high quality, AC ballads, usually sung by a woman, but the music is very serene and well put together. North Korea has some interesting music as well. It's entertaining to say the least. Romania also, except they don't usually come in well here in the PNW.
Grunddiigg
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I really enjoy having SSB capability to listen to hams talk. Fine tuning their voices to sound perfect is oddly satisfying for me.
You enjoy listening to hams talk about there prostate and other health issues? Boring. But some do talk about there area issues.
Grunddiigg
Member
Ummmm, that's not what I said. Have a good day.
I hear a lot of hams talk. Only a minority of convos have been about health issues. Mostly they talk about equipment, sometimes the weather, sometimes politics and news, or a mix of all the above. Mostly equipment, though. Heard a couple guys talking for for well over a half hour about Collins radios. Another convo was 15 minutes about Elecraft.
13dka
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Listening to hams (particularly local ragchewing nets) can be a <cough> mixed experience, yes. 
However, if some Dave is rambling on about his prostate in Alaska, 7,000 kilometers away from me and (due to the same high latitude) a difficult to receive spot on the planet here -- the first thing I may experience is happiness, because I never managed to hear a ham from Alaska in 40 years of SWLing! During these years I also learned why exactly that particular connection is difficult and that's why I don't really hear what Dave's has to say about his prostate, what I hear is how his voice gets bullied by aurora on its way over the pole*, I can literally hear the big generator in our planet interacting with the space weather it's flying through and I try to imagine what way the signal may have taken along the grayline. Nerdy stuff, I know.
Also, since so many countries have given up on shortwave services of all sorts, hams are the last sources of signals from many spots on the planet, and they have always been activating spots far beyond the reach of civilization. It can be fun to collect "ham radio countries" and a rewarding challenge to log (and be it just in your brain) the rare and distant ones. I've collected quite a few but the best thing is - there's always more to hunt!
Sometimes you may catch things that are a bit out of the ordinary, stuff like the FO (and licensed ham) of a Lufthansa flight over the North Atlantic getting bored and tuning one of their 2 HF transmitters to have a little chat on 20m, guys transmitting off bicycles, a guy with a 25W backpack radio standing with both feet in the Atlantic ocean talking to someone in France, or just a lady on a yacht with a 100W radio mooring on some godforsaken South Pacific island on (almost) the antipodal spot on the globe 17,000km away, reporting back home to their ham friends. I could read her longer than the hams she was talking to - using super thin enamel wire harvested from an old transformator, connected to an old tube receiver I got for free.
Admittedly, this kind of fun is derived from the rather technical/physical and high performance side of shortwave radio but you don't have to dig really deep into anything to understand, master and enjoy the challenges it brings. And occasionally, hams do talk about interesting things too!
* Here's an example:
That's not "Dave" and luckily he's not talking about his prostate but if you listen carefully you can hear the warbling sound caused by the earth's magnetic field concentrating charged particles from the solar wind over the north pole. That was recorded in a "quiet" phase though, when there's solar storm conditions causing visible aurora things can get really crazy.
However, if some Dave is rambling on about his prostate in Alaska, 7,000 kilometers away from me and (due to the same high latitude) a difficult to receive spot on the planet here -- the first thing I may experience is happiness, because I never managed to hear a ham from Alaska in 40 years of SWLing! During these years I also learned why exactly that particular connection is difficult and that's why I don't really hear what Dave's has to say about his prostate, what I hear is how his voice gets bullied by aurora on its way over the pole*, I can literally hear the big generator in our planet interacting with the space weather it's flying through and I try to imagine what way the signal may have taken along the grayline. Nerdy stuff, I know.Also, since so many countries have given up on shortwave services of all sorts, hams are the last sources of signals from many spots on the planet, and they have always been activating spots far beyond the reach of civilization. It can be fun to collect "ham radio countries" and a rewarding challenge to log (and be it just in your brain) the rare and distant ones. I've collected quite a few but the best thing is - there's always more to hunt!
Sometimes you may catch things that are a bit out of the ordinary, stuff like the FO (and licensed ham) of a Lufthansa flight over the North Atlantic getting bored and tuning one of their 2 HF transmitters to have a little chat on 20m, guys transmitting off bicycles, a guy with a 25W backpack radio standing with both feet in the Atlantic ocean talking to someone in France, or just a lady on a yacht with a 100W radio mooring on some godforsaken South Pacific island on (almost) the antipodal spot on the globe 17,000km away, reporting back home to their ham friends. I could read her longer than the hams she was talking to - using super thin enamel wire harvested from an old transformator, connected to an old tube receiver I got for free.
Admittedly, this kind of fun is derived from the rather technical/physical and high performance side of shortwave radio but you don't have to dig really deep into anything to understand, master and enjoy the challenges it brings. And occasionally, hams do talk about interesting things too!
* Here's an example:
That's not "Dave" and luckily he's not talking about his prostate but if you listen carefully you can hear the warbling sound caused by the earth's magnetic field concentrating charged particles from the solar wind over the north pole. That was recorded in a "quiet" phase though, when there's solar storm conditions causing visible aurora things can get really crazy.
You sound a lot like me. I ended up with a hand me down Hallicrafters receiver when I was in junior high in the early 70's and remember listening to some interesting programs back then, as well as regularly having to adjust the tuning when it drifted out of place. I got the Xhdata D-219 a few months ago and really enjoyed it even though the shortwave programs I've been able to hear remind me of AM radio without the commercials. Great if you want to hear religious programs, foreign languages and the guy who went to jail for his crimes. It beats the CB chatter I used to hear occasionally when the Mud Duck was tieing up channel 19 talking about window lickers while the rest of us were trying to use it for work.
I too got the Xhdata D-109WB. I hoped it was going to be 5 times better than the D-219 since it cost 5 times more but haven't found that to be the case. It's a nice radio and easier to use than the D-219 but they each pick up stations that the other one can't. I'd thought about getting the Qodosen but wanted the weather band and SSB if I was going to spend that much, I wonder if they're going to ad any of those features to newer models?
I got an external antenna when I got the D-109WB and have had mixed results with it. Did you get one too? I'm impressed with the results people like Andre from SWL gets with his, I need to keep experimenting to find what works better.
I do have a retractable wire antenna, and I use it a lot with both the D109-WB and the DX-286. Both tend to catch the same SW signals, but sometimes Qodosen can hear signals with its the whip antenna that the XHData can only hear with the wire.
As for the features the Qodosen lacks, maybe they’re working on it. Oh, and no, the D-109WB is not five times better than the D-219. And the DX-286 is not twice as good as the D-109WB even though it’s twice as expensive. Bottom line, though? I think all three radios are easily worth what Amazon charges for them.
As for the features the Qodosen lacks, maybe they’re working on it. Oh, and no, the D-109WB is not five times better than the D-219. And the DX-286 is not twice as good as the D-109WB even though it’s twice as expensive. Bottom line, though? I think all three radios are easily worth what Amazon charges for them.
I think the n+1 for me would be the C Crane Skyway SSB 2 but with better sound. I bought their Radio Solar a few years ago when I was driving and still am amazed at how good it is. I'd originally considered the Skywave but wanted better sound, they've added SSB since then but I haven't read where the sound is any different.
Those are very nice radios, but I don’t think I can rationalize spending $200 on one.
Me either. I don't have any plans to buy any of the radios currently being sold unless one of mine breaks. But if there's something close to the Skywave at a much cheaper price with better sound ...
Well… for About $101 on Amazon you can get an XHData/Sihuadon D-808 that definitely has better sound than the CC Skywave SSB 2, and has the same features, except for NOAA weather alerts.
As for the CC Skywave 2, for about $50 on Amazon, there is an unabashed clone, the XHData/Sihuadon R-108. The radio’s biggest selling point is better sound than the Skywave.
Somewhere in all the Internet searching I ran across a post that said someone took that electronics from the original Skywave, removed the weather band as they were going to market it outside of North America and installed everything in a bigger housing with a bigger speaker to create the D-808. It sold well enough to start selling it here and they did. I hadn't heard the D-108 being a clone of the Skywave, but it wouldn't surprise me.
I've found I get better reception with the whip antenna on the D-109WB then the Xhdata reel antenna I got when I ordered the radio. I've tried moving to different locations both inside and out but am able to pull in more stations with the whip and the reception is better too. What has your experience been?
My D-109WB works pretty well with both the whip antenna and with a wire indoors. I experiment by trying the whip held in multiple directions and alternating with the wire. I also hold the clip with a finger and thumb while touching the whip with another finger- when the clip gets about an inch away, sometimes the signal will pop in. The DX/LOC button also helps. Using LOC can sometimes clear a noisy signal.
I've been using the plug instead of the clip and wondered if the clip might work better. I'm going to try that.
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