HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: mreleganza on January 22, 2019, 0412 UTC
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Hello,
A little background first: I was AM dxing as a kid in the 80s and 90s without even knowing the name for it, and then I got a shortwave radio and loved that as well. I didn't really research what I was doing (these were pre-internet days), I just enjoyed finding new stations and countries (or cities for AM).
Now I'm getting back into the hobby (with a Tecsun PL-380), and I want to sort of...know what I'm doing. I know know, for example, what LSB and USB are (indeed you have to in order to pass registration) but I couldn't really tell you what they're used for, what's interesting about them, and so on.
Many if not most of the lingo and abbreviations I see in threads are over my head as well at this point. It's a slightly intimidating-looking learning curve.
So question #1 is, what is the best, user-friendliest guide for learning about shortwave dxing? Either online or in print form; something in a "dummies" style or "explain like I'm 5" style, if that makes sense. Maybe a better question to ask what resources were most invaluable to YOU as you learned and became more of an SW subject matter expert.
Question 2 may sound like a non-sequitur but: are there any good resources for pirate radio recordings that are more than just 2-3 minute snippets? I haven't logged my first pirate radio finding yet, but in the meantime I'm happy to live vicariously through other people's recordings. Most of what I find on Youtube, however, is from the 80s and 90s, and I'm more interested in current stuff.
Thanks!
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Hello and Welcome.
WoW, there's some words in your post I've never heard of before and had to look them up!!
I couldn't really recommend any particular books to read as I've mainly learnt by trail and error.
Someone else will hopefully chirp up with some recommended reading...?
However you can always ask individual questions and get some decent answers on here for sure.
Regards
Stretchy.
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Maybe the best introduction is to check out the Wikis on Shortwave, whether here or at Wikipedia.
There are some SW sites like The SWLing Post that have a lot of information on various aspects of the hobby.
Overall, it's tough to learn a lot by doing right now because propagation is so poor. The best thing to do is to check the bands -- if you're into ham bands, 40 meters (day or night, although night is best), 80 meters (at night) and 20 meters (afternoon and daytime) are probably best, and if you're into SW broadcasts, the 49 meter band at night and 31 meter band during the evening are probably the best bets for hearing stuff.
When conditions improve in a couple years, the other bands (15 meter ham band, 10 meter ham band, 19 meter SW broadcast band, 17 meter SW broadcast band, etc.) will open up.
As for LSB and USB, it's 'sideband', which is a form of transmission that gets a signal out farther per watt. Hams use it mainly (along with a few other services), but on the 40 meter and 80 meter ham bands you will hear LSB, and 20 meters and higher the hams use USB. If you want to listen to the morse code sections of the ham bands (usually the lowest section of each band), either LSB or USB will decode it.
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Sideband is am without the carrier and other sideband. You've been listening to sideband all along and never knew it. Am modulation results in a carrier and sidebands, upper and lower, and these sidebands are what carry the information/modulation to the receiver. The carrier allows the receiver to demodulate the sidebands without the need of a bfo - beat frequency oscillator or a dsp ssb demodulator. The terminology stems from frequencies higher than the am carrier considered to be upper sideband, those lower than the carrier to be lower sideband.
The benefit to ssb is bandwidth savings as you can throw away the carrier and other sideband as the carrier isn't needed with a bfo or dsp ssb demod, and the other sideband has the exact same information. All this results in greatly reduced fading susceptibility and greater range as well as being much more energy efficient. All this comes at the cost of increased complexity and much finer tuning control in the ssb receiver as well as the need for a bfo to replace the now missing carrier. The carrier in the am signal does nothing more than reintegrate the sideband information at the receiver and takes up a rather large portion of the transmit power doing so. The new breed of rigs that are sdr or dsp do away with hardware bfos and filters and so on and use math to do the modulation/demodulation and filtration and can be coded to create perfect am and ssb signals, as well as other signal types.
There's no reason ssb can't sound as nice as am or have as much bandwidth, but a clean am signal is a joy,
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Well, here's a good Pirate Radio Archive resource from shortwave station WBCQ. Select the stations, and when the list comes from each one, right-click to download them, or just left-click to just listen. http://radionewyorkinternational.com/archives/pirate/
I still hunt and peck through the various stations myself. Hope that helps.
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Maybe the best introduction is to check out the Wikis on Shortwave, whether here or at Wikipedia.
There are some SW sites like The SWLing Post that have a lot of information on various aspects of the hobby.
Overall, it's tough to learn a lot by doing right now because propagation is so poor. The best thing to do is to check the bands -- if you're into ham bands, 40 meters (day or night, although night is best), 80 meters (at night) and 20 meters (afternoon and daytime) are probably best, and if you're into SW broadcasts, the 49 meter band at night and 31 meter band during the evening are probably the best bets for hearing stuff.
When conditions improve in a couple years, the other bands (15 meter ham band, 10 meter ham band, 19 meter SW broadcast band, 17 meter SW broadcast band, etc.) will open up.
As for LSB and USB, it's 'sideband', which is a form of transmission that gets a signal out farther per watt. Hams use it mainly (along with a few other services), but on the 40 meter and 80 meter ham bands you will hear LSB, and 20 meters and higher the hams use USB. If you want to listen to the morse code sections of the ham bands (usually the lowest section of each band), either LSB or USB will decode it.
I'm not sure I understand meter bands correctly. Are they chunks of the 0-30,000 mHz spectrum? Like, I listen to both my radio and SDRs people have kindly put up on SDR.hu. Most of them have a range of 0-30,000 mHZ, with dropdown options for different bands. I just assumed those options just took you to different ranges within the big range of 0-30,000 (in the common case). Is that not right?
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300/F(MHz) = m !
so for 6.9MHz 300/6.9 = 43m
Str.
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Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave_radio
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Hi and welcome to HFU :)
I learn most things by practice (most stuff I learned regarding things like the purpose of USB, LSB, CW, SSB, AM, FM, etc... are from using an RTL-SDR dongle with a software on a PC to see what the functions are doing in the spectrum dispay) .
For DXing I recommend https://www.dxing.com/ To start off.
Regarding pirates, I receive them a lot here locally on the AM and FM band. They are usually broadcasting once a week on a schedule.
Good luck and enjoy your hobby!
Kind regards,
Telegrapher.
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Maybe the best introduction is to check out the Wikis on Shortwave, whether here or at Wikipedia.
There are some SW sites like The SWLing Post that have a lot of information on various aspects of the hobby.
Overall, it's tough to learn a lot by doing right now because propagation is so poor. The best thing to do is to check the bands -- if you're into ham bands, 40 meters (day or night, although night is best), 80 meters (at night) and 20 meters (afternoon and daytime) are probably best, and if you're into SW broadcasts, the 49 meter band at night and 31 meter band during the evening are probably the best bets for hearing stuff.
When conditions improve in a couple years, the other bands (15 meter ham band, 10 meter ham band, 19 meter SW broadcast band, 17 meter SW broadcast band, etc.) will open up.
As for LSB and USB, it's 'sideband', which is a form of transmission that gets a signal out farther per watt. Hams use it mainly (along with a few other services), but on the 40 meter and 80 meter ham bands you will hear LSB, and 20 meters and higher the hams use USB. If you want to listen to the morse code sections of the ham bands (usually the lowest section of each band), either LSB or USB will decode it.
I'm not sure I understand meter bands correctly. Are they chunks of the 0-30,000 mHz spectrum? Like, I listen to both my radio and SDRs people have kindly put up on SDR.hu. Most of them have a range of 0-30,000 mHZ, with dropdown options for different bands. I just assumed those options just took you to different ranges within the big range of 0-30,000 (in the common case). Is that not right?
The SW spectrum is divided up into 'bands' by use. Yes, they are specific ranges within the 3-30 Mhz SW spectrum. There are ham radio 'bands' and SW broadcast 'bands', as well as other parts of the spectrum (which you may or may not call 'bands') used for military, aeronautical, marine, etc.
The ham 'bands' and the SW broadcast 'bands' are swaths of HF spectrum about as wide as the MW broadcast band. They usually are referred to as "meter bands", it's a leftover practice from the 1920's when radio people used wavelengths, in meters, to describe where they were on the dial, instead of the frequency.
The 49 meter band I mentioned is from roughly 5800-6300 khz.
The 31 meter band I mentioned is from roughly 9200-10000 khz.
The 41 meter SW broadcast band I referred to is from roughly 7200-7400 khz, although there are some stations overseas that broadcast as low as 7100 khz. Right below that band is the 40 meter ham band, where the hams talk, send digital signals, and morse code. The 40 meter ham band is from 7000-7200 khz (there is some overlap, obviously).
The 20 meter ham band (the most popular one) is from 14000-14350 khz. The lowest section is where morse code happens. Higher up, you'll hear digital signals and then Sideband (USB).
I hope this helps. I know it's a bit confusing to a newcomer, and it's not always the easiest to explain.
EDITED a typo: 40 meter ham band is 7000-7200 khz (roughly, depending on country and type of ham transmission) not 7000-2200 khz.
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This was actually GREATLY helpful; thank you!
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Welcome to the community.
Play around with this site, I have found it to be very useful, especially when away from home:
https://short-wave.info
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Subscribe to my channel for Pirate Broadcast Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUtTSq_cYIvQKX5DGrO90oQ
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Book-wise, one of my favorite ones was the Passport To World Band Radio that came out annually, until the early part of last decade. You may find .PDF downloads of these, https://swling.com/blog/2015/06/passport-to-world-band-radio-now-available-for-download/ In print??? Maybe used via Amazon, ebay, QRZ.com, hamfest flea-markets, or possibly still in some libraries. A wealth of info for the newbie, or seasoned DX'er.
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If you (or anybody who reads this that are newbies) are able to watch YouTube I'd recommend a channel called Official SWL Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialSWLchannel (https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialSWLchannel) tons of videos mostly of various SW catches.
But if you look deep in that channels's videos you'll find a set of beginners tutorials that might answer many questions in an actual demonstrated way I could not explain very well just using the written word. He also has live shows where one can ask questions live and direct. It's pretty cool if I happen to be near a computer. I'm usually parked in front of a radio lately though.
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I suggest that, if you're on Facebook, joining one of the shortwave groups there. Just three years ago I was in exactly the same position as you, didn't know anything about the technical aspects of shortwave, intimidated by the jargon, etc. I can testify that there's no real book out there for SWLing. My earliest information was contained in the user's manual that came with my first SW receiver, a Tecsun PL-600. From there, google was largely my friend. I found videos on youtube. (Look for "Official SWL Channel" for some very good beginner's information videos.) I found this group, which I joined and which introduced me to the fun of pirate radio. And I found the aforementioned shortwave groups on Facebook. Basically you have to ask a lot of questions and take in a lot of video and things do come piecemeal, however if it's really got you hooked, you'll learn quickly. Welcome!
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The best thing one can do as a newbie is get a chart of the SW bands and ham bands, and tune them and listen away.
The most basic 'rule' is daytime the higher frequencies usually have more activity, nighttime you go lower.
Of course, being that we are at the bottom of the solar cycle, the higher bands have less activity than they did in 2011 and 2012 and such.