Messages

181

Equipment / A review of the Tecsun H-501x portable shortwave radio receiver. SWL´ing.

« on: November 06, 2022, 1905 UTC »

https://swling.com/blog/2022/11/a-review-of-the-tecsun-h-501x-portable-shortwave-radio-receiver/

Hmmmmmmmm... That limited AM Bandwidth kind of bugs me. Just my picky take.

182

Amateur Radio / Re: Snotty Hams? Oh yeah...

« on: November 05, 2022, 1920 UTC »

Oh yeah... I´ve especially run into these folks on 160M. Even, on 75M, especially AM mode. If you are not putting out at least an S+20/9 signal, with broadcast quality 100% modulation, there´s stations that may ignore you completely. A lot of QRP´ers seem to get ignored as well, like those folks that worked with those DIY 5W Pine Board Projects. If I heard their 5W signal, then I knew that they could hear my barefoot 20W signal. Makes me wonder if a lot of these stations run their RF Gains down, and just can´t hear ya. One band that I believe you´d love is that newer 60M band. Pretty much, a nice bunch of folks there, that have that 100W limit, and being channelized, you don´t have to worry about someone just 1, or 2, kHz from you blasting over. Oh.. The other thing that I´ve run into is Big-Gun snobbery. Ya know... Those folks with several Icom IC-7851´s, +100ft towers, multi-acreage arrays, broadcast quality audio processing, legal 1.5kW power all the time, etc. I´ve had that attitude towards me upon, ¨If I can get all that going, why don´t you?¨ Well, like me, a lot of us take years to acquire what we have, let along being able to afford to maintain all this gear. It´s the same deal of some of those people that you might meet that feel broke, if they don´t carry around at least $10k at all times. So, I guess we all have to find the folks that seem like our perks, and just avoid the jerks. 

183

Propagation / Re: Coming soon, Winter Sporadic ¨E¨ Season for 2022 - 2023. And, maybe Tropo, still

« on: November 03, 2022, 1928 UTC »

They also call Sporadic ¨E¨ propagation ´Short Skip´, for 24MHz and lower VHF Low band, like 450 miles to about 600 miles, where as F2 is usually +800 miles. Once in a while, an ¨E¨ cloud can do Back Scatter, a make an even closer contact, like 100 - 250 miles, possible. But yeah... The CB CH6 ´Superbowl´ is a good place to hang for openings. I like to keep a rig on CH 38LSB. Another thing that I can hear this time of year is a quick burst of Meteor Scatter. Happy DX´ing!!!

184

Propagation / Coming soon, Winter Sporadic ¨E¨ Season for 2022 - 2023. And, maybe Tropo, still

« on: November 02, 2022, 1938 UTC »

November, already, but Sporadic ¨E¨ propagation should be showing up soon, especially on CB FREQ´s, then 10M, and hopefully, 6M. There are still a lot of rural highway departments still using upper 30MHz and 40MHz VHF rigs, so you might hear snow plows on-the-air soon. Don´t forget to check, https://www.dxmaps.com/spots/mapg.php?Lan=E&Frec=50&ML=M&Map=W2LN&HF=N&DXC=ING2&GL=S   for this. However, warm fronts, going to cold fronts, still can make Tropo neat on upper VHF and UHF bands. Neat Christmas, about 6 years ago, I got off work before midnight, and heard a friend on 2M National Simplex, 146.520MHz FM, QSO´ing with stations up by Cleveland, OH, over 200 miles away! And, I was able to hear them in the truck. I then worked a couple of those stations back home on the base. So, y´all just never know.

185

Huh? / Century Edition of ARRL Handbook for $80.00 hard cover.

« on: November 01, 2022, 1817 UTC »

https://handbook.arrl.org/   Oh yeah!!!! Always a wealth of info. I´ll even keep the older editions for the info in those.

186

FM Free Radio / Re: FM Dxing equipment? Antennas, boosters, and used car stereos.

« on: October 31, 2022, 1932 UTC »

Well, over +30 years ago, I used both those Radio Shack FM beams and a VU-190 TV / FM, VHF / UHF, beams up +40ft on a mast, with a cheap Channel Master rotor. In a rural area, without a local FM station, I was also able to get away with +10dB and +20dB signal booster amps. And, if I wanted sensitivity and great selectivity, and great IMD rejection, I´d buy used car stereos and put them on 12VDC power supplies. Routinely, I was able to RX stations +120 miles away, like Toronto, Erie, Pittsburgh, Clearfield, Williamsport, Syracuse, Ithaca, Cortland, Binghamton, etc. Then, during Tropo´s, Cleveland, Toledo, Utica / Rome, etc. I also DX´ed analog TV stations then as well. So, if you see your neighbors trash a TV antenna, it might not be too hard to clean-up, fix-up, use RG-59 coax, and some of your friends and co-workers might give you used car stereos, since they usually swap-out the OEM ones for name branded after market ones. The old AC Delco stereos did well, as did the Pioneer Super Tuner series. So, there ya go... You could do FM DX´ing, on the cheap. However, with all of those translators littering the FM band today, I see great selectivity as being a better advantage to great sensitivity. Happy FM DX´ing!!!!! 

187

The RF Workbench / Re: Turn Off the Stereo and See What Happens? Radio World??? Follow-up???

« on: October 31, 2022, 1915 UTC »

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/readers-forum/your-feedback-on-fm-stereo-vs-fm-mono
Huh... Well, I didn´t think that this was going to be such a big issue. I still say, have STEREO / MONO switching done at the receiver end, and let the listener decide.

188

General Radio Discussion / Re: Proposal - new board for European MW Pirate Loggings - VOTE NOW!

« on: October 29, 2022, 1856 UTC »

Not know what the Alfa Lima board is doing these day, a Euro-MW logger might not be a bad idea.  https://www.alfalima.net/

189

Huh? / Halloween DX'ing? Hope so!!!!

« on: October 29, 2022, 1843 UTC »

Tis the season for those Halloween pirates, like MW stations from 1710kHz - 1790kHz, late at night. Most stations pretty much heard on 43M in North America, but with F2 propagation back in there, now could be a decent time to check-out 11.401MHz, 13.900MHz, 15.050MHz, 17MHz region, 19.0000MHz even, up past 21.450MHz, and the entire 11M INT band, 25.670MHz - 26.100MHz. You'll just never know what ya might hear. Even, 87.9MHz on FM. Happy Halloween DX'ing!!!!!

190

Equipment / C.Crane’s new CC Skywave SSB 2? An improvement, or an over-priced P.O.S.?

« on: October 25, 2022, 1836 UTC »

Yeah, SWL´ing rip:    https://swling.com/blog/2022/10/c-cranes-new-cc-skywave-ssb-2/   Ya know, for $200.00, I could get an older YB-400, and have much $$$$ lest over. For a good used price, I would consider the C Crane SSB2, but not for $200.00 new.

191

The RF Workbench / Re: Variable frequency oscillator design for HF? Tap-off an HF rig on a dummy.

« on: October 24, 2022, 1839 UTC »

As an experiment in the mid-1990´s, I keyed an Icom IC-745 HF rig, on FM mode on the 10W setting, and loaded that to a dummyload. With the RG-58 coax, (Not 100% shielded.), that fed the dummyload, I had a few turns of coiled wire around that coax and fed it directly to the FT-243 socket of a Knight T-60 transmitter, also with its output on a dummyload. That worked well. The IC-745 was the signal source, and the T-60 was the AM modulator. And, very FREQ agile. It was a neat experiment at the time.

192

10/11 meters / Some douche teasing LSB´ers on CB CH38 with NBFM, 1600UTC.

« on: October 24, 2022, 1806 UTC »

I was wondering when I was going to hear domestic NBFM on CB, with it now allowable. Well, heard it today, and of all places, the very informal Gentleman´s Agreed LSB CB calling channel 38. This dude was teasing the LSB´ers saying that he can use any voice mode that he wants there. No idea upon where he was TX´ing from, and I don´t think that he was going to tell that anyway. 10min later, he finally went to LSB to talk to whatever. Got to admit, that was different.

193

Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: Music licensing concerns, the record companies used Part 15 as well.

« on: October 23, 2022, 1937 UTC »

I seem to recall a multi-followed-up story from the 1990´s about a record company using an AM Part 15 station to promote new artists' releases by a very busy NYC roadway. This was just before the internet took-off. So, since they´ve used Part 15 as a tool themselves, hopefully, they don´t want to rock-the-boat.

194

MW Loggings / 1630kHz KCJJ back to booming-in at SW WV, 00:50UTC.

« on: October 21, 2022, 0700 UTC »

Had KCJJ, again, to listen to on a job site commute. And, surprise, the female DJ was live, talking about the 1st tune she heard at the time when 1st working there as a teen in 2015, and then playing it as her choice. (WOW!!! A commercial station that still let´s you do that? That´s rare, today!) Top of the hour ID, CBS News, and local Iowa city, IA news, then back to 10-year-old hit music. Nice, to have this to listen to, again, with it getting darker earlier.
https://www.1630kcjj.com/

195

General Radio Discussion / Re: Dipole antenna seperation?

« on: October 20, 2022, 1756 UTC »

Quick answer, very close, if they are perpendicular to each other. Heck, if you are planning that route, you could try a multi-band Fan Dipole, and save on the number of coaxial cables. BTW, the 135ft OCF dipole may do a decent job on 15M. Passing thoughts, especially when dealing with limited space. What wasn´t mentioned is, are you panning to RX only, or RX / TX, with these?