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Technical Topics => Equipment => Topic started by: corq on February 12, 2012, 2015 UTC

Title: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: corq on February 12, 2012, 2015 UTC: We often get new visitors interested in the hobby, they'd love to participate but don't know where to start.

Note: Looks like you'll need to add a "reply" to comment on your choice of radios, I didn't realize this when creating the poll itself.

I thought this poll would be a great way of indexing our 'gateway drug' to this hobby. :D

If your favorite starter radio had one outstanding feature that made you choose it, please mention this as well, and perhaps as later novice listeners come along, we can later point them to this list, for low-cost entry level radios to start the hobby in.

I left the poll open to 3 votes, for those of us who started out with a mix of radios until we found the one we really like. Feel free to wax fondly how/what you first heard, homebrew antenna tips, but keep in mind the shoestring budget most beginners start with.

Go crazy, kids!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ChrisSmolinski on February 12, 2012, 2023 UTC: I got started with a small portable that my Dad had. With a whip antenna, I was able to pick up 90 meter stations from Guatemala, so it wasn't a bad radio. Of course we had so much less QRM on the bands back then (this was 1978).

The portable was followed by a Radio Shack DX-160 and then a DX-300, followed by a Kenwood R-1000 and then an Icon R71A, which I used as my primary receiver for about two decades. I then got a JRC NRD 545 several years ago which competes with the netSDR as my primary radio, the 545 is still winning. I have an SDR-14 also, which I got prior to the netSDR, it is being used for the long term propagation tests here: http://www.hfunderground.com/propagation/ (http://www.hfunderground.com/propagation/)

I've got two portables, a Sony 7600G and a Sony ICF-10, but neither sees much use.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: corq on February 12, 2012, 2036 UTC: I started with the proverbial "Multiband" or as I like to call them, "Muttli-band" Shortwave. I think mine was Branded "Gran Prix" but was slightly better built than later audio drugstore-shelf electronics that were associated with that brand.

I was 15 and pretty sure I inadvertantly snapped the whip off it it pretty quickly, and resorted to speaker wire, strung out the window. I could hear the BBC, RHN and pretty much V2 even though it didn't have SSB, in South Florida V2 splattered everywhere.

My first serious radio was the DX-440, and then the Dx-398 ...and learning how to deal with the BFO knob and make out weak usb stations. Pirates on portables were elusive for me until I moved up to the mainland, and got lucky with occasional skip.

Good times!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Jolly Roger on February 12, 2012, 2036 UTC: My first radio (portable) was a Motorola transistor radio. 1972. Heard a pile of foreign DX with it even though I never had any idea of what freq it was tuned to. I then got a Hammarlund HQ-110A. Warm, wide audio. After that I drifted away from the hobby for a long time. Got back into it with a Kenwood R-1000 in the early '80's when I was a pirate, then got out of it again. Back into it with a vengeance in the very late '90's. Various high end receivers; ITT/McKay 3021A (fan-freakin' tastic rig!) , JRC NRD 525, and an actual TON of tube sets: RCA AR-88's at 110 pounds each, (best audio EVER!) Hammarlund HQ-170, Hallicrafters SX-111, SX-24, S-20R etc and etc. Mostly I just listen on my Kenwood TS-480SAT ham set now but it doesn't have the charm. I have a Flex 1500 waiting to be loaded but have not tried it yet.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: KurtH on February 12, 2012, 2102 UTC: My first SW radio was a generic Hong Kong multiband radio that my uncle threw in the trash because the antenna had broken off. Connected some speaker wire and it worked OK. I used bungy cords to secure it to the handle bars on my bike. Rode around the neighborhood and listened to the major SW broadcasters and VHF fire/police. Years later, my college roommates threw it from a 6th floor window during a party.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: jFarley on February 12, 2012, 2135 UTC: I started out with a couple of builds when I was a kid, a Knight Space Spanner followed by a Star Roamer. I finally saved enough coin to buy a Drake SW4A which was receiver enough to hear most of the English stuff. After a hiatus during college, my first purchase after graduation was an R7, which forced me to go without a car for a while, but priorities are priorities. Got an R8 when the R7 started getting tired. Also had a number of boat anchors along the way, including an HQ-180 which I used for a while, primarily in winter. Just acquired an SDR-IQ after lusting over all the screen shots many of you have provided.

Only advice for newcomers is to initially buy all the receiver you can afford after careful reviews of reviews, but don't get all freaked out about it. Nobody, even with the very best high end receiver, can hear everything. But there is always something interesting to be heard, based on your location, and take some time to figure out what it is that you like. If you're normal (or abnormal) like everyone else in this hobby, you are going to grow through a succession of receivers; just plan on it, and have fun!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ETM71 on February 12, 2012, 2203 UTC: "Other": I'm pretty sure it was a Radio Shack 12-795. Multi-band job with the needle that went back and forth over the band displays. Took a bunch of D or C cells. I really miss that crappy thing now that I think about it. :'(
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Newfoundland DXer on February 13, 2012, 0150 UTC: My trip into sw began at age 11, when my father decided to get into ham radio (he had a radio technician license, so they just gave him a ham ticket). Being the frugal type, he purchased numerous boat anchors, and I took to listening to one (cannot remember the name).

For some reason, even with the volume on bust, I still had to literally put my ear on the speaker in the top to hear the signals. After a couple weeks of this I figured they were worried about me becoming permanently deformed, and my father came home one day from an estate sale with a beautiful HQ-180!

This wonderful radio lasted me until my 16th birthday, when I got a shiny new Yaesu FRG-7 that still sits on my desk today, over 30 years later.

My primary receiver is now a JRC NRD-525 (which I love), but I still use the FRG-7 as a second rx.

I guess neither of these counts as a portable, but I would reccommend the FRG-7 to any new listener if you can find one, and it does come with a battery option :)

Cheers, Terry
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: cmradio on February 13, 2012, 1129 UTC: When I was about nine, I hacked a Coleco "CB-40" and discovered an entire world outside the CB range it received.

I was hooked.

A Radio Shack DX-60 was my first "real" radio and I had used every one of their line on up to the DX-302.

I currently have en Eton E5 as my main radio and an Allied SX-190 standby and a pile of Heath waiting refurbish.

Peace!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Sealord on February 13, 2012, 1159 UTC: My first receiver was a Radio Shack DX-100 given to me by my grandfather followed by a DX-200 later. I used a Radio Shack CB 5/8 vertical (leftover from when I had a base station) which actually worked pretty good; in fact it was the best antenna to hear Radio Tahiti on.

Eventually using the DX-200, I came across William Cooper's 'The Hour Of Time' and was hooked on the fringe element of shortwave. In the early 90's, I bought a Satellit 500, discovered pirates and that was it. I also had a Drake R8A through the later part of the 90's and then sold it to get my RX-340.

For antennas, I've used everything from long wires, dipoles, loops, T2FD, an ewe, 8 circle & finally a 4 square.

The first station I ever heard on shortwave was Deutsche Welle's IS & the first pirate I ever logged was WSKY .

Current setup:

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RW8m60DTIWLmgAeD-J-lDqCvYLK1Idifkc4QV0BcVsxPp_oEv3LRMRov7rOqAnhn-lrRmymUbLBoysBoWMe-l11QKyXkCVypP88O21Sv6zKM7Ua8E4C9Ufjzy2uEylqInOaLIhETjQ=w2400)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Zoidberg on February 13, 2012, 1415 UTC: My first shortwave portable, probably around 1990, was a no-name little thing that worked well enough for the major AM broadcasters. I was encouraged enough to quickly replace it with a Radio Shack DX-440 (Sangean ATS-803A), which offered sideband capability and was overall a much better radio. It would still be good enough for me today. I'm limited more by apartment restrictions and the usual suburban RFI than by the receiver or antenna.

I added one of those roll-up reel antennas that clipped onto the whip. That worked pretty well outdoors. Indoors I just strung up some magnet wire around the perimeter of the ceiling to make a short dipole, which worked pretty well back then. Just 20 years ago RFI wasn't nearly as bad around apartments and suburbs. I suspect the main culprit now is the proliferation of imported consumer electronics and other products that don't come anywhere close to meeting FCC regulations for shielding.

The DX-440 served me well until I replaced it with a Sony ICF-2010 I found at a pawn shop for around $75 in the late 1990s. I sold the DX-440, but it'd still be a good 'un today.

A decent mid-priced portable with digital tuner and sideband capability is probably the best bet for city residents or suburban apartment dwellers. In many cases the best way to improve reception is to get about 20 yards away from the nearest building or utility lines. Easily done with a portable. Occasionally I'll tote a small portable with me on walks and often get better reception than I get at home with the Palstar and some random wire up a tree - again, because RFI drops off significantly just 10-20 yards away from buildings or power lines.

As for antennas, I've been experimenting recently with the Villard shortwave enhancer loops and one in particular works surprisingly well, costs next to nothing and doesn't even require a separate tuning capacitor. It's just aluminum foil on foam core backing board, and the aluminum foil overlap *is* the tuning capacitor. It's remarkably directional even above 10 MHz, which was quite a surprise. And it seems to work best with small portables. I'll post an illustrated article about it soon, along with a video demonstrating it in use.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: weaksigs on February 13, 2012, 1508 UTC: The radio that actually got me started was a rather large SILVERTONE model,
which I think was a Sears product but I may be wrong. I used to spend a
lot of time listening to fishing boats in the 2100- 2400 Khz area. It only had
an internal ferrite loop built listening from Groton, Connecticut that was enough.

Also tuned into the AM band and my Father told me to turn the radio a little this
way or that so my first directional SWL antenna was also in the Silvertone.
Listening to 75 meter hams also was a lot of fun and that was my lead into ham
radio as I was licensed in 1962.

This is a mod- thought it best to recall that I built a Heathkit "Ocean Hopper"
and found out pretty quick that the "antenna tuning capacitor" was at high voltage!
The little regeny pulled in a lot of stations once you learned to set the regeneration
at the proper threshold. But watch out for the high voltage! :o :o

Good Lord I'm getting old!!! :D

Good thoughts everyone... its fun to use the wayback machine once in awhile. ;D

weaksigs
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Seamus on February 13, 2012, 1537 UTC: Radio Shack DX-350 portable multi-band receiver.
The thing was deaf as a freaking post, and it's a wonder that it didn't kill my interest in radio altogether. On an exceptionally good night, it might have received one of the religious super-stations, possibly an international news broadcast, and maybe a single-letter beacon or two.

I guess I'm a slow learner or something, because I kept reading stories and reports of what was out there to be heard, despite not actually being able to hear them on that little plastic brick, and I eventually got a better radio (which actually _could_ receive signals). The Yaesu FRG-100 was my next foray into radio, and it heard a pretty good assortment of things. Its biggest failing was in the design; lacking a keypad, or anything other than the knob and a couple of buttons for frequency selection, traversing the bands took a while. There was software out there that could control it, but I could never find/afford it, and my computer at the time threw off so much RFI that I'd never be able to use the two of them together anyway.

It wasn't until I upgraded to an actual HF transceiver that I really became able to listen to the bands with any real ease. My IC-718 remains my rig of choice for listening, and if I want to transmit, I just punch in a frequency, tune it up, and go.

EDIT to add: Oh, RIGHT! Now I remember what kept my interest going...
In between the DX-350 and the FRG-100, I read an article on modifying a Radio Shack AM Flavoradio for shortwave reception, by replacing the ferrite loopstick with a multi-tapped coil. That little flavoradio conversion had exceptionally touchy tuning, but by cranking the switch and finessing the tuning knob, it actually picked up a better selection than the DX-350 ever did.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Token on February 13, 2012, 1841 UTC: I was exposed to and used a few SW receivers before I owned one (the first I ever used was a Hallicrafters SX-28, and one is in my collection today), and I scratch built two receivers before I got my first that was "mine" and made in a factory. And the first one I got (in the late 60's) was a Hallicrafters SX-99. I still have that receiver today ( http://www.pbase.com/token/image/64201077/original.jpg ). I think my next was a Hammarlund HQ-145X, but I really am not sure (I have an HQ-145X today, but not the exact same radio, that was traded off long ago).

I would be very hard pressed to name all of the receivers I have owned over the years, the list would run to easily more than a hundred models. Shoot, just the ones I own today probably runs to 75 or more, I really don’t want to add them up.

For those that remember their first SW receiver…do you remember the first thing you heard on it? The first thing I remember tuning to with my “new” SX-99 (it was about 11 or 12 years old when I got it, 1956 or 1957 production date) was Radio Prague. Not on purpose, just turned the radio on and spun the dial, ending up on RPI. From that day for the next 15 years or so I was a regular Radio Prague and Radio Moscow listener. The very different spin from what I was getting from US sources was intriguing to me. And the fact that Moscow was the more moderate of Eastern block transmissions during the 70’s was interesting. Almost as if they wanted to sound as the voice of reason while they left other block partners to be the radicals.

T!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: rdla4 on February 13, 2012, 2228 UTC: I started with a Multi-Band 'AirCastle' Radio sometime in the 1970s. I had a longwire antenna outback, and could hear all kinds of "amazing' things on it. One of my more memorable ones, was 4VEH in Haiti, running 7.5kW on 9770 khz. Later on I spent a whopping 160 bucks for a brand spankin new Realistic DX-160, I used that up into the 90's.

Its amazing to remember how crowded the SW bands were back then, not so much these days.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: zackers on February 14, 2012, 0036 UTC: My first SWL radio was a large portable transistor radio sold with the name "Passport" on it. I think my dad bought it and I quickly adopted it.
:-)

When I got my ham license in 1967 I picked up a Heathkit Mohawk receiver which only tuned the ham bands but I built a converter so I could tune the spectrum from 2 to 30 MHz. I've heard some interesting things on it and on other radios over the years.

One thing that surprises me - my very first numbers station was what we refer to as "V02" from Cuba on 4028 kHz. That must've been in the late 70's. V02 STILL uses that frequency!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: SHORTY on February 14, 2012, 0045 UTC: I started with a Sony 2010 in the late 80's.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Zoidberg on February 14, 2012, 0053 UTC: Quote from: Token on February 13, 2012, 1841 UTC
For those that remember their first SW receiver…do you remember the first thing you heard on it?

The first MW DX and shortwave I remember hearing - not on my own receiver - was probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s when I was a kid. Some folks we used to visit on the remote end of Long Island had an old receiver - a Transoceanic, I think - and let my brother and me tune it around. I remember hearing some English accented broadcasts, probably the BBC, and a bunch of odd stuff from various countries and the Caribbean.

If memory serves, I became more interested in shortwave in the late 1980s after buying an old console style hi-fi and multiband AM radio, mostly as a functional decoration. After replacing some tubes and tuning around I discovered it got pretty decent reception of the major international AM shortwave broadcasters.

Since I had to travel a lot back then I got that no-name portable I mentioned earlier, and quickly became intrigued by the sideband stuff that portable couldn't pick up. From there it was all downhill. I developed the immunity to static that marks the hopelessly addicted DXer.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: L Cee on February 14, 2012, 0243 UTC: My first was a Knight Kit "Ocean Hopper" I built in 1962 with the help of a friend. The only portable I've ever owned is a Radio Shack DX-390. I've had wonderful results with it using long wire and dipole antennas strung up in trees. It even worked well using a wire thumb tacked around the ceiling of a room. Alas, it is currently not operating.

Here is the Ocean Hopper - not mine, but one exactly like the one I had :)
http://yourepeat.com/watch/?v=uowJns7XFjE
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: moof on February 15, 2012, 0036 UTC: I said DX-440 because it was the first real radio I had around late 80's. It could be months between hearing and IDing a pirate on or around 7415.
We had a piece of garbage Hallicrafters growing up in the 60's with a piece of wire out the back. Tubes. Did they work? Well enough to fire up. Yellowed mystery tuning dial. Even more mysterious secondary horizontal tuning. WWV if you were lucky. A few knobs and switches that may or may not have functioned. I couldn't tell. It didn't catch on fire at least. It wasn't enough to spark an interest until I was much older. Got really interested once I got a Drake R8.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: The Hokie on February 15, 2012, 0702 UTC: I voted for the Grundig, as my first "real" radio was a YB400PE - but my first SW experience was on one of those MFJ battery-powered regens.

I don't think I heard anything on it but exhortations to repent, and maybe the Beeb World Service when they still pointed their antennas at us poor Colonials, but I was hooked.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Turbo on February 15, 2012, 1154 UTC: I started listenning to hf aero/utilities in the 80s with a portable Sony-2010 started working saved up
got a brand new Icom-R71 end loved it using a discone was able to stay up all night then got 2 Kenwood-R5000 once i got married went crazy bought lots of receivers as the pay packet got bigger current radios Alinco DX-R8 (2),Icom-R71A,Icom-R75 (2),Palstar-R30A,Rf Space SDR-IQ (2),Ten Tec-320D,Ten Tec-340 (2) also have wide band receivers that also use on hf antennas are Wellbrook-ALA1530,ALA1530AL-1,1530L,330S also share a radio room at dads place with 35 hf receivers from Aor,Icom,Drake,Nrd,Perseus,Rfspace,Racal,Ten Tec,Watkins Johnson,Winradio also have 10 vhf/uhf receivers Aor-8600MK2 (5),Icom-R8500 (5) all my uncles are into radios every few weeks we get together radio talk all night..

Regards Lino..
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Pigmeat on February 15, 2012, 1411 UTC: A Hallicrafters S-120 a cousin gave me when he was drafted in the early/mid 60's. It had one of those fancy "vfo's" that only worked if the ssb station was really strong and there was nothing on the band near it. Otherwise,it howled when engaged.

I still have it. In fact it's the only radio I ever heard Radio Eclipse on when that station was active.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: myteaquinn on February 16, 2012, 0158 UTC: I was going to talk about my starting my swl hobby using a Sony CRF-5100. Then I read Turbo's post and I want to be adopted.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Zane on February 16, 2012, 0240 UTC: My older cousin had an electronics workshop in the basement. During my pre-teen and teen years he showed me the world of electronics which eventually led to a career. He had a Hallicrafters S-108 receiver and we'd occasionally turn it on. He never had a formal antenna (he spent more time modifying stereo's while listening to jazz on a Crown reel-to-reel), but he'd hook up a hunk of wire and I'd be fascinated by SWBC stations, hams, and even WWV. As I got older and became interested in SWLing and ham radio, he gave me the S-108 and I used it for years. I still have it.

Yep, that's me in the basement. I know - nice shirt. But hey! I had lotsa hair then!
I think I was soldering something when somebody snapped this shot.

Z

(http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g473/ZaneRadio/basement.jpg)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Zoidberg on February 16, 2012, 0555 UTC: Quote from: Zane on February 16, 2012, 0240 UTC
Yep, that's me in the basement. I know - nice shirt. But hey! I had lotsa hair then!

Hey, I had the same shirt. Very '70s. The cowpunk style sorta made a comeback here in the late '80s, at least around Deep Ellum, with yoke shirt patterns and bolo ties. Ah, reminds me of seeing the Reverend Horton Heat at the Prophet Bar.

I still have the hair.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: corq on February 16, 2012, 1946 UTC: Most this pile I Still have:

(http://corqspy.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/corqs_radios.jpg)

And my R-75 that I still kinda miss, though the SDR is filling the void:

(http://corqspy.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/corqshack.jpg)

Gateway drug, I tell you!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ChrisSmolinski on February 16, 2012, 2002 UTC: Your shack is far too neat, Corq.

(http://www.hfunderpants.com/mypics/IMG_0960.jpg)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: corq on February 16, 2012, 2052 UTC: Quote
Your shack is far too neat, Corq.

Ha! That's why that particular pic was taken, because the neatness never lasts very long!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ff on February 16, 2012, 2103 UTC: I think BOTH of you have shacks that are too neat. I won't submit a photo of mine because I'd probably be getting a knock from the County Health Dept! I started as a kid with an old ham tube rig called the Lafayette HA-60. After having tired of not knowing what was hiding in the dark spaces between the ham bands, I finally ponied up the bux for a Realistic DX100. Although the selectivity was abominable and the dial tuning was a cheesy analog 4 band affair, I was hooked to a lifetime of squeals and pops with that little bugger. My first true portable came much later, with the venerable DX-440, which to me, was a class act for the price. I later bought a Sangean ATS-818, which I still use today, alongside my tabletops.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: skeezix on February 16, 2012, 2349 UTC: My first one was a Sony ICF-2010 back in 1988. Sits next to my bed today and listened to it this morning. Will listen to it tonight. Rarely is it off.

Before I got the ICF-2010, went to a local radio store and was looking at the different models. The first one I picked up was a Panasonic RFB-60. Turned it on & tuned around. We were in a store, so reception was mediocre. VOA boomed in on 15410 kHz, with George Collinet & The Sound of Soul. He was playing "Tomorrow People" by Ziggy Marley. Sales guy said the ICF-2010 was a better model and I should save up for that if that was an option. Did exactly that and here nearly 24 years later, still running well. Cost $335 back in 1988, which breaks down to $13.96 per year since then (the cost of 3 beer per year).

A few years later, picked up a National NC-173. First tube radio.

Around 2003, got an NC-183D off of eBay. They said it was NIB until 1998 and wanted around $300. I thought "sure" and got it anyway. It was shipped and upon opening it, the only imperfection on it is a very slight scratch on the side, but can't see it unless looking for it. Sounds fantastic with the dual 6V6's and a big National speaker. Thing still looks like it was made within the past year or two.

Have acquired a few others over the years, with the most recent acquisitions being a Sangean ATS-909X (which went on a nice vacation to the South Pacific for some DXing at the beach) and a Perseus SDR (and I can take a virtual vacation all over the world with the remote receivers). Have hooked the Perseus hooked up to a reel-to-reel deck for recording.

As I write this, listening to a Ray-Jefferson 640/DF. Audio quality is medicore (not designed for music), but sure is a good on sensitivity and the rotatable loop is very nice.

However, back in the 70's when I was but a yute, parents had a Panasonic R-1599 AM radio. Remember listening to that & tuning around. Unfortunately, don't remember if I was doing any MWDXing. That radio is long gone, but picked up one of the same model a bunch of years ago and still listen to it.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Beerus Maximus on February 18, 2012, 0240 UTC: Like many people, my journey into SWL had some twists and turns. In the 1980's, I had a few neighbors that had scanners to listen to local police and fire. Around the same time, I kind of got into listening to AM radio late at night with my dad's old Kenwood stereo receiver from the 70's. All things radio were starting to converge in my mind.

I convinced my dad to buy me a Regency handheld scanner for Christmas, maybe in the 1987 or 1988 timeframe. It was a lot of fun. Not long after, I of course decided I wanted to talk into a radio. I think I picked up a cheap Radio Shack CB handheld and made some local contacts. At a yard sale, not long after, I picked up a GE mobile CB for a buck or two. With an attic dipole I was really in business. I somehow ran across Pop'Comm or Monitoring Times at a local CB store, or maybe a newsstand. I'm not sure. Became fascinated with the pirate radio column.

Not long after that I got an Icom IC-725 which was the first all-HF rig I've had - I still own it, but I'm not sure it's operational. Provided many hours of pirate listening, as well as general SWL and utility listening duty. Fast forward about 25 years and I'm still at this crazy hobby. My current shack is pretty indulgent by my standards. Two new HF transceivers, and associated toys. Radio will always be my #1 hobby.

Beerus shack today:

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N7LGv7tar7o/TxIGj_mTvvI/AAAAAAAABE8/xr8UVbS4dRI/s1600/P1040031.JPG)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: uhclem on February 18, 2012, 0848 UTC: I first started listening on my Great Grandmother's Westinghouse WR-228. Maybe it's just my memory playing tricks but that old tube behemoth was the best sounding rig I've ever heard. I'd spend hours tweaking that vernier VFO to get the signal sounding just right. It also had the word "POLICE" on the dial, just above the broadcast part of the MW band. Although I never heard anything there, it was my first inkling that radio was more than just Perry Como, The Beatles and Doris Day. From there I moved on to a Trans-Oceanic from the late 50's/early 60's (which I still have) and discovered SW broadcast, number stations, WWV and The Woodpecker. Yeah, now I have my ham ticket and the radios I own have features I couldn't have dreamed of when I was seven, but that old Westinghouse had enough magic built in that I'm still hooked.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: melliferal on February 19, 2012, 0234 UTC: Back in the 90's, I became very interested in radio as a kid after hearing a numbers station on a friend's handheld Uniden during a camping trip; unfortunately I was only able to buy myself a receiver two years ago. A Grundig G6, which picked me up some Capt Morgan and Wolverine Radio this very evening.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: aurora on February 26, 2012, 0152 UTC: I got started with the Allied Knight-Kit Star Roamer in 1969. I loved building it and watching the tubes glow the first time I powered it on. I got alot of use out of that radio and I still have it sitting on the shelf.

I purchased the Radio Shack DX-160 in 1975. It was a great radio and much superior to the Star Roamer (but what isn't). I listened to alot of utility stations especially the NASA recovery stations in the Atlantic for every Apollo launch. It was much easier hearing pirate stations with this radio so I was camped out on 7300-7500 khz most of the time.

I upgraded to the Kenwood R-600 Communications receiver in 1983. This remained my primary shortwave receiver for a long time (decades) and it served me well. One of the most interesting aspects of this radio was the ability to monitor the new 'cordless' telephones that were popping up in the 1700 khz band. I was amazed at how far the signals traveled on those cordless phones.

My primary radio these days is the Icom IC-756Pro3 for the shack and the Sony ICF-SW7600GR for traveling. This Sony portable is a great radio. I am always amazed at how well I hear the pirate stations on just the whip antenna. I had no problem listening to WEAK Radio while relaxing in my hotel room on St. Martin in the Caribbean.

I have tried several of those 'disposable' shortwave radios - the ones that can be found for sell in blisterpaks for under $30. Most of them usually do not work when needed or don't cover the entire shortwave spectrum especially 6900-7300 khz. One exception I found was the Marathon ETFR (Emergency Task Force Radio). This radio is smaller than a pack of cigarettes, has a built in LED light and even covers the 6800-7300 khz band. It was originally designed for the Canadian Forces in cold weather environments. It is a great little radio that I carry around in the outdoors and the best thing is that the batteries never die!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: hammarhead on April 05, 2012, 2338 UTC: My first receiver was a Hallicrafters S-53A that my Dad owned. He had used the radio while in Guam during the Korean War and it had been just sitting in our basement for years until after much begging and pleading he finally set it up and turned it on. At 11 years old I was amazed to hear all the stations with people speaking different languages come through the speaker. It was also an ear opener to hear how much other people hated America in the hey days of Cold War propaganda. I have had the radio bug ever since!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Bowman1 on April 11, 2012, 0104 UTC: Sometime in the mid-70s, my brother put me in front of his Sony Earth Orbiter and handed me an earplug. He told me that, if I was REALLY quiet (translation: don't bug me), I could hear stations from all over the world. I spent the rest of the night listening to stations from all over the world in foreign languages and accents I'd never heard before. I was hooked, but didn't have much of an outlet for my fascination until I got a Realistic DX-360 for Christmas in 87. KUSW went on the air a few days later, and I was hooked all over again.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Indy DXer on April 21, 2012, 0148 UTC: First radio was a Panasonic boombox with some shortwave bands on it.

Graduated to an ICF-2002 a year later.

Mowed a lot of yards and traded up to an ICF-2010 a year after that. Used that wonderful radio for 15 years.

Got back into the hobby for the first time, briefly, on a Drake R8B that I used far too little and eventually dumped on eBay.

My latest restart to listening is on a Sangean ATS-909X. While I've only been listening again for couple months, I'm already getting rig envy and dreaming about stepping up to something bigger and better.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Danoman on April 21, 2012, 1503 UTC: Found this thread, Googled some images and WHAM........there on the first page was my boyhood best friend.
A Lloyd's portable I spent a whole summer cutting grass to purchase.
Spent many a sleepless night surfing the HF bands with this POS.

(http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o292/danoman3/LloydsSW.jpg)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: zackers on April 22, 2012, 0004 UTC: Quote from: Danoman on April 21, 2012, 1503 UTC
Found this thread, Googled some images and WHAM........there on the first page was my boyhood best friend.
A Lloyd's portable I spent a whole summer cutting grass to purchase.
Spent many a sleepless night surfing the HF bands with this POS.

(http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o292/danoman3/LloydsSW.jpg)

That looks a LOT like the radio I started with. But the one I had went under the name of "Passport" and I think it had a band switch instead of buttons. It was stolen out of my car in 1980. I haven't been able to find any info or photos of that radio.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: S. McArdle on April 26, 2012, 0114 UTC: I still have mine. Here it is. A Ross, 11 Band portable. From the early 70's. My first shortwave radio. Got it as a gift. Think it was purchased at a retailer, popular in the midwest back then I think, by the name of "Ardan's." It was very "touchy" to tune in on the station. Notice the small amount of dial space between 9 & 10 mhz. One small little movement, and seems like you would jump 500 kcs. Almost all of my shortwave station qsl's were obtained using this receiver.

Left-click on image to make it bigger.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Pigmeat on April 28, 2012, 2256 UTC: It was Arden's,Scott. They're still around,but not like they were.

I had an earlier version of that radio. My Grandpa gave it to me when he bought his first scanner. It had a bandswitch knob instead of the pushbuttons and a bfo knob for ssb.The SW section was so-so,but that thing was a stellar receiver on MW and sounded great on all bands.

I had that radio until mid-90's,when a catnip addled tomcat misjudged his landing and knocked it off a shelf. He was a good cat,but he had bad habits.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: MrHellion on May 03, 2012, 0726 UTC: My first receiver my parents got me for my 18th b-day.

I asked for a Rolex, almost got one until they saw the price !!

So I settled for a ICF-7601. This was during the first Gulf War and was
able to hear Radio Baghdad go off the air as the transmitters were bombed.

After buying a Passport to World Band Radio, I read up on a Magnavox D2935 with that crappy "chicklet" keypad. I found one at a local shop for the low price of only 50 bucks !

After that radio was stolen out of my car, I bought a YB400. Great radio for what it was at the time.

Got a ham ticket in the mid 90s and bought a IC-706 MKII. Used that for a few years and now have my venerable TS-2000X now. Terrible on AM, but does work. Would do it different with what I know now.

Great thread btw Corq !!!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Chanter on July 13, 2012, 1918 UTC: My first DXing attempts were made via car radio, old rabbit ears-antenna'd televisions, and at least two headsets/Walkman thingies of unknown brand. I didn't know what I was attempting to do - catching stations from far-off locales like ooooooh, Michigan, aaaaaah, Iowa and ooooooh, Illinois - had a name. I just knew it was thrilling! My TV DXing attempts never really went anywhere, but I was forever having a go at picking up distant FM stations and, usually on hot summer days, I'd succeed. MW DXing was harder, as I was leery of talk stations - bo-ring! said the me whose age could be written in single digits. I do remember hearing French spoken on the AM dial once or twice, which was quite exciting. I now suspect I was hearing CJBC on those evenings. :)

I was forever poking around the AM and FM dials as a teenager as well, though generally looking for old radio shows. If I snagged a distant station, all the better! I used to tune in episodes of 'When Radio Was' being broadcast on an MW station from Virginia almost nightly. Wish I could remember those call letters, if I ever knew them. I was forever being annoyed by WBZ in Boston drowning out WHO in Des Moines via co-channel interference on Sunday nights; what a pain in the bum when your favorite program is on and you can't hear for the splatter!

My first actual SW receiver was a DX-398, given to me as an eighteenth birthday gift. I was crazy excited! I spent that afternoon sitting on my bed with my ear to the speaker, having zero clue about bands, frequencies or pretty much anything else, tapping buttons and delightedly spinning along the dial. One of the first, if not the first, broadcasters I ever heard was the Voice of America, specivically Nightline Africa. I still like that show, even though I'm in the heart of the Midwestern U.S. and not anywhere or anyone near the target audience. Heh. :) Later that evening, I was joyful at catching the BBC over shortwave for the first time. My mother was in the room, and I think I left her a little bemused. :) That DX-398 is still my receiver, and still serves me very well. Now if I could just figure out how to shut off the timer I accidentally set on it...
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: rwfisher on August 25, 2012, 1703 UTC: We had a Zenith transoceanic on the sailboat when i was a kid. I eventually bought a Grundig YB and a Sony ICF-SC1, which were just enough to make me want better receivers. Now i've got an ICOM PCR1000 to toy around with, and a Sony ICF-SW7600 at work. Eventually I'll probably pick up one of the RFSpace SDRs, but first I want to get my antenna array back up an running worth a hoot.....

I still have the Zenith...I just have to figure out how to restring the *$Y$! cords between the tuning knob and the capacitors....
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: corq on August 25, 2012, 1854 UTC: I have a Nordiq tabletop SWL that has the "strings" - still working but I have lost other radios with your issue, that I loved, but didn't know how to repair. Good luck!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Frank5000 on August 26, 2012, 0212 UTC: My first radio was a Hallicrafter S20R Sky Champion with a busted bandspread turning knob. I logged many SW broadcasters, pinning the names of the transmit city on my National Geographic map in my room. Great memories.

Wish I had that map now! I miss those Coldwar propaganda broadcasts. Hilarious, good stuff :)

It was lent to me by a friend's dad (a ham). That receiver also triggered my interest in ham radio.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: rwfisher on August 26, 2012, 1555 UTC: Quote from: Frank5000 on August 26, 2012, 0212 UTC
Wish I had that map now! I miss those Coldwar propaganda broadcasts. Hilarious, good stuff :)

Oh yeah, those were always a hoot. Straight out of 'spies like us' kinda stuff. Speaking of which...has anyone been able to DX any North Korea broadcasts (do they even tx in English these days)?
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: rdla4 on August 26, 2012, 1832 UTC: North Korea was a regular on 15180 on the east coast in the evening. I have not heard them in a number of months---Prop? Or did they change the schedule, dont know.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: jFarley on August 27, 2012, 2144 UTC: This is an interesting thread, and I keep coming back to it. It's reassuring that the path to present geekdom was rather similar for most of us.

There are radios you start your listening hobby with, and radios you start your DXing hobby with. I had forgotten about this, but intermediary between some Knight Kit builds and a real purchased receiver I inherited a Grundig Majestic console from my grandfather. I took a sabre saw to the cabinet and hauled the receiver portion up to my bedroom, and connected it to a 50' longwire up in the attic. Not a bad receiver, actually, it was quite sensitive and also somewhat selective, with very mellow audio. This receiver produced the first SW catches that I can actually remember. VLX9 Perth used to come in fat most mornings before high school. Also remember hearing some interesting stuff on it such as the Windward Islands BC Service, and the clandestine Radio Euzkadi, the Voice of the Basque Underground. I probably used this for about 3 years or so until I presumably took it apart as is my habit with most toys...

It had a Magic Eye tuning indicator, piano key band selection, and the station names were already printed on the slide rule dials!

(http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s387/jFarley44/625724530_68a56f11ce_z.jpg)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: BoomboxDX on August 30, 2012, 1330 UTC: North Korea's Korean broadcasts are interesting enough. The music is fascinating. Lots of strings and what sounds like a Lowry organ -- along with a pretty good bass player.... the James Jamerson of Pyongyang.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Pigmeat on August 31, 2012, 0241 UTC: Quote from: jFarley on August 27, 2012, 2144 UTC
This is an interesting thread, and I keep coming back to it. It's reassuring that the path to present geekdom was rather similar for most of us.

There are radios you start your listening hobby with, and radios you start your DXing hobby with. I had forgotten about this, but intermediary between some Knight Kit builds and a real purchased receiver I inherited a Grundig Majestic console from my grandfather. I took a sabre saw to the cabinet and hauled the receiver portion up to my bedroom, and connected it to a 50' longwire up in the attic. Not a bad receiver, actually, it was quite sensitive and also somewhat selective, with very mellow audio. This receiver produced the first SW catches that I can actually remember. VLX9 Perth used to come in fat most mornings before high school. Also remember hearing some interesting stuff on it such as the Windward Islands BC Service, and the clandestine Radio Euzkadi, the Voice of the Basque Underground. I probably used this for about 3 years or so until I presumably took it apart as is my habit with most toys...

It had a Magic Eye tuning indicator, piano key band selection, and the station names were already printed on the slide rule dials!

(http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s387/jFarley44/625724530_68a56f11ce_z.jpg)

I saw one of those a few years back at an estate sale and still wish I'd bought it. You got one free and took a saw to it. LOL!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: bret on September 02, 2012, 0221 UTC: The first HF receiver I bought was a Lafayette HA-600 that I picked up at a garage sale because it looked interesting. I strung up as much hookup wire my Father had in the garage and was truly hooked. Fast forward a few decades and I'm still at it. Although the equipment I'm using now is much more modern I regret selling that radio .
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: desmoface on September 19, 2012, 2135 UTC: An ole Yaesu FT-101d (or maybe a b). It was trashed, only put out about 25 watts on cw, smelled like I was smoking a cigar whenever I used it. Wife hated it, but it got me on the air, LOL.

The current shack, although I lost the audio gear...I guess I like to keep things simple.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/Desmoface/Imac.jpg)

Steve
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: tjbitt on September 30, 2012, 2223 UTC: My first radio was a Heathkit GR-64 (which I still have)that I got for christmas and built with my father about 1964. I remember when I
turned it on the first time it was tuned to HCJB. I picked up an FRG-7 in the early 80's which is a great receiver. I have picked up a few
boatanchors along the way and primarily use a Kenwood TS570d these days. I'm hoping to get a SDR once I figure out which one offers the most
bang for the buck :)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Cesium on October 02, 2012, 0226 UTC: Not really portable by any means but my first shortwave was a Hammarlund HQ-145X. I was 14 so this was back in 1994. I traded some old cb equipment for it to a friend. Then I ended up trading it back to him couple years later. (which I later regretted...) Now fast forward to earlier this year. I ended up working at the same place as the friend and had asked him about it several times but couldn't get him to come off it. I had seen it at his house stored away in a closet. One day I go out to leave work and it's sitting in the seat of my truck complete with the original manual. He said he was going to ebay it but figured I would take good care of it and he knew I missed it and I could have it. So now its all cleaned up and back scanning the airwaves. Since a tornado wiped out our old house back in 1997 me trading it to him saved it from certain destruction and I once again own a piece of my childhood. Funny how it turned out. :)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: BoomboxDX on October 03, 2012, 0758 UTC: I started my SW DX hobby with an old Penney's AM-FM-SW portable radio which actually worked fairly well. I'd hook the radio's external wire to the metal struts of my desk lamp, and receive HCJB, Radio RSA, Radio Moscow, VOA, BBC, R. Nederland, etc.

When I first heard Radio Australia early one morning (around 2 a.m.) I decided to put up my first wire antenna, and soon was able to regularly hear their Top 40 Countdown program on 5995 khz nightly.

I first heard AC/DC being played between news programs, way before any of their records were released here in the U.S. I would also tune in VLW9 when it would come in -- it was the Perth SW relay for ABC outlet 6WF. The evening guy on 6WF would play rock music from time to time, and give the beach reports for the Perth area.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Sean_1989 on October 08, 2012, 2229 UTC: My first SW receiver was a Hallicrafters S-120 (tubes).

My next radio was the DX-398 and now I am using a Yaesu FT-757.

It only has 10 memories 0-9, so I would most likely find a SW receiver with more memories than that.

The antenna is an HF5B/Butternut mounted on a shaft on a 30 ft Rohn Tower with a 2meter beam above it. I can rotate it using the CDE Antenna Rotor control.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Tom S on October 11, 2012, 2043 UTC: My very first SW radio was a Racal RA6790/GM receiver which I was tasked to tune the HF spectrum by my Uncle Sam when I was a guest at one of his many worldwide resorts, this one being Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Unfortunately they wouldn't give me one of my own to play with, so my own very first SW receiver was a Sony boom box with SW coverage that I bought at the BX. I soon grew frustrated with the lack of SSB/CW reception, though I could easily pick up Radio Australia.

So when I transferred to England I bought a Sony 7600, the first model that tuned in 5 KHZ steps. I eventually upgraded to a Sony 2010 which I still own to this day. I've owned several other receivers, including a RS DX394 (big mistake, will never own another), Icom R71a, and currently use an Icom R75 and a Target HF3S. I can also use my Kenwood TS-140 ham rig as a third receiver. I also have an old Hallicrafters S-38B which I play with from time to time, and an old Zenith Transoceanic 3000-1 (transistorized version). I also have a RS DX-402 portable AM/SSB receiver that I couldn't pass up at a hamfest for $35. It makes a nice portable to take traveling when I don't want to risk damaging the 2010.

Currently I have the R75, TS-140, and HF3S as well as two scanners sitting on my radio desk with audio outputs connected through a switch box to my headphones and computer sound card input.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Nomad on October 17, 2012, 0449 UTC: Sony SW7600GR.

Nothing beats listening to that long into the warm Suburban nights with good company, my best friend and my first (and current) love
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Northwest Radio on October 28, 2012, 0736 UTC: My start, yee gaads. As a toddler I was fascinated with a vintage/antique radio my grandmother had in her home. With a bit of help from her, I heard my very first SW signals via its massive speaker. As I grew, she allowed me to operate it myself (Age 5 or 6 or so). I spent hours on a tall stool in front of it. I later in life discovered that it had a large rotatable helix/loop antenna in the cabinet. Wire and wooden dowels. Pretty cool.

It was an RCA Victor. Unsure of them model number but this is a photo of the exact radio I just found while producing this post. Man, I am gonna cry... (grin)

(http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1002/1138756641_c091062318.jpg)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Billy the Mountain on October 30, 2012, 2155 UTC: A transistorized Zenith Transoceanic my grandfather had. This was the 70's. We only visited once a year or so, so I would sit and listen to the BBC, foreign broadcasters, and of course WWV.

Graduated to a Sony 2010 right after college (still have and use). Had an R390/A for 20 or so years, recently parted with it. I now use my trusty old TR7 mostly, although I'm dabbling in SDR and phasing direct conversion radios. . .
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Beerus Maximus on November 01, 2012, 0021 UTC: Who would part with an R390/A! :o
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Billy the Mountain on November 01, 2012, 1358 UTC: They take up a ton of space, they weigh a ton, and honestly, there are better receivers out there. I thoroughly enjoyed mine (complete with meters), but it was time to move on.

The small sailboat I bought with the money has better dynamic range, but poorer selectivity.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ninly on November 08, 2012, 1513 UTC: Enjoying this thread.

The SWL bug bit me in 2005, and I got an Eton e10 for Christmas that year. Listened to a lot of stuff (mostly SW broadcast) with a longwire on that little thing, from Brooklyn, NY. I don't exactly remember the radio fondly, but it got me started, and the bug burrowed deeper. Less than six months later I had my ham ticket, and bought a Yaesu FT-757GX at a hamfest upstate. I was eager to get on the air myself ... but the damn thing had a broken TX. So I was back to listening, though now with a much better receiver. Started listening to pirates, which peaked around Halloween 2008. My now-wife and I then decided to move to Alabama, and radio took a backseat while I established myself anew. Recently got back into HF, finally, with anew shack setup for listening and ham stuff. Still pretty bare-bones, but having a blast.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: jc1974 on November 19, 2012, 2124 UTC: I started as a SWL is late 2003 with a Sony ICF2010 & Wellbrook Loop 1530 (the blue indoor one, which got stolen from my backyard, but its been replaced with a metal one). Art Bell from Coast to Coast AM was what got me interested after hearing him talk about the weird and strange things you could hear in the middle of the night on one of his shows. Around 2006 I kinda was obsessed with recording & archiving as many hams calling cq as possible, but that faded away after awhile. Here are some of the recordings: http://archive.org/details/Ham_2
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Rafman on December 09, 2012, 1623 UTC: I started at 10 years old with a BC-312-D Army receiver [0.5-18MHz] that I got from a CB friend of my family's. I had a friend who also had one & when I was about 14 we started DXing together, each recording the audio to 1 track of a reel-to-reel recorder.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: radioreddz on December 23, 2012, 2330 UTC: a radio shack DX 160 that i still have. sold a kawasaki 100cc dirt bike to get money for it. had to have it next to my cb radio equipment. it must have been 1974 or 75. i used a 30' length of speaker wire for the antenna.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: vk3fz on December 27, 2012, 1114 UTC: marconi cr 100 naval rx
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: cyberflexx on December 27, 2012, 2147 UTC: Radio Shack DX392 and a DX350.. These are still my current shortwave receivers. I have a Pro29 scanner and a Bearcat XLT 10ch scanner base as well. Somewhere in storage is a cobra cb with SSB that runs 'hot' as well..
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: BoomboxDX on December 29, 2012, 1904 UTC: Cyberflexx, is your DX-350 the one that's branded as a Realistic or the one with the Radio Shack brand on the front? Just wondering, as they are basically two separate radio designs.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: cyberflexx on January 01, 2013, 1916 UTC: Quote from: BoomboxDX on December 29, 2012, 1904 UTC
Cyberflexx, is your DX-350 the one that's branded as a Realistic or the one with the Radio Shack brand on the front? Just wondering, as they are basically two separate radio designs.

Says radio shack made in china.. Not the better of the two i dont think.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Token on January 03, 2013, 1649 UTC: Quote from: radioreddz on December 23, 2012, 2330 UTC
a radio shack DX 160 that i still have. sold a kawasaki 100cc dirt bike to get money for it. had to have it next to my cb radio equipment. it must have been 1974 or 75. i used a 30' length of speaker wire for the antenna.

Ahhh, one of these:
(http://www.pbase.com/token/image/137528144/original.jpg)

(not in the order shown, but includes: DX-100, DX-150, DX-150A, DX-150B, DX-160, and DX-200, elswhere around here I have the DX-75, DX-300, and DX-302, as well as several portable DX series radios)

T!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ChrisSmolinski on January 03, 2013, 1913 UTC: My first "real" SW radio was a DX-160, previously I had been using a small portable, which is how I got hooked on the hobby.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: BoomboxDX on January 05, 2013, 1709 UTC: Quote from: cyberflexx on January 01, 2013, 1916 UTC
Quote from: BoomboxDX on December 29, 2012, 1904 UTC
Cyberflexx, is your DX-350 the one that's branded as a Realistic or the one with the Radio Shack brand on the front? Just wondering, as they are basically two separate radio designs.

Says radio shack made in china.. Not the better of the two i dont think.

I think it's the better of the two. The Chinese made 350 has a better IF / AF chip inside -- it's a Sony chip which has an RF amp built in, as well as electronically controlled volume.

It has a little less selectivity than the Realistic branded, Taiwanese made DX-350, but has more sensitivity and I think it has better overall performance, esp. on MW.

I heard the SW CBC outlet in Newfoundland on mine last Spring, just using the whip antenna. And I live in the NW US.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: BoomboxDX on January 05, 2013, 1714 UTC: Quote from: Token on January 03, 2013, 1649 UTC
Quote from: radioreddz on December 23, 2012, 2330 UTC
a radio shack DX 160 that i still have. sold a kawasaki 100cc dirt bike to get money for it. had to have it next to my cb radio equipment. it must have been 1974 or 75. i used a 30' length of speaker wire for the antenna.

Ahhh, one of these:
(http://www.pbase.com/token/image/137528144/original.jpg)

(not in the order shown, but includes: DX-100, DX-150, DX-150A, DX-150B, DX-160, and DX-200, elswhere around here I have the DX-75, DX-300, and DX-302, as well as several portable DX series radios)

T!

That's a nice collection of DX-160's you got there.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ETM71 on January 05, 2013, 1751 UTC: I remember now! Radio Shack SW-100. Niiiiiiice! You could even use it as a mini-PA...for some reason lol.

(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Radio-Shack-SW-100-Multiband-SW-AM-FM-TV-CB-Receiver-NR-/00/s/OTYwWDEyODA=/$(KGrHqZ,!lgE9rDw)9P6BPl1)eHEvw~~60_12.JPG)

Then I moved on up to the DX-394.

(Image from eBay)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: cyberflexx on January 06, 2013, 2014 UTC: now that i think way back in the late 80s, my buddy and I would listen to his dads DX160 with a wire around his bedroom ceiling. That picture in the previous post made me remember. I guess that was my 1st time listening. I think i might have been 12 or 13, but not sure..
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: RCCI on February 20, 2013, 2316 UTC: SOME LESSONS LEARNED----------
I started in 1964 when I was 11 years old and received for Christmas a Hallicraftor's 119 Sky Buddy II three tube shortwave radio. I had a 25' simple random wire from my parent's garage right to my bedroom window. (Come to think about it, it's almost the same antenna system I have now---Yipes ;D) I was fascinated with listening to the hams on AM. SSB was elusive trying to use the CW switch. I had fun listening to the BOOMERS, VoA, BBC, and the "funny sounding" foreign language stations. I remember telling my father I was interested in trying to contact the other HAM stations. He said "it would take time, be patient, we'll see..."

Being the rather impulsive, impatient, kid that I was, that pat answer from my father just wouldn't do. My buddy up the the street had a pair of powerful Walkie Talkies with 3 crystals, and a whole 1 watt of power! We would ride around on our bikes talking to each other with those mini-powerhouses and occasionally frustrate a legitimate CBer by mocking them, challanging them to find us, (afterall---we were mobile).

So not to be outdown with mere Walkie Talkies. I worked one summer mowing lawns, raking leaves and saving money like a fool. Finally, without my father's permission, I got my 1967 Lafayette Catalog and sent for a Lafayette Comstat 19, 7 tube, CB base station. I'm sure it was pre-23 channel coverage. I remember it did come with 2 or 3 crystals. I also bought a 1/4 wave base antenna. The total came to bout $160.00 worth of sweat labor. (alot of $$ for a 14 year old)

I remember well the day the boxes arrived. I also remember opening the boxes and being a bit overwhelmed with the cables, antenna parts. So I carefully put everything back in the boxes and waited for my father to come from work and surprise him with a new Father & Son project. He opened the boxes and along with the paper instructions which fell out was the ***FCC LICENSE APPLICATION*** Oh no! I was really in over my head...

My long-layed plans for a CB base station fairly went up in smoke---I never even got to plug the thing in...

As I recall, my father ended up selling the whole shebang, to the mailman, and I ending up getting a real shellacking pricewise. I learned about about the pitfalls of the "Second Hand Market" at a pretty young age.

Since that time I've owned other radios, FRG8800, Sangeon ATS803, boat anchors, etc.

FINALLY :( :(----- I never earned my Ham License. In the 80's I had belonged to to a Ham Radio club here in Illinois, was studying code, and theory for my Novice ticket. But little did I know it was about to take a nasty turn. In the midst of it all I attended a RADIO EXPO / HAMFEST annual Ham Radio Exposition (a huge flea market, commercial displays, etc) usually attended by over 1,000 Ham / SWL enthusiasts. Long story short---I won the GRAND RAFFLE prize of a a brand new KENWOOD TS-430s transceiver! The officials who sponsered the raffle informed me that because I was not a licensed ham, they would not award me the radio. The decisions were made on the spot, with nothing in writing, on the tickets, banners, flyers, regarding this new "restriction" before or during the raffle. I was devastated and blindsided! I argued my case with the officials at the Hamfest. It did not matter that I belonged to a Ham Radio Club, or was studying for my ticket, they would not budge with their decision. I went home emptyhanded and pissed.

Like I said, I never become a Ham Radio operator. After that incident, I didn't want to. I quit the club, quit my lessons, and threw myself into producing pirate radio tapes for relay broadcast. RCCI was born...

Maybe that is one reason I find such an affinity to the PIRATE RADIO COMMUNITY then and now. :)

Although I never became an "appliance operator" I finally did get my voice on the shortwave bands!... ;)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: hsmith77 on February 21, 2013, 0123 UTC: I got the radio bug when i was stationed in S.Korea in 1961with the U S Army . I was a radio repairman /operator with access to a Collins R392 and others . Heard Radio Moscow and others encluding AM stations in California. When i got out of the Army i built a Lafaette KT 320 / HE30 and heard many stations on it . One day a ham friend who was my minister sold me a Hammarlund HQ 140x which i logged many countries on . Then i had a Radio Shack SX190 then a Icom R71a. Today i use a JRC 535d . If i ever get another receiver it will be a Percius SDR .Not long ago i found a web site where many old radios are featured . The one with the KT 320 brought back many fond memories and led me to get in contact with some of the old gang of shortwave buddies. Radio is still a great hobby for me .
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Tuco on February 22, 2013, 1417 UTC: My grandfather gave me his old Zenith Transoceanic rcvr in the mid 80's after visiting hiim and showing some interest in radio. A few years later, I got a boombox (Panasonic?) for Christmas that could receive shortwave in addition to MW and FM. I loved it because I could not only blast my favorite music, but I could also record the shortwave stuff I listened to. I loved both radios but I couldn't listen to stations running ssb. When I was in HS, my dad purchased a Realistic DX 302 from someone's estate and that's when I really started swling. I strung up a Radioshack wire antenna and spent a lot of time experimenting with it and trying to get it as high up into the trees as possible.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: silvercreek on February 26, 2013, 1347 UTC: I started shortwave monitoring several years ago with a Grundig Satellit 700 and then later on had a Grundig Satellit 800. I only used the built-in antenna and never got around to putting up an outdoors antenna. I now have 2 receivers. An ICOM IC-R7100 and ICOM IC-R75 receiver. I have a Discone D-3000N about 35' high and a Par end fed 45' long wire antenna.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: kmorgan on March 03, 2013, 1112 UTC: RCCI I loved your story! I felt so sorry, and angry! at the contest you so miserably won/lost whatever. As the kids used to say: "what a RIPOFF!" You and I have a thing in common, an aversion to becoming a licensed HAM. The way I figger it, if a big emergency were to occur, transmitting with or without a license matters not.

My first experience with radio was about 13 yrs old, I was a dorky, thick glasses and all girl, and thought to myself there MUST be something more than just broadcast on the airwaves, I got the smart idea to "fiddle" and tinker with a portable stereo and thought I was pure genius for managing to get aircraft comms by upping the frequency past 107.1 MHZ. I had no radio or electronics interested family or friends so this was a big deal for me. I was always fiddling with the television trying to find those mystery stations and though there must be some "hidden" frequencies on the TV and radio most people didn't know about. Don't ask me why, I have no idea! I've had this interest since very young child hood.

First radio: Kaito 1103. Great radio!! I swear, it's gotta be one of THE best shortwave radios made. I cannot for the life of me figure out the hows n whys I got into listening, and that's interesting because it wasn't all that long ago that I got my first SW radio.

fast forward to many many long years later
I've moved up to a couple of Grundigs,a Hallicrafter s200 (CRAP do not buy) a Sangean 909, but the radio I use most is a Tentec RX320D. I have some other radios lying around including HAM radios, various vintage CBs and walkie talkies.

I've modded the TenTec radio for better LF reception which makes the radio well worth it to me now. There are instructions on the web for anyone who's got it, believe me, it totally makes the radio an MW & LW machine!

I'm always on the look out for older radios circa 1970s and newer.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: BDM on March 03, 2013, 1923 UTC: Very interesting story RCCI.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Blakkzakk on April 17, 2013, 0929 UTC: An old, Motorola tube clock radio. I was about 8, living at Pease AFB in New Hampshire and, on night, I picked up WWL in New Orleans with it. I thought that was the coolest thing!

My first SW was some ratty, Gold Star portable, then I got a Heathkit SW-717.

Now I have a TS-830S, an Icom R75, an Icom IC 211A 2M........AND.....I just got an R-390A for $350!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ricbhll on May 04, 2013, 1420 UTC: I started out with a Maplin(UK) own brand topband receiver and,what amazing results! I also bought a Maplin ATU kit which like the receiver,I built. I can happily say I spent many hours listening to-SOS calls (not many,thank god) ship/North Sea oil rig ship to shore conversations,etc. It was the latter that really caught my attention as some of them er,better not say or I'd be breaking the law in the UK! We're allowed to listen to most stuff but, NOT TO REPEAT IT!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Tim537 on July 26, 2013, 1743 UTC: Mine was a valve (U.S. tube) H.A.C. Kit back in the late 1960s. Simple but incredible receiver!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Labviewguru on July 31, 2013, 0632 UTC: About 1965 I found a Crosley (11 GLORIOUS vacuum tubes) (upright? floor model?) shortwave radio, but since the cabinet was in bad shape my father would not let me bring it in the house. I pulled the electronics out and ran a wire out the window upstairs. It WORKED! The downside was I only had enough wire to run about 1/2 way down the stairs. So, I set the radio on one step and I set on the step below. The cone was rotted away on the speaker and I never realized speakers had cones. To listen, I pressed my ear against the center of the speaker. I pulled a radio out of a junker car (vacuum tube - had a vibrator power supply that would stand your hair straight out from your head) and discovered speakers had cones! Progress!

(Cars had a 6 volt battery and radios took about a minute to "warm up." Remember that?)

I investigated connecting the speaker to the radio. What I didn't know was that, back then, the magnet on the speaker was a huge electromagnet that they used to filter the B+. Yep, about 600 volts. That was 47 years ago and I still remember what that felt like. The speaker made a loud noise - once. Off to find / steal another speaker.

Man, that was cool.

Eventually I discovered Popular Electronics magazine with the shortwave schedules and would set up half of the night trying to listen to Radio Cook Islands on 5.050 @ 1000 watts. I couldn't have heard it if it was in the next state, but I didn't know that.)

Somehow I got the idea to use the car radio power supply (it was like 400 Hz ??) attached to rods in the ground - this would drive earthworms out of the wet ground. Some guy in the neighborhood saw this and gave me a "telephone ringer." I learned later this "telephone ringer" was a HUGE magneto. I have no idea what the voltage this thing was, but it was all a 10 or 11 year old boy could do to crank it.

Another kid I knew took apart an electric shaver (AC) and hung up about a mile of wire. To the end he attached what we now know to be a spark-gap. He grounded the other side and if there was a thunderstorm anywhere in the area we would be treated to 2 or 3 inch sparks. (and a lot of UV). Did you know you could actually get a sunburn from that? It's amazing we didn't fry our retinas.

Not to be outdone, I reversed the process and connected the really large magneto to this spark-gap, then to wire in a tree. Back then, television sets were B&W with channels 2-13. I was trying to contact the astronauts or something but discovered I could completely wipe out television sets within (at least) a mile radius.

My uncle gave me a table-model Philco-Ford shortwave radio with pushbuttons and a real speaker. Then a Hallicrafters S-38. Morse Code. Amateur Radio. Teletype. I built one of the first computers in Ohio from discrete components. (8008 processor - 1 week's pay for the processor).

Nothing I've done (technically) beat that old Crosley and the smell of hot tubes at 0230, trying to find Radio Cook Islands in 5.050

I really pity kids with their X-boxes and satellite TV. They have no idea what they've missed.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: cmradio on July 31, 2013, 0811 UTC: Hi RCCI,

Sorry to hear of you being gypped :(

I've been to a few hamfests lately and they were kind enought to have a non-ham-equivalent prize.... a SWL rig to die for, advanced test equipment or even cash in the form of Visa gift cards.

Seems some sponsors have "grown" :)

Peace!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: OldSeaRock on September 25, 2013, 1642 UTC: Hallicrafters S-38D, graduated years later to a RS DX-440.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Mentholyptus on September 30, 2013, 2017 UTC: This is the radio that got me started DXing when I was little... My parents' old Bendix AM table radio from the late '40s. I always thought it looked like a loaf of bread! It still looks pretty cool today, sounded great too, with that wonderful tube-tone sound I still love. I used to lay on the floor for hours turning the knob, listening to WLS Chicago and lots of stations from down south, and who knows where? Wish I still had this radio, but by the mid-1970s it was barely hanging on by the skin of its dial, and my dad finally tossed it out.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: G7JDH on October 17, 2013, 1940 UTC: I STARTED WITH A REALISTIC DX 160 AND A 100FT LONGWIRE STRAIGHT INTO BACK OF SET AND A EARTH WIRE GOING STRAIGHT INTO GROUND WHERE A OLD BED MATRESS HAD BEEN BURIED , WORKED LOVELY ESPECIALY ON 80MTR
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: K5KNT on October 17, 2013, 2047 UTC: I actually got started with a crystal controlled 10 channel scanner listening to my hometown police. As for SWL and what I chose on the poll, a Grundig G3.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Mentholyptus on October 17, 2013, 2325 UTC: I had picked up a used Regency 10 channel crystal scanner when I was in high school... my next step from the Bendix towards SWL! It worked great, but I couldn't listen to it in bed at night with the lights out... the bulbs for the channels were so bright, and all that flashing when it scanned made my room look like a psychedelic disco and I couldn't sleep!! Lol. You could probably pick one of these up for peanuts now, but it was a great little scanner though. Programmable scanners weren't available yet, but when the Bearcat 210 came out, I sold this one and put the money towards a 210.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: gps29070 on October 20, 2013, 0107 UTC: I had various Realistic portables when I was a kid but really didn't get into shortwave. My first serious receiver was a Soviet made VEF-206 I bought in England for 15 quid. I can still remember the hard clunk whenever I had to switch bands, much like an Old TV tuner. I would spend hours dxing stuff off that thing. I broke the band selector and ending up throwing it away when I moved back to the states.

I have never owned a high end receiver, I use a Tecsun 660 for dxing, pirate and digital broadcast. If I am just listening to broadcast shortwave, I use a CCrane-SW because of the sound. I also own a Grundig G5 and Kaito DE-1103.

Thanks for adding me to the group
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Nella F. on October 20, 2013, 2052 UTC: Actually the folks let me "borrow" their Zenith Transoceanic Model 600 when I was in junior high. I had a "long, long wire" strung out to an oak tree several hundred feet into the "back 40"( It collapsed under its own weight during the first fall wind storm). Then for Christmas of 1964 I got a Zenith Royal 500 (with gold trim). I still have my log book of the 150 or something **( I'm @ the local library) a.m. stations caught (no qsl's though) including KDKA, WWL, KGO with "Ira Blue @ the Hungry Eye", WSL, etc., up to Feb. of 1968. Following shortly afterwards it was Hello NTC San Diego...!

**152!! goodmemory, thank you headstands. ::)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: BoomboxDX on October 21, 2013, 0359 UTC: My grandma and grand aunt used to listen to Ira Blue's show on KGO during the late 1960's, on their old Silvertone AC powered transistor AM table radio. KGO was fairly popular in the NW because of its signal, as well as its talk programs -- way before 'talk radio' became such a big deal.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Hornet0123 on October 22, 2013, 2130 UTC: My granddad gave me a Zenith Transoceanic when I was 10 years old (1982) I used that for about 2 years until I got a Realistic dx-400. Unfortunately the Zenith was ruined when my parents basement flooded.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Capt. Radio on November 04, 2013, 1555 UTC: After I got my first job back in the '60's, I spent my first paycheck purchasing my first shortwave radio. I still remember the excitement when the package arrived! I opened it and saw the crinkle painted grey metal cabinet and all the electronic components, with two circuit boards...cool! I couldn't wait to put it together. After a few evenings with the soldering iron and hand tools, I had a beautifully completed Knight-kit R-100A. It was huge!

I remember the excitement of powering it up for the first time. The tubes came to life with a soft glow. I twiddled the tuning knob on a shortwave band and heard my first station... without hooking up an antenna! It was the powerhouse HCJB... the Voice of the Andes.

That was many years ago, and I am still playing radio.

You know, I really miss that radio with its HUGE blackface S-meter!

--------------------

Update:

Was looking through old photos and found a pic of both "firsts"... my Knight R-100A, and my first ham rig, the Heath HW-16 novice rig. Notice the "woodgrain" mod on the face of both! hi ... hi... After a while, I got tired of the wood look, stripped the contact paper off, and restored the rigs to original. BTW, the goofy looking item on the top of the radios is a pair of headhones with a lot of foam padding around the headband. Without the foam, it was impossible to wear the 'phones for too long without getting a headache. :D

(http://i1038.photobucket.com/albums/a466/Capt_Radio/radio_books/first.jpg)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ihmeyers on November 30, 2013, 2301 UTC: New to the group...Brief intro.

I am 52 and live in SE Florida. Grew up DXing on Long Island with a Realstic TRF at age 14. Graduated from that to a GE Super Radio. I remember vividly getting a new RF-2200 for XMAS when I was 16. It was an expensive set for my parents to buy me but it was greatly appreciated. I knew nothing about antenna theory and used a 60 ft longwire strung from my bedroom to the backyard pine trees. Picked up almost as much QRN as it did signal but I recall logging KSL and KFI early one Monday morning on the RF-2200 hooked up to a timer/tape recorder as a teenager. Still two of my best catches to date from LI. Back then I had a friend that lived nearby that was into BCB Dxing. Both of us wanted to be DJs, he did at one point for a few years. Me I took a more corporate route...

These days I use an Winradio Excalibur, a tricked out Icom R-75, as well as a Kenwood TS-940. I live in an HOA community so I am limited as far as antennas go. I am using a DX Engineering active vertical (28 foot probe) and a Pixel Pro2B loop.

Haven't DXed for pirates in many, many years but was a regular listener and was friendly with the operators of NY's WFAT in the late 70's until they got busted.

Looking forward to contributing to this site.

73,
Ian :)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: NoseyParker on December 30, 2013, 1606 UTC: I was 9 years old and wandering the lane/alleyway behind our street. In a skip I found an old Valve radio and went home and had Dad put a power plug on it. It didn't explode and I've been hooked ever since... that was 1970... I then graduated to a Sanyo Multiband RF8800(?) tied to a hombrew antenna tuner and 80ft of wire. I've owned a DR49, DR28 (on which I heard KNIX 1570? when living in Wellington, New Zealand) Moved back to the UK in 2009 and recently obtained an FRG-7700 and happy with it through a MFJ-971 tuner (built for ham bands) and a 20m dipole. I have a Yaesu FT847 and 817ND also in the shack along with a Funcube Pro+ dongle. Somehow I still don't have enough gear, you know how it is! ::)
Title: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Dude111 on December 31, 2019, 0118 UTC: I think I started with a DX-440 many years ago.....

One thing I didnt like mine was off freq by 1 so if the station was .590 the center on my radio would be .591 .. Were all 440s like that?
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: ThaDood on December 31, 2019, 1838 UTC: I can't remember if I rang out on this, but am too damn lazy to go through the 7 pages to see, so... What got me hooked was a 1978 Realistic DX-40 MW/ FM / SW 4 - 22MHz portable. Only single conversion and very prone to IMD with a longwire, but decent FM 5uV sensitivity and selectivity that I was able to DX FM and TV CH6 audio from WNY, PA, and ON, Canada. I was hooked on FM DX'ing 1st, then MW and SW. Kind of wish I still had that portable. A great starter and that 1W amp IC in it sounded great. I can't believe that was now about 40 years ago. http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1978/h131.html
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Josh on December 31, 2019, 2225 UTC: First exposure to sw was when as a wee lad, we had a big black dial Zenith console in the garage and it worked! BBC story time with Winnie the Poop and etc! This would be around 1974 or so.

Been sw/radio crazy ever since.

Next foray was a few years later, pa let me borrow his portable, dunno if it was a black plastic Sony or Zenith but it had a fold out tray/map thingy and I think a round time calculator thingy too you could turn to see what time it was wherever.
I listened to Radio Moscow preaching about "the evil imperialist capitalists and all their running dogs", with similar porpaganda coming from Radio Tirana, Bejing, Habana, and elsewhere, the hfbc bands where packed cheek and jowl.
The one thing that amazed me was there was even some guy whose job was to read the time every minute, with ticks every second in between reads, couldn't imagine being able to not fall asleep at a job like that.

Needless to say, even though I turned them on and tuned around and listened to lots of stuff, I did not really understand radio whatsoever.

My HAM uncle gave me a pair of wonky tonkys (walkies) for xmas, we put batteries in them, powered them on, and they had me run to the far side of the yard when I heard my uncle's voice come out of the thing clear as day.

I was flabbergasted! I mean, this is my dork uncle on the other side of the house whose gigantor HAM antenna tower we were forbidden to climb, not some radio station like WHO or whatever!

I kept turning it over and looking in the battery compartment for the tape recorder that my uncle must have used to trick me, but no it was live radio, even had a morse button and morse chart on the face so you could send mcw, not that I had a clue what mcw was then. MCW means Modulated Continuous Wave, the talkies had an audio oscillator to input a 1kc tone into the tx chain if you pressed the cw button.

Later on at about age 12, another great xmas gift from HAM uncle, the rat shack 160 in 1 electronics kit, that got me started in electronics projects on a grand scale and was the basis for my understanding of solid state electronics and radio waves. Later on would have to relearn everything to figure out how tubes worked.

Then many (many) years later, I was reminded of the existence of sw by a high quality boombox that had several sw bands, I'd tune in to some sw station and the missus would turn it right back to some crap fm stereo pop station. She would have to go.

Then, years later, at the same time as a foray into an exciting career in law enforcement, a Halli SX110 for sale was noted in the local paper and I wanted to see what that meant. So I end up carting it home with the original manual, this thing was in great shape and I couldn't wait to get it home and fired up.

Got it home and it worked fb! Simple wire antennas produced sigs on every band! The best part for me was the vertical s meter, way cool. I went to rat shack and found they could get me new tubes so I retubed it and had an even better time with increased sensitivity and so on. The only downside was when the furnace or ac came on the temp change would make it drift a bit so you had to ride the dial to keep those Aussies on 20m ssb tuned in. That began my pastime of preferring to listen to dx work other dx stations.

Then a few months later in a local (Counciltucky IA or Omaha club) HAM club monthly, was an ad for an Icom R-70 for a few paltry hundreds. I had to have it after seeing one in a HAM magazine. Payments were accepted and I can still recall making that last payment, picking it up in a law enforcement vehicle and driving home with it. The gf was def jelly of this new toy.

What a revelation.

Digital readout, absolute stability under most any conditions, selectable filtering, selectable demodulation modes, pre amp and attenuator, reference oscillator adjust right on the top!
It looked and worked like new. Holy crap you could listen to USAF bombers and hq on 6761 and 11176 ssb! Russian volmet on 11297! later on like a fool I traded it to Surplus Sales of Nebraska for a new AEA AT300 pi section antenna tuner cuz the cb bug had hit. Happily enough after the regret set in, saw Universal Radio had a R-70 for sale in an issue of Monitoring Times and called Fred, proposing a swap for a as new AEA AT300 tuner for the R70, and made the deal.

This R-70 was in as good or better shape than the one I had before, and it came with several professionally done mods such as a better AM filter and the legendary FL-44A 2.4kc xtal filter. AM passband tuning as well as preamp on AMBC were other mods, shoulda kept that one but it went somewhere else in trade as I was by then quite trade crazy.

Only thing impressed me as much as going from a halli to an Icom was getting a rig with dsp and a fish finder. And of those I've had many and still do, ate up with radios.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: NJQA on January 01, 2020, 1553 UTC: I started when I was in 5th grade with a Hallicrafters S-72 receiver that belonged to my Dad. I enjoyed tuning around, but didn’t really know what I was doing. The S-72 eventually died and I got a Hallicrafters S-120 for Christmas. The S-120 was a bit better than the S-72, but not by much. I had really wanted a receiver with an S-meter so I was a little disappointed. Over the years I learned more about the hobby and got a few QSL cards. Then one Christmas when I was in High School, I got a used Hallicrafters S-85. The S-85 had an actual RF amplifier stage (the previous radios ran the antenna straight into the mixer). OMG, what a difference. I could hear so much more. I added a Hallicrafters S-meter right between the dials (it looked just like a SX-99 then) and a Heathkit Q-multiplier. Using an amplified loop antenna I built, I heard all sorts of AM BCB DX, including trans-atlantics.

In one of Bill Orr’s (W6SAI) books he recommended not getting a top of the line receiver at first, but starting with an entry level set and learning to properly operate it. Once you have squeezed out all the performance it is capable of, then upgrade. I can see the wisdom of that, but doubt that anyone has the patience to do that these days. Plus, today you get so much better performance with even the cheapest radios. A $100 RSP1A is a zillion times better a receiver than that S-120 was.

I miss that S-85, but can’t stand to even look at a S-120.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: clobdell on January 01, 2020, 1611 UTC: I think it was 1960 when I was 8 yo, I was tinkering with an old wooden console Radio/Phonograph combo in the cellar. It had a shortwave band. I would tune it and never hear anything until one day I heard the VOA's old IS "Columbia The Gem Of The Ocean" and I heard a transmitter ID of I think Boundbrook, NJ. Wow I was intrigued. I then saw the screw for a wire antenna. After that stuff like HCJB's "Morning In The Mountains", The BBC, Radio Canada Intl. came in easily! I heard the Algerian war had just ended so I took my scoop up to my dad to tell him. He was taking a nap and was not too pleased. My next radios were a bunch of transistor portables, by GE, RCA, etc. For Christmas of 1964 I was awarded a Hallicrafters S-120. A big step up. Then the S-200 with spread tuning, [wow] in 1965. I saw an article in the summer of 1966/1967 in Popular Electronics on the advent of the Drake SW-4. I set my sights on that one and obtained a used one [SW-4A] in 1968. My DXing career took off ..... 60 meter Africans, etc..... The rest is history.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Pigmeat on January 01, 2020, 2021 UTC: Quote from: Mentholyptus on September 30, 2013, 2017 UTC
This is the radio that got me started DXing when I was little... My parents' old Bendix AM table radio from the late '40s. I always thought it looked like a loaf of bread! It still looks pretty cool today, sounded great too, with that wonderful tube-tone sound I still love. I used to lay on the floor for hours turning the knob, listening to WLS Chicago and lots of stations from down south, and who knows where? Wish I still had this radio, but by the mid-1970s it was barely hanging on by the skin of its dial, and my dad finally tossed it out.

My Grandma and I used to listen to the Tennessee Ernie Ford program on one of these before I was Shanghaied by the state into a kid's prison known as Elementary School. She died about two years later, I don't know what became of it when her relatives cleaned out the house while I was down with the measles at an Aunt's.

My Grandpa was always given radios by my TV repairman Uncle. He generally didn't want them, he'd moved on to TV, so I got those. Once I figured out most transistor radios weren't much more than amplified crystal sets, I got picky. A Penny's multiband radio left at the shop was the first radio I got that received SW. I listened primarily to the Swiss Radio Service as I figured they didn't have dog in the fight in the Cold War. My next radio was a Hallicrafters S-120 the neighborhood ham gave me at around 12 to keep me from pestering him on a near daily basis. I've still got that radio, it's bandwidth is as wide as a barn door, but it's a stellar weak signal performer on MW, 160, and 90 meters if you don't feed it too much wire. I got the Ali-Foreman fight from Armed Forces Radio on that thing, which will always put it up near the top of my crappy intro SW radios.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: dxace1 on January 01, 2020, 2042 UTC: Pilot Radio T-133 found in my grandmothers' basement in the late 1960s....used this to log at least 75 of my current 225 countries
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Ct Yankee on January 16, 2020, 2106 UTC: So, we were 5 kids, I the oldest, with 1 TV. Due to sharing the tv, most of the times my sports following was via radio. Perhaps my father's transistor that I made mine was my first radio, listening to far away baseball games in the late 60's got me into DXing. My parents figured they could keep one kid occupied with a radio so they got me a Denon Multi-band portable radio ( a Zenith T/O 7000 imitation) for Christmas '69 or '70 (age 12 or 13). I then discovered the dozen of international broadcasters and hooked to the outside TV antenna for better reception. I had that radio through residences in four different states. Upon marriage and kids, the hobby was put aside for several years.

In the late 90's, I was given a Sears gift card, in the local Sears' discount rack was a Grundig Yacht Boy, I picked it up and got back into the hobby. In the early 00's, I went to a barn sale in Pennsylvania with my father. A '36 Emerson (Ingraham cabinet) AR-176 in terrible shape was awaiting a buyer for a song. My son helped me throw up the long wire, I did some work on the radio, had someone I know finish it off - looks like it just came off the production line. Since then, have been fully back into the hobby.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Orb on February 23, 2020, 1514 UTC: The Hallicrafters S-120, my father bought it and I ended up using it all the time. Still remember listening to the broadcasts I could pickup with my coat hanger antenna because I didn't know any better. Many radios since but I still have that one on my desk.

Now with an overload of access to information, I am thankful I grew up when radio was still the best source for hearing all types of programming, news, mysterious numbers and of course strange but delightful broadcasts you could stumble upon while tuning across the dial.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: nickcarr3151 on February 24, 2020, 1951 UTC: Technically my first radio was the Radio Shack Patrolman that my grandmother gave me when I was ~11 years old or so. Since I was probably 9-10, I always played with my grandfather's crystal base scanner when I visited. I guess she noticed and ended up giving me the Patrolman later on. (She only used it for AM BCB listening when cooking.)

I was blown away since it had multiple bands to play with. They owned an apple orchard in Yakima, WA and back then it was too easy to pick up just about any RF signal.

My first purchased SW radio was the Radio Shack DX-390 with 5khz tuning steps. It had a SSB BFO but that was useless on the HAM bands due to the tuning step size.

Then in 1994 I was able to purchase a *REAL* SWL rig -- the Drake R-8. Oooh... Ahhh...
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: rickc1970 on March 01, 2020, 0600 UTC: I started with a Lasonic dual cassette boombox that had shortwave on it. I had that radio until someone stole it out of my vehicle when I was moving. Years later I got back into listening when I bought my Kaito 1103.
Title: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Dude111 on March 01, 2020, 1825 UTC: Wow I am so sorry someone would do that :(

I am glad you didnt give up though and got back into it :)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Thermionic on March 12, 2020, 1332 UTC: My first radio was by way of a Christmas present. I received it when I was 17, a few months after I'd joined my local radio club. The model a Pye 1101A.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/pye_1101.html

As it was a table model, it lacked a BFO, which meant I couldn't resolve SSB or CW stations. This was solved by using a Class D wave meter.

https://www.royalsignals.org.uk/photos/classDno1.htm

https://www.vanzwamcs.com/greenpages/Wavemeter/Wavemeter_Mk%20II-I/Wavemeter.htm

I coupled the wave meter to the antenna lead which fed the RX and by using the second crystal which covered 1900 to 4000 Khz or 4000 to 8000 KHz I was able to zero beat the frequency and resolve the SSB.

One night I wondered if there was anyway I could modulate the 1mHz crystal. I got hold of a piece of two core wire and four crocodile clips, at one end I clipped the terminals of the loudspeaker of my record player, while at the other end I used one clip connected to the chassis of the wave meter, the other clip went to one of the pins of the crystal. Guess what, it worked. Every 1mHz I could hear what was coming from my record player. I unsoldered one of the leads from the amplifier to the speaker terminal and screwed it to one of the crocodile clips. From now on I used the Pye RX to listen to my records.

I had some copper wire which I used as my antenna which went from the shack (my bedroom) to one of the poles which held the washing line in the garden. I found I could hear my record player when held a transistor radio in close proximity to the antenna.

Later I used the same method of using the 465kHz IF of an AM transistor radio. TRX1 connected to a record player or whatever tuned to 1600kHz while I listened to it on 1135kHz via TRX2. The range was limited to a few inches, but when I used the 10.7mHz IF of an FM transitor radio I found I could hear my record player more than a few yards away from the house.

I've had many radios since to numerous to mention. I had to give up my hobby when I moved into retirement accommodation due to QRM from the CCTV and the fire and security alarms, but thanks to WebSDR radio which I've only just found I can resume the hobby.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: syfr on March 12, 2020, 1449 UTC: Radio Shack STAR ROAMER regen that I built with the help of my dad.

It worked to the extent the design allowed it to work!

Sure looked good though.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Charlie_Dont_Surf on March 14, 2020, 1813 UTC: I suppose that the first was an old RCA radio from the 1930s with MW and HF coverage. It lacked sensitivity (I realize now that it needed a tune up and some new tubes) but it was good enough for the major international broadcasters. It was a large stand-up radio (not sure of the correct term) that one might put in their living room/foyer with a dark mahogany laminate exterior and an electric eye to indicate signal strength.

Second was my father's Collins 75A4, but that received the HF ham bands only.

Third was a Hammarlund HQ-180A, which was general coverage. I used that all through high school.

I didn't get a portable until well after college.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Teotwaki on March 21, 2020, 1436 UTC: Hmm. It had grey paint and those empty glass things that got hot. I loved to listen to contests that a station in Hilversum, Holland would run late at night. Much later it was replaced by a low-end Kenwood, then I think an Icom R-71 which finally gave way to the NRD-525 that I still have.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: pjxii on March 29, 2020, 0331 UTC: I love reading this thread, great idea to start it! I'm actually going to websearch the radios that I'm not familiar with, especially the old portables.

My first SWL experience was a cheap multiband that had a broken whip antenna in our kitchen when a kid. I put a metal coathanger in it and stuck my arm through that. I spent my summer vacation that year listening to the BBCWS during the day and RCI at night, that was all that came in on that dog. When my mom wanted me out of "her" kitchen my dad found a Rising FM-500 at a flea market. Bedside with a 15' wire in an L across my room I heard the world for years, including Radio New Zealand when they still used the old 7.5 KW transmitter. (1980s). I couldn't believe I found another brand new one on eBay a few years back, made by Rising but marked as Merc. Someone else must have had one as a kid because in a bidding war it went from a starting bid of $30 to my winning bid of $89 (I really shouldn't tell you what my actual high bid was...). Now I have an R7A and a couple of professional receivers among others, but nothing will compare to what that Rising gave me when it comes to enjoyment of the hobby.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Teotwaki on March 29, 2020, 0336 UTC: I recalled the model of my first "modern" receiver, the Kenwood R-2000

(https://www.universal-radio.com/used/u071lrg.jpg)
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Josh on March 29, 2020, 1820 UTC: Thing I note abt this thread is there's a shtload of people who used to post here and don't anymore.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: East Troy Don on April 05, 2020, 2321 UTC: Sad but true. Parallel axiom to a boatload of SW broadcast stations that don't broadcast anymore. Cause & Effect rears it's ugly head. Who wouldn't want to hear an English broadcast out of Radio Damascus today? Or the TASS blather from Radio Moscow commenting on Crimea, Ukraine, Etc etc etc. .
And while we're polishing the past and bitching about the present I'm still trying to figure out why my (now long gone) Kenwood R-600 with an Eavesdropper Trap Wave antenna outperformed anything I have today.

" Am I ranting ? I hope so - my ranting gets raves".
- HAWKEYE PIERCE. MASH 4077th -
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Charlie_Dont_Surf on April 06, 2020, 0017 UTC: Quote from: Josh on March 29, 2020, 1820 UTC
Thing I note abt this thread is there's a shtload of people who used to post here and don't anymore.

It must be my bad B.O. driving them away.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: KM0NAS on April 11, 2020, 2133 UTC: I didn't have much exposure to SW when I was a kid. My dad was on AM radio though so I would listen to him. I also had the Radio Shack Sky Talker walkie talkies which I thought was pretty cool. I also remember driving around with my dad as he tried to DX our local AM radio station (the same one he was on) from thousands of mile away after dark while we were on vacation. It was a clear channel station and he was trying to pick up the local football game from back home. We were able to make it work.

I didn't really get into the hobby until I stumbled upon online SDRs. From there I wanted to know what I could hear from my QTH. My first radio was a Realistic DX-305 and then a Kenwood R-1000.

Neither get any use today as I got my ticket and now just listen on my TS-570D transceiver.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Pigmeat on April 13, 2020, 0558 UTC: Quote from: East Troy Don on April 05, 2020, 2321 UTC
Sad but true. Parallel axiom to a boatload of SW broadcast stations that don't broadcast anymore. Cause & Effect rears it's ugly head. Who wouldn't want to hear an English broadcast out of Radio Damascus today? Or the TASS blather from Radio Moscow commenting on Crimea, Ukraine, Etc etc etc. .
And while we're polishing the past and bitching about the present I'm still trying to figure out why my (now long gone) Kenwood R-600 with an Eavesdropper Trap Wave antenna outperformed anything I have today.

" Am I ranting ? I hope so - my ranting gets raves".
- HAWKEYE PIERCE. MASH 4077th -

In those day's I generally listened to Swiss Radio International, I figured they didn't have a dog in the fight?

I liked some guy's in Costa Rica,too. What did they call it, Radio For Peace International? There were some strange ranger's there,which is what made them interesting.

I was wondering why the Bunnette's showed themselves yesterday? It was Easter. I guess they're waiting for him to rise? They don't know a thing about yeast,you've got to let it rise, pitch into your mash then let it ferment, the entire mess will rise. If you cremated him you're out of luck. Good luck!
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Pigmeat on April 14, 2020, 1535 UTC: It's interesting how this is breaking down. Over 50 and it seems like you got the bakelite and and wooden boxes full of tubes Grandma didn't want to haul to Florida. Under that age you got solid state boxes with leather-rite exteriors that had all sorts of bands and nothing to hear.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: jasmine on April 15, 2020, 1955 UTC: RTL-SDR was my first and quickly after that i got an SDRPlay RSP1a. now i own those and an Airspy HF+ Discovery which i love. i only got into this hobby less than a year ago though.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: East Troy Don on April 16, 2020, 0142 UTC: Quote from: Pigmeat on April 14, 2020, 1535 UTC
It's interesting how this is breaking down. Over 50 and it seems like you got the bakelite and and wooden boxes full of tubes Grandma didn't want to haul to Florida. Under that age you got solid state boxes with leather-rite exteriors that had all sorts of bands and nothing to hear.

And every hardware store had the compulsory tube tester to let you know that, once again, your 35W4 half-wave rectifier was shot. Fun stuff back then though - my 1940 Mantola tuber is AM/SW but, of course, no FM. Still works - I pulled in Radio Helliniki out of Avlis last week.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Pigmeat on April 16, 2020, 0310 UTC: The drug store next to grocery store had the tube tester here. The pharmacist sold me Playboy's. His reasoning was "If you can grow a mustache, you can buy Playboy."

The dept. store from down the street had something that was supposed to have been pulled of the market years before, an X-Ray shoe fitter. The owner was the Mayor and did what he wanted. Al could have built his Death Ray years ahead of schedule with that baby to concentrate the X-Rays on Jughead, Moose,Archie, and Reggie. Riverdale was just a mile or so upriver.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: europirate on April 24, 2020, 1046 UTC: First HF receiver - the HAC single valve (tube) kit from an advert in Practical Wireless, mid 1970's

First commercial receiver - the Yaesu FRG-7
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: MajorHabu on April 25, 2020, 2029 UTC: Heathkit GR-81 Super regen circa 1960. Got my 1st QSL from HCJB using thar RX.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: alpard on May 08, 2020, 1539 UTC: Sanyo 3 bands portable with telescopic antenna built in.
MW SW1 SW2. It worked ok but couldn't find the same station twice.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: N0TLD on May 12, 2020, 0836 UTC: I'm enjoying everyone's posts, thank you.

I began my radio-diggin' as a kid with the vintage tube radios of my grandparents's homes. A big old Silvertone AM/SW console with that classic Silvertone look -- that big round copper airplane dial and bright green magic eye indicator -- features very large in my memory of my paternal grandmother's house when I was a little kid. SW was especially memorable, hearing all those strange, exotic songs and voices. They might as well have been from outer space to my impressionable little mind.

In my preteens it was a dark wood Zenith solid state AM/FM bedside tabletop that I enjoyed every night, and the magic of nighttime MW DXing became an interest long before I knew it had a name or was even a real thing *other* people enjoyed too. :)

Also during those years, one of my best friends had his own multi-band portable (I believe was a Sanyo model like the 8800 but it was FM/AM/SW/LW with a slide rule dial) that we listened to a lot, especially SW at night wondering what all the weird sounds were -- all the boops and pings and whooshing, bleeping signals. And since it had no BFO (not that we would have known we needed to use it if it HAD been provided) we had no clue about those odd, distorted Donald Duck-sounding inhuman voices we heard on the dial areas marked with little red lines with numbers like '40m' or '20m'... I'm pretty sure we thought they really *were* aliens. Even today I think at least one or two of those beings are in fact aliens. Or just pretty spaced out.

I also loved my homemade crystal radio! That thing let me hear Japan or the UK or Moscow or New Zealand on a tiny piece of rock (and then a 1N34 diode when I eventually found some)! That magic has never left me.

My first official multi-band receiver -- with a digital frequency display and real SSB and a real external antenna jack -- was a then-newly-introduced Grundig Yacht Boy 400. That little radio VERY quickly started me on the path of hobby madness I have been treading for decades now. All kinds of radio gear has been amassed since then, most of it used/vintage, along with plenty of mostly homebrewed antennas and accessories.

Hhhmmm. I didn't intend to write all of that at first... but thanks for letting me 'nostalge' for a moment.

Mike
N0TLD
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: radioreddz on May 16, 2020, 0349 UTC: A Radio Shack Realistic DX-160 I sold a dirt bike to buy in 1975 that I still use everyday for my medium wave listing.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: N0TLD on May 16, 2020, 1002 UTC: Quote from: radioreddz on May 16, 2020, 0349 UTC
A Radio Shack Realistic DX-160 I sold a dirt bike to buy in 1975 that I still use everyday for my medium wave listing.

I love that radio. I had one with the matching 150 speaker for a number of years, and later used it with some larger tube-amped speakers, making for a much richer, warmer audio experience... but I loved it with the 150 speaker too! I eventually gave the 160 to a dear friend who still uses it every day. I might need to acquire another set soon, I really enjoyed using that one.

Mike
N0TLD
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: chanito on May 17, 2020, 2149 UTC: It is an amazingly good sounding vintage glam-wave radio.
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: Bergante on May 22, 2020, 2307 UTC: Sony ICF-5900W
Title: Re: What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?
Post by: hdofu on May 25, 2020, 0521 UTC: Realistic DX-398