Messages

466

General Radio Discussion / Re: GPS Under Attack as Crooks, Rogue Workers Wage Electronic War

« on: September 04, 2016, 1542 UTC »

I have never in my life used GPS. There are these antiquated things called Maps and Atlases.

Look at them long enough (i.e. study them) you can get where you want to go even if you don't have it with you. It's not that difficult to navigate.

Heck, they even have them online, if one is too cheap to buy the paper version.

Too many people are letting electronic devices do all their thinking for them.

467

General Radio Discussion / Re: The criminally annoying Russian Woodpecker

« on: September 04, 2016, 1535 UTC »

Around here the blue jays (Steller's Jays, actually -- related species) stay up in the trees and make all sorts of racket. Have never seen one bother a cat, or a person. Never seen them attack other birds, either.

They will swoop down and get peanuts, though.

The scrub jays (another related species, moving up from Oregon) are very shy. They keep to themselves.

I save the BB's / Pellets for the raccoons. They don't bother the cats, but will hang around and eat up the food. I don't like them around.

RE: Russian Woodpecker: I remember that noise on the bands. Makes the Chinese OTH Radar seem very, very tame.

468

General Radio Discussion / Re: Solar activity has a direct impact on Earth’s cloud cover

« on: September 04, 2016, 1528 UTC »

Well, the sun also affects radio reception. It's all interrelated somewhere.

469

General Radio Discussion / Re: 40 m dead carrier curiosity

« on: September 04, 2016, 1524 UTC »

Anytime I see dead carriers or other such anomalous signals I think of RFI. Maybe the house, or nearby houses had a computer running? Maybe a switching power supply to run their cordless telephone? Some of the power supplies put out RFI.

470

General Radio Discussion / Re: Solar physicist sees global cooling ahead (propagation and Sun spots )

« on: September 04, 2016, 1519 UTC »

I'm still on the fence about the real causes of global warming. I don't doubt that CO2 is a contributor. But so is the sun.

There's a scientists' website (pro- manmade global warming) that I read periodically that has convinced me that something is happening and it's related to CO2, but I'm not 100% convinced as of yet. One reason is the fact that in the 900's Greenland was much more habitable and had a Viking colony living there for 400 years. Even with the global warming extant now, Greenland is nowhere as habitable as is was in 900 AD.

There weren't many coal plants or automobiles in 900 AD.

They say the Medieval warming was because of solar activity and less volcanic activity.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Obviously there is something amuck, and it involves CO2. But will it kill us all off? The natural state of the Earth is to be in an Ice Age. Human civilization happened to develop during an interglacial period. If CO2 indeed warms the Earth up, it may counter the Earth's tendency back towards cooling.

How this will all play out?  Probably none of us here will live long enough to see the result.

RE: Original post. Great article. Thanks for posting it.

471

General Radio Discussion / Re: The Shack Is Back

« on: June 03, 2016, 1244 UTC »

I'm glad. The one remaining store in my area is still doing well.

I bought a couple of their pocket radios (AM/FM mono w/ speaker & SiLabs DSP chip inside) there. One to keep in the briefcase, the other one for knocking around the house.

One can DX with them, surprisingly enough. Sound pretty good through headphones.

Pull in fringe FM stations better then some of my other portables.

472

General Radio Discussion / Re: WRMI move from 6915 to 6855 due to complaints from MARS

« on: May 17, 2016, 0140 UTC »

The past few mornings and early afternoons the only stations I've heard on the 21 meter and 19 meter SW bands was 1) Brother Stair, and 2) RHC in Spanish or French and Brother Stair.

Nothing else.

So, yes, I'd think Brother Stair is one of the major forces in SW broadcasting, no matter what we may think of the content...

473

General Radio Discussion / Re: AIR-India to shut down short wave service

« on: May 17, 2016, 0135 UTC »

Pretty sad if it happens. Second largest country in the world, with a lot of SW receivers...

One of my coolest SW listening memories was hearing the AIR outlet in Madras, broadcasting to the Indian Ocean and E Africa, coming in on my DX440 very well that morning... it was this incredibly cool sounding recording of children chanting and stomping their feet, very tribal sounding.

The combination of the propagation, excellent reception, and the hi fi quality of the signal coming through the headphones of the DX440 made it a very memorable listening experience -- it was almost like being there. Probably sometimes 2003 or so.

474

Equipment / Re: What radio should a beginner get for shortwave listening (Under 90 USD)

« on: May 17, 2016, 0128 UTC »

Glad to hear you're enjoying the G3.

I have a G2 which works terrific on SW and FM off the whip. MW needs an external loop, though... Impressed with the Grundig overall, though.

475

MW Loggings / Re: 1440KHz Kiribati...

« on: April 30, 2016, 1513 UTC »

There are a few guys on the BCB Logger site that talk about that station -- no one mentions having heard it. Of course, Stateside, there are domestics on that frequency, but a good beverage conceivably would override them directionally....

I've never tried for the Pacific. Local terrain is in the way. On HF I have a clear shot to the North Pacific and Asia, although MW is still reduced. Only have heard Korea and Japan, and one Russian a long time ago.

476

General Radio Discussion / Re: Updates to the HFU Propagation Tools page

« on: April 17, 2016, 0509 UTC »

Wow, that's a lot of useful information, all on one page.

Thanks for putting that together, and maintaining it. It's very cool.

477

Equipment / Re: Zenith T/O Bomber engraving question

« on: April 15, 2016, 1307 UTC »

There used to be a T/O eGroup on Yahoo which may produce some answers if no one here has one.

478

General Radio Discussion / Re: The Fight for the Future of NPR

« on: April 15, 2016, 1304 UTC »

The problem is that online radio is competing with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, Pandora, Spotify, etc. when it comes to millenials and younger demographics.

Another problem is the economy. When people have less disposable income, they don't pledge as much money. Commercial radio is feeling the pinch -- I haven't seen the numbers, but I'm sure NPR feels it also.

Even though their listeners are in the higher income demos, those higher income demos are probably not doing as well as they did before 2008.

 

479

Equipment / Re: RETRO RECEIVER REVIEW #5 - The REALISTIC (Radio Shack) DX160

« on: March 26, 2016, 0837 UTC »

The DX-160 was a good radio for the day. It got the job done, and was not prohibitively expensive.

Anything that had dual or triple conversion, and anything close to an accurate readout (like a Drake radio, for example) was very expensive -- mostly ham store only items (i.e. hard to find for the average SWL).

Even the Sony and Panasonic radios available during the late 70's with built in crystal calibrators and bandspreads (Sony ICF5900, Panasonic 2200) weren't exactly cheap, or easy to find.

The Barlow-Wadley designs like the FRG-7, SSR-1 that came out in the late 1970's were still much more expensive than the DX-160, about twice as expensive, depending on vendor.

Single conversion superhet designs like the 160 were the average of the day if one was an SWL. Unless one was rich.

As for the DX-160's value today? It is still a good MW DXer. The rest is nostalgia, I suppose. An old 1965 Mustang car is junk compared to a modern car. Rides wonky, not easy on gas. But that doesn't mean you recycle it.

Edited to add:
I think I may have mentioned this earlier in another post on the DX-160: it can be used for SWBC listening. A simple antenna tuner reduces images, and most of the images I noticed were outside the SW bands. It also can be used for listening to the 20m-80m ham bands (and probably 160 as well), where the BFO acting like a passband tuner helps. I once used it to monitor a fall contest. Of course, the readout was useless. But I was just listening. You have to ride the RF gain on strong signals, just like the guys over at EHam say you have to do on strong signals on the big rigs, or it will chirp.

What I'm saying is that the 160 is obviously not high tech by any stretch. But it's not useless junk, either. Once one learns its idiosyncracies there is plenty to hear. But its strength for the modern day DXer is MW. It's a Realistic TRF with a little extra gain and probably better selectivity.

480

General Radio Discussion / Re: CBS Looks to Exit Radio Business

« on: March 18, 2016, 1114 UTC »

The irony is that most CBS stations are profitable, and make plenty of money. CBS is looking to exit radio, but other radio professionals I've read say that they're not in a hurry to sell their stations and ditch radio completely just yet, because the online and video alternatives (aside from CBS TV) are still a bit dicey (concerning whether they can turn a profit).