Messages

1

Equipment / Question about radiation.

« on: June 30, 2019, 2204 UTC »

Hi all, I have a Russian BC-348 J receiver laying around and I’ve noticed that it has a lot of radio luminous paint on almost any part for operation. The switches still glow slightly. All knobs are glowing and even the text on the front plate is all made up of radio active material to make it “glow in the dark”..

Now I’m wondering what I should do with it. As I simply don’t like the risk of being in front of a high level of radiation all the time.. I kinda want to get some helpful tips on what choice to make. I have a strong connection to the receiver as it was my first tube radio.. and it is kinda hard for me to get rid of it. But it’s bothering me since I know that it’s been radiating next to my bed all night long. And I am easily paranoid by the stuff I read regarding radioactivity and it’s nasty effects. I barely touched the radio after I discovered this. It’s doing nothing at all for now except sending a lot of radiation..

It’s a painful decision as I had a lot of pleasure in the first few years of every day operation. Before I knew I was contaminated with radiation every day... The radio luminous paint is also kinda fading off. Just like little tiny parts slowly fall off without noticing after operational use. I am worried that I accidentally ingested or inhaled some little parts of it. But I have no real proof of it that the material has entered into my internal body.. like usual I just operated the radio like a computer and did eat after without washing my hands. So I wonder what the risks are and so on.. This is my worst discovery so far in my SWL hobby.. 

Link to the discovery:

https://youtu.be/bmwKEhpqZPw?list=PL8UE9zbbkEisBK9uhpfYsF5-JeAp-cacU

I will appreciate any help, comments, and tips regarding what choice is the best. It’s a nice radio and a piece of history. All still original and never modified by anyone who owned the radio before I did.

2

Equipment / New in my collection R210

« on: June 03, 2019, 1442 UTC »

Just arrived, a working R210 Reception Set. Looks nice all works fine. Only the outer cover is a little damaged but the inside is like new. No dust or other faulty parts. All tubes shiny and nice in order. I’m happy with it.

De only downside: The frequency scale isn’t accurate. When I tune to my usual station I listen to all day, which normally is on 4625 KHz, shows up on the 3rd band of the scale at 4.55 (4550 KHz). But the rest is all working nicely.

https://imgur.com/a/eEX8Nm4

3

Equipment / Re: The WW2 Radio Shack

« on: June 03, 2019, 1430 UTC »

I love the history of radio spying and alike. From one time pads to numeric code and huge bulky equipment all in a single base station with bulletproof walls and the smell of old electronics. Cold and dark, hidden in the middle of nowhere. That’s what my kind of radio shack eventually will be looking like. Inspiration is all around when just digging into it.

4

Equipment / Re: Identification needed

« on: June 03, 2019, 1426 UTC »

Here’s the circuitry on the inside. It looks messed up to me. As a beginner, I have no idea on how to clean this all out and if the mess is a sign of a leaking capacitor or something. This stuff is really like a maze to me. I don’t know where to start nor end.

https://imgur.com/a/RCYIQI7

5

Equipment / Re: Identification needed

« on: June 03, 2019, 1321 UTC »

@IZS4 - Thanks for the quick reply! It covers exactly what I needed to get. I wonder if it’s safe to get some voltage into it and turning it on or disassemble it to see if anything is wrong on the inside.. on the outside everything looks good. Only dust is the faulty part. On the inside of the battery case, it looks also kinda dirty. Not that much but a few black spots on the sides are visible. Maybe also dust to clear out. No signs of leakage on the spring plug which sounds good to me.

6

Equipment / Identification needed

« on: June 03, 2019, 0846 UTC »

Hello, I got a radio yesterday from a local source. The owner didn’t know what to do with it so he gave it to me. I also can’t easy find he description on the web. So I made a link o Imgur with the pictures of the device with all details from the outside and the kind of batteries that came with it in the bag. I guess the yellow ones are the originals. As they don’t have a modern brand name and only a number painter on them. They also seem to have mah, which makes me think those were rechargeable. I appreciate the comments and I hope to find the right kind of manual to make this thing work instead of just messing it up while trying to get it working without knowledge. The link is below:

https://imgur.com/a/P4Fau5Q

Kind regards, Telegrapher

7

QSLs Received / A QSL collection I have from someone I don’t know

« on: May 08, 2019, 2048 UTC »

https://imgur.com/a/7dsw7D8

Part 2: https://imgur.com/a/ldwA0jG

Part 3 (the last part of the album):
https://imgur.com/a/c5XyJyr

First quick shot of an old album I got from someone second hand. Looks pretty. Lots from local old radio groups and alike. Enjoy.

8

General Radio Discussion / Re: Are you under 30 and how did you get interested?

« on: May 07, 2019, 1556 UTC »

For me, it all started After my granny gave me an old handheld world receiver with shortwave on it. I had no clue as to what it was, and listened to it for hours a day, started when I was 9 years old. Then later when I was at a local flea market, I stumbled across an old pile of books that were mostly covered in dust and almost unable to read due to moisture damage. One of those books I was looking at, had weird text on the cover. Leading to the reason of picking up that single book to inspect out of curiosity. I opened the book and some kind of what I think it was a reading card to mark the last page of the book the previous owner was reading to, fell out of it. As soon as I picked it up off the ground, and the guys who were selling the books were not noticing, I simply took just that little piece of paper and put it in my pocket before I put the book back on the pile it was laying. Later that day when I went back home, I decided to take a look at the weird language that was not only on the book but also on that little piece of paper that fell out of it. (I didn’t know it was Russian language, especially not when I was just a little kid.) I typed in some words on the web and I found out it was linked to a radio broadcast located in Russia. And that it was transmitting 24/7 on the shortwave band. And that’s how my journey began.

Now at the age of 23, I’ve been following this station for about 10 years. And my interest has grown up to the point of collecting Russian radios dating back to world war 2 and the USSR.

The inspiration to all this work on collecting nice pieces of old shortwave related stuff all linked back to that single day at the flea market.

But even before that I was already interested in the shortwave band. As I heard low quality amateurs voices through that simple world receiver. I became hooked to it. I had no idea what I was listening to. As a kid, I was always wondering what it could be, and my mind was like “ is this the police? Are those people military agents? Is this the phone in the living room I’m listening to? And the list of thoughts goes on and on.”

I remember me always sitting alone in the dark attic while my other sons were playing video games or watching tv. All I needed at that time was my little world receiver that has been a real gift to me especially as I was still a child who always was busy with discovering things. And like now, 10 years later, I never changed my habits. I can’t sit still doing some pointless stuff like watching propaganda tv or news that was always about negative things. I’m still the same as I was back then. When I just listen to shortwave, it makes me feel young again. A lot of memories pop up every time at night when the tubes are glowing and keeping me warm at night.

When I was at the age of 6 or so, I always started building things from simple disassembled components. I had a simple science kit based on electricity that I played with a lot. And I also used radio transmissions to drive a wireless car on the local road. So I can understand now when I look over my past life, I have been dealing a lot into radio even without really thinking about it. Like driving a radio controlled car. I enjoyed that for many many years. And often modifying electronic stuff also bought me to the collection part I am into since a few years. Repairing computers was the first successful project I have been diving into. And now to this day, I want to do more than just building and repairing computers only. So radio comes into my next hobby to have fun with.

I feel really really uneducated when it comes to radios, as it is completely new and different than what I already did with pc’s. So I am just entering a whole new field of opportunities and fun to spend years of time into. Especially now as all the pc’s I once bought from the dumb are recovered and working fine. I need something new to work on and learn from.

I hope that I will be able to repair all kinds of old radios especially in the future. Just like I did with those old vintage pc’s. But it’s still a lot of hocus spocus to me. New stuff like the life of tubes, SWR meters, and antenna designs are really confusing at the moment as I never heard about those topics. But I have enough spare time so I will be diving into those things little by little.

Overall, me as a 23 year old guy, am extremely interested and hooked to shortwave and all about radios. Especially the older ones. My experience with new stuf is that it is easy to fail over time. So now I need to see if that applies to old tube radios (which I doubt, due to their long history and the fact that they still work like new).

So that’s my short overview of how I got into radio at the very early age of 10.

If you made it to this end, I hope you enjoyed my little writing about my early experiences and how it evolved into what I am now.

Kind regards,
Telegrapher

9

SDR - Software Defined Radio / Re: RTL-SDR maintenance help needed

« on: May 07, 2019, 1152 UTC »

@ str - I only get signal through it when I only connect the center conductor without connecting the shielding. If I connect the shielding by screwing the coaxial cable to the plug of my SDR, all signals are completely gone and the waterfall is empty. So I assume that the SDR is just in a bad condition.

@ Josh - I am thinking about buying a better SDR anyway, so I appreciate the tip. As I’ve seen many different kinds of SDR’s on the web, I am at the moment just wondering which one is the best one to get. I first was thinking about buying the Kiwi-SDR, but the SDRPlay also looks promising to me. So I need to make sure that I don’t waste my money on buying a SDR that doesn’t seem to fit my needs. I just want to listen to shortwave mostly. Besides that a little on the fm side (77 - 108 MHz).

The SDR’s I am looking at are the following:

Kiwi-SDR
SDRPlay
HackRF
Win radio pci card
RTL-SDR v2 or v3

Just wondering which one is the most fair one to get. I just need good performance just like my analog radio does.

Kind regards,
Telegrapher

10

SDR - Software Defined Radio / RTL-SDR maintenance help needed

« on: April 28, 2019, 0902 UTC »

Hey there, I have a RTL SDR dongle that needs some maintenance. I measured the two coaxial plugs on the dongle which both seem to have short circuit in them. I tried to disassemble the dongle but I can’t even slide the side panels off after removing the screws. So I’m wondering if it’s worth the time to try and get it disassembled and get new coaxial connectors. Or just buying a better one? It’s not a high end dongle so I just need some advice on what to do with it. I bought it for quite a bit (€58,-)

Any tips and info is appreciated.

Kind regards,
Telegrapher

11

Equipment / Re: Questions CB and TX base station project

« on: April 28, 2019, 0841 UTC »

Yes they surely sound better than my SDR, high end Roland music gear, and Some expensive transistor radio’s i bought when I was still a kid. The R-250M is the most clear in sound even with the BFO wheel I can listen to my favorite nostalgia on 4625KHz at night without interference issues. I have only one little thing that I still need to figure out how to operate it. While listening to the 80 meter band especially. The BFO has a high pitch noise that I can’t get rid of. While turning the wheel to either the left or right end, there’s a second noise always to be heard right through the amateurs speaking.. which makes it almost impossible for me to listen clearly to them. I think it links to a lot of RF-interference as I always see on my SDR radio spectrum in the 80 meter band. So maybe the focused lines on the spectrum, spreaded on the waterfall like a fence, is the cause for the second tone on the BFO mode. On 4625KHz there aren’t that many of those lines to be seen so it makes sense that that might be the issue.

By the way, the next thing I would love to add to my shack is a surplus LW/AM radio only. As the R-250M doesn’t cover those bands. I just bought a active mini whip yesterday and it’s mounted outside in my garden to the main tower (3 meter pole) which greatly improved my reception on the R-250M. Almost no fading of signals is a nice thing I discovered right after turning it on. The height isn’t that good but I’m planning to get this little thing up a few meters more. Amazing how such a little antenna can provide me excellent reception that I usually needed a 50 meter long wire for to receive similar results.

Yesterday I was listening to some kind of radio orchestra trough the R-250M in AM mode. (I think it came from radio Romania international) the sound was very beautiful and pleasant to listen to. No noise or interference. Just crystal clear like back in the early days

12

Equipment / Re: Questions CB and TX base station project

« on: April 15, 2019, 1657 UTC »

@ Josh - Radios that cause body harm? As in high voltage risk or something else? You make me curious!

13

Equipment / Re: Questions CB and TX base station project

« on: April 15, 2019, 1424 UTC »

Yeah I bought those sovjet radios because they link to my first shortwave listening experience since my childhood. Right after that night I became addicted to radio hobby and alike. My interest in radio all started when I discovered a mysterious station on the shortwave band. The Buzzer (UVB-76) which I wasn’t able to get out of my head after the very first day. Following it for 10 years since the first time I’ve heard it on my little handheld world radio I got as a child back in 2009

On my midland I’ve discovered a lot already in 2 locations. One here at my main house and one in a big apartment with a balcony and a large roof where I mounted a long wire all the way from the window to the end of the roof (about 50 meters long) and discovered 7 CB’ers in 3 hours evening time. (From 7pm to 9pm) 

Here at my shack I discovered 4 CB’ers so far. With a Gipsy dipole attached to the Midland Alan gave me great success. Even on my SDR I can catch CB’ers with a long wire antenna so I expect to see a lot more in the summer season when the band is more clear. All I need to get is an SWR meter to test the current installed setup. If it all fits within the limits I am ready to DX when the summer arrives

The next thing I want to do is getting a active antenna for my SDR (probably gonna be the PA0RDT miniwhip antenna) and building a stable tower to mount it on. My current tower is only 3 meters in length. My goal is to get it up a little higher to about 5 meters so it sticks above the walls around my little garden. Allowing more free space to radiate. I bought 10 meters of RG58 Coax cable to mount on the new antenna I want to buy soon.

Out of all my radios I have the best one to me seems the R-250M which has a very good noise filter to get almost any signal in clearly without disturbances. Using the TLG function with the tone adjustment wheel. The radio has only one downside which is, after listening to something for a while the tone isn’t always on the position where I set it to. Maybe it’s something that I need to fix inside the radio. It gets a little off frequency after an hour or so without turning the dial. I got the manual for it but due to my lack of knowledge I won’t open the radio yet. I think I easy mess things up inside the circuit so I am first going to read the manual (it’s German, a language I also need to learn) and search info about every single part I can’t figure out what it means. The last thing I learned about circuitry was how to read color codes on different components. That kinda describes how much knowledge I currently have. Almost nothing 

14

Equipment / Re: Need help with dynamotor

« on: April 15, 2019, 1355 UTC »

Its a old BC-348 receiver from Russia. I’ve unplugged the whole thing and it’s now in the corner of my shack till I find out when to repeat it. I probably bring it back to the guy I bought it from as he makes and collects old surplus radios since the end of the war. So I hand it over to him as he has all the knowledge of it. Once I’ve seen how he dismantled the radio then I can save it in my memory and do it by myself next time. The dynamotor needs to be cleaned with fresh grease after about 1000 hours of use. This thing has been silent for ages. Anyway it’s a nice lesson for me to learn about old radios. I hope I can do the work all on my own in the future when I am full of knowledge about circuitry and beyond. But for now I just need some practical viewing to see how it’s done.

15

Equipment / Re: Need help with dynamotor

« on: April 05, 2019, 2300 UTC »

The images don’t really show any kind of usefulness. The thing is when I my the radio on it’s left the motor starts running again. Then slowly turning it back to its main position the motor starts to stop slowly. Now it’s running with a lot of spark noise in the rf spectrum. Kinda like the same sound of putting 2 wires to each other ( - and + ) to create sparks which sound the same as the entire motor sounds at the moment for nearly two hours of operation. Maybe this old radio has seen its last days. Probably ending in the trash.