Messages

1

Equipment / Re: And people think NRD 545 receivers on eBay are overpriced

« on: January 08, 2013, 0147 UTC »

For that price of 4400, you could buy a couple of Icoms like a 7410 or even a couple Yaesu FT 2000 rigs. Or a motherload of rigs from the mid 90s to now. However, I have to say that JRC made some mighty fine equipment for listening just like the older Icom receivers of the late 80s early 90s.

2

Equipment / Re: Help pulling in Pirate radio stations

« on: January 08, 2013, 0134 UTC »

Actually, I found a great way to enjoy radio again despite living in an apartment and its been quite successful for me at this location and ironically also in the city. What I did, was to take my spare bedroom and put all my ham gear, SW radios, etc in and have a variety of portable antennas say for 10, 15, 20, 40 meters. But what I also found to be a great antenna for me was to buy some speaker wire. Generally the medium thickness version which is about maybe 14 gauge instead of the 18 gauge version. Anyway, in my experience being here in the lower midwest was that using this about 200 foot loop which goes along the four walls of this 180 sq foot room works very well. I've been able to work as far away as Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Western Europe, Northwest Territories, Alaska, Hawaii, etc just using 100 watts transmitted power and of course an antenna tuner with a JPS ANC 4 for additional filtering of received signals. Usually in regard to 43 meter activity around 6925, I often receive stations as good as S9 and sometimes even better depending on their setup.

If you've got an attic to work with or can put it outside it would be better. Especially if one could get it up into a tree or support poles depending on your outside situation and whether you want to broadcast what you are doing. I personally can't put up anything outside because of contractual and other obligations but what they can't see isn't going to hurt them. At one time, I lived at a place with several acres and was able to put up about 2000 feet of longwire number 12 gauge coated copper stranded. Which to say the least back in the mid 90s or so always netted me hundreds of stations around the world from even backwoods provincial stations in China, North Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere including most of Africa. Which was really neat working Reunion Island a number of years ago. It can be done on small scale in an apartment or townhouse just provided you can filter out the electronic trash of Plasma TVs, Laptops, Adaptors, etc.

3

TV DX Loggings / Re: I miss analog TV!

« on: January 08, 2013, 0117 UTC »

Used to love to do TV DX back over the past 20 years or so. Now its hard enough to get decent signals from the local TV stations whose towers are only about 25 to 30 miles away without losing some of the signal. I recently moved to the semi country from an old inner ring suburb of my local 1 million population city. At that place, I would get about 30 channels but now its down to about 15. I remember getting DX TV from nearly 1000 miles away down in Dallas TX during the late 80s on occasion. It was often that I would pick up the relatively nearby stations of 100 to 150 miles just about every morning and sometimes even. Or even picking up FM stations from Florida in the Midwest. Now they've pretty much messed up the spectrum with Digital TV in addition I know people in this area who live in hilly areas that can pretty much forget about getting the local channels unless they subscribe to one of the cable networks or one of the satellite providers. Frankly it stinks.

At least we're closer to getting rid of that monstrosity called IBOC as many stations have abandoned it. Its about like the HD Radio craze that hit about oh what was it 2004 to 2007. Now you hardly hear about it. At least I can still do some AM DX and listen to the 50kw flamethrowers on AM. Really cool when you can pick up overseas AM from here in the Midwest. Anyway, new to the group here but been listening to AM, SW, HF for about 25 years or so.