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Messages - BoomboxDX

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721
Last night was tuning around on the DX-398 and heard some Asian dudes chatting away on several SW frequencies.  The talk sounded informal, and the signals were naturally pretty weak in grainy, noisy conditions.  Logged these convo's between 0619 and 0632 UTC.  All USB.

8792 khz. -- Two guys talking in what sounded like poss. Korean or maybe Chinese.
9110 khz. -- Two guys talking def. Chinese.
9260 khz. -- One side of a QSO, some guy talking Chinese.
8755 khz. -- Caught the tail end of a QSO between two guys in UNID Asian language.

I'm guessing they were mariners of some sort.  No call signs.  I usually don't hear these QSO's.  Usually when I tune in between the SW and Ham bands all I get is RTTY, Fax noises and Volmet / Coast Guard / Canadian Forces weather broadcasts.

722
For what it's worth, when I was tuning the 41 meter and 31 meter bands daily last Winter and Spring (Dec 2011-June2012), I generally heard CNR1 blasting away on top of a different, often weaker Chinese language broadcast. 

I'm assuming it was jamming.  I'd hear Firedrake in those bands only rarely. 

I'm sure some of the CNR1 I heard was actual CNR1 broadcasts -- but I think a lot of it was jamming, also.

Perhaps Firedrake was used mostly when jamming higher frequencies.  I think in the lower bands it's been mainly CNR1.  But I haven't done much listening to SW this year, so I could be wrong.

723
I loved the Divinyls' early stuff -- The first two US albums are full of great guitar work and Christina Amphlett's singing added an edge to the band's already hard hitting music.  I always thought they were underrated as a band here in the U.S.

The two hits before "I Touch Myself" (at least the only ones I'm aware of) were "Boys In Town" and "Science Fiction", which were their first two US radio hits (I think they were released here in 1981 or '82); and then "Pleasure and Pain" got a lot of airplay in 1985 on FM radio here.

724
It's very sad to see the mess that Zimbabwe has become.

725
Wow.  I'll never hear another numbers transmission the same way again.

726
For shortwave radio listening/DXing, I recommend you get a pair of aviation type headphones, which are specifically designed to hear voice audio.  Why invest in high fidelity headphones, when all they're going to do is pass more static and static crashes to your ears?


My own answer to that would be summed up in two words: "Listener's fatigue".  Hearing nothing but crackly midrange for an hour or two can be fatiguing to the ears.  I tune the ham bands a lot, where there is only CW or SSB, and when I need to reduce the frequency response I just use the tone controls and narrow / wide filter on my radio.  

727
I use a set of Radio Shack lightweight stereo headphones I got in the early 1990's.  They have a pretty flat response, and an in-line volume control.  Don't know which model they are.  They seem to work the best.  They have adequate bass for enjoyable MW and SW listening, but enough mids and highs to allow for IDing stations when needed.

My other set is the Sony lightweight headphones that came with the Sony SRF-59.  They are also good sounding, but they have a more 'scooped' response (along with a bit more bass), and I've found them not as good for DXing.

728
Equipment / Re: Antennas
« on: April 25, 2013, 1440 UTC »
I don't DX Longwave, so I don't know about that.  I mainly DX MW and tune around on SW when MW season's done.

Most of my MW DXing is done with spiral loops when they're needed.  I have a Radio Shack loop, Select-A-Tenna, and also a box crate loop that works well.  The box crate has a bit more gain than the other two antennas.

729
As for which direction the signal was coming from, is it ridiculous of me to say I can't tell?  Because I can't tell!  The radio's been stationery (stationary? I fail) for the winter, and I get directions impossibly mixed up while indoors.  Ugh.  


It doesn't sound ridiculous.... in a lot of areas it's not easy to instantly know where north is, or where south is. But it's not that tough to figure out.

The easiest way to tell directions in a building is to look at a map of your DXing address (Google maps is useful for this kind of thing), and find out which part of your house or apartment faces north, west, south, east, etc. (or even just one of those directions).  

Then figure out which wall of your DXing room faces one of those directions. You only need to know the direction one wall faces to figure out a general bearing when DXing in a room.  In my case I have a wall with a window that I know faces West.  That's all I need to know.

So if the back or front of my Superadio is facing that particular wall when a station is strongest, the station is probably West or East of me.

730
The last aurora caused weird AM band conditions, but no new logs from the south... maybe this one will be fruitful.  One aurora last spring bagged me a Mexico City station on 1500 -- it was even readable barefoot on my boombox.

731
Equipment / Re: 25-30 MHz "11 meter" gear
« on: April 12, 2013, 2328 UTC »
I used to frequent a CB shop and bought my 148 there.  The owner of the shop had a Cobra 148DX.  He let me look at it.  It looked like quite the radio.  I guess they are now collectors items.  If I remember right, it had AM-SSB-FM and even CW capability, and three ranges of frequencies. 

I've heard of the Galaxies, Superstars, and Rangers.  Back in the 80's and early 90's most of them seemed to be made by Uniden in Taiwan.  I guess production has moved elsewhere (Philippines, and other places) since then.

I haven't monitored the shortwaves much lately, but last summer and fall I heard some Latin Americans on 27445 -- Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama mainly, the receiver being a DX398 and indoor wire.  I know just enough Spanish to get the gist of what's said, or catch location info.  I don't know how the band has been propagating lately, but compared to earlier sunspot peaks, 11 meters sure seemed dead last summer & fall.

732
Equipment / Re: Weak "S" signals / noise level / Nagging questions
« on: April 10, 2013, 1238 UTC »
I don't send in reports, but for my logbook and online logs I just do SIO.  If there's high noise or deep fading, I note it down either in my book or on the online log.

As for sigs, 1 = I can just make out audio, and just ID the language. 2 = weak but mostly decipherable.  3 = "fair" or moderately weak, but a listenable signal.  4 = strong signal, but not pounding the meter.  5 = 'local' quality.

If the noise level is high, I'll still give the signal rating a high rating if it merits it, but the "I" rating, the interference rating, will be high, or the overall rating will be low to account for the noise covering the signal.  And for online logs, you have enough space to say there was high noise, deep fading, etc. 

Like RobRich said, a lot of it is relative to your own equipment.

733
Equipment / Re: 25-30 MHz "11 meter" gear
« on: April 10, 2013, 1229 UTC »
I'm not an "11 meter guy" anymore, but I used to be active on sideband (channels 33-40) during the late 80's / early 90's, and got out really well with a Cobra 148 and 3 element wire beam.  Never tried the freeband thing (aside from listening on my SW rigs) because I just didn't have the equipment to do it with, and didn't want to mess with the 148.

I also built a quad loop that worked well.  I was able to talk to Alaska and California with it.  Both antennas came down in a windstorm. 

The quad loop also worked very effectively for receiving between 26-33 Mhz.  I was able to get VHF low band skip very well on it (Spanish talking dispatchers, Oil rigs in the Gulf, etc), as well as 10 meter FM repeaters from as far away as Chicago.  This was with a Radio Shack multiband radio with Low Band on it.

If I were to try any of it again I'd build another quad loop. Mine was easy to make, and worked really well.....

734
MW Loggings / Re: 1060 Brazilian unid driving me nuts!
« on: April 09, 2013, 2112 UTC »
RE: DX-398: you could join the Yahoo DX-398 eGroup, there may be some people there who could help you.

I haven't had any overloading issues with my DX-398, but then, I live in a relatively low signal environment.  The local splatter masters on the MW don't do any more damage on my 398's AM band reception than they do on any of my other radios.

If you're having a problem with excess splatter while using an external loop, use the loop inductively (setting the radio near the loop) instead of connecting it to the radio's antenna input jack. 

And then when encountering excess splatter, try moving the 398 away from the loop a bit and retune; it will sharpen the reception, and will give you better selectivity. 

I've used this technique with radios that have wide selectivity (a 1990's era Sony Walkman, for example), and have had good results with it.

You may also want to try a loop specifically for longwave.  And also use it inductively.

735
What bearing was the station in question? 

If it was from the west, it could have been a California station, KMBX in Soledad (700 watts nights), which is a Spanish speaking Catholic station, according to Lee Freshwater's AMLogbook site.  According to Radio Locator, a lot of their signal goes east. 

I don't see any other stations on any of the other station listings that would match a Spanish Catholic program on that frequency. There might have been a new one that hasn't made the lists yet. Knowing the bearing from which you heard the station would help to narrow it down.

There's also a Mexican Station in Hidalgo Del Parral, Chihuahua state that has apparently been heard as far north as Oregon and Washington -- it could be a possibility, although I'm not sure what their format is.

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