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Best online SDRs for Medium Wave

G

gr8oldies

The remote Kiwi and other SDRs are becoming more popular among DXers, and are a great way to sample the band from locations other than the one you are in. If you're land and local noise challenged, you can use receivers and antennas you may be only able to dream about (always disclose when reporting DX catches is my recommendation).

These receivers a privately owned, you are a guest. Some have a donation link to keep the operation going, toss in a buck when you can.

Having said all that, I'd like to compile a list of the best performing setups from around North America and world.

Some of mine: University of Twente, Eschende, Netherlands. I mention this because it's the first I discovered. It's not part of the Kiwi system, thus can take around 200 users. It can be noisy sometimes but not all the time. There is a heck of a lot of Spain receivable. On this rig it's easy to notice the MW band thinning out.

Edinburgh, Indiana: Many of us are familiar with Bob Hawkins' super duper DX machine, specifically set up for medium wave. Bob has used a few different antenna configurations with some different res
ts. I love it especially for winter daytime DX. There is a Facebook group for users with nets additional receiver availabilities.

I'll stop here---add some of your favorites.
 
The only one I have sampled is Bjarne Mjelde's [SP?] SDR in Kongsfjord, near the North Cape somewhere, in Northern Norway. It's the only occasion I can say I heard a Longwave broadcast. At the time, Norway was still on LW for mariners, and I think Iceland was showing up as well. It was pretty cool.
 
boombox4 said:
The only one I have sampled is Bjarne Mjelde's [SP?] SDR in Kongsfjord, near the North Cape somewhere, in Northern Norway. It's the only occasion I can say I heard a Longwave broadcast. At the time, Norway was still on LW for mariners, and I think Iceland was showing up as well. It was pretty cool.
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What I like about that is the fact that in the winter it's dark 22 hours a day and you'll get whatever region of the world there's a darkness path to. Always interesting to get east and western US at the same time.
 
Given the high noise floor at my house, SDR's take up a lot of my DX time these days.

Bjarne Mjelde's SDR's can be great in the midwinter. Unfortunately, the Arctic SDR (antenna favoring ME and Asia) has been a bit noisy recently, on mediumwave at least. His Kong SDR aimed at N America wasn't active the last time I looked.

Recently I've been checking out a few not mentioned above:

Kanehoe Hawaii - listen for mainland stations after Hawaii sunset, Asia in the morning after California sunrise
Bonaire TWR SDR -just off the Venezuela coast, so lots of Brazil/Venezuela/Colombia. I've also heard some US stations here
Bjartangar Iceland SDR - lots of Europeans, including low-power UK, and Middle East stuff, plus on good nights, US and Canada
Kingwood Texas - closest one to me at about 28 miles, so a good proxy to my location (although uncomfortable logging stuff I hear there)
 
Eschende, Netherlands is my favorite SW SDR. It's the only SDR I can reliably hear the Buzzer on 4625. There's just something about that station that I dig. Key West SDR is good for SW Cuban numbers but I can get those pretty reliably at home.

MW, I use Athens, GA fairly regularly because it's closest to me and it gives me a good basis as to what I should get at home. I usually get about the same quality at home. We have horrible ground conductivity here so days are awful all over the bandwidth. Edit: I never log Athens SDR unless I hear it at home. If it doesn't get on my old radio it's not official in my book.
 
The Kaneohe, Hi receiver is also among my favorites for catching mainland DX in winter. Also like Key West and Iceland.
I like the Arctic SDR when conditions are good. Unfortunately last year they weren't good much of the time. The year before they
were excellent.
 
I really liked the one in Haida Gwaii but I haven't been able to access it in a while.

The one in Overland Park, Kansas is also a good one because it's right in the middle of the country where there's no domination of stations from either coast at night.

Same with the ones in Texas.

Also the one in central Jersey because it's a lot like what I used to hear DXing when I was growing up.
 
gar hi said:
I really liked the one in Haida Gwaii but I haven't been able to access it in a while.

The one in Overland Park, Kansas is also a good one because it's right in the middle of the country where there's no domination of stations from either coast at night.

Same with the ones in Texas.

Also the one in central Jersey because it's a lot like what I used to hear DXing when I was growing up.
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Haida Gwai was good, but I'm not sure if it's currently online.
 
Mitch Brewer said:
Eschende, Netherlands is my favorite SW SDR. It's the only SDR I can reliably hear the Buzzer on 4625. There's just something about that station that I dig. Key West SDR is good for SW Cuban numbers but I can get those pretty reliably at home.

MW, I use Athens, GA fairly regularly because it's closest to me and it gives me a good basis as to what I should get at home. I usually get about the same quality at home. We have horrible ground conductivity here so days are awful all over the bandwidth. Edit: I never log Athens SDR unless I hear it at home. If it doesn't get on my old radio it's not official in my book.
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A lot of folks look for the Buzzer on that rig, if the chat room is any indication. Some conspiracy theorists go it through their head they were going to be able to hear a nuclear launch on it a few years ago.

I use Athens as well, especially with Atlanta busy most of the time /(that's a pretty good one too)
 
gar hi said:
I really liked the one in Haida Gwaii but I haven't been able to access it in a while.

The one in Overland Park, Kansas is also a good one because it's right in the middle of the country where there's no domination of stations from either coast at night.

Same with the ones in Texas.

Also the one in central Jersey because it's a lot like what I used to hear DXing when I was growing up.
Click to expand...
I haven't checked that one out in awhile. Seems it was there, then gone, then back again. But yes, great location.
 
gar hi said:
I really liked the one in Haida Gwaii but I haven't been able to access it in a while.

The one in Overland Park, Kansas is also a good one because it's right in the middle of the country where there's no domination of stations from either coast at night.

Same with the ones in Texas.

Also the one in central Jersey because it's a lot like what I used to hear DXing when I was growing up.
Click to expand...
Which one in Texas? Kingswood seems noisy
 
KA7U's SDR in Weiser, Idaho is really nice, I have logged 293 NDBs from that receiver as far away as the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America.
 
Most of my favorites have already been mentioned. But I'll add Peoria, IL and Westfjords, Iceland. Prince George British Columbia is also a pretty good one.
 
I like Weiser (mentioned above), I'll check out BC. I've used the University of Victoria's setup fairly often. Elida, Ohio is essentially my home dial. There was a Sammamish, WA that was pretty good but seems to have gone by the wayside.
 
The Arctic SDR is the one I visit the most. I really like this SDR. This is where you can hear stuff from all the continents on AM except from Antarctica and that's probably because there are no AM stations on this continent. This is the only SDR that I try to maintain a log of what I heard.

The Enschede is a very good European SDR that I tune in once in a while. Bonaire SDR is good for checking out South American stations.

Domestically I like the Edinburgh, Indiana SDR the most. I also check out the Key West, FL and Kanehoe, HI once in a while. I also use the Barrington Hills, IL and the Northwest Indiana ones to compare signals I receive on my Drake R8, but they can be quite noisy at times.

I also tune in two other SDRs for sentimental reasons. The Pohorany, Czech Republic SDR which is located near where I was born and is quite a good one reception wise, and the Thessaloniki, Greece SDR which is located in the region where my parents came from. This particular one is quite noisy on AM, but I like listening to the countless of Greek pirates that operate mostly in the 1600 - 1750 kHz region.
 
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