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So, my g/f works third shift and I need something to do!

F

FatPunkBastard

Hiya! I live in Glasgow, KY. Yes, in case you're familiar, I work for Commonwealth.

My girl just started a third-shift job, and I've always found DXing to be a neat thing. I've never done it seriously, in terms of equipment or logging, but anyone in this business worth their salt certainly has slowly dialed around an old analog tuner, just for kicks to see what comes in.

I remember my great grand father (who BTW was a WLOC staffer in the late 1950s) had one of those super-duper tuners old folks are apt to have...one big speaker and like 5 or 6 bands...it was pretty trippy for an 8-year-old to fiddle with.
So, I obviously owe a great deal to him in terms of my career choice, and scientific interest.

When I get home (I'm currently The Mayor of Boardopolis) I'll tell you more about the ol' console system in my living room, and whatever else I have lying around. I live "in town" so I may be fairly unsuccessful due to number of local signals and just random interference. But, I'd like to see what I can come up with for the heck of it, and its nice to hear something besides the 6 stations in the area we run, or our regional colleagues' and competitors' stations. And, I'm quickly destroying my eyes staring at the 'Net all night!

Any help would be greatly appreciated...this seems to be one of the few boards on this site that isn't prone to a bunch of BS. I'm not up for buying a bunch of cool super-agile tuners or anything, and I'm no engineer, but some basic info might help me find some enjoymnent!

Thanks in advance!
 
Happy DX'ing... hope you can pick my station up. Check Bruce Carter's antenna stuff... I've been a fan of his since he posted the plans for the 'Hula Hoop Loop'.
 
Welcome to the hobby! Glad to have you aboard!
You will find that it's better than sex! Well.....almost :D
 
FatPunk said:
signals and just random interference. But, I'd like to see what I can come up with for the heck of it, and its nice to hear something besides the 6 stations in the area we run, or our regional colleagues' and competitors' stations. And, I'm quickly destroying my eyes staring at the 'Net all night!

Any help would be greatly appreciated...this seems to be one of the few boards on this site that isn't prone to a bunch of BS. I'm not up for buying a bunch of cool super-agile tuners or anything, and I'm no engineer, but some basic info might help me find some enjoymnent!
Click to expand...

What kind of DXing are you looking at doing? (AM, FM, TV, all three?)

AM: Pretty much *any* radio can be used to DX. (indeed, there's been a recent movement to see what can be heard with sub-$10 portables...) Try listening around sunrise or sunset. (both, if your schedule or need for sleep permit) The nighttime long-distance conditions don't just "switch off" at sunrise, long-haul propagation often continues well after "FCC sunrise", when some of the distant stations have already switched to their more powerful daytime facilities. That makes some pretty decent DX possible. Likewise at sunset, when the propagation starts before stations are required to reduce power. If you have a way to connect a few dozen (even better: a few hundred) feet of wire to the receiver's antenna jack, give it a try. Just look out for power lines & lightning.

FM: Again you can *try* anything. In Glasgow there are few enough local stations that you should have plenty of open channels to try. Hopefully you're a few miles from the local transmitters? Overload tends to be a problem & there's no really good way to fix it except move or buy a better receiver. If there's an outdoor TV antenna available, try connecting it to your FM receiver. They usually work pretty well.

TV: Glasgow should be TV DX heaven, more or less - channels 2/4/5 from Nashville will clutter things up a bit but decent DX should override them. (I'm only 30 miles from Nashville but have had more DX on channel 2 than any other channel...) Again a rooftop antenna is real nice but even rabbit ears are worth trying.

Question for you: About a year ago, licenses-to-cover were granted for three low-power TV stations in Glasgow on channels 60, 62, and 64. That implies they're on the air. Do you have any idea what kind of programming they're running? (I'm surprised I haven't seen any of them down here yet)
 
Cool! Thanks for the info...I have a GE model C 522..an old console system...it has this nifty switch that I don't understand. Its labelled "Directional Antenna" I suppose this switches between two internal antennae...it'd be kinda silly to have to pick up a piece of furniture to get better recpetion, so this is my speculation, anyway. On one hand the tuner seems like its really neat and may be good for this purpose, but at the same time I have to stream C2C off WHAS's website...I never can get 840 just right.

Which raises another question, why would I pay for "Streamlink" from Premiere when I can just call up the stream from WHAS?

I also have a12-year-old old Sony clock radio (ICF 233) that has a digital readout, and the tuner is one of those multi-national deals that doesn't skip the even increments on FM.

As far as the LPTV, I think that 62 is the one that rents space from our WPTQ...its religious programming.

Oh, and on a possibly related note, a co-worker of mine collects old radios..consoles, desktops, etc..so if anyone else is a collector of such, he has several. Maybe there's one you're looking for.
 
Whatever radio you decide to use...& whatever band you would like to DX on (AM,FM, or TV), here are a few things that may be useful. Some of these may be very basic to some people:

Start with the radio (or radios) you already own. If you find yourself getting more involved in the DXing hobby, you can get better equipment later.

Become familiar with the stations that normally come in. Especially their frequencies & programming. For example...If you normally get a country station on 104.5 FM, & one day you hear a talk format there, something has changed. Either the station has changed formats or you may be hearing a new (possibly distant) station.

Others have mentioned the best times to listen for AM. FM & TV are mostly affected by weather related conditions. You can also learn why signals propigate the way they do.

Enjoy!
 
Corpulent Renegade : -) .....

I've DXed the AM dial on everything from a homemade $8 crystal set to a Hammarlund SP-600 from the southern Queens portion of NYC. So have a few hundred others.

So much depends on what sort of 3rd-shift Lonely Hearts club reception you expect. Poster W9WI really nailed the spectrum.

Personally, there's nothing better than flipping down the GE Superadio II that I mostly use nowadays and hearing *any* song from 'before my time'. While those types of stations used to exist on all 116 AM frequencies, they're quite rare nowadays. Heck -- I think I'd even settle right now for hearing Dolly Holiday's syndicated show from the 60's, and that bottomless library of endless Nat King Cole songs she had at her disposal.

But you're South enough to pick up some of those all-night Caribbean and South American stations if you want some offbeat leisure listening. Whenever we go to New York City to visit, the best 'second' button on the radio is often Spanish WPAT-FM or Super KQ, even though neither of us speak Spanish. (In fact, a downstate PA LPFM station -- La Omega 93.1 -- is a terrific listen). The rest of the NYC dial, and most other market dials, is a drag. I mean, how many times can you listen to 'Behind Blue Eyes' or 'Baby Now That I've Found You' without having to be restrained from hammering a wooden stake through the radio?

Point is : You are closer to the real thing, an actual festive music dial, than we are here in PA or were in NYC. Music is music and hooks is hooks, Dad!

Besides, listening to 'LA's (which older DXers will remember as the acronym for 'Latin American Stations') instantly warms up the mind.
 
FatPunk said:
Cool! Thanks for the info...I have a GE model C 522..an old console system...it has this nifty switch that I don't understand. Its labelled "Directional Antenna" I suppose this switches between two internal antennae...it'd be kinda silly to have to pick up a piece of furniture to get better recpetion, so this is my speculation, anyway. On one hand the tuner seems like its really neat and may be good for this purpose, but at the same time I have to stream C2C off WHAS's website...I never can get 840 just right.
Weird. I've never seen a "Directional Antenna" switch on a system before. (it would be interesting to see pictures!)

I'm sure typical residential noise levels are quite a bit worse today than they were what that system was made. And you're probably not within WHAS's city-grade contour down there. (the horrible ground conductivity in this part of the country doesn't help) That doesn't necessarily mean it will be any worse as a DX receiver.

As far as the LPTV, I think that 62 is the one that rents space from our WPTQ...its religious programming.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! According to the FCC records all three channels are supposed to be on the same tower. Won't say I'm 100% sure they're all operating though.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Hya W-9!

A former Long Island McGyver, a CE/Jock named Jim Saunders, once professed to opening up a 40-channel CB that had a 'DX' switch. Wow! More distant listening! What's the big secret to this, he asked himself.

Well, Jim informed everyone within range that the switch actually negated a resistor that blunted the actual reception. In other words, the flip of the DX switch for better reception gave you ....... exactly what the CB should've ordinarily given to the consumer.

So a cynical guess here is that the switch to 'directional' in Punk's rig merely activates the equivelant of the loopstick that was designed as normal reception in the first place.

I'd like to be told I'm wrong, though.
 
Well, I'll say this for my mystery switch, if I hear two signals coming in overtop one another, flipping the switch brings whichever signal is more weak top the forefront. Another nifty feature of this old console is a meter. The meter is pointed east, so to speak...on FM the goal is to center it at "3 o'clock", and on AM the better the signal, the meter swings "up" toward "noon". And, there is the "Stereo Star", a light that comes on even at the hint of a pilot.
 
FatPunk said:
Well, I'll say this for my mystery switch, if I hear two signals coming in overtop one another, flipping the switch brings whichever signal is more weak top the forefront. Another nifty feature of this old console is a meter. The meter is pointed east, so to speak...on FM the goal is to center it at "3 o'clock", and on AM the better the signal, the meter swings "up" toward "noon". And, there is the "Stereo Star", a light that comes on even at the hint of a pilot.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the console has two AM antennas at right angles?

The built-in AM antennas in most radios have VERY deep nulls. There are two directions in which they receive VERY poorly. If, in the location you happen to put the radio, one of those nulls points at a desirable station - the only way to get that station is to rotate the radio. Or... put in another antenna.

You can use this to DX advantage. (though not so easily with a console!) Rotate the radio so one of the nulls is pointing at the strongest station on a frequency, and you might uncover one or more weaker stations normally buried by the stronger operation.
 
Speaking of super-cheap DXing radios, this radio was on the cover of the NRC's "DX News" about two months ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SRF-59-Radio-Walkman-Headphones/dp/B00006JQ06/ref=cm_lmf_tit_11_rsrssi0

Personally, my main rig is an old Drake R-8 and a Sony ICF-2010, but this radio may be worth a try. I don't own a Superadio III, but I've had a chance to play around with one, and it wins my "most bang for the buck" award, especially if you can find it for around $40 U.S. What's the deal with this? It seems to have been rebranded as an RCA product:

http://www.amazon.com/RCA-RP7887-Su...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1203272187&sr=1-1
 
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