For whatever reason, I pulled up Ecos del Torbes' webstream (not easy to find on their site). As I mentioned previously, they are completely off the air on medium and shortwave. Lo and behold they ran their old English ID, mentioning the long-defunct 4980 and 2 years defunct 780, into an automated version of "Lo Que Esta Noche Recuerda".
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When Something Goes Wrong On Shortwave...
- Thread starter SomeRadioGuy
- Start date
I've seen a version (or versions) of CCTV in Europe during the years that my daughter lived in London, which was also at the same time my biggest annual trade show was in Germany. Although, it's been a while since I was going across the pond once or twice each year, my memory is that visually CCTV looked like something straight out of the early or mid-60s. Wooden news anchors, crude sets, blurry pictures with off-balance color. Maybe they've improved things by now.
I got surprisingly good shortwave reception on my Grundig G8 many years ago with just the little antenna on the radio.
But it stopped working one day.
I was considering getting another portable shortwave radio in the same size range but then I remembered how much electrical interference from all the appliances I get here on AM.
Does that kind of interference diminish as you get into the shortwave band or stay the same?
I don't get any on my new Cobra CB radio which I have connected to an external antenna but CB is at the very top end of the shortwave band.
Still haven't been able to get a conversation with anyone on the mainland and the skip activity really dropped off once I got my setup and the past couple days I've heard nothing.
Some of those people you hear talking have amps and run a lot more wattage than the legal 4 watts but I know it's possible to talk with someone 2 to 3000 miles away with only 4 watts because I've done it back in the 70's on my father's CB.
That cheap $30 dollar CB radio I had mentioned that I ordered which was a model from the 80's was defective so I decided to get a better one.
Here's my set up.
But it stopped working one day.
I was considering getting another portable shortwave radio in the same size range but then I remembered how much electrical interference from all the appliances I get here on AM.
Does that kind of interference diminish as you get into the shortwave band or stay the same?
I don't get any on my new Cobra CB radio which I have connected to an external antenna but CB is at the very top end of the shortwave band.
Still haven't been able to get a conversation with anyone on the mainland and the skip activity really dropped off once I got my setup and the past couple days I've heard nothing.
Some of those people you hear talking have amps and run a lot more wattage than the legal 4 watts but I know it's possible to talk with someone 2 to 3000 miles away with only 4 watts because I've done it back in the 70's on my father's CB.
That cheap $30 dollar CB radio I had mentioned that I ordered which was a model from the 80's was defective so I decided to get a better one.
Here's my set up.
From my experience it's really a case by case basis, every location is going to have different results but I would assume that there will be interference on shortwave. At my house, my phone and laptop chargers wipe out the entire spectrum in a few rooms, a power strip causes a 'clicking' interference at 9 MHz and the Air Conditioning wipes out everything above 15 MHz. When I want to do some serious listening, I'll unplug everything but this is not a process that casual listeners will go through just so they can hear a shortwave station. I think this is another reason why the medium is dying out.
ARRL Field Day has been going on all day today and into the night. I noticed that 20 meters was variable throughout the day, a little stronger closer to 0000z, and 40 was really hopping around sunset - wall-to-wall signals at S7 and above on SSB. But 15 and 10? Nary a peep. 10 was totally dead. Not one signal. 15 was also dead except for a weak signal earlier today from VE8YT in the Northwest Territories. If this was WPX or CQWW weekend, 15 would be wall-to-wall 'CQ Contest!' Not today.
Albeit I did note a good signal from the VOA on 7260 tonight while checking out 40 meter Field Day activity. I think it's from Botswana, in Somali.
Albeit I did note a good signal from the VOA on 7260 tonight while checking out 40 meter Field Day activity. I think it's from Botswana, in Somali.
RE: CB: I used to shoot skip between 1988-1991 and it was all on SSB, and with either a quad antenna, or a wire beam I made. Every contact I made -- with places as far as Northern Cal, Alaska, New Mexico, Texas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and other stations in the NW -- it was with legal power, completely stock radio. No amp necessary.
You could possibly do it with your handheld, Hawaiigar, but you need a good antenna to do it. Not sure how well your external antenna gets out. You should be hearing stuff, though.
FWIW I haven't heard much on the CB band in a few years. Now and then a few carriers, and rare occasions some SSB on Channel 38. In 2014 I was regularly hearing Latin America in the outband (on my DX398 -- my CB is not 'tricked' -- it's strictly legal).
RE: SW: RFI is selective. I've had it on the lower part of the MW band and none up in the SW. I've also had RFI in the SW regions (between 6-8 Mhz with one variety) and no equivalent in the MW. It all depends.
Chances are, if you're not hearing much on your SW radio (if you have one right now, you said your G8 stopped working), it's propagation. Earlier tonight I tuned around 31 Meters and 49 meters. A total of seven stations, most of them grainy. WWVH/WWV on 10 Mhz was S3-S4 and in the clear, though.
You could possibly do it with your handheld, Hawaiigar, but you need a good antenna to do it. Not sure how well your external antenna gets out. You should be hearing stuff, though.
FWIW I haven't heard much on the CB band in a few years. Now and then a few carriers, and rare occasions some SSB on Channel 38. In 2014 I was regularly hearing Latin America in the outband (on my DX398 -- my CB is not 'tricked' -- it's strictly legal).
RE: SW: RFI is selective. I've had it on the lower part of the MW band and none up in the SW. I've also had RFI in the SW regions (between 6-8 Mhz with one variety) and no equivalent in the MW. It all depends.
Chances are, if you're not hearing much on your SW radio (if you have one right now, you said your G8 stopped working), it's propagation. Earlier tonight I tuned around 31 Meters and 49 meters. A total of seven stations, most of them grainy. WWVH/WWV on 10 Mhz was S3-S4 and in the clear, though.
My external antenna is 4 foot and called a '500 watt antenna'. Whatever that means, because I'm only using 4 watts.
When I first started listening with my set up, channel 6 (the Super Bowl channel) was overloaded with people talking on the mainland from California to Mississippi.
There was also activity on channel 19 and one or two people talking on channel 11 and this was happening every afternoon, the late afternoon, but I didn't get any responses the times I transmitted saying my location and 'if anyone copies me to give me their 20'.
Then for the past few days, I can't hear anything.
I may be wrong but I think F2 skip may have a lot more to do with what I was able to hear than E skip, just because the long distance reception always appeared and then disappeared at the same time every day.
Skip on the CB band does seem to be fickle these days. I know I've had several weeks of stellar reception, with plenty of Spanish language stations booming in (I'm on the Alabama gulf coast), and then even longer periods of absolutely nothing. There are a few locals here who still use them, mostly kids with jacked up pickup trucks who do a lot of off-roading. There's at least one guy who lives in a garden home community and has a beam on a tower that I swear is bigger than his house… I found him because he gave out the name of his street over the air one day years ago and I said, "I've seen that place! That antenna is massive!" LOL.
RFI seems to be random, but some things seem to trash the AM and lower shortwave bands while others trash the mid to upper level shortwave bands. I'd say from about 3-5 MHz gets the brunt of it, with noise from everything affecting that range. At least with the LEDs, bad power supplies, noisy TVs and all that jazz that live around here.
RFI seems to be random, but some things seem to trash the AM and lower shortwave bands while others trash the mid to upper level shortwave bands. I'd say from about 3-5 MHz gets the brunt of it, with noise from everything affecting that range. At least with the LEDs, bad power supplies, noisy TVs and all that jazz that live around here.
I didn't get to operate Field Day this year (I stopped by our local setup but they were running digital) but I checked out Field Day on some of the remote SDRs. Edinburgh and Athens TN were hopping on 40 in the evening, with some weak signals on 20, and like you said, not a thing on 15. I moved to one of the Western SDRs and 20 seemed to be doing well, even with a lot of eastern signals, but at the same time, the signals were weaker to the east. Last year I monitored Hawaii's SDR on 20 and received a lot of Western Canada. I remember a year in the 90s in Lafayette, Indiana working a bunch of KH6s on 15 at Field Day. Go figure.
Before the trucker CB craze, I was introduced to CB by a neighbor who I inadvertently talked to on my 11 meter walkie-talkie. He invited me to see his setup, which as I recall was a Lafayette rig with a beam. No amplification but he did work skip. He'd use calls for local conversations and a handle for skip. The 11 meter walkie talkie I had was a trip....it was so broadband it received everything from 25-30mHz all at once. In that era it was 25mHz WWV, and even VOA (I think from Greeneville SC). One high powered CB skip guy I remember from that era was "The Weakest Station In The Nation" who was probably running a gallon.
I heard VE8YT on 40 later last night via the Corinne, UT, SDR. Haven't listened to Field Day in a long time, amazed to see 40 wall to wall with signals like that. I felt participation might be up this year due to post-Covid (we hope -- I'm looking at YOU, delta variant...) reopening. Did you regular FD listeners/operators also think this way?
From what I've heard, a lot of people who would normally be at a site were operating "1-D" from home again this year. The one close to me had a smaller operation, only one shelterhouse instead of 2, and no cookout (food is as big an attraction as radio) but fast food burgers brought in. Bear in mind hams tend to be older. This club has an old TV remote van with a retractable mast to string antennas from which is cool.
The "toy" walkie-talkies of the 1960s and 70s used simple superregenerative receiver circuits, which had very broad tuning around 27 MHz. I recall my own such set in the 1960s that would pick up WWV from 25 MHz as well as hams on the 10 meter band (28000-29700 kHz.) The real fun was hearing the SW broadcasters on the 11 meter international band (25600-26100 kHz in those days.) I recall hearing Radio Netherlands, Radio RSA (South Africa) and plenty of broadcasts from VOA, mostly Asian language programming transmitted from Delano, California. Even heard a phone company placeholder transmission from Buenos Aires.
Those particular walkie-talkies transmitted on Channel 14 (27125 kHz) with 35 milliwatts of power. Decent signal up to 500 feet away, and weak reception up to 1,000 feet. I suppose range would have been greater if listening on a good quality SW set. Later upgraded to multichannel superheterodyne units which performed far better, and only received what was actually on the desired frequency.
Toy walkie-talkies were moved up to 49 MHz as part of the CB reorganization in 1977. Same simple circuit design for most of them.
Edit: I originally typed MHz when I meant kHz. Fixed.
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The set I had from Western Auto (The Man from Western S.P.Y.) transmitted on channel 9 (before it was the REACT frequency). I don't remember how many international broadcasters I heard (I do remember Radio RSA's heyday) I heard. but certainly several VOA. I have a distinct memory of walking around with one of my walkie=talkies listening to "Rainy Night in Georgia" on the VOA (may not have been an English service).The "toy" walkie-talkies of the 1960s and 70s used simple superregenerative receiver circuits, which had very broad tuning around 27 MHz. I recall my own such set in the 1960s that would pick up WWV from 25 MHz as well as hams on the 10 meter band (28000-29700 MHz.) The real fun was hearing the SW broadcasters on the 11 meter international band (25600-26100 MHz in those days.) I recall hearing Radio Netherlands, Radio RSA (South Africa) and plenty of broadcasts from VOA, mostly Asian language programming transmitted from Delano, California. Even heard a phone company placeholder transmission from Buenos Aires.
Those particular walkie-talkies transmitted on Channel 14 (27125 MHz) with 35 milliwatts of power. Decent signal up to 500 feet away, and weak reception up to 1,000 feet. I suppose range would have been greater if listening on a good quality SW set. Later upgraded to multichannel superheterodyne units which performed far better, and only received what was actually on the desired frequency.
Toy walkie-talkies were moved up to 49 MHz as part of the CB reorganization in 1977. Same simple circuit design for most of them.
Around here, it was the extreme and record heat that put off some of the operations. About 60% of the stations I heard were 1D, the highest 'A' club station had 6 or 7 antennas. So, 6A or 7A. Yakima's ARC, W7AQ, did not hold Field Day this year.
Albeit those East Coast and Midwest ham clubs were probably frantically logging as much as they could on 2-meters when Es opened up this morning and afternoon!
Also on 20 M I had a good signal from KC1KUG in New Hampshire. Apparently, he's a 14-year-old teen ham and has operated contests at the K1TTT Superstation in Connecticut...at such a young age. Love it. Did not hear any other youth hams this field day, but we'd like to see more young people in the hobby! Less Fortnite and more DXing? Sure!
The '500 watt antenna' probably meant that it will handle transmission powers up to 500 watts. It really wouldn't make a difference otherwise in your receiving of signals. The antenna I think I see in your pic looks like a simple vertical? It will still hear a lot of signals when skip is rolling in. Last time I switched on my Cobra 148 (to see if it still works) I heard tons of skip in 2011, just off a 'back of the set' whip antenna.
A simple loop or simple dipole would work better for transmitting, but just for receiving, your present antenna is probably just fine.
On CB there's 'short skip', mostly E skip that occurs during the late summer and early fall, usually regional (here in WA we'd get Northern Cal a lot, and sometimes into Canada).
F skip is the big kahuna. That's when I hear Latin Americans talking to each other, and when I've heard Australia (never contacted anyone in Oz, though. The wire beam was pointed the wrong way).
PS: did any of you guys, when tuning in skip on the CB back in the day, hear a guy out of Belize called "GI Joe"? He was on a lot back during 1989-1990, and he seemed to have a lot of convos with CBers in the South mainly. He was on the sideband channels a lot. I used to hear him during the afternoon.
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You know California is up on CB when channel 17 (27.165) is loaded - and 19 (27.185) is not. Most truckers in California use channel 17, the supposed 'north-south' channel, for communicating with other truckers along I-5.
I have a line of truckers in my family - my grandparents, aunt and uncle were all truckers. Grandparents mostly transported livestock around the west and up to Alberta and B.C. Aunt and uncle did mixed freight and some refrigerated loads all over America. They used to transport Harris Ranch meat from California to the Northwest. Another common stop was Campbell's Soup in Paris, Texas for loads of tomato juice. And yes, both often used CB when they needed to.
I have a line of truckers in my family - my grandparents, aunt and uncle were all truckers. Grandparents mostly transported livestock around the west and up to Alberta and B.C. Aunt and uncle did mixed freight and some refrigerated loads all over America. They used to transport Harris Ranch meat from California to the Northwest. Another common stop was Campbell's Soup in Paris, Texas for loads of tomato juice. And yes, both often used CB when they needed to.
I assume this was with a physical receiver at your location, not a web SDR. What are you using for a radio and antenna?
I was using my Grundig G2 off the whip. The G2 off the whip hears anything my DX-398 receives off a 25-30 ft indoor wire antenna... maybe losing a dB or two, but I use the G2 for convenience. If I clip the 25 ft wire to the whip sometimes I gain a dB, and sometimes I just get more noise than signal. The G2 sounds a little better on SW, too, which helps. When I first got it I was surprised at all that I was hearing. My DX room is on a second story, so that probably helps, too.
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