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When Something Goes Wrong On Shortwave...

boombox4 said:
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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I have a DX-392, currently inoperable, and a Sony ICF-7600, which works fine but is mostly useless on shortwave due to high levels of manmade noise. I'm also on the top floor, but that doesn't help in a multi-tenant apartment building with fluorescent lighting in the hallways!

My favorite portable receiver ever was the Sony ICF-6500, the hybrid with slide rule tuning and digital readout. I gave it to my brother as a going-away gift as he left for college and never got around to buying another.
 
I have an ICF-6500W. The controls are a little funky from sitting, particularly the band selector dial, but it still works fine. Great radio! It's just too big to lug around on trips, especially compared to my Tecsun PL-380 or the PL-310ET. Both decent, cheap radios that travel well.
 
Thankfully, I have little RFI in the area. I don't watch TV, so I don't have the usual cable box / DVD power supply / etc. RFI, and the only thing that throws RFI out there is my router, which only affects a handful of frequencies minorly. On rare occasions when a CFL or LED bulb goes bad I'll get hash. My computer power supply is thankfully quiet, as well. My PR-D5 is about 8 ft or so from its power supply and hardly gets any noise, if any at all.
 
CTListener said:
I have a DX-392, currently inoperable, and a Sony ICF-7600, which works fine but is mostly useless on shortwave due to high levels of manmade noise. I'm also on the top floor, but that doesn't help in a multi-tenant apartment building with fluorescent lighting in the hallways!

My favorite portable receiver ever was the Sony ICF-6500, the hybrid with slide rule tuning and digital readout. I gave it to my brother as a going-away gift as he left for college and never got around to buying another.
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What's wrong with your 392? Just curious. I have a DX-390 that still works well. For years it was my go-to SW and ham monitoring radio.
 
tomservo said:
The death of shortwave is being prematurely reported here. There's still a lot out there, it's just not aimed at North America anymore. That plus the low sunspot count means hearing exotic signals are difficult for us.

With the advent of remotely accessible SDRs all over the world, you'll find that 31 mb is still pretty crowded — in Asia and Europe, at least. It's mostly China, but also a lot of American-funded stuff like VOA, RFE and R. Free Asia, too.

There's been a small resurgence in music programming on Shortwave in the US, with several shows airing weekly and bringing interesting and otherwise unheard music via WRMI, WBCQ and even WWCR.

And for what it's worth, Spain is still on shortwave, back after an absence of several years. They even have a half hour English service beamed to the US, or did last time I checked in on them.
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Of very worthy note is a domestic station not mentioned here. IMHO, WTWW (5085) is up there with WBCQ as far as having listenable programming and is significantly closer to where I live in Colorado. Oldies music every night of the week. There is also a show for hams. They broadcast ads read by the DJ to try and generate some income. I really hope they beat the odds. I donate $5 here and there occasionally.
Sunspots are back on the way up...hopefully that will bode well for generating interest.
 
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ssybesma said:
Of very worthy note is a domestic station not mentioned here. IMHO, WTWW (5085) is up there with WBCQ as far as having listenable programming and is significantly closer to where I live in Colorado. Oldies music every night of the week. There is also a show for hams. They broadcast ads read by the DJ to try and generate some income. I really hope they beat the odds. I donate $5 here and there occasionally.
Sunspots are back on the way up...hopefully that will bode well for generating interest.
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They also sign off without fanfare (or legal ID) a few minutes after 0500Z. The time is not the same every night. Now I know what happened to the (in)famous lamptimer that "controlled" the signoff time on AM 1440 in Scottsdale AZ many years ago. :LOL:
 
KeithE4 said:
They also sign off without fanfare (or legal ID) a few minutes after 0500Z. The time is not the same every night. Now I know what happened to the (in)famous lamptimer that "controlled" the signoff time on AM 1440 in Scottsdale AZ many years ago. :LOL:
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LOL.. that is liek.. one of the longest threads about any radio station here.. Lumberyard/lamptimer 1440... ha
 
KeithE4 said:
They also sign off without fanfare (or legal ID) a few minutes after 0500Z. The time is not the same every night. Now I know what happened to the (in)famous lamptimer that "controlled" the signoff time on AM 1440 in Scottsdale AZ many years ago. :LOL:
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Glad to hear the Lamptimer from the Lumberyard is being put to good use! Once 1440 went 24 hours with their new Nautel transmitter, it didn’t need the Lamptimer anymore (although it was still employed for a while after the new transmitter was installed because, for whatever reason, the station would power up to daytime power of 5,000 watts a little after midnight every night). These days, Hubbard runs the station efficiently with no drifting Lamptimer and 1440 now has an FM translator attached to it at 92.7 K224CJ FM.

SomeRadioGuy said:
LOL.. that is liek.. one of the longest threads about any radio station here.. Lumberyard/lamptimer 1440... ha
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Maybe @DrAkbar (the original poster of that infamous thread) would like to chime in here! If memory serves me right, I believe I was the third person to post in that thread and it blew up from there. I miss the days of the Lamptimer and the sudden sign-off right in the middle of “Kookie Kookie Lend Me Your Comb!”
 
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KeithE4 said:
They also sign off without fanfare (or legal ID) a few minutes after 0500Z. The time is not the same every night. Now I know what happened to the (in)famous lamptimer that "controlled" the signoff time on AM 1440 in Scottsdale AZ many years ago. :LOL:
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They probably run on a tight budget. Because of electricity costs (which are worse now), it's probably a loss for them to transmit past midnight, so I get it. I agree they should announce when the broadcast day ends and that the website is still available after the SW transmitter is turned off for the night. I wish them well in beating the odds. SW must survive.
 
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