RadioBanter - View Single Post

April 1st 04, 08:43 AM

In article . 130,
w says...
I just got an ICF-7600GR and I'm disappointed. Not in the radio itself
which is a fine piece of craftsmanship (for the money) but because all
the stuff I used to listen to is just bloody well GONE. BBC, Radio
Australia, and Deutche Welle no longer broadcast SW to the Americas.

Radio Australia usually comes in very clearly on 9580 starting at
midnight west coast time. (Probably 11pm this week since the rest of
the world seems to go to daylight savings time a week before the US.) I
can generally get Radio New Zealand on 9885 at about the same time,
though it's a bit tougher. BBC no longer points in this direction, but
they point at South and Central America often enough that you can
normally get a readable BBC signal pretty much around the clock. I'm not
sure it's always in English though. DW is also still receivable, though
for much less of the day than the others, at least in English. (Given
that they're from Germany, this seems somewhat reasonable.)

I'll be open and frank. I'm in San Diego. Is there anything to listen
to anymore in English that I can actually get out here? I have the wire

Get the new ILG database when it comes out (soon, I hope) and a viewer
program. The radio control program I use works with the ILG database and
lets me set up a whole bunch of custom filters. One of the first ones I
created was "English Now". I don't filter by intended broadcast region
because that would miss too many broadcasts intended for elsewhere but
still quite readable here.

antenna that came with the radio and I live in a first floor apartment
that was built in the 70s or 80s. I can't invest too much more in a new
antenna. Maybe $50 TOPS. And I can't mount anything outside... as I
live in an apartment. Bedroom window faces south and a street. Living

You could probably do something temporary (or very stealthy) outside,
but you should be able to set up something inside that will work pretty
well. I'd start by just tacking up wire around the perimeter of the
room at the ceiling. For about $15 in parts you can build an antenna
tuner to improve the reception from the perimeter antenna. Some people
have had good success with the "broomstick" antenna popularized by Arnie
Coro of Radio Havana. (Take a cylindrical form, like some PVC pipe, wrap
as much wire as possible around it, and hook one end up to the radio. If
you use a smaller gauge of magent wire you can get 1000 feet or more of
wire on a piece of PVC that stands in a corner of the room. Whether this
ends up overloading your 7600G or not is another story.)

Is this hopeless? I miss relaxing at night, listening to stuff from
around the world.

Just be patient. There may not be as many signals out there as there
used to be, but there are still plenty of broadcasts. You might also
want to try DXing the MW band. One fun activity is to see how many
loggings you can get of Coast to Coast AM on a single trip through the
MW frequencies. I can usually get at least 13 on even the worst of my
portable radios.

-- Jay