RadioBanter - View Single Post - New User - New Receiver

December 14th 05, 04:19 AM posted to rec.radio.shortwave

wrote:
Though I'm not a non-technical person, my area of expertise - or even
moderate knowledge - does not rest in the realm of shortwave radios.
However, I've always had an interest in pursuing the subject, and
towards that end my wife was kind enough to buy me a Grundig Yacht Boy
400PE for the holidays.

My problem is this. After reading the entire manual, reading the
Passport text and taking the plunge into the world of sw radio, I'm
having trouble getting reception for stations that I would expect to
get.

I live in the northeast United States (northern New England). My condo
is on the third (top) floor of a 15 unit building. My living room
window looks out onto a massive lake with no building in the way
through an 8 foot by 8 foot window. I have placed the receiver in this
window and even covered the window in an X pattern with the external
reel antenna.

Nevertheless, I can't get even a single station that Passport
recommends in the "First Tries: Ten Easy Catches" section. I've been
listening at night and the band that Grundig recommends as "Good all
night everywhere" in the 400PE manual - the 31m band - doesn't have a
single frequency that comes in for me. Neither does the 41m band -
also recommended as good all night in Northeastern America. The best
I've been able to manage are two frequencies in the 49m band - one of
which appears to be China Radio International on 5950. Neither of
these are terribly clear at that, and the best reception that I've been
able to get is with WWCR.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Being new to this, I don't know
what I should reasonably expect. Should I expect to be able to pick up
a variety of things with moderate clarity. I know that this is all
variable on many conditions, but realistically, what should I be
expecting here?

Thanks for your help.

I had a similar experience in my apartment in downtown Chicago. I was
on the 52nd floor, facing west. Hot bands, clear skies, no matter.
Nothing, on a Grunding SAT 500. Out in the weeds, stations boomed in
like they were in my back pocket. At home, nothing.

Noise levels weren't much different, or so it appeared, in either
location.

Further investigation revealed a couple of things. One was that my
radio was being overloaded with the FM's and TV signals downtown.
Rectification within buildings, and cross modulation of signals were
creating a near uniform blanket of across most of the SW bands. During
maintenance periods, this was not the case. Even so, there was still
too much noise for decent reception.

In the building were noise sources by the hundreds. Personal
computers with large, unshielded CRT monitors, 27" Trinitrons in every
apartment. Cable. Seems like every apartment had at LEAST two SCR
dimmers. All overlayed on each other. It sounded just like a slightly
elevated level of background, thermal and atmospheric noise. And then
there was the general shielding provided by the steel infrastructure of
the building, and the reinforced concrete floors.

To correct the problem, I asked and was granted permission to run a
dipole on the roof above the 57 th floor, and ran a heavily shielded
coax transmission line down a window channel to my apartment. It didn't
show, so they didn't care. Then a ground lead to the water system, which
was all copper to the feed line below ground. Not optimum, but it
worked. Not only for the Sat 500, but for the S-40B sitting on the
bishop's table in the living room.

Very likely, what you've got is not the huge RF overload that I had,
although, you may want to check that out, but a combination of
shielding, due to the construction of the building, and many high noise
sources from your own, and your neighbors' apartments.

Take your radio outdoors, away from the buildings. Into a park would
be a good test. See if you hear anything there. If so the problem is not
your radio, but your listening environment.

p