[DougC]

Okay, the mail server ate my first message.

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I decided I wanted to listen to SW lately, looked around online and just
ordered a Sony ICF-SW7600GR. I dunno much about ham but it seemed to be
widely regarded. Seems like every radio out there has at least one or
two great features missing. I wanted an external antenna jack but the
Sony doesn't have that, but it does have (by many accounts) a good tuner
section.

I considered the Satellit 750 too. I didn't really -need- a portable,
but $300 was about the absolute limit of what I wanted to spend and the
stationary receivers all seemed to start near $500 and go up fast from
there.

Mostly I imagine I'll be listening to int'l news broadcast stations. I
tend to think that the US is entering some "interesting times" (that
neither Obama, McCain nor any mix of Congress can save it from) and I
wanted an alternative to the ministry of truth. As for listening to
anything else on SW/LW--I don't know if I would or not; never had a
radio to do it before.

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By the by--I looked around online for a moderated forum for these sorts
of questions and couldn't seem to find one. The forums I found had not
many posts and were all mostly filled with off-topic trash, just
like,,,, this NG is. Is there any forum on the web that posts are at
least, oh, say,,, 50% about shortwave radios?

I found a couple that seemed like they had a decent number of
sub-forums, if they only had someone to take out the garbage once a day
and ban user accounts.
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