RadioBanter - Shortwave for cars?

RadioBanter (https://www.radiobanter.com/)

- Shortwave (https://www.radiobanter.com/shortwave/)

- - Shortwave for cars? (https://www.radiobanter.com/shortwave/148126-shortwave-cars.html)

Shortwave for cars?

"Gregg" wrote in message
...
On Nov 21, 7:06 pm, "Brenda Ann"
wrote:

B.A. - you drive around with shortwave in your car?

I did, but we sold the car, and the radio, unfortunately, stayed with it.
Used to be nice to be able to listen to NHK, CRI, Radio OZ, VOA, etc. when
out in the schticks with nothing else to listen to. Our new car, A Ford
Flex, is not conducive to installing an aftermarket radio.. :( It's got a
decent AM/FM with lots of bells and whistles in it, but I can't even change
the station spacing for 9 KHz, which makes it a bit crappy sounding trying
to listen to AFN stations on 1197 and 1512. Not to mention most of the
Korean stations that don't happen to fall on even 10's.

I miss my shortwave.. in the car out on the open road is the only place in
Korea that you have anything like a listenable band.

Shortwave for cars?

Bill Baka wrote:
Has anyone seen any shortwave radios in cars lately?

What about one of the small mobile dc to daylight ham rigs? If you are a bit
creative, you can mount the rig in the trunk and stick a small control
panel in the passenger compartment.

http://rffun.com/catalog/hamhf/0703.html
http://rffun.com/catalog/hamhf/1817.html

Plus there were many that are no longer made that would do well, if you
can get them over there, or shipped to you.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

Shortwave for cars?

On Nov 21, 6:03*pm, Bill Baka wrote:
Brenda Ann wrote:
"Bill Baka" wrote in message
...
Has anyone seen any shortwave radios in cars lately? I remember a few from
across the pond back in the 60's but it seems to have died out as a fad. I
would like to put one in one of my cars rather than a boom box thing and
be able to tune the world from wherever I find myself.
The other advantage is that I can drive to a spot with no power lines for
miles at night to listen relatively static free. I could (in theory) take
a long wire on a fishing pole (28-32AWG?) and put on a disposable weight
and toss it as far as possible into some high trees. Once it is stuck
firmly just back the car up until the whole spool is used up and connect
the car antenna to it.
Anybody tried it or anything like it?

Bill Baka

Sony still makes some really nice AM/FM/SW radios for cars (with the
requisite CD/MP3 player, etc.) that have, although not full coverage, at
least pretty decent coverage.

I will go look. A CD/MP3 player would be wasted on me since I prefer to
listen to the sounds the car and road make while I am driving.
Was going to look. The Sony home page won't work with my version of
Firefox and IE will never be allowed to slime my drive.
Maybe Egghead or Frys or some other large consumer place.

As for the antenna, car radios are made to impedence match to the relatively
short standard car radio antenna, and usually do not respond too well to
additional antenna length. You CAN, however, place a variable capacitor
between the car antenna and your random longwire, and tune it for best
reception for a given frequency. This would at least give you the advantage
of the extra capture area.

As a rule when I buy a car one of the first things I adjust is the
antenna trimmer, which is usually a bit off anyway. Funny how most
people don't even know these things exist.

- Thinking about it,
- an MFJ tuning box sitting under the dash
- should be a real conversation starter.
-
- Cheers,
- Bill Baka

They ask "What's THAT For ?"

Your reply "Oh THAT Helps me to Hear . . .
the Aliens Landing at Area 51."
http://www.gamerevolution.com/images...ce/area_51.jpg

Shortwave for cars?

During World War Two era, Switzerland was working both sides of the
coin, building and repairing equipment for both the Allies and the Axis
powers.

Helium filled balloons with long wire antennas,,, good for pirate radio
too.

I just now did a www.devilfinder.com for,
Becker Shortwave Radios for cars

www.mbzponton.org/valueadded/other/radios.htm
cuhulin

Shortwave for cars?

On 11/21/09 18:55 , Bill Baka wrote:
Has anyone seen any shortwave radios in cars lately? I remember a few
from across the pond back in the 60's but it seems to have died out as a
fad. I would like to put one in one of my cars rather than a boom box
thing and be able to tune the world from wherever I find myself.
The other advantage is that I can drive to a spot with no power lines
for miles at night to listen relatively static free. I could (in theory)
take a long wire on a fishing pole (28-32AWG?) and put on a disposable
weight and toss it as far as possible into some high trees. Once it is
stuck firmly just back the car up until the whole spool is used up and
connect the car antenna to it.
Anybody tried it or anything like it?

Bill Baka

I have a Becker 2340 I used in my 308 for years. That was the
last aftermarket radio I saw with SW. I've heard tell of some
Sony's, but not being interested in anything from Sony, I never
pursued them.

The Becker offered excellent SW performance on the car's antenna.
A little ignition noise in deep fades, but not enough to complain
about. The injectors on 18 wheelers were more of a problem than
ignition noise. It has 40 or so memories. And exceptional audio.

As for driving out into the weeds...we had a member of this
group, living in Colorado, who used to drive out into Wyoming and
about two miles outside of Jackson Hole would hook his SW-2 up to
the guard rail and use that as a makeshift pseudo Beverage.

With dramatic results.

But attaching anything to your car radio antenna will not get you
where you want to go.

A car antenna does not really operate as an antenna. It's too
short for medium wave. It operates more like a capacitive element,
and is trimmed at the input to optimize performance. Attach a wire
to the car antenna, and you'll change it's capacitive value, and
throw your input out of balance. You're also likely to change that
whip into something that behaves more like a real antenna and
seriously overload your front end. On some models this can be
disastrous.

A better option would be to see if you can find an in-dash on the
used market, or take something like an SW-8 with you, mount it
underdash and enjoy it as a real shortwave receiver with a separate
antenna system.

Shortwave for cars?

Gregg wrote:
On Nov 21, 7:06 pm, "Brenda Ann"
wrote:
Snippage

B.A. - you drive around with shortwave in your car?

When possible, yes. I used to do a once per week commute to work and
found myself in some really deserted places coming home. No in dash
radio but I did have a marine RDF for AM DX'ing. I still have that radio
and a solar cell that will power it so listening is free. The whole idea
of a shortwave in the car is not to listen while driving but to be able
to drive to a noise free area and listen.
Make sense now?

Bill Baka

Shortwave for cars?

RHF wrote:
On Nov 21, 6:03 pm, Bill Baka wrote:
As a rule when I buy a car one of the first things I adjust is the
antenna trimmer, which is usually a bit off anyway. Funny how most
people don't even know these things exist.

- Thinking about it,
- an MFJ tuning box sitting under the dash
- should be a real conversation starter.
-
- Cheers,
- Bill Baka

They ask "What's THAT For ?"

Your reply "Oh THAT Helps me to Hear . . .
the Aliens Landing at Area 51."
http://www.gamerevolution.com/images...ce/area_51.jpg
.
Some of the people around here just might believe it.
Did I mention I live in a real hick town even though it is in California?

Bill Baka