On Dec 29, 10:09*am, "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
wrote:
Ric Trexell wrote:
I only have a portable shortwave radio (Grundig Yacht Boy 400) that I have
had for about 15 years. (It replaced a Grundig 2000 which was a real nice
radio in its day.) *When I first got it there was stuff on there not only in
the bands but in between. *There were about 10 places to hear the BBC and
VOA. *Now I can tune the radio all night and maybe pick up a few Christian
broadcasts and one or two Spanish stations. *I usually just end up listening
to the AM and FM stations. *Even Hams are sort of rare. *If this keeps up,
in a year or two there won't be anything on SW. *Or is there something wrong
with my radio? *Ric in Wisconsin.

No, there are several things that have happened. One is that shortwave radio
signals bounce off the top of the athmosphere (the ionosphere). That's why you
can hear them being too far away for ground wave signals (the ones that travel
along the surface of the earth).

The number one thing that controls the ionosphere is the sun. When there is
sunlight, the ionosphere bounces higher frequency radio signals, which is
why some bands work better during the day and others at night.

The second thing is the number of sunspots. The more sunspots the more the
ionosphere is "charged". Sunspots follow an eleven year cycle, 15 years ago
we were just ending a peak. Now we are at the bottom of a cycle. This bottom
is rare, there have been so many months with no sunspots and so little recovery
that it may be the worst cycle since people have been keeping track (1700's).

Things are so bad that many people are predicting another "little ice age"
(look it up).

So radio propigation (the spreading of signals) is much less than it was
15 years ago, and the frequencies that spread are much lower.

The next problem is noise. I live in a medium sized city (Jerusalem). All around
me are computers, wireless networks, telephones, etc. This puts me in a cloud
of electrical noise that covers over radio signals. 4 mHz and below is unusable
to me.

That's how I tell if an (infrequent) power outage is just my building, or
the entire neighborhood. If I can receive the BBC on 1323kHz (AM broadcast
band) from Cyprus with a portable radio, the outage is more than just right
around me. If you have a radio tuned to it an on when the power is restored,
you can hear the devices all starting up.

Things have also changed with shortwave broadcasting. Between the internet,
satellite delivery of broadcast material, and paid subscriptions (NPR pays
the BBC to give you BBC news) stations are abandoning North America.

Signals are still out there, but in a lot of cases you are not getting
them beamed to you directly, you are hearing a signal aimed at someone else.
These signals are much weaker and you may need a better radio, a better
antenna or more patience to receive them.

Since the end of the cold war, political broadcasting almost stopped. Radio
Moscow, Radio Habana (Cuba), and the soviet satellites dropped or reduced
their programing. The US policial stations (VOA, Radio Marti, Radio Liberty,
etc) scaled back their programming or left the air entirely.

In that area things are changing. China (the PRC), Russia (now a rising world
power trying to fill the vacuum), and so on are hitting the shortwaves big.
However they are not going after you, although programs aimed at the
developed countries are broadcast, but they deliver over the internet too..

The reality of the situation is that no matter how what people can use to
get their information, nothing is as hard to stop, or as cheap to receive
with no infrastructure than shortwave boradcasting.

I'll bet as I write this, (Dec 29, 2009) there are a lot of people in Iran
who wished they had shortwave radios.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel *N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.

On Dec 29, 9:03*pm, bpnjensen wrote:
On Dec 29, 5:25*pm, SC Dxing wrote:

LOL!!! Yea, the days when the Soviets jammed anything aimed toward
them. Good memories in a weird way.

The Cubans still jam today, especially against spanish programs from
the states like Radio Marti and WRMI aimed toward Cuba. That swoosh
sound is how the Cubans jam those today. Tune your radio from 9700 to
9955mhz and you'll probably hear at least one Cuban jamming signal.

The Chinese use something called Firedrake where they will jam signals
they don't like with a constant stream of Chinese ethnic music. You
don't hear it much in the states but from what I understand, it's big
in the Far East. I think North and South Korea still play a jamming
game against each from time to time.

Cheers.

I hear Firedrake a lot daytimes here in California, terrifically
annoying when it covers signals on a dozen different freqs. *I was
just noticing, even with the A and K indices at rock bottom tonight,
the bands are unpleasantly quiet. *Sad.

Bruce

That would be correct. I didn't know what it was I was hearing till
Ace told me about it.
I did a little research on Firedrake - pretty interesting.

IanT wrote:
wrote in message
...
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Things have also changed with shortwave broadcasting. Between the
internet,
satellite delivery of broadcast material, and paid subscriptions (NPR
pays
the BBC to give you BBC news) stations are abandoning North America.


Actually, Bill and Melinda Gates; and Medtronic; pay PRI to distribute the
BBC World Service in N. Am.

I listen at vpr.org

Much nicer than all that swishy shortwave.

A lot of amateurs don't own a microphone, and use digital modes to talk
around the world on less power than a TV set. You'll need something more
stable than a Yacht Boy to decode that.

You're completely wrong. The amount of people using QRP and CW
is nowhere near those using SSB. No one uses AM apart from on 160m,
the rest is SSB. You can use programs with a PC soundcard to decode
data modes - even CW which isn't used much now. The requirement to
get a full Class A licence in the UK and other countries does away with
the need to do a morse test. Shame it wasn't sooner as I had to learn it.
There is also DRM about on SW.


Completely wrong? Really?

QRP is 5 Watts. A typical TV uses at least 40 Watts. Which is what I
use to work the world with QPSK31.

There are radios that live entirely inside a PC, except for the front
end/PA box, and they are among the best in the world.

bpnjensen wrote:

I hear Firedrake a lot daytimes here in California, terrifically
annoying when it covers signals on a dozen different freqs. I was
just noticing, even with the A and K indices at rock bottom tonight,
the bands are unpleasantly quiet. Sad.

Bruce

Something big is just around the corner. We had a bunch of sunspots a
few days ago.

http://solarcycle24.com/

On 12/29/09 16:36 , SX-25 wrote:
Ric...

I'm in Wisconsin too (near the U.P.) and having a ball with shortwave.
Don't listen to the baloney that the "golden days of shortwave are
gone." Several shortwave stations have went on the air this past year
and numerous are expanding their coverage. There is still a lot there
but you'll need more than a telescopic whip to do it. Telescopic whips
NEVER were much of a performer. Alligator clip a longwire...any length
more than 20 feet and see what you get. Everybody seems to have bought
into the "if it's digital it is an outstandinga piece of gear" crap. A
lot of digital SW receivers are just as deaf as their earlier ancestors
which needed more than a bicycle spoke as an antenna. You need to
capture RF with something more than a whip.

Mr. Mendleson's explanation was the most accurate. We're in a period of
horrific sunspot inactivity and all the bands are dead.

As for hams, there's plenty of action from 3500 to 4000 kc with the
3500-3600 loaded every night with CW.
By the way, I can decode digital modes with my lowly little Grundig
Yacht Boy 400PE although the audio is, well, like most things of the
cell phone era are on music and voice; so I use old stuff.

Good luck and...enjoy...

WPE9GHF



I spend my getaway time in the North Woods, about 45 minutes
south of Rhinelander. I've gotten some pretty decent catches with my
Grunding Sat 650 Professional. Not the tightest IF in the world, but
tremendous audio.

And out in the middle of the woods the noise floor is
astonishingly low, so there are some opportunities for deep DX you
don't find down here in the big city.

The bands aren't as full as they were when WNYW was pounding the
ether. But there's still plenty out there to hunt down and savor.


Some pretty intense political discussions, too. A unique
perspective on the World stage.

On Dec 30, 5:27*am, dave wrote:
bpnjensen wrote:
I hear Firedrake a lot daytimes here in California, terrifically
annoying when it covers signals on a dozen different freqs. *I was
just noticing, even with the A and K indices at rock bottom tonight,
the bands are unpleasantly quiet. *Sad.

Bruce

Something big is just around the corner. *We had a bunch of sunspots a
few days ago.

http://solarcycle24.com/

Indeed, as of this morning, I am already hearing an uptick in stations
coming through. Thanks for the link!

Just for fun I tried how many countries I can catch during just one day (Well not the whole day...hour or two in the morning and in the evening). I used Sony 7600GR radio with 20 feet of wire attached to whip antenna. Here are results:

1. USA
2. Russia
3. Germany
4. Ukraine
5. Vatican
6. Great Britain
7. Cuba
8. Austria
9. North Korea
10. China
11. Albania
12. India
13. Croatia
14. Philippines
15. Mariana Islands
16. Marocco
17. Lithuania
18. Japan
19. New Zealand
20. Portugal
21. Belgium
22. Sri Lanka
23. Romania
24. Turkey
25. France
26. Tadjikistan
27. Armenia
28. Djibouti
29. Botswana
30. Sao Tome & Pricipe
31. Zambia
32. Kuwait
33. Sweden
34. Slovakia
35. Czech republic
36. Iran
37. Poland
38. Belarus
39. Cyprus
40. Rwanda
41. Thailand
42. Bulgaria
43. Egypt
44. Spain
45. Greece
46. Saudi Arabia
47. Syria
48. Gabon
49. Vietnam
50. Norway
51. Netherlands
52. Estonia
53. Canada
54. Australia

But there's still plenty out there to hunt down and savor.
Some pretty intense political discussions, too. A unique perspective on
the World stage.



Amen, brother!

Never quite understood why guys who frequent a particular newsgroup
topic are so down on it. Curiously it is this way on so many RADIO related
newsgroups. Put a posting on one that stated, "I really like ___." There's
always Eeyores out there to moan a response like, "What d'ya wanna like THAT
for?"
Good grief.

There's lots of new shortwave to be heard and expanded coverage of existing
stations. If you don't believe it visit
any of the shortwave club websites. But you got to get an antenna up and
not rely on the crap performance of the Chinese-made toys that they've given
us to emulate receivers. True, some stations are no longer there but others
have taken their places. Just because we are brainwashed and weary from the
mind-numbing domestic
propaganda that The Economy Is Everything Nothing Else Matters---not
EVERYWHERE in
the world is this mantra chanted. There are still places that believe in
sharing things for the sake of cultural enjoyment; and presenting news with
truth. These places will long believe in the good will of worldwide coverage
direct to a receiver as we once did when people used to huddle behind the
Iron curtain to hear Radio Free Europe on shortwave.

WPE9GHF

Bravo Sami!

SX-25 wrote:

Amen, brother!

Never quite understood why guys who frequent a particular newsgroup
topic are so down on it.

Just because HFBC is a shadow of its former self doesn't mean
"shortwave" in general sucks. Utilities monitoring is what separates
the men from the leetle gurls.

Where's Roy?