RadioBanter - 13.730MHZ @23:15 UTC

Steve Silverwood wrote:

In article xlWpb.106513$HS4.889659@attbi_s01, jim.douglas@genesis-
software.com says...
Anyone know this, very strong/clear here in Dallas. I think Radio Österreich
International (ÖRF)?

Here's why I always make sure I have the latest copy of Passport to
World Band Radio handy. In the "Blue Pages" you can look up a frequency
and see who is scheduled to broadcast on that frequency at what time.

Unfortunately any 'hardcopy' publication dealing with shortwave frequencies is
prone to go out of date rather quickly. Not to knock any of these publications as
there is a wealth of other information contained in their pages. But, one must be
aware of their limitations and not be so quick to assume 'Station X' is the one
being heard, rather it is important to listen for the ID or other clues to
determine what the station is, then suddenly one discovers that it is actually
'Station Y' on the frequency.

There are three publications that I absolutely MUST have for my
shortwave listening, in order of priority:

1) Monitoring Times magazine
2) Passport to World Band Radio
3) World Radio and Television Handbook

Monitoring Times (www.monitoringtimes.com) functions as a "TV Guide for
Shortwave" for me. With 20 pages each month devoted to broadcast
schedules and featured programs, it's a must-have. I get mine in the
"MT Express" version, which is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file I download each
month. Grove sends out an email to their MT Express subscribers on the
20th of each month with the FTP information to download the file. Since
it's a PDF, I save each copy to CD-ROM for future reference. Also, they
are so attentive to detail that when you see a URL for a web site in the
text of an article, you can click on that URL in Acrobat Reader and
it'll bring up your web browser on that site! And the table of contents
also has that ability -- click on an item in the TOC and go straight to
that page in the magazine. Well done, Bob!

(I cheat a little -- once I've downloaded mine, I go in with Acrobat and
copy out the text of the hourly broadcast schedules to a text file, then
I convert that to Microsoft Reader format and keep it on my PocketPC
palmtop computer. That way I have it in electronic form wherever I am!)

I've already explained one reason why I have to have the current
Passport book (www.passband.com, also available from Amazon.com,
Universal Radio, Ham Radio Outlet, and just about anywhere else you can
think of). Not only are the Blue Pages of infinite value to me, but the
annual reviews of various receivers are of great use. They also have
the addresses and QSL information for just about every shortwave
broadcaster you may expect to find on the air.

The WRTH book is a great reference for broadcasters in other areas of
the spectrum besides shortwave. If you're DXing the AM broadcast band,
for example, you can pretty easily find the address for the station so
you can send your reception reports. (Since MW DXing is only a side
interest in my radio listening, it's not as high a priority for me as
the other two, but it's definitely up there.)

My one complaint is that I wish there were more publishers that followed
Bob Grove's example and published in PDF format. It's a widely-used
format, cuts down on the use of paper, and is in my opinion far more
useful than the traditional paper format. I would gladly plunk down my
bucks right this second if I could get Passport and WRTH in some
electronic format, either PDF or perhaps a CD-ROM-based format.

-- //Steve//

Steve Silverwood, KB6OJS
Fountain Valley, CA
Email:
Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~kb6ojs_steve