England is smaller in square miles area (I don't give a damn kilometers)
than the State of Oregon.Spain and Italy are not too far from
England.And they call that DXing over there!?

........D-Day Larry

wrote in message
...
England is smaller in square miles area (I don't give a damn kilometers)
than the State of Oregon.Spain and Italy are not too far from
England.And they call that DXing over there!?

DXing on VHF FM frequencies! Around 88-108 MHz. These signals are usually
line of sight, so Italy most certainly is DX.

--
Simon Mason
Anlaby
East Yorkshire.
53°44'N 0°26'W
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net

Well,fix me up with some Eyetalian wimmins then.
cuhulin

While shielded audio cable will work, real coax is much better.
Buy some dual shielded, braid with conductive foil, TV style
coax from you local parts outlet, RadioShack will work but it isn't
my first choice. Your receiver is 50Ohms, but even with a 9:1
matching transformer your antenna impedance will vary wildly.
And 75 Ohm instead of 50 ohm is only a 1.5:1 mismatch.
Hardly worth thinking about.
The Doty article on "Low Noise Antennas" is a must read.
His reasoning for burring the coax is excellent and can
help to really knock the noise down.
I say can, because some locations are hard luck and can be
very difficult to reduce the noise.
His approach gives the most result for the work of any I know of.
Terry

wrote:

The Doty article on "Low Noise Antennas" is a must read.
His reasoning for burring the coax is excellent and can
help to really knock the noise down.
I say can, because some locations are hard luck and can be
very difficult to reduce the noise.
His approach gives the most result for the work of any I know of.
Terry

I agree. After building the low noise antenna system I can now listen to
shortwave with the computer and TV running in the same room.

Try these links:
http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante...e_antenna.html
http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante..._longwire.html
MiniCircuits makes 9:1 transformers if you aren't up to winding your
own:
http://www.minicircuits.com/transf.html
http://www.minicircuits.com/dg03-238.pdf
I use the T9-1, rated for .150~120MHz.
Works to well below 100KHz.

I found I got a slightly cleaner, better noise isolation from our home
by adding a T1-1 (1:1) at the halfway point and not tieing the grounds
in common.
One of the ham radio antenna sites I frequent has mentioned the
minicircuits are porne to getting zapped by ligthening. My antenna
has been up 3 years, and I had a tree split by a bolt with no effect on
the transformer.
Terry

Terry

Very good Hank on the 10,000 mile station.
DX is in the ear of the beholder.
For Hams, DX is any station on the ARRL DXCC list -- fro Mexico to Reunion
island
SWLers have their own definition -- sometimes a weak rare station
irrespective of distance
Others here will give you their spin on SW DXing.

For propagation -- a good one -- easy reading is at this URL:
http://www.ae4rv.com/tn/propflash.htm

At present we are on the down slide of the 11 year solar cycle -- see URL:
http://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/summary.shtml

The High for the current cycle - Cycle 23
Flux: 298 - 26 Oct 2003

Currently we are at Current Solar Flux report:
SFI: 100

In general the higher the SFI and the lower the A and K index -- the better
propagation will be.

When the SFI gets below 90 or so -- propagation will be grim on the upper
bands.

But the lower bands will still be good particularly in the winter time.

--
Caveat Lector



"HankG" wrote in message
...
Hi All:

Thanks to all who responded; both factually and humorously. The humor was
especially appreciated in light of my very recent, unexpected stay in the
hospital (cardiac event). Let me elaborate.

I have been interested in SWL off and on for many years as a casual
listener. I would just twiddle the tuning knob from low end to high and
catch whatever was available, rather than actively seeking DX. Never made
the connection between radio and computer (for information about
schedules,
technology, time of day, etc.).

About two years or so ago, I resurrected my SX-99 which is fed by a 30
foot
baseboard wire, and conveniently located between my computer, monitor, and
TV (ugh) as things were heating up in the middle east. Lots of
information
became available after joining the group, and general searching on the
Web.
The biggest drawbacks to actively listening were having an analog tuning
receiver and a relatively unstable pitch control/bfo.

Right before the war started, I purchased an RX-320, certainly not touted
as
a DX machine, but a solid performer nevertheless. I also erected Cliff
Donley's 33 foot folded dipole inside of my roof. I was totally amazed
when
tuning in my first sideband transmission--rock-solid, on frequency.

Well, so much for background. Back to my original question. I had been
tuning around and came across Radio Australia (verified) on 11.880 at
20:00
z on Sunday (prior to New Years). I had been trying unsuccessfully to
'log'
Australia for some time as I considered this to be a DX catch, perhaps on
the outer reaches of DX. According to a GC calculator, the distance from
my
location (NJ suburbs of Philadelphia) was noted as over 10,000 miles (did
not use coordinates for Shepparton, but rather Melbourne).

As I will be recuperating, and spending more time at the radio, I want to
try my hand at actively seeking DX. A few questions come to mind:

At what point does a transmission become DX? Is it a matter of
distance only, or distance when station power is considered?

I plan to use the ILG database in RLDB to see what's on and try to log it.
I've also been trying to get a handle on understanding parameters
influencing propagation, such as the SF, A, and K. A few links from
Google
were very technical and left my head spinning. Can some kind soul(s)
offer
a simple explanation of what these are and how they will impact my SWLing
(e.g., more or less of this or that is good/bad, or how knowing the values
can better my chances of logging a specific target)?

Again, thanks to all.

HankG

"Caveat Lector" wrote in message
news:HPeCd.38257$8e5.20838@fed1read07...
Very good Hank on the 10,000 mile station.
DX is in the ear of the beholder.
For Hams, DX is any station on the ARRL DXCC list -- fro Mexico to Reunion
island
SWLers have their own definition -- sometimes a weak rare station
irrespective of distance
Others here will give you their spin on SW DXing.

For propagation -- a good one -- easy reading is at this URL:
http://www.ae4rv.com/tn/propflash.htm

At present we are on the down slide of the 11 year solar cycle -- see URL:
http://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/summary.shtml

The High for the current cycle - Cycle 23
Flux: 298 - 26 Oct 2003

Currently we are at Current Solar Flux report:
SFI: 100

In general the higher the SFI and the lower the A and K index -- the
better
propagation will be.

When the SFI gets below 90 or so -- propagation will be grim on the upper
bands.

But the lower bands will still be good particularly in the winter time.

--
Caveat Lector

(gotta love that name)

Thanks for the useful information. Looking forward to putting it to use.

HankG