Can you elaborate on the X pattern?

If you run the long wire east to west, then the reception is best to
the north and south, and vice versa.


wrote:
Though I'm not a non-technical person, my area of expertise - or even
moderate knowledge - does not rest in the realm of shortwave radios.
However, I've always had an interest in pursuing the subject, and
towards that end my wife was kind enough to buy me a Grundig Yacht Boy
400PE for the holidays.

My problem is this. After reading the entire manual, reading the
Passport text and taking the plunge into the world of sw radio, I'm
having trouble getting reception for stations that I would expect to
get.

I live in the northeast United States (northern New England). My condo
is on the third (top) floor of a 15 unit building. My living room
window looks out onto a massive lake with no building in the way
through an 8 foot by 8 foot window. I have placed the receiver in this
window and even covered the window in an X pattern with the external
reel antenna.

Nevertheless, I can't get even a single station that Passport
recommends in the "First Tries: Ten Easy Catches" section. I've been
listening at night and the band that Grundig recommends as "Good all
night everywhere" in the 400PE manual - the 31m band - doesn't have a
single frequency that comes in for me. Neither does the 41m band -
also recommended as good all night in Northeastern America. The best
I've been able to manage are two frequencies in the 49m band - one of
which appears to be China Radio International on 5950. Neither of
these are terribly clear at that, and the best reception that I've been
able to get is with WWCR.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Being new to this, I don't know
what I should reasonably expect. Should I expect to be able to pick up
a variety of things with moderate clarity. I know that this is all
variable on many conditions, but realistically, what should I be
expecting here?

Thanks for your help.

My goodness! Thank you all for the incredible wealth of insight and
advice! While I can't say that my problems are yet solved, I can
report the results from my latest tests. Though I'm starting with
relatively little technical knowledge I suspect that I am nevertheless
hooked - if venturing out in -2 degree (F) weather in the middle of the
night to test my radio counts as being hooked.

The first thing I did was to take Bob's advice and double check all the
switches. It's always something simple, right? Well, the SSB switch
was set to off, so I set that to on right away. Everything else is as
it should be.

As it *is* the middle of the night, procuring wire for antenna is an
impossibility so I did what I could in the meantime. On the
recommendation of Junius and others I grabbed some batteries, popped
them in the Yacht Boy and ventured out onto one of the piers here on
the lake. Not much around save water, though there are some power
lines not far in the distance. It was bitter cold, so I didn't bother
trying to rig up the reel antenna to anything and relied only on the
whip.

I tried all of the frequencies recommended by mcdonald606a - 5975,
7415, 6616, 12095 & 1170. This was all just after the start of the
0600 UTC hour. My research tells me that I should have heard the
following:

WBCQ (from Maine, USA) on 7415
BBC World Service on 12095
Nothing on 5975 (gap in schedule)

but I couldn't turn up anything at any time for any day on 6166.

And what did I hear? Nothing, save for some weak voices on 1170. Now
by my understanding, 1170 would technically be an AM or MW frequency,
correct? And mcdonald606a says that it's WWVA from West Virginia. I
also turned up, in my reading, a listing for Radio Farda on the same
frequency. Is this correct? I have to say though, the voice seemed to
indicate much more of the scheduled "Truckin' Bozo" from WWVA than
anything that could possibly have been on Radio Farda. Am I in fact
correct in understanding that they are the same frequency though? The
bad news is that the reception was still not terribly intelligible.
Lots of noise. Distorted voices.

I then packed up, hopped in the car and drove out of town to a fairly
remote location where I found a wonderful field to stop at. Again,
much of the same. The good news is that since I changed the SSB switch
to "on", I can pick up a lot more, but only enough to make out that it
is supposed to be a broadcast of some sort, never anything that could
actually be listened to and understood. While in the field I cruised
around the 49 and 41 meter bands per Brian's recommendation. No luck.
Just more of the "ooh, ooh, what was that" experience. Nothing ever
actually comes in.

I'm going to continue pushing forward and will be visiting the
electronics store tomorrow to look into antennas. After all the
recommendations - and especially the encouraging words of GYT - I'm
hoping that a decent antenna will help to solve the problems.

Feel free to weigh in again after reading this update, and I'll be sure
to post the results of the next step in testing.

BTW - Regarding the question about that X pattern... My huge window
faces west - much like Peter Maus' - and the X crosses it, which would
make it run north/south (or more of a slightly NE/SW in my case). I
also have a lot of electronics in the house - something that Peter also
mentioned - so I did take the liberty of turning them all off, but who
knows what others in the building are running. It's a small building
and I can pick up at least 4 wireless networks so I'm guessing that the
neighbors are pretty tech-laden as well. But the outdoor tests should
have shed some light on all this...

Pete,

Another helpful tool is:

http://www.anarc.org/naswa/swlguide/

Scroll down to the bottom and click on
"LIST PROGRAMS AT CURRENT HOUR"

It's sort of like a TV Guide for Shortwave radio.

That SSB (Single Side Band) switch should be off for now. It is used
primarily for the Amateur Bands (Ham Radio). It can be used on AM broadcasts
in certain situations to cut down on interference but we are skipping ahead
just a bit.

There is another possibility in all of this and this is that the radio could
be defective. You should be able to pick up something. Let's not throw in
the towel just yet though.

CAUTION! This is a last resort suggestion. I take no responsibility for the
outcome. Sometimes when things appear hopeless, I read the instruction
booklets. Yes I know that this sounds desperate but there have been times
when I have actually gotten useful information from these things. Try it if
you haven't already to see if there might be some useful tidbit of
information that would pull this whole thing together.

You might want to list what city (not address) you are in and possible
someone on here is located there and can help you out by checking out your
radio by letting you hook it up to one of their antennas.

One other thing, if you are using batteries, make sure that they are fresh.
This can have an effect. Keep us informed on your progress.

In article .com,
wrote:
My goodness! Thank you all for the incredible wealth of insight and
advice! While I can't say that my problems are yet solved, I can
report the results from my latest tests. Though I'm starting with
relatively little technical knowledge I suspect that I am nevertheless
hooked - if venturing out in -2 degree (F) weather in the middle of the
night to test my radio counts as being hooked.

Here in Seattle, this time of year, a bit before midnight, I would expect
to get what you've got. Nothing. Some bad space weather this week, a low
spot in the solar cycle, and the seasonal poor propagation means that
there's nothing to hear until the Asian/Pacific stations drop down to
lower frequencies for their evening (their local time) broadcasts.
They're broadcasting, but the 17, 15 and 13 MHz signals just don't
get here. Even Radio Australia on 9590 and 9580, at 08:00 UTC, has
been iffy this week.

Try 6165 from 0:00 to 2:00 UTC for Radio Netherlands from their Caribean
site. And try the 15 and 17 MHz bands (I don't do Meters) around 3-4
PM local time. And the 6, 7, and 9 MHz bands in the morning before 9
AM local.

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

Can you receive any of the time signals. Try 10K, 15K, etc

wrote:
Though I'm not a non-technical person, my area of expertise - or even
moderate knowledge - does not rest in the realm of shortwave radios.
However, I've always had an interest in pursuing the subject, and
towards that end my wife was kind enough to buy me a Grundig Yacht Boy
400PE for the holidays.

My problem is this. After reading the entire manual, reading the
Passport text and taking the plunge into the world of sw radio, I'm
having trouble getting reception for stations that I would expect to
get.

I live in the northeast United States (northern New England). My condo
is on the third (top) floor of a 15 unit building. My living room
window looks out onto a massive lake with no building in the way
through an 8 foot by 8 foot window. I have placed the receiver in this
window and even covered the window in an X pattern with the external
reel antenna.

Nevertheless, I can't get even a single station that Passport
recommends in the "First Tries: Ten Easy Catches" section. I've been
listening at night and the band that Grundig recommends as "Good all
night everywhere" in the 400PE manual - the 31m band - doesn't have a
single frequency that comes in for me. Neither does the 41m band -
also recommended as good all night in Northeastern America. The best
I've been able to manage are two frequencies in the 49m band - one of
which appears to be China Radio International on 5950. Neither of
these are terribly clear at that, and the best reception that I've been
able to get is with WWCR.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Being new to this, I don't know
what I should reasonably expect. Should I expect to be able to pick up
a variety of things with moderate clarity. I know that this is all
variable on many conditions, but realistically, what should I be
expecting here?

Thanks for your help.

I'm still lost on the X. At most you might let the wire slope from top
to bottom, but X implies to me that you are wrapping the wire over
itself.

Radio Australia is a killer signal on the left coast. Are you east
coasters getting it relayed?

Hello.

Try this tomorrow night, indoors (in front of your window) with the
whip antenna only.

Make sure your SSB control is "off."

Between 0100 - 0200 UTC (8 - 9 PM ET) tune to 6165 kHz (R. Nederland)
and 11935 kHz (R. Japan). Both of these are relayed from the
Netherlands Antilles.

Between 0200 - 0400 UTC (9 - 11 PM ET) tune to 5975 kHz (BBC). This is
relayed from French Guiana.

If you cannot hear any of these, send your radio back for exchange (NOT
"repair") as DOA. It is defective.

Best,

Joe

I think so, but I'm not sure what exactly is being done. It would sure
help to have a diagram.

wrote:
That's what I thought yesterday too.X would cancel out a lot of
signals,,, wouldn't it?
cuhulin

James Douglas wrote:
Can you receive any of the time signals. Try 10K, 15K, etc

Only 3330 from Canada, and that is *extremely* static-filled. None of
the other time signals come in. Not a single one from the US (5, 10,
15, 20)

-P

Indeed you are correct. The X did lead to the wire crossing itself so
- after smacking myself on the forehead - I rearranged it. I unfurled
the reel and simply ran it from the upper left corner of my window,
across the top and down the righthand side to my radio. The reception
on 3330 - my test at the time - did improve slightly, but it remained
nevertheless extremely static filled. Still none of the other time
signals were received.

I've reread the manual a million times, rechecked the radio just as
many and everything is absolutely as it should be.

-P