Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
New User - New Receiver - Reception Questions
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... |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Cambridge Soundworks CD740 Radio - Reception Questions ???? | Broadcasting | |||
The main problem with Ham radio... | Policy | |||
Poor quality low + High TV channels? How much dB in Preamp? | Antenna | |||
Entering Trunked Info Into 780: new user questions, please | Scanner | |||
Low reenlistment rate | Policy |