Hi Pete:
The previously mentioned suggestion of taking the radio outside for a walk is an excellent tip. This is how I achieve the best reception.

What exactly are you hearing when you step through the 49m or 31m bands at night? Any faint voices? What kind of noise?

A good test signal for you since you're in the USA is the WWV (http://tf.nist.gov/timefreq/stations/wwv.html) broadcasts on 2.5 mhz, 5 mhz, 10 mhz, 15 mhz, and 20 mhz. 5 mhz is the most reliable for me in the evening (over here in northern California). Use the daytime/nighttime recommendations in your radio manual to determine which frequency is best at any given time.

For very up-to-date shortwave frequency listings, give www.primetimeshortwave.com a try. You'll have to learn how to convert local time to coordinated universal time (aka UTC). Search for listings labeled "NA" (North America), although reception of stations broadcasting to other regions is possible.

One of my favorite broadcasts is Radio Havana Cuba:
0500-0700 UTC: 6 mhz, 6.06 mhz, 9.55 mhz, 9.82 mhz, 11.76 mhz

The previously mentioned suggestion of taking the radio outside for a
walk is an excellent tip. This is how I achieve the best reception.

Thanks for the tip. I did indeed take it outdoors - out on a pier into
the lake - and the change in reception was hardly noticeable. Then for
safe keeping I drove quite a distance outside of town to the
middle-of-nowhere VT - no mountians, no woods, just a big open field -
with the same results.

What exactly are you hearing when you step through the 49m or 31m bands
at night? Any faint voices? What kind of noise?

31m - nothing. 49m - occasional extremely static-filled voices.
Absolutely nothing that would be considered intelligible.

A good test signal for you since you're in the USA is the WWV
(http://tf.nist.gov/timefreq/stations/wwv.html) broadcasts on 2.5 mhz,
5 mhz, 10 mhz, 15 mhz, and 20 mhz. 5 mhz is the most reliable for me
in the evening (over here in northern California).

Historically I don't receive any of them, though this afternoon I just
barely received the 20mhz broadcast - but again, completely filled with
static and almost unable to be heard.

I do get the 3330 time broadcast from Canada, but it too is not exactly
well received.

One of my favorite broadcasts is Radio Havana Cuba:
0500-0700 UTC: 6 mhz, 6.06 mhz, 9.55 mhz, 9.82 mhz, 11.76 mhz

I suspect that would be one of my favorites as well. ;-) Unfortunately
I have tried and tried - those seem to be common hours for me to be
trying - and have not been able to get it.

Spoke with Grundig tech support today and they didn't have too much too
offer. Very nice people, to their credit, but because of all the
variables involved they were unable to say if it sounds more like a
receiver hardware problem or just general reception issues. I'm going
to continue testing this evening.

Due to the return policy of the company it was ordered from (universal
radio) I need to decide quickly if I'll be returning/exchanging it.
The question that comes up is that, if I do exchange it, would I be
better off upgrading to a different radio? Aesthetic appeal aside, the
Eton E1 seems to have good reviews everywhere. But is the difference
in sensitivity enough to justify the extra money?

I'm also interested in, eventually, tracking down some of the SSB
traffic around my area. I have an international airport down the road,
coast guard virtually next door and a city full of people. The YB
isn't picking up anything there either when in SSB mode, but then, it
got poor reviews on that aspect. Would the E1 be any better?

-P

Regarding the international airport, your interest would be in
international air traffic control, which does use HF. You can google
around for MWARA frequencies. I have them for the left coast. I haven't
tune them in ages, but will do so tonight for the hell of it. It's like
air traffic control, but the pace is much slower since there isn't that
much traffic.

I have the older Sony 7600. It works fine on shortwave broadcast. The
VFO resolution isn't fine enough for sideband, though it does have a
analog control to tweak it in (clarifier).

If you expect to do sideband, you need a radio with two filter
bandwidths (at the very least). Using the wide filter for AM lets too
much noise through on sideband.


wrote:
The previously mentioned suggestion of taking the radio outside for a
walk is an excellent tip. This is how I achieve the best reception.

Thanks for the tip. I did indeed take it outdoors - out on a pier into
the lake - and the change in reception was hardly noticeable. Then for
safe keeping I drove quite a distance outside of town to the
middle-of-nowhere VT - no mountians, no woods, just a big open field -
with the same results.

What exactly are you hearing when you step through the 49m or 31m bands
at night? Any faint voices? What kind of noise?

31m - nothing. 49m - occasional extremely static-filled voices.
Absolutely nothing that would be considered intelligible.

A good test signal for you since you're in the USA is the WWV
(http://tf.nist.gov/timefreq/stations/wwv.html) broadcasts on 2.5 mhz,
5 mhz, 10 mhz, 15 mhz, and 20 mhz. 5 mhz is the most reliable for me
in the evening (over here in northern California).

Historically I don't receive any of them, though this afternoon I just
barely received the 20mhz broadcast - but again, completely filled with
static and almost unable to be heard.

I do get the 3330 time broadcast from Canada, but it too is not exactly
well received.

One of my favorite broadcasts is Radio Havana Cuba:
0500-0700 UTC: 6 mhz, 6.06 mhz, 9.55 mhz, 9.82 mhz, 11.76 mhz

I suspect that would be one of my favorites as well. ;-) Unfortunately
I have tried and tried - those seem to be common hours for me to be
trying - and have not been able to get it.

Spoke with Grundig tech support today and they didn't have too much too
offer. Very nice people, to their credit, but because of all the
variables involved they were unable to say if it sounds more like a
receiver hardware problem or just general reception issues. I'm going
to continue testing this evening.

Due to the return policy of the company it was ordered from (universal
radio) I need to decide quickly if I'll be returning/exchanging it.
The question that comes up is that, if I do exchange it, would I be
better off upgrading to a different radio? Aesthetic appeal aside, the
Eton E1 seems to have good reviews everywhere. But is the difference
in sensitivity enough to justify the extra money?

I'm also interested in, eventually, tracking down some of the SSB
traffic around my area. I have an international airport down the road,
coast guard virtually next door and a city full of people. The YB
isn't picking up anything there either when in SSB mode, but then, it
got poor reviews on that aspect. Would the E1 be any better?

-P

Well, looks like, after speaking with some folks on the phone and
reading more online, that the E1 wouldn't necessarily be any better.
Looks pretty, of course, but seems like the extra cost is due to the XM
capability.

Still testing the YB.

On 15 Dec 2005 14:22:46 -0800, wrote:

Well, looks like, after speaking with some folks on the phone and
reading more online, that the E1 wouldn't necessarily be any better.
Looks pretty, of course, but seems like the extra cost is due to the XM
capability.

Still testing the YB.

The XM capability only adds a few dollars (less than 5) to the cost of
the radio. The XM smart antenna option for $50 has the actual
satellite receiver on it. The E1 itself is just the human interface.

David wrote:
The XM capability only adds a few dollars (less than 5) to the cost of
the radio. The XM smart antenna option for $50 has the actual
satellite receiver on it. The E1 itself is just the human interface.

What I meant was that the XM-ready nature of the E1, actual XM hardware
costs aside, is what makes this radio so significantly more expensive
than some of the other high-end portables. My research seemed to
indicate that the E1 wouldn't offer significantly better reception on
the SW bands than the YB 400PE, so for a difference of $350+ it's not a
worthwhile investment.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I came to undertand.

-P

On 15 Dec 2005 15:15:06 -0800, wrote:


David wrote:
The XM capability only adds a few dollars (less than 5) to the cost of
the radio. The XM smart antenna option for $50 has the actual
satellite receiver on it. The E1 itself is just the human interface.

What I meant was that the XM-ready nature of the E1, actual XM hardware
costs aside, is what makes this radio so significantly more expensive
than some of the other high-end portables. My research seemed to
indicate that the E1 wouldn't offer significantly better reception on
the SW bands than the YB 400PE, so for a difference of $350+ it's not a
worthwhile investment.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I came to undertand.

-P

You are very mistaken. The YB-400 is a 20 year old design. It lacks
dozens of advanced features found on the E1.

David wrote:

You are very mistaken. The YB-400 is a 20 year old design. It lacks
dozens of advanced features found on the E1.

David, I understand that there may be many "features" that the E1 has
that the YB-400 is lacking, but are you saying that at the very core of
the reception issue, the E1 would outperform the YB-400. Out of the
box, if I were to put an E1 next to my YB-400 with the same reel
antenna or a 30ft long wire, would the E1 grab more signals and grab
them more clearly?

As you have undoubtedly read, I don't get even the strongest BBC
signals in the park away from all interference on a good night with the
current YB-400. Do you think I would with the E1?

-P

In article . com,
wrote:

Snip

What exactly are you hearing when you step through the 49m or 31m bands
at night? Any faint voices? What kind of noise?

31m - nothing. 49m - occasional extremely static-filled voices.
Absolutely nothing that would be considered intelligible.

Snip

If you are outside away from big buildings as an example in a park tune
in a local AM broadcast station and set the radio to a reasonable
listening level. Around sunset your time switch to a SW band 49 meters,
which is 5900 kHz to 6200 kHz. The radio should have a low volume
static hiss unless you are on a SW station. Tune through that frequency
range and you should get at least several stations clearly. This band
at this time of day usually has the strongest stations you are likely
to receive. Conditions are good today so you should pick a number of
stations up. If not the radio may have a problem.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

Progress!

Thanks go to Telamon for posting a timely message. I grabbed my radio
and went out into the park. Not hard to do, as I live essentially in
one. I walked between 50 and 100 yards into the middle of the park,
sat down on a bench and fired up the radio. I tooled around the 49m
band as Telamon suggested and I'm pleased to report that the results
were extremely encouraging. Not sure why I wasn't having better
results the other night when I was miles away from nowhere...

I've recorded the success below, with a small "key" to indicate exactly
what I mean by my terms.

Telamon, you mention the static hiss which you say should go away when
I tune into a sw station. The hiss and static has never in any of my
tests, including this one, gone away. I'm not sure if this is normal
or not, but as some people actually listen to music via sw, I'd have to
say that either it should if the signal is strong enough else those
users have a strong tolerance of poor quality music signals. When
people talk about strong, clear signals and reception, are they in fact
indicating that there is no static?

Okay, here it goes. This was 6:16 to 6:46pm local time (EST), so not
"too" long after sunset.

**********************

TIME: 23:16 to 23:46 UTC

CLEAR = strong voices, no distortion or interference (always some
static)
OKAY = decent, intelligible voices with significant static
BORDERLINE = heavy static, able to ocassionally hear clear voices but
majority is not clear enough to be understood.
NOTHING = complete unintelligible static

FREQ OUTSIDE INSIDE
5950 clear okay
5960 okay nothing
5975 okay borderline to nothing
5990 borderline borderline to nothing
6000 clear okay to borderline
6030 okay to borderline nothing
6055 okay borderline to nothing
6075 borderline nothing
6090 okay to borderline borderline to nothing
6165 clear borderline to nothing

Outside I was using nothing but the whip antenna. Inside, I have a
reel antenna.

I have yet to look up the frequencies to see what I caught. There were
also several frequencies that the auto tuner decided to stop on, though
there was nothing to be heard. I did not record these here.

-P