Another post on shortwave radios

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Here's a picture of the radio I built in th grade. It is a Knight Kit Star roamer that had 5 bands from 200 Khz to 30 Mhz.



my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/

Here's a picture of the wiring in the chassis.

By the standards of today it wasn't really a brilliant performer. This was a 4 tube model and mine works well today but one of the capacitors dried up and the set picked up a hum so I had the 3 part capacitor replaced by a man who rebuilds stuff as a hobby. It was actually cheaper than doing it myself as he knew where to get the parts for cheap.

Right now on the new set I am listening to the Voice of Russia which is coming in about 3x5, but it's pretty good entertainment considering.

I get no respect here, though. My shipmate told me that I look like a little WW2 Japanese soldier stuck in a grass hut in the jungle trying to tune in headquarters twenty years after the war was over. Hmmph.

Still, if I can get their address I might send in for a QSL card.

We'll see.

Hey, right now VOR is giving out an interesting recipe for borsht. Huh. Pretty neat, but it doesn't sound too appatizing right now. I'd rather have a hot dog or something.

I wish I had the QSL card collection I had back in my boyhood, My wall looked something like this:

I remember that I sent for a QSL card from Radio Havana once and it took a long time because back then the International Postal system was slow and if I remember I had to get someone post my card from Canada. The QSL card from Radio Havana arrived right smack dab in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis.

My dad was worried about being retreaded back into the military.

He decided to take a walk to the post office and when he opened the PO box, there was the QSL card!

He was a tad afraid that the FBI or someone would think I was some kind of 11 year-old communist off-brand type. My neighbor calmed him down, but not after I caught holy hell.

Years llater when I went for an army security clearance I wondered if it would show up, but it never did.

Back then Radio Havana was a good, old fashioned 'Yankee dog, Imperialist pig' ant-American station, but there's not a whole lot of that around anymore. The only place that you can get that kind of propaganda broadcasting anymore is from the Voice of Korea, the North Korean station. In a way it's too bad because that sort of crap was fun to listen to.

Anyway, here's my post for the day. As I finish it I have China Radio International in the background.

Maybe they'll air a recipe for something better to eat than borsht.