Shortwave listening

I just installed a communications reciever on this slab, which is to say I simply bought one and plugged it into the wall. I also poked a piece of wire out the hatch to act as a primitive antenna.

I'm listening to a program from somewhere that is being broadcast in Spanish which is pretty good background noise right now, although in a while it will become boring and I will try tuning in something in English.

Later: 11.250 Megs, Common Sense Radio, which is an American conservative station. That grew a bit old and I checked my watch on WWV on 15.000 megs. It was 1 minute and 50 seconds fast.

The set I am using here is a Grundig S350DL which I snagged from Radio Shack out of convenience. I suppose it is OK, but it really isn't all that top notch of a set.

Here's a couple pictures of a shortwave set I built as a kid:

Mine didn't come with the case, as it was another 95 cents or something. Notice the plug in coils. In order to change bands you would unplug one coil and plug another one in.

here's another view:

Here's a bottom shot.

Back in the day it was a pretty good project for a kid and the best part of it from a parent's point of view is that it would keep the boy occupied for quite some time after he got it put together.

Last winter when I had a little spare time I fired the old set up and promptly picked up Radio Prague. I sent for one of their QSL cards and received it in a couple of weeks.

As a young shortwave listener I used to collect QSL cards. The system worked so that when you heard their broadcast you would send the station a card indication the time and place you heard the broadcast from and the signal strength. You were in effect acting as an engineer for the station.

When they got your card they would send you one of theirs.

Radio Prague sent me one of theirs and a bunch of nice little Czech trinkets.

I think they were impressed when they found out the radio thay came in 5x5 on was a 1962 Knight Kit I put together back then.

The receiver on board now is, of course, a lot newer, but to tell you the truth I wish I could drag the old one out here. It's a lot more fun picking up a station on the old set.



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