Electronics → SWL, another dying hobby?

With the BBC eliminating broadcasts to various parts of the world. This short article reminded me of the fun of SWL.

»www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks ··· tartid=2

Back in the 70s I used to listen to RSA from Johannesburg, HCJB in Quito, and VOA broadcasts a lot on my old Hallicrafters radio.

There's so much QRM anymore, it's hard to hear anything

I'm one of those "in-betweeners" when it comes to technology: Old enough to have been around for vinyl records and slide projectors, young enough to embrace iPods and Power Point.

I guess shortwave radio figures in there. With the advent of the internet, satellite radio, and all that, international broadcasts are not as important as they used to be. As a ham radio licensee I can accept whatever comes next. And something will come next.

mocycler

I have my SW radio still however I can't pick up anything in the house anymore but I used to listen to BBC all the time but I wished I got one with SSB.

Hey! I'm an ol'timer and I have an iPOD and MS Office, even a satellite radio.

As a kid I used to listen to the far away places. In the army, I lock myself in the radio hut and listen to VOA. Around here, I've seen the "progress" increase the QRM to where it's impossible on some bands.

Radio Luxembourg was always a favorite. I actually got to sit in the studio during a broadcast before they shut down. I'm pretty sure the two events were not related.

I used a Hallicrafters SX-99 for many years, clear into the late 70's for SWLing (yep, tubes and all!), though I was more partial to tracking down stations in the utility bands than commercial broadcast stations. I had gotten QSL cards from over 60 countries just from utility stations, which took some real doing since they customarily discouraged listeners due to privacy concerns related to their traffic. Then came my current Yaesu FRG-7 receiver - which is getting frighteningly old, itself.

But I rarely listen any more... the hash noise has gotten so bad anywhere near urban areas (my own home included) that it's nearly impossible to pick up any of the weaker stations any more. Light dimmers, computers, all sorts of other digital toys, wireless "everythings"... all those QRM-spraying digital signal edges, RF emissions, harmonics, and intermodulation products have pretty effectively destroyed reception below 30 MHz - at least, as I used to enjoy it. It's kind of like what light-pollution has done to astronomy anywhere in the vicinity of urban/suburban development. Largely the end of an era, I suppose...

Question.. would I be able to her a Meteroite on a SWL?

Uhmm... translation, please??

If you're asking if you can hear the ion storm generated when a meteor passes through the atmosphere on a shortwave radio, the answer is... it depends on the radio and the antenna, but probably not. With all the digital hash and other QRM the others have been discussing, it'd be very difficult to pull that noise out of all of the other noise.

I've got a hallicrafters 5-tube SW/BC radio, and with all the garbage around Columbia, about all it's good for now is keeping my coffee warm.

hmm I figure it would of been easy to pick up.

Maybe easy to pick up, but how do you discerne the momentary signal from a meteorite through all the rest of the QRM?

S-38?

NASA or one of the sites posted a sound file.. you just tune to a channel with just static on

*edit found link

»science.nasa.gov/newhome ··· 98_1.htm

Oh, that's a bit different. That's listening to the reflection of a terrestrial transmitter. Most of the SWL receivers (at least the old ones) stop around 30MHz. I would think a good receiver and a good directional antenna would get you that.

S-38D, you're correct.

Cool, I graduated from army surplus to one of those back, well a long time ago

don't need to be at a area where your in high elavation?

Not really, what you need is azimuth , as well as rotational control of your antenna. You are going to be pointing it somewhere out there. That somewhere is going to depend on where you are, where the transmitter is and where the meteors are.

At least, that's my interpretation. I've never done it. Only thing like that I did when I was an active ham is bounce off of the aurora.

HCJB was my first SWL QSL card response, back around 1967. It also came with a nice personal, signed letter from their comm guy. I still remember the letterhead: "HERALDING CHRIST JESUS' BLESSING". Until then I thought it was just a gibberish call sign.