Blackbird
Built for Speed
Premium
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to opus74
Re: SWL, another dying hobby?
said by opus74  :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 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...
--
If God wanted us to work with electrons, He'd make them big enough to see... |
