I want to setup a shortwave antenna and listen to the world, but I don't know how to find out if it's worth it based on where I live. I live in Maine and would like to be able to listen to news + cool shit on it. I figure what I would do is get one of the

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File: 1416362234146.gif (51.06 KB, 500x376, 125:94, 1416199999948.gif)

Anonymous 11/19/14 (Wed) 01:57:14 No.114

I want to setup a shortwave antenna and listen to the world, but I don't know how to find out if it's worth it based on where I live. I live in Maine and would like to be able to listen to news + cool shit on it. I figure what I would do is get one of the cheapest radios from this page http://swling.com/Radios.htm and then just hook it up to a big wire antenna. Though I'm not sure what ones have the external antenna hookup.

How do I find out if I can hear the BBC from where I am?

Anonymous 11/20/14 (Thu) 17:49:29 No.118

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I'm pretty sure all radios would have someway you can connect an external antenna to it

Even if they have one of those short shitty telescopic ones you could just clip a wire onto it

For an antenna, kinda need more info. Do you have your own house? how big is your garden? do you live high up?

For the BBC, all it took was to google "bbc world service shortwave" the first result was-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/schedules/frequencies/

looks like they don't broadcast in america anymore..

Anonymous 11/21/14 (Fri) 05:35:37 No.125

>>114
Read the reviews before you buy a receiver. Grundigs are OK. Just take a really long piece of wire and run it to a tree. You can get rolls of wire from the hardware store. See if the radio has an option for an external antenna or the front end may get over loaded.
Disconnect the antenna if there is lightening around.

Anonymous 11/30/14 (Sun) 04:30:29 No.136

If you just want to listen then try here http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/
otherwise I would suggest buying an sdr dongle for your computer. It's much cheaper than buying traditional radios.

Anonymous 12/01/14 (Mon) 06:44:17 No.137

Don't know about BBC but a cheap r820 from dx.c0m and an up-converter worked for me. $13 for the usb dongle, around $45 for the up-converter and a long copper wire.
I discovered a lot of things, like Codar (look at wikipedia), aircrafts SSB, weatherfax…

Anonymous 12/08/14 (Mon) 04:39:23 No.138

fgg

Anonymous 12/22/14 (Mon) 05:24:41 No.153

>>138
ghg

Anonymous 02/01/15 (Sun) 17:49:13 No.165

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Kaito KA228 is $10 amazon prime now. Very basic shortwave radio.

SDR's are fun for playing with but firing up a PC and dicking with dongles and upconverters just to listen to random SW?

OP just get a cheap SWR and hook a random wire antenna up to it. As long and as high as possible. Insulate it form metal things and stay away from powerlines.

Is your interested in listening to comm's from ham's, military, and aircraft then you will need a radio that does SSB (USB/LSB).

Maine has 100,000 watt WBCQ. http://www.wbcq.com/

You should be able to hear them with a coat hanger. They have programs on pirate radio and other interesting stuff sometimes.

Anonymous 02/15/15 (Sun) 18:16:33 No.170

>>165
I had no idea this was in my state! Thank you so much!

Anonymous 04/29/15 (Wed) 04:08:17 No.283

>>136

Cheap SDR dongles blow fucking chunks. They're great for messing about with local stuff, but you're going to want something with a proper reciever for faint signals like shortwave.

Anonymous 05/02/15 (Sat) 15:09:26 No.291

>>165

It's basic, but is it good? Will it fall apart over time or have shitty sound no matter how good of a signal I have? I'm totally willing to lay town 10 BUX for it if it's not like that.

Anonymous 05/12/15 (Tue) 16:35:31 No.296

>>291

the 10usd SDR stick is more fun than the kaito in my opinion. But the kaito is also fun. And unlike the SDR, you can easily take it out in to the fild for some relaxed listening. The batteries also last longer than some tablet+sdr donle or laptop+sdr dongle combo.

But the sdr stick does do 24-1700MHz without any gaps and in all modes.

Anonymous 05/13/15 (Wed) 04:00:01 No.297

>>296

24 MHz is far above most shortwave activity.

Cheap SDR-in-a-USB-stick units are fine if you want to fuck around with exploring RF sources close to you. They're not going to be a substitute for a proper receiver, even a $10 one.

Anonymous 05/15/15 (Fri) 05:34:21 No.303

>>297

Very true. When modded for direct sampling they will do LF-14.4MHz or woth the new modified drivers they do 13-1700MHz without hardware mods.

With both of them it does outperform my 10eur MW+Shortwave+FM radio. But the radio sure is crap.

Anonymous 05/23/15 (Sat) 19:27:28 No.324

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OP HERE. I GOT THE KAITO 228! From my room I can hear a bunch of stations in spanish talking about god. And one in English where some guy was ranting about a gay conspiracy.

I took it to the highest point in my town and I could hear a station that was in English, but from China. They were talking about some ancient noble women 'who dared to challenge the authorities' and were playing a song by her or about her or something. It was so cool!

>>165

About that wire, I can build this thing no problem. But how do I go about hooking it up to the radio? The Kaito has no input ports other than one for external power.

Anonymous 05/24/15 (Sun) 12:37:04 No.325

>>324

If you are just using a long whip you can clip it directly to the original whip antenna.

If you absolutely want to use coax to the antenna and don't feel like modifying the radio for coax input you could clip the coax center conductor to the whip antenna and the coax shield to the negative battery terminal, or the "shield" of the headphone connector.

Anonymous 06/03/15 (Wed) 21:48:25 No.346

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