Posted: 11/23/2009 1:28:39 PM EDT
| I am currently studying to take my tech test in December. Might go ahead and take the general also. My question is this. I am interested in listening to short wave radio broadcasts from around the world. I was thinking about getting a short wave radio to do this. Should I get a separate radio or will a ham radio also pick up short wave stations? Any radio recommendations? Thanks. |
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I am currently studying to take my tech test in December. Might go ahead and take the general also. My question is this. I am interested in listening to short wave radio broadcasts from around the world. I was thinking about getting a short wave radio to do this. Should I get a separate radio or will a ham radio also pick up short wave stations? Any radio recommendations? Thanks. Most ham transceivers will also pick up SW broadcasts as well as the AM broadcast band (530 - 1700 khz), aka "MW". The Yaesu FT-897 will even pick up the FM broadcast band (88-108 mhz), though in mono only, of course. I no longer have the Yaesu, but now have a couple of Icom IC-718's. They only receive up to 30 mhz, no VHF or UHF, but still cover the SW bands, both ham and broadcast. If you are studying for, and serious about a ham license, I see no reason to not buy a ham rig and just put the microphone away. I was a Short Wave Listener ("SWL'er") for a few years before getting a ham license, and was very happy with the Icom R75 receiver. I was stupid enough to sell it when I bought my first ham transceiver, thinking I wouldn't need it anymore, but in fact, it is a better receiver than the receive sections of many ham transceivers. |
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Any current or close to current amateur radio HF transceiver will have a "general coverage" receiver, so will receive all the international broadcasts.
Some dedicated HF (shortwave) high grade receivers have some special features like synchronous detection for AM, but you'll pay nearly as much if not more for a high grade receiver as for an amateur transceiver, especially if you're shopping used transceivers. |
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You may probably want a separate antenna for listening to shortwave, though. most any multi-band HF antenna works well for shortwave. below, i'm listening to BBC World Radio via a YoYoTenna thrown up in some trees and one end clipped to a bird feeder. you can do the same using a piece of random wire through a small UNUN. rig is Icom 703+. ar-jedi 
ps: what a YoYoTenna looks like: 
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Any radio recommendations? practically every modern HF radio has a "general coverage receiver", which in short means it will also receive shortwave broadcasts. in long, it means there is continuous tuning from ~100KHz to 30MHz, sometimes up to 50MHz. now then, some radios are better at AM than others. to discern this you will need to read the reviews and such. in general, the issue with most radios is that the IF filtering is too wide for good AM reception (e.g. link). that said, a lot of current HF radios employ DSP-based IF filters which allow "dial-a-filter-width", on the fly. this is truly useful and in most but not all cases completely mitigates the need for playing with variations of mechanical filters as described in the link above. note that DSP-based AF filters (Icom 703, Icom 706, Yaesu FT857, Yaesu FT897, etc) are not as powerful and not as useful as the DSP-based IF filters equipped on more expensive radios (Icom 7000, Icom 7200, Yaesu FT450, Yaesu FT950, etc). AF filter = audio frequency filter (done after all the high frequency processing) IF filter = intermediate frequency filter (done in the middle of all the high frequency processing) ar-jedi |
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Antennas! I forgot to mention, when I was licensed, I just unplugged the antenna from my R75 receiver and plugged into the transceiver. Took very little trimming to get it tuned.
At first I had just connected the end of a 50' roll of insulated hookup wire to the red terminal and tossed it out the window. That worked, but not well. Later I ran LMR-200 coax (size of RG-58, but low loss and higher power rating, better insulation) to a dipole cut for the 80 meter band. That worked really well. And I also added a choke balun (17 turns of coax around 4" pvc). This worked well even down in the AM broadcast band (aka "MW") and below, at least for receive. Next step was to add additional sets of legs for 40 meters and 20 meters, making it a multiband dipole. This really made it come alive on all of the bands for receive, even though it was only resonant, for transmit, on 80, 40, 20. When I began using this as a transmit/receive antenna, for ham use, using a tuner easily tuned it for the 17, 15, 12, and 10 meter bands. Unfortunately, it will not tune for the 160 meter band, the tuner just can't do it, but it will still receive for those frequencies. SWR is meaningless for a receiving antenna, so ignore all of that. Get some wire up. A good ground will help, but is not necessary if using a dipole or loop. If using just a "long wire" then a ground or "counterpoise" is more important. |
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DSP's... the audio DSP in my Icom 718 transceiver, or R75 receiver, and Yaesu FT-897, were not much more than tone controls, cutting the treble noise. Well, they do a little more, but not much more.
What I have found really effective in noisy conditions, particularly 80 meters in the evenings, is what I suspect is based on the same chip, the DSP's by BHI, GAP (made by BHI), and West Mountain Radio. I installed a BHI module, a little circuit board, in a Yaesu FT-897. It was wired into the audio chain and still used the 897's speaker. This made it into an entirely new radio! I would not recommend this modification to anyone that is not experienced under the hood of electronics. BHI uses the same ship in an external module that would then have to have an external speaker plugged into it. They also use the same chip in a small powered speaker under the GAP label, the GAP Hear It! speaker. I have a West Mountain Radio (makers of Rigrunner and Rigblaster) DSP speaker called the CLR-SPKR. Really excellent! It has exactly the same effect on Noise Reduction, and the same 4 levels of DSP, as the BHI unit. I suspect it is based on the same chip. Anyone that would like some of MY recordings of a local net, with the BHI module, switching the DSP in and out at each level, IM your email address. These are four short MP3's. The effect is amazing. Though around $200, the West Mountain Radio DSP speaker is worth every cent. |
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I was a Short Wave Listener ("SWL'er") for a few years before getting a ham license, and was very happy with the Icom R75 receiver. I was stupid enough to sell it when I bought my first ham transceiver, thinking I wouldn't need it anymore, but in fact, it is a better receiver than the receive sections of many ham transceivers. The new ones don't have a synchronous detector in them anymore, which sucks. I'd like to get an old one someday if I could get a good deal. |
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Go for your extra class, too. With all the test pool questions available for study via the ARRL's site, and practice tests available, too, there is no reason at all that you can't make extra when you test. It's very nice to be able to not worry about which part of the bands you don't have legal operating priveleges on. There are so many good radios available on the used market. You might want to start by saying how much you'll budget for your radio. (Antennas are a separate issue, and can run anywhere from a couple of dollars for a homebrew dipole or inverted V to quite a lot.) CJ AJ4TK |
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I can build the HF antenna I have now for about $130, including the mast, coax, connectors, insulators, etc. All the hardware. And while I haven't "worked the world", I've been doing well so far. I've done all over the US, from Maine to Washington (the state, not the insane asylum), Florida to California, Texas to Minnesota. Just about the whole country but for Alaska and Hawaii. Canada, various points.
All over the Carribean, Central and South America, down to the tip end of Argentina. Also the Azores, Canary Islands, Spain (3 times in the last few months), Italy (both PSK31 and phone SSB), Ireland and Scotland (100 w SSB). So far, nothing in Africa or Australia. I've seen Russians via PSK31, but have not made any contacts with them yet. But I've heard others with no more powerful gear than what I have working them. It was just a matter of slipping in there at the right time. Cuba... I have 7 or 8 QSL cards from Cuba! A real trick... you have to go through their QSL manager in Spain usually. Getting cards in and out of Cuba is difficult. Cubans are very friendly, love to talk. All that on a "cheap home made wire antenna". You don't have to spend a fortune, just a little "sweat equity", and this was all easy. |
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I hit Hawaii a few days ago in the phone sweepstakes contest. From Florida with a homebrew 40 meter inverted V that didn't cost five bucks to make. What I'd really like to see is an organized contest aimed specifically at working all states, with specific frequencies assigned to specific states so that a person seeking out a Hawaii contact knows exactly where to go. Hawaii operators who are calling CQ would be operating on that frequency. People who are seeking a Hawaii contact would go to it and listen for callers. It could make short work of completing your WAS award. CJ |
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And don't hesitate because you "can't get it up high enough" or some other reason for it not to be "perfect". It's like _____, if you wait for everything to be perfect, you ain't gettin' any. Get some wire up and start working. There's all kinds of antenna plans, photos, etc. on the web.
A 500' roll of wire from Home Depot for only $25 gives you enough to experiment, mess up, try something different. There's no excuse not to. |