Shortwave Radio
 

Ok, show me how much of a nerd you are...

Anyone else listen to shortwave radio?

Totally awesome, crazy, bizarre, weird, fucked up shit is heard on the shortwaves.

Shortwave Radio.

There certainly is. You're in America, I see, you might hear totlally different stuff to me.

I like all the state-funded foreign stations, coming on for an hour at a time to give out the party line. Radio Tirana (Albania) and Radio Vilnius (lituania) used to be very good at that, but I haven't found them for a while.

The Czech Republic and Turkey seem to take it most seriously, and that Beijing one (Radio China International?) too.

The Romanian one is quite good. I also occaisionally get a combined Asia station, BBC WOrld Service of course, Israel, Bulgaria, Voice of America, Spain, and others too. Years ago there was the American Armed Forces Network, which had live NFL commentary, but not for a long time.

I often come across Brother Stair, from the Overcomer Ministry in South Carolina. Absolute Christian fundamentalism, quite an honest i reading of the Bible, but some of the opinions stated (like on homosexuality) are not tolerant in the least. That's fundamentalisn for you. An interesting listen, though, even if (like me) you're not Christian.

There is a very strange, possibly German station that broadcasts on about 5.98 on the49 meter band. It's either a very unusual experimental avant garde arts station, or it's sinister. Which leads me onto...

NUMBER STATIONS! Great stuff, espionage broadcasts from across the world. There's still a few to be heard, and it's alway a slightly spooky feeling when you do.

How about you?

used to do music - drone - based on sw radio; also listening to sw hiss that stuff morphs. For some reason it becomes better at night - i *think* it has something to do with nocturnal changes in the upper atmospheric layers.
also some german station do better my german lang. understanding

*edit* first post here!

I forgot to mention - for a long time, until recently, there has been a noise at 4.60 on the 50m band. Just a regular noise, I assumed it to be interference from a stellar object.

Any ideas what it was? Or what's happened? It could be that I'm just not recieving the signal for some reason, of course.

At my old house my amp would pick up some frequencies and play spanish radio stations. It got pretty annoying after a while.

I'm positive you pick up more stations than I do, considering your location. I'm in the mid-west United States, the worst place for reception in North America. But I do pick up a few gems that have strong signals to North America, and a few that I probably shouldn't be able to hear, but the scrambling of the waves result in many a strange listen.

Overcomer Ministry is VERY VERY strange. In fact , its quite embarassing that so many evangelical's broacast from my country. Nontheless its interesting, and makes for a lot of thinking.

China Radio International is a favorite, along with Radio Tashkent International (the Uzbek music program is outstanding!) There is one from the Netherlands that I pick up regularly. Not sure if you pick up Radio Habana Cuba, but the US and the UK are always referred to as 'the imperialists'. I get dozens of Central and South American stations as well. Somtimes I get lucky and pick up Voice of Korea (North Korea) on abouts 9335, its in Korean (I can only imagine the propaganda that is spun) but they have odd music segments of drone and throat music, shit is awesome.

Not sure what the noise you're picking up is. Sometimes stations that broadcast world time will make a steady sounding noise. Could be that.

What kind of radio do you have?

Totally. You'll never need to buy another noise album again once you've got your self a shortwave radio. Often times I want to record the crazy noise I hear. But alas...my radio has no output to record.

I pick a boat-load of Russian stations, really helps to understand a langauge when you can hear it on a regular.

I think I get so many because the countries in Europe are either a. welthy enough that they can afford the broadcasts, or b. former communist regimes, which explains the 'party line' nature of the broadcasts.


I don't get many, although there's a station called World Harvest which seems a bit dodgy. Ovecomer/Brother Stair is someone who I find fascinating - I think he's being honest about his beliefs, rather than fraudulent.


I forgot to say Netherlands! Cuba, Tashkent and Korea I've never found - I'd like to hear Korea. Voice of Korea? They might broadcast online, you never know.


It's just an interference noise, repeating evry second or do for about a second each time. I assume an astronomical phenomenon, I have tried to look online. A little deeper, I think!


A Roberts R862. It's a small hand-held one, about 13cm x 8cm x 2.5cm in size. But I have a long length of telephone wire which I turned one end of into a wraparound piece for the aerial. The other end is stripped and the wires wrapped round a screw on our electricity meter! What do you have? I'm planning on getting something powerful if I can.

Did you see my Number Stations thread? There's some good links.

I have a Eton E10 just got it a few months back, I was using my dads old Sony, this one is much better. Blocks out a lot of interference, the downside is that it doesn't pick up ANY really weak signals. So African and Mid-East stations are pretty much a mystery to me.

You're right on about how sincere the Christain radio folk are about what they say. Just as you and I have no doubt that they are wrong, they feel the same way about us. Only they're crazy enough to do something about it.

I need to check out the Numbers Stations thread. Cladendstine....er orwhatever? I know there is a human rights leader from Myanmar that broadcasts often which is a long the same line.

WORLD RADIO NETWORK 1.

I've just been listening to Radio Bulgaria and they mentioned this, World Radio Network 1. It's a place where many shortwave stations (quite a few European ones) can be heard online. It's worth checking out.

Shortwave fact of the day: In a program about Bulgarian honey and it's possible expansion into the European market, they said that acacia honey is very good for people with conjunctivitis!

I've got you all beat. I have a ham radio operators license. I have like 5 shortwave radios.

One of the first things I ever heard was a numbers station. Anyone listen around 6955KHz for pirates?

I'm thousands of miles from you, but I'll try that frequency anyway!

Romanian Radio once said that there are one million stray dogs in Budapest alone. Imagine that.

Hip Priest, Bulgarian shortwave stations are one of my fave tools to create noise these days. fucked up reciever through pedals and an amp makes my bandmates want to jump off some skyscraper. accacia honey is quite good. i like getting it from old men in little villages. also they have quite good homebrew rakia (local alcohol beverage). totally funny!

Are you going to post some music with some of those samples? The honey program was good. They followed it up with a program about the 130th anniversary of some uprising, but the reception screwed up and I ddin't hear it.

What was the uprising???

i don't know what was the exact historical situation but i guess i could check out and tell you. when was the program? like, how many days ago?

It was on last night (23/03/06), at about 10:30pm (is that 00:30am on the 24/03/06 for you?).





(cc)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_uprising

Thanks mate. Even by the standards of autocratic rulers, that empire seems to have had plenty wrong with it, although I'm no expert. I could be very wrong.

According to Radio Budapest of Hungary, some Polish cities have seen a 15% rise in suicide rates. This is in stark contrast to the happy land of Hungary, which has seen a decline in suicide rates.

Is this the one that operates out of Northern Ireland??

Could be. That's a popular frequency for pirates, as is 6925KHz. They could be domestic or foreign, most likely domestic since a lot of them run low power.

CRI have just informed me that today in Thailand is election day. Happy voting, Thai boardies!

I don't get it.. how do I pick up this stuff?

With a short wave radio.

Or you can stream some of them at World Radio Network.

Where do I get a short wave radio? Or do I have to make one?

You can buy them. They used to be quite common, but not anymore. Any radio shop should have a few though.

I'll keep an eye out for them.
I remember this thread from the old board and I think this stuff is really interesting.

I want this.

Well what are you all using?

My two main RX's are:
http://www.rigpix.com/icom/ic746.htm
http://www.rigpix.com/rs-realistic/realistic_dx394.htm

I have thiss:


I want the Satellit 800 Millenium (as pictured before).

And I used to have an older version of the Sony ICW (not pictured).

Flanger, how much did you pay for those?

I want something along the lines of that, but I can't afford the top performing ones at all. It gets mighty expensive!

I got the RS one on closeout for about 200 bucks, I think. They're super-modifiable and available on the used market for a little bit of money.

The Icom was $1k. It transmits too, all over the place.

Wow, 1K? Well worth it?

How difficult are they to operate?

Well, it's not worth it unless you're going to use it as a transceiver, if you want my opinion on it, and you need a license to do that. Some HF transceivers have really really really good receivers in them but that's still half a radio you don't need (transmitter).

It's not difficult to operate for normal tuning and stuff, there are filters for the receiver which I know I've never even skimmed the manual on how to use because I don't need to, really.

I bought it because I'm licensed to use some of the frequencies it covers in transmit and it was a lot nicer having a shortwave radio that also doubled as a HF/VHF transmitter than separate equipment.

The RS one is basically what most people would need for decent shortwave listening, minus a few outboard accessories maybe. There are other/better desktop-style receivers out there, but unless you're chasing really really rare and low signal stuff out there, you don't need something fancy.

Do you broadcast something?

Nah. I mentioned a pirate frequency a few posts back and if I clip a diode in the Icom, it'll transmit on that frequency...which is illegal to do but I've thought about doing it just to have my own radio station.

I used to have a lot of other dorky radio friends that were local to me and we'd got on the radio and chat for hours on end. Basically like this board.

Sonics on the shortwave!!! (maybe)

So this is Sonic-related, but it really belongs in this thread.

This from the front page:
SY LIVE ON RADIO FRANCE APRIL 19 AND LIVE IN PARIS APRIL 20
Sonic Youth will perform live on 'Le Mouv' on Radio France to debut songs from their new album 'Rather Ripped' April 19. The performance is at 9pm Paris time. For more information and a chance for tickets, visit the Radio France site. SY will also be playing one show in Paris April 20 . The show is at the Nouveau Casino and tickets are on sale now at FNAC and through ticketnet.fr.


Though I don't know if Radio France is the same as Radio France International. I would assume so? Unfortunately its a rarity that I ever pick up Radio France. I have heard it before though. Not sure where or when. Perhaps it will be streamed?

According to Radio Sweden, the Swedish government's computer system has been affected by hackers for the second time this week. The hackers are apparantly angry about the government trying to crack down on illegal downloading etc.

Today I recieved a QSL verification card from Radio Habana Cuba. Its not everyday you get mail from Cuba! They also inserted a nice little letter, and information on essay contests with the winner getting a free trip to Cuba. I'm going to enter just for kicks. But by far the best thing they sent me is a 2006 calender celebrating '80 anos Fidel'. I guess Fidel turns 80 this year? I would have guessed he was older. But its neat. Something you'd never see anywhere but Cuba, and now....Omaha, Nebraska too. Crazy.

This is really interesting stuff.

4.62, on the 60m band, I'm picking it up again. I'm guessing at somesort of cosmological/stellar body. Noise for a second, off for a second.

Quasars pulse, don't they? Do they ever cause interference? I have no idea about their pulse patterns.

Mybe I'm the only person in the world who ever hears it. It's probably my fridge.