Tag Archives: Shortwave Radio Listeners

Listener Post: Fabien’s love of radio which lead him to collecting

Fabien’s radio story below is the latest in our series called Listener Posts, where I place all of your personal radio histories.

If you would like to add your story to the mix, simply send your story by email!

In the meantime, many thanks to Fabien who writes:

I’ve been a radio listener since the age of 14. I was an SWL and a listener of local VHF free stations too.

In the beginning, my receiver was a poor radio-cassette, with a little segment of the shortwave bands. I used it for two years.

Then, for 16th birthday I received a Philips AL 990 shortwave receiver.

It was a great receiver because the sound was clear and it was easy to identify the stations when listening with my usual headphones–even those broadcasts with very weak signals and an unidentified language. The negative of this receiver was the frequency was not easy to see/read and I was at the same display for hours.

After my school period, I worked for two years and with my savings I was able to buy a JRC NRD 525 in Swizterland, where this receiver was less expensive and easier to find than in my country of France at the time.

The Japan Radio Company NRD 525 receiver. Photo: Universal Radio

The good with the NRD 525 is that it was easy to tune to a frequency, easy to read the display and easy to connect the receiver to another unit for decoding RTTY signals with an old computer monitor and a small EPSON dot printer.

I was in paradise!

But the NRD 525 has a problem with its sound. Even with my best headphones, I was not able to understand the station voices when the signal was poor and the language was not mine, so it was difficult to have sufficient details to make a good reception report for sending it proudly to the logged radio station.

My solution was strange but the only one possible : I searched for rare signals with the NRD 525 and after I found them, listened to those signals with the AL 990 and my headphones.
With this solution, I was able to send a lot a reception reports and receive some beautiful QSLs from official, pirate and clandestine stations (clandestines were my favorites).

This SWL period was until 1988. In 1988 I was obliged to move from my city to a new location where it was more difficult to be a SWL. The following years, I was more a BCL (Broadcast Listener) than an SWL.

I did BCL DX until 1999, and after 1999 most of my radio listening time was only BCL easy listening, without looking for weak signals.

Because of the Internet, online SDRs, and the closing down of a lot of broadcasters, I’m less interested in contact stations directly, save from time to time. For me, the chase of weak signals was the most important part; now we can listen to a station via the Internet (online on a website or with a SDR online)…even the pirates stations.

My actual interest today is to have all of the receivers I was dreamed about when I was a teenager. In 2020, at 53 years old, I am now more a collector of receivers than a real BCL. I like all electronics, including many hifi systems/components and radio items.

I also love black and white film photography/laboratory too and I collect stickers from French radio stations.

Here are two pictures of part of my actual listening post. On one, you could see a model boat of the famous offshore radio station ” Radio Caroline “.

My favorite shortwave receivers are the Drake R8-E (European version of the R8), the BEARCAT DX-1000 and the Yaesu FRG-7.

My favorite receiver for synchronous detection reception is the SONY ICF-2001D (the European version of the ICF 2010).

To receive mediumwave stations, I prefer my JRC NRD 515 connected with an Australian active loop antenna.

For travel, I use a small Lowe HF 150.

For VHF FM-commercial band, I use my Grundig Satellit 500 and a Sony ICF 6800W.

Some of my best souvenirs/memories of SW reception are Radio La Voz de Alpha 66 (USA), Radio Venceremos (El Salvador), Radio Botswana, Radio Bardaï (Tchad or Libia), Radio RFO Tahiti, and Radio Bandeirantes (Brasil).

My regrets from the years 1981-1988 are not being able to receive the signal of Radio BHUTAN and the signal from The Faklands Islands.

I don’t like to travel outside my beloved country, but for the pleasure of visiting some radio stations, I made an effort and I traveled to Phnom Penh (Cambodia), La Habana (Cuba), San Salvador (El Salvador) and Ciudad Guatemala (Guatemala).

Truly Yours,
Fabien SERVE, in France

Thank you, Fabien, for sharing your story! You’ve added some truly classic receivers to your collection over the years! I love the Radio Caroline model too!

I encourage other SWLing Post readers and contributors to submit their own listener post! Tell us how you became interested in radio!

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Useful Services for Shortwave DX’ers

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I’m always tinkering, experimenting…trying different antennas and set ups and what not. But, the downside is, I don’t have the patience or a lot of technical skills to hand build stuff, so I have to buy it pre-made.

Like most, I don’t like throwing my money at a crap product. I have found two different folks who make some quality stuff that I wanted to share with the rest of you. I make ABSOLUTELY ZERO $$ from referring anyone to these two folks, but since quality products, good customer service and sometimes, customization are hard to come by, I wanted to share these.

User “lowbander” on eBay makes longwires and dipoles. They come in stock 80 feet lengths with a 9:1 balun and a way to shunt common mode noise to ground. And unlike many longwires/dipoles, lowbanders products come with quality belden coax as well. So you order from him. you’re all set to plug and play

His dipoles and longwires range from $49 to $59, I do believe. Do you need a custom length? Want something shorter or longer then 80 feet? Send him an Ebay message and he’ll take care of you.

Do you need something other then the stock PL259 connector on your cable HE an likely help with that, let him know!

http://ebay.to/28KVp1g

My next find is Craig at K1CRA.COM. It’s mainly a store geared towards ham operators, but he also has a service useful to DX’ers.

He sells RG58 cable for 25 cents a foot, that’s right. 25 cents a foot. It’s the cheapest I’ve found anywhere. For those of us needing cable for our antennas going to our radios, this is a good option. For $8, he can put pl259 connectors on each end. Need something other then PL259’s? Put an order through and add comments on what connections you need and he can do that…I’ve had him do PL259s, 1/8th” (3.5mm) headphone jack types and BNC male connectors on cable for me

https://www.k1cra.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DAVISRG58C-U

Select how many feet you want by changing the quantity.. say you want 25 feet? Make the quantity 25. The option to add the connectors is a bit down the page, with a checkbox.

Both lowbander on eBay and Craig at K1CRA ship via USPS priority mail. I had lowbander send me a package from Kansas City on a Friday and I had it here in Alaska on a Tuesday!

I have probably close to $500 worth of Lowbanders antennas and Around $150 worth of product from K1CRA.com stuff

I live in an area far from most of anything now, so finding good quality products at an affordable price from people you can trust is hard, and I just wanted to share these two.

Paul Walker is located in Galena, Alaska and is a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Be sure to check out Paul’s YouTube channel and SoundCloud channel where everything he logs is recorded and posted. Click here to read his other contributions on the SWLing Post.

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BBC World Service: A Lifetime of Shortwave Radio

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(photo: BBC World Service)

An Antarctic glaciologist, Burmese monk, communications professor and a Somalian tell their shortwave radio stories in this article posted by the BBC World Service in honor of 80 years of shortwave radio broadcasts. In my opinion, these stories are very much representative of the power of shortwave radio and why, for many parts of the world, it is still vital. Though this article focuses on a look into the past, there are still many parts of the world that have no access to the internet, nor reliable electricity and/or their people live under repressive regimes. Shortwave radio offers a lifeline of information. Shortwave listening habits are not traceable or trackable (like they are over the internet) by those in power. The story below, by a Burmese monk, could stand as an example.

(Source: BBC World Service)

[…]The BBC has been an integral part of my life for over two decades now – I believe I haven’t missed a single transmission in all those years. I even kept a diary of all broadcasts from 1988 to 2003, recording all new staff who joined in those years and their first ever broadcast.

I started listening to the BBC Burmese Service in 1988 when the whole country rose up against one-party rule.

I was living in western Burma’s Rakhine State, teaching Buddhist scripture to the student monks. I was fascinated by the BBC’s coverage of the news and was much impressed that the news I heard on BBC turned out to be exactly what was happening in the country.

I was a well-informed and knowledgeable monk, partly because of the BBC. The BBC, because of its reporting on Burma, was much hated by the military authorities and people had to secretly listen to it within their own homes. But luckily for me, I had my own monastery then and could listen to the broadcasts relatively undisturbed.

Then I left for India for further studies but continued to listen. On my return to Burma, I moved to Rangoon, the then capital and stayed at a monastery on the suburbs of the city. Rangoon was a hotbed of activism against military rule and the military government openly practised a “divide and rule” policy. People were suspicious of each other and that distrust spread to the monasteries as well.

The other monks in the monastery disapproved of my listening to the BBC, because they feared government reprisals, and some even said I was an “informer” providing information to foreign broadcasters. They dubbed me a “reporter monk”.

I took more precautions but never stopped listening. I would take my transistor radio and go outside to the farthest corner of the monastery compound, away from other monks, at the times of the broadcasts.

Every day I learned something from the radio. My morning teaching lessons start only after the BBC morning programme and I do my nightly prayer after the evening programme.

My radio is set at the frequencies on which the BBC Burmese broadcasts and I usually tune in a few minutes before the programme starts. I don’t want to miss anything. When the weather is bad, it takes more dedicated effort to tune into the shortwave signal, but I don’t mind that.

Some people frown on monks listening to the BBC. But I believe my life is enriched by it. The BBC has become a very important part of my life and I will continue listening to it until the end of my life. As Buddha has taught, we living beings must face the truth and bring about the truth. I believe the BBC is earning this merit every day by sharing the truth with millions of listeners.[…]