This morning, I received a question from Andrew, an SWLing Post reader in the UK. Andrew writes:
May I ask a question please? I am very much a newbie to this. I am not really interested in FM, but I would like to listen to international stations on SW, utilities stations, amateur broadcasts and if possible, local airports, aircraft on air band.
I have just purchased a Tecsun PL-680 and have tried it inside my home with the telescopic and wire aerial that came with it, plugged into the antenna port and clipped to a point near the ceiling. All inside the house and the wire aerial did improve the reception, but I get hardly and channels either during the day or night.
Grateful for your detailed advice on what I need to do exactly to improve the number of stations I can receive.
Kind regards
Andrew
Thank you for your question, Andrew, and I hope you don’t mind that I share it here on the SWLing Post as I receive this question so frequently from new shortwave radio enthusiasts.
Of course, a number of things could be affecting your shortwave radio reception and there is, of course, the possibility the receiver is faulty–however, this is very unlikely. Let’s talk about what is most likely the culprit:
Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)
RFI is quite often the elephant in the listening room. It’s not always immediately obvious–especially if you’re new to shortwave listening.
RFI (also known as QRM) is radio noise that is created locally and often concentrated in our homes and neighborhoods. RFI deafens our shortwave radios by overwhelming the receiver with strong spurious signals. Even if you can’t hear the noise, it could still be overwhelming your receiver from a different portion of the band.
RFI can emanate from most any modern electronic or digital device in your home: televisions, power supplies, dimmer switches, smart appliances, and even computer hard drives. Honestly, most any device could be the culprit.
These “Wall Wart” type adapters can create a lot of RFI
RFI can also be caused by power line noises outdoors which have a much larger noise footprint and typically require intervention from your local utilities company/municipality.
In all likelihood, though, it’s a noise inside your home.
There’s a quick way to determine if RFI is the culprit:
Take your radio outdoors, away from the noise
Depending on where you live, this might only require walking with your radio to the far end of your garden/yard, or it might require hopping in your car and visiting a local park. The idea is to find a spot far removed from houses and buildings, outdoor lighting, and even power lines if possible.
Once you find a listening spot, turn on your portable and tune through some of the popular shortwave radio bands.
If in the late afternoon or evening, I like tuning through either the 31 meter band (9,400–9,900 kHz), 41 meter band (7,200–7,450 kHz) and, if late evening, the 49 meter band (5,900–6,200 kHz). Jot down the frequencies where you hear stations and perhaps even make notes about the signal strength. Then go back home and see if you can receive as many stations. Shortwave stations change frequencies often, but if you listen from home at the same time the following evening, the radio landscape should be similar.
My guess is that you’ll hear many more stations in the field than you can from within your home.
Living with RFI
Sadly, RFI is just a fact of life in this century. It’s very hard to escape, especially for those of us living in dense urban areas. This is one of the reasons I’m such a big fan of taking radios to the field.
There are things you can do to improve reception and I would encourage you to read through this post from our archives (the first two points in the article directly address RFI). Do your best to track down sources of noise and eliminate them.
If you find that, even in the field, your shortwave receiver can’t receive stations with the antenna fully extended, then it may indeed be an issue with the radio itself and you might need to send it back to the manufacturer or retailer if it’s within the return window.
Post readers: If you have other suggestions, feel free to comment!
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Very interesting reading these comments, particularly ones about the paucity of stations in the 3rd decade of the century. I still have QSL cards from the 70’s, when I was a teenager living on my parents farm in southwestern Victoria. FEBC, Voice of Vietnam, VOA ( Okinawa and Bethany, Ohio), ORTF, Radio Peking, etc.
My equipment was quite basic; 5 Valve Bakelite radio with one shortwave band, but I could have pretty extensive long wires. Later, I built a loop antenna, which enabled me to tune into KING Seattle, KNX Hollywood, etc.
One thing I have found with the antenna ports on the portable radios many you have to find the sweet spot I need that port on my Sony 7600 and my Tecsun PL660 if I push the jack fully in It deafens the radio reception I have to pull it out a little find a sweet spot, I find it better to use an alligator clip and clip a wire to the radios antenna
Good job Thomas. Extremely helpful collection of different clues and hints. In theory the reduced transmissions represent a challenge.
James and EJ part of the problem is that you are not listening to Digital Radio Mondiale
https://www.drm.org/what-can-i-hear/broadcast-schedule-2/ Some stations transmit in stereo and it is either there or crystal clear. James, Radio New Zealand Pacific has been broadcasting in DRM on high frequency since 2005, not in stereo however. This is how some Pacific Islands FM stations get some programming. You do need a DRM receiver or use one of those SDRKiwi receivers which is on line and can decode digital signals.
With all due respect Mangosman, listening to DRM is __WAY__ more complicated than listening to an analog shortwave radio station.
Although it seems you’re a big fan of DRM based on it being noted in all of your comments, I bet you’ve never actually used DRM yourself. You’ve never given examples of stations you’ve logged or included recordings. Please do so as I’m curious.
I used to be fascinated with the idea of DRM. It’s pretty amazing on paper! Stereo quality audio via shortwave? What’s not to love? But in reality there’s a reason why it never really caught on.
I bought a Gospell portable receiver to listen to DRM. I tried using it in my house and I tried using it outdoors. Nada. It’s an expensive radio. I followed those DRM schedules and tried to hear or decode something and I was patient. Finally, one night several weeks in I started to receive Radio Romania. I almost couldn’t believe it. But the excitement was short-lived because the signal strength wasn’t good enough to maintain a lock. It worked maybe 20% of the time. Frustrating. That was the only signal I could receive in a month of owning the radio. I’m not a hard core DXer or anything, but I’m an amateur radio operator and my main station is home-brewed, so I’m not exactly a newbie either. I
Receivers need a really strong DRM signal to maintain a lock.
Only a small fraction of HF stations broadcast in DRM. SO much more over analog. QRM still gets in the way. And the radios are pricey.
True you can’t hear the QRM in the decoded audio (if you can ever ever tune to a station strong enough to receive audio) but the receiver hears it and trust me, it’s a deal-killer.
And maybe it’s just me, but listening to DRM over a KiwiSDR makes no sense. Why would I go to my computer, connect to the internet, connect to a remote receiver, and tune to a DRM signal, change to DRM mode on the SDR and listen to audio that was originally digitized and sent to the transmitting station, encoded as DRM, then transmitted over the air? How many times does that audio have to be broken down into digital bits and reassembled on that path? Four times? Just stream the station directly! I do it all the time on my internet radio. Way more efficient!
DRM over HF is an amazing concept, but unfortunately, it just doesn’t work. Yes, it works on paper. But in reality? It’s a huge disappointment. I’m sure over AM and FM it’ll be more effective in India.
I don’t know where you live, but I’d love to see the list of HF DRM stations you’ve logged Mangosman. I’m being serious here. Tell us what makes your system a success. Please consider sharing and give us at least an idea of the country you’re in. And please share what you’re using to receive them. I’m guessing an SDR connected to a large outdoor antenna?
Thanks
Exactly my experience with and sentiments about DRM, so thanks for writing up that short rant for me too, Rick! 🙂
I think there are some misconceptions about DRM and the name Digital Radio Mondiale itself suggests that these misconceptions may have been existing already in the planning stage, at a time when the WWW was still in its infancy and years before streaming became a viable option for the masses. DRM requires a signal that hasn’t been mangled much by the ionosphere, so a lot of TX power and beam forming for the target area is a must, and there can’t be too many hops between the TX and the RX.
Once the lock is lost due to fading (in its general or selective form) it will be gone for quite a while, while your analog radio and ears would have made due with the reduced SNR during the fading without any loss of information. When I noticed this lack of robustness, I started listening to and looking at (waterfall display) the digital input signals from the receiver, and at no point would the visible selective fading or the very modest dips in the signal have interrupted an analog program for even a moment, because the stations were all the typical blow torches over here, RKI, AIR, RRI, stations with signals I can sometimes hear even when I don’t want to, or by sticking the antenna straight into my ear. 🙂
So if you take the properties of shortwave into account, DRM has a rather limited practical range, “Mondiale” my…arm. I can see how it can be advantageous for improved country-wide program distribution, for example in countries with difficult terrain, at a lower cost than a high-power medium wave station network and data services on top are sure nice if not only used to cram even more advertising into our lives. Also, it is designed to increase audio quality and not signal robustness and ***in times of the shortwave being pretty much drowned out by ever-increasing local QRM in many target areas***, increased robustness would perhaps be a way more important thing to use “digital” for. But for some reason it was touted as, or just misunderstood as (not sure) the digital revolution for international shortwave broadcasting and that’s just not what it is, ever was or ever could be because the shortwave is what it is – stability, predictability and availability decrease with distance.
I’ve got to admit: I, too, love the concept of Digital Radio Mondiale, but sadly it’s just not terribly effective over shortwave.
I’ve never bothered reviewing a DRM portable, even though I’ve been offered ones, because I know the incredible challenge of getting a portable to reliably decode DRM in eastern North America (save, perhaps Radio Marti).
I have a large skyloop antenna at home that is my primary antenna for SWLing. We have no discernible levels of RFI/QRM because we live pretty remotely.
I’ve had DRM-capable SDRs since 2012 or so and, at times, have aggressively chased DRM broadcasters on the air.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten stable reception with few drop-outs from broadcasters. When it works, it’s truly remarkable. Here’s an example: https://swling.com/blog/2014/06/shortwave-radio-recordings-radio-new-zealand-international-drm/
But if I’m being honest, reception like I got in the link above is truly an outlier. Most of the time, I can’t get the DRM signal to reach the threshold for decoding. It amazes me it’s not more efficient because I’ll often scan the 31MB for example and see on my SDR waterfall a booming DRM signal that has a strength over and above surrounding AM carriers. I tune to the strong DRM signal, switch on DRM mode, and sometimes all I can manage to get is the Newsline info. If I’m lucky. If audio comes through it’s “R2D2” with frequent drop outs–or perhaps it’s more accurate to say “drop ins” because 80-90% of the time there’s no audio. Truly an operation in frustration.
The very few times propagation was in my favor and I got relatively stable copy, I recorded it because I felt like it was such an accomplishment. It’s that rare. To get a portable radio to reliably decode DRM DX in North America? There’s just no possible way. You might get great copy once in a blue moon.
As Rick said, on paper DRM is amazing. In the real world, though, it just doesn’t work for most as advertised.
I’m sure DRM could be effective for local broadcast footprints (MW or FM). But for HF? Unfortunately, I need to see and hear some proof.
-Thomas
same with dab+ … it works good & clear until there is a minimum signal … dab+ transmission in large cities uses a lot of kw power just to get a decent signal inside a house, or or at most cases elsewhere else to cover long distances … it looks same same apply for DRM … how ever yes is better quality if get signal
Last decade I splurged to buy my current main receiver, an ICOM R-75. I have been using an Alpha Delta Sloper and a Barker & Williamson Longwire since 2007.
When I purchased the ICOM, traditional SW was still a “thing” with my favorite stations, Radio Australia, Voice of Vietnam, All India Radio, Radio Japan, BBC, and the Voice of Russia (formerly Radio Moscow) still coming in loud and strong. As we discussed, every one of these has either ceased or significantly limited SW broadcasting altogether.
Personally, the biggest blow was Radio Australia stopping SW transmission back in 2018 as listening on 9580 kHz was part of my morning routine going back to when I was a kid in school. I’m grateful that Radio New Zealand Int’l is still out there and that I can receive it fairly well in the morning and the evening.
I’ve looked into DRM. I bought a Tecsun S-8800 two years ago under the mistaken belief that it had DRM capability – that’s on me for lack of reading comprehension. As Rick stated, it’s not worth the expense particularly in light of my mistake.
For me, the joy was always in the challenge of receiving distant signals in the traditional sense. I studied propagation and learned how to build different antennae to optimize reception. The content was always a big part of it as I appreciated the different perspectives on current events that other national broadcasters provided.
Ultimately, I have resigned myself to the fact that times have changed and SW will soon be a thing of the past. I have great memories of the end of the Cold War, listening to Radio Berlin International’s last broadcast in English, the overthrow of Ceausescu by way of Radio Bucharest, the great music from Voice of Nigeria and All India Radio, and so on.
It’s a shame because, as someone who works in the IT-sphere, I understand the limitations of internet broadcasting and how easy it is for a country to implement geo-blocking to deny access to content. Plus, it’s just not the same listening to Radio Australia over the internet. That’s just me, though.
same here, from time to time i do listen abroad English services, now days some can be found at pc … however when i was younger i did had on the pc just to listen over the internet, now i am older, i do not switch on the pc just for that … is different case to have a small radio near by and listen (outdoors such work, park, swimming, even near bed etc) … there are some portable radios which have internet streaming, later i may go for one
It ain’t just Radio!?
As an add on item, a decent pair of headphones I think will help your fine tuning and make your listening adventures more enjoyable !
I have a Tecsun PL-880 that works well with an outside 58′ antenna here on the USA east coast, but not so well with the whip or even the 20′ wire that comes with the radio. RF noise is not a big problem where I live, as long as I’m using the outside antenna away from the house.
More often than not, though, I use it as a tool with my other hobby, restoring old tube shortwave radios. It’s a handy benchmark for knowing how active a particular band is when I’m having trouble with an old radio. It’s also very handy for determining the exact frequency a station is transmitting on.
I might add that FM reception in my area is poor, but if I clip my outside 2-meter antenna to the PL-880 whip it becomes an FM superstar.
Hello Marv,
I live in an apartment in Titusville, FL. The RFI is terrible here. I have had the best luck placing all my shortwave radios near my bedroom window. I also found, that for DXing, nothing beats a magnetic loop antenna. I’m using one I purchased on EBay. It runs on a 9v battery, and has exceptional ability to null out interference and noise while peaking the desired signal. Other than that, the best bet is to take a portable radio and antenna Outside. Somewhere like a park or waterfront beach location works best. The best advice I can give is to experiment with actual equipment location.
Tim, is that the MLA-30 loop antenna you purchased on eBay?
-Thomas
Hi Andrew.A most interesting question you have regarding no receiption on your new radio/receiver.Well I live way down under the rest of the world,below Australia in a country called NewZealand.Over the years Ive owned many different types of receivers,all of which have been SSB capable because I belive a true short wave radio must have all the bells and whistles etc.But with Sun spot damage to the atmosphere,and now we have the Covid19, my receiption to signals and frequencies that always came in very clear have almost finished.Infact Im lucky if I acturly hear anything at all.By this I mean Im a DX listener to Utility stations,eg Air Ways/Aircraft,Marine,Civil Defence and Search & rescue world wide all on Upper Side Band.Even the Hams are very hard to copy.With the Covid 19,most Airlines have closed down.So even with my 100 foot Diapole antenna,it makes no difference,Im not getting any receiption like I used to.You mentioned in your blog,you were not getting any “Channels”.Well we are not talking about TV or CB radio channels,we are talking about Radio stations and frequencies.Because this is what they are.I certainly dont expect radio receiption on any distant Utility SSB station to improve,or become active while most are shut down oweing to the covid 19.The whole world has changed because of the Chinese virus and it certainly has effected anything in a real bad way.The days of “Radio Waves” could be over.
Great comment, James. I’m in the U.S., north of Detroit to be more specific. I’ve been a DXer for a long-time and I can certainly say that shortwave listening now is not what it was in the 80s, 90s, and even the early part of the last decade.
Long gone are SW mainstays like HCJB, Radio Australia, Radio Moscow/Voice of Russia, Radio Canada International, and so on. Even the African and Latin American stations that used to populate the 60 Mb are gone. For economic reasons, most of the SW broadcasters have shut down, opting for the internet as the delivery system. Whether that’s a good thing is a separate discussion.
When I was a kid starting out in the DX world, I could easily receive on my Panasonic RF 2800 with a long-wire antenna the Voice of Nigeria, Radio Moscow, Radio Beijing, Korean Broadcasting Corporation (KBI), Radio Japan (NHK), Radio Mozambique, Voice of Vietnam, the Voice of Kampuchea, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, and the regional broadcasts from China, India, the former Soviet Union. (I have QSLs from many of them.) The BBC was ubiquitous.
Listening was fun and challenging. In the early 80s stations like the Voice of Nicaragua and Radio Venceremos provided context for the political situation in Central America and could be received regularly and audibly.
The landscape has changed radically and these stations are no longer there. The largest SW presence is China Radio International and a multitude of religious broadcasters based in the U.S. Couple this with historically poor propagation and the introduction of RFI and other forms of interference and the entire experience is highly frustrating.
That said, there are still a few things to listen to from the SW perspective. For me, it’s Radio New Zealand on 5945 kHz in the morning and 13840 kHz in the evening. Voice of Korea on 11710 kHz in the morning. I can still get the BBC on 12095 kHz in the afternoon. I’m hoping All India Radio returns to SW.
Yeah, its a shadow of what it used to be back in the 80’s and 90’s.. I decided to get back in SWL now that i’m retired and i am more than a little disappointed in whats out there. I was looking forward to buying a stand alone SDR, now i’m not so sure – why pay big bucks to pull in the same 30 or so stations over and over again. And many of those stations that are still broadcasting no longer air in English (RFI, etc). Finally, if i hear 1 more ranting sermonizer trying to save my (probably unsalvagable) soul i’m gonna pull the plug (literally and metaphorically) ?
I think pretty much every tip and trick has been covered, the only thing that I can add is persevere and experiment and you will find setups and locations that will help you get the most out of your radio.
Good DX to you.
Congatulations, the evenings and mornings are best for me depending on the shortwave bands. 9000’s, 11000’s and 13500’s + much of the time, below 7200 at night. I loop a 20 ft. wire around my portable antenna and string it out in the countryside to get away from rf, but check your radio antenna parameters online first-you dont want to overload the circuit. Don’t give up.
RFI is a serious problem and in my QTH it infiltrates the entire 29 – 10M bands and patches of the 80 – 40M bands making SW listening extremely tiresome. I have tried all the suggestions here over many months and I suspect the real noise culprit is either a leak in the power lines or interference from the VDSL FTTN implementation in the street which appears not to be filtered.
I am using a magnetic loop antenna and switch to a random wire at times depending on conditions. I use a mixture of portables (Sangean ATS-909/909X) as well as a few tabletops (Alinco DX-R8T, FRG-100). I also have a Yaesu FT-891 which has outstanding IF DSP noise mitigating capabilites and is the best performer in resolving signals to great clarity.
I suspect RFI problems on LF/HF are going to get worse as the proliferation of cheap noisy wall warts, switches, dimmers, TVs and other cheap unfiltered junk typically made in China have infiltrated homes and businesses to an alarming degree. The spectrum management agency here doesn’t care too much about interference on SW and the power company won’t investigate RFI issues unless they are widespread.
It’s almost like somebody wants to kill of SW monitoring.
first set the DX button to enable … for air band (VHF) it depence your location, your geographical environment & also how far from airport .. if you are in a block of flats or other higher buildings around you, you may have problem because with VHF is more critical the signal to be more eye of sight … try find out what is the freq of the nearest airport or an air port that have more clear optic view to you, and see if you can hear it … if not you may need to investigate at external vhf antenna if will help … same apply for SW if you are inside a big block of flats, may not get alot signals due to walls, noise from flat lightnings, elevator other electric sources from neighbors etc … so again an external antenna may helps …
If you are not in big block of flats & no other taller buildings around you, then try an other radio to see if it gets signals same or worst
Hello Andrew, I bought my Tecsun PL-660 in 2018 to expand my listening options (I previuosly owned a Grunding 5401 that opened me the shortwave range but without SSB, LW and airband).
I used both the stylus antenna and the wire, looking for the best signal in my house (now actually on the balcony) like a diviner…
My QTH is rather noisy, my first impression was rather similar to your, but I learned with time some lessons:
– using some reference sites like short-wave.info is very useful to understand what comes out from the receiver
– night is far more populated and rich than daytime
– outside is usually better than inside
– going out of town is rewarding in terms of lower noise
– Among the BCL powerhouses (CRI, Radio Romania, etc.) there are also rare station very fun to find,
Aside from SW BCL I currently enjoy the following:
– SSB ham transmissions (both in voice and CW with the help of an android translator)
– Time signals (e.g. the russian RWM)
– Utilities like naval beacons (e.g. Turkish TAH)
– Digital modes like RTTY for DWD utilities (using DroidRTTY)
– Air Band: at the beginning a delusion, the air band need patience and some knowledge of the aircraft routes and range. Even in the best conditions, aircraft communication are very short and sparse.
– LW and AM broadcasts (a different world from the SW transmission)
– special broadcasting (anniversary events, ecc.)
A useful tool is a websdr site, to get a comprehensive sight of the status of the spectrum and to check the signals received.
Even if I have litte time due to family duties and work, I find my receiver very rewarding and fun even not in optimal electromagnetic conditions.
Best regards and enjoy the hobby!
Ferruccio
Another suggestion I would make is to find an online radio near your location that can show you what is possible to receive. These set-ups typically have a great receiver and antenna. The waterfall can show you were the strongest signals are on the bands locally. Tune your radio to the frequency and then play/experiment with the location of the radio, the antenna, and other factors. This is the fun part, knowing the signal is there and trying to coax it out of the air with what you have available. Here is a site that lists (and also maps) available online receivers: http://kiwisdr.com/public/
It takes a bit of playing around to understand how it works, but it is worth it. HAVE FUN!
These are excellent suggestions and tips! Well done!
There are some great folks in the SWLing community, Andrew. Glad you can join.
-Thomas
Thomas, what about this antenna ?
https://swling.com/blog/2015/04/portable-antennas-par-electronics-ef-swl/
in his case, Andrew would also need a run of coax with connectors and an adapter for the PL-680 plug, but then the PAR EF-SWL should serve it better than the simple wire antenna which comes with the receiver, and it could be strung (or just left hanging) outside a window, and the antenna is quite cheap too; the alternative could be an active loop placed outside the building (he’ll still need coax and adapter, by the way)
Alternatively, a cheap yet effective antenna may be this one
http://www.kk5jy.net/rx-loop/
at that point, not willing to build the balun (which is the only really “complex” part), one may buy this one https://www.amazon.com/Balun-One-Nine-v2-Barebones/dp/B07XJRTF94 which will work just fine with the above loop and with other antennas too
P.S. I’m not the same Andrew who asked the question 😀
I’m not Thomas but I my experience (also common knowledge) end-fed (or any other asymmetrical design) antennas are just fine in areas with no local QRM (man-made noise) but also usually the least optimal option in the presence of local and not so local QRM.
Perhaps get in touch with a club?
British DX Club in the UK – I’m a member
http://www.bdxc.org.uk
As was said the SW bands are quite deplete of international broadcasters but there’s still a fair bit to listen to once you’ve sorted out your setup.
A couple of things here – the whips on the portables are generally fine for hearing stronger stations, but you would benefit from using an external antenna – preferably away from the house (or flat) as there are numerous RFI sources there.
Another thing – a lot of folks forget to tell newcomers about the very basics of propagation- more specifically listen above 10 Mhz during the day, below that at night.
Finally there’s an ANT GAIN switch on the side with DX/Normal/Local. I would guess it should be in the DX position, but only experimenting with it will yield the correct answer. Lots of new people with these portables miss this.
Congratulations on your new radio, Andrew. The Tecsuns are great radios and I think you will find they perform well.
Thomas has already given you some pointers – and the one about going outside to get away from the electrical noise that is inside is probably one of the first things you should do.
While I don’t have the PL-680, I do have the PL-880 and S-8800. And they operate similar to the 680.
One of the things I do every day (and sometimes several times) is to do a ATS (Auto Tuning Storage) for the shortwave band. This will scan the entire shortwave frequencies and then store any station received into memory. Just takes a few minutes to do. I then check to see how many memories were filled (high means more stations received). Then I check The highest frequency received. That is an indication of what the bands are doing.
Depending on time of day, using an indoor wire antenna, I may receive very few or a lot of signals.
For example:
This morning at 10 am, I received 22 stations. From 3.330 to 15.770
I just did another scan at noon: 18 stations. From 7.255 to 15.830
Doing a ATS scan is a quick and dirty way to getting a feel for how the shortwave bands are doing at that time.
73
Bill WD9EQD
Smithville, NJ
Just thought of one more item.
Make sure the Ant Gain Switch on the side of the radio is set to DX.
73
Bill WD9EQD
Smithville, NJ
I like to use a reference website to tell me who is broadcasting right now and the frequency is on. I use Short-Wave.info to help me so I am not just dialing thru noise for 45 mins before I hear anything.
Back in the 70’s and 80’s there were so many Stations you couldn’t miss. But today the websites help save time and effort.
I see these comments frequently on some of the Facebook sites — people complaining about not hearing anything on their new radios. Unfortunately, the answer frequently is that they assume the bands will be full of stations when the sad truth is that more stations are shutting down — the latest examples are/will be Iran and Vietnam. Usually it is not that the radio has a problem, though that is entirely possible.
Hello! it depends on which frequency you’re listening. You might want to go to this RSGB page: https://rsgb.org/main/technical/emc/experiencing-emc-interference/ . You’ll see that it puts VDSL high on the list of problems in the UK. You may want to read through this and see if it ‘fits the bill’. Also, remember we are still low down in the sunspot cycle, so SW will be a little hit and miss. Don’t let it put you off! Good luck and hope you can hear a little better soon.