Category Archives: Videos

Monitoring while recording on the Tecsun PL-660

London Shortwave has discovered an innovative way to monitor broadcasts while recording from his Tecsun PL-660. He writes:

“Tecsun PL-660 doesn’t have a line out, which means that when recording from it one has to use a pair of headphones to listen to it simultaneously.

Most portable speakers I’ve tried generate tremendous amounts of RFI when connected directly to the receiver. I solved this problem by using TaoTronics BA-01 Bluetooth audio transmitter and a Bluetooth enabled portable speaker, together with a cable that splits the audio output into two, so the transmitter and the audio recorder can both be connected to the radio.

The recording [in this YouTube video] is of Radio Australia and was made in London, UK on 09/04/2014 at 1543 BST.”

Another solution for whole-house shortwave

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London Shortwave posts the following on Twitter:

Inspired by @SWLingDotCom‘s RaspberryPi post I put this together to listen to the radio in my shack around the house http://youtu.be/vOX41wIS1Qk

On YouTube, London Shortwave explains that much of his modern system was inspired by a drawing from a 1930s shortwave listening magazine.

Below is a scan of the original illustration that inspired him:

Video: Build a radio in less than one minute

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(Source: Southgate ARC)

“Due to the numerous requests from his Build-a-radio-in-5-minutes, radio amateur Tommy Helgevold OZ4KID decided to make a better video with explanations on how to make a radio like this

He also decided to beat his old challenge as well…

…so without further ado, I present to you – How to build a radio in less than 1 minute, can you build it?

There’s even a schematic in the end of the video + an animated version of the entire breadboard setup.

Thanks for watching, & enjoy.

Watch Build a radio in less than 1 minute”

Click here to view on YouTube.

While less detailed, you can also view OZ4KID’s DIY Radio in less than 5 minutes by clicking here or viewing via the embedded video below:

Video: Build your own SDR

Shortwave noise reduction via GarageBand plugin

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Many thanks to @LondonShortwave, on Twitter, who made a video showing how to use a GarageBand plugin to filter noise out of shortwave audio in real time. He describes this on his YouTube channel:

“I recently discovered a Mac AudioUnit plugin called Soniqware SG-1 that allows real-time noise filtering based on a brief noise sample (sometimes referred to as the “noise profile” or the “noise fingerprint”). This video shows it being applied to shortwave radio signals, which I believe is a first, as I have been unable to find anyone else who has already done it. In a number of cases, it turns laborious DXing into armchair listening.

The antenna used in these experiments is a Wellbrook ALA1530SP-1 and is positioned indoors. More information is contained in the first few seconds of the video.”

Click here to watch the video on YouTube.

Note that GarageBand is an application only available on the Mac OS X platform. Fortunately, it comes free with every new Apple computer purchase. You can find the Soniqware SG-1 spectral noise gate plugin by clicking here.

Be sure to follow @LondonShortwave on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LondonShortwave

Video: Ken operates his Hallicrafter S-120 for the first time

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In response to our last post regarding Hallicrafters’ promotional 45 RPM record, Ken Carr comments:

“I got the entire promotional kit for the [Hallicrafters] S120 when I was a kid. My parents even bought the radio for me. I still have everything, including the record. How could you not want to get into SWL after listening to it?

My dad took an 8mm film of me using the new radio. I have since digitized it.”

Ken then kindly shared his video (which can also be viewed on YouTube):

Thanks for sharing, Ken! This stuff is priceless.

The Amazing World of Short Wave Listening: Hallicrafters 45 RPM

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(Source: WW2E on QRZ.com)

SWLing Post reader, Michael Black, remembers the Hallicrafters 45 RPM promotional record in a comment:

“All this talk of early listening, especially when it’s about the same period I joined in, reminds me of the Hallicrafter’s 45RPM record that was used as a promotional tool. Send 25cents, get the record back, and hear what you could hear with a shortwave receiver.

I don’t think I ever had a copy. But I did some searching, and it’s apparently available in multiple places on the internet. I won’t add a link because I’m not sure which one would be most reliable. But a search on “hallicrafter 45rpm” gave results.

One site pointed out that the average listener would not have been able to hear much of what was on the record. But that too represents the image of the time. My Hallicrafters S-120A had a horrible sliderule dial, but endless space to mark exotic places like “Antarctica” and things like “aeronautical mobile”. The receiver was awful, you’d have a hard time hearing much other than the strongest of sw broadcast signals, but going into the hobby, some of that marketing was what made it exotic. For those of us who were young at the time, it wasn’t just about this new world of shortwave, in some ways it was about “this new world” that was beyond our world that wasn’t much bigger than school. Antarctica wasn’t just exotic because you might be able to hear it on shortwave, it was an exotic place to begin with.”

I took Michael’s advice and searched the term, “Hallicrafter 45RPM” and found this YouTube video. Enjoy: