Shortwave listening and everything radio including reviews, broadcasting, ham radio, field operation, DXing, maker kits, travel, emergency gear, events, and more
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Rob, who writes:
Thank you for your informative blog. As a longtime SWLer I enjoy reading up on your posts.
A few months ago I was considering the purchase of a magnetic loop antenna. Based on your “YouLoop is a freaking brilliant passive loop antenna” article, and the fact that I live in a fairly noisy RF environment, I made the purchase.
Since doing so I’ve been having plenty of fun with the YouLoop hanging in my loft. I have it connected to an Airspy HF+ Discovery.
I’ve made a couple of videos which I popped up on YouTube which show the YouLoop in action.
The first video shows a mix of utility and broadcast reception on HF.
Perhaps these would be of interest to readers, like me, who had seen your initial reviews and had been considering purchasing.
Thank you for turning me onto this little antenna, and keep up the great work in your blog!
Kind regards,
Rob (Frugal Radio)
Excellent videos, Rob, thank you for sharing! The YouLoop is an incredibly effective antenna when combined with a receiver that has a high dynamic range.
Readers, if you’d like to check out more of Rob’s videos and and subscribe to his YouTube channel, click here!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who writes:
Recently I’ve been watching some pandemic-themed movies and found “The Last Man on Earth”, a pretty good 1964 post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film (which was remade in 1971 and 2007 with different titles.) In this film, the main character (well played by Vincent
Price) uses an HF transceiver in a fruitless effort to find other survivors of a global plague. It was shot in Italy, and the transceiver doesn’t look like any American radio I’ve ever seen. Perhaps some of your SWLing Post readers can identify it?
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Hemphill (WD9EQD), who shares the following guest post:
Benefits to Social Distancing
I have discovered that there is a positive side effect of social distancing. With so many organizations using Zoom and other video methods for their meeting, the volume of great videos to watch has drastically increased, with most of it residing on YouTube. Also everyone is sharing video links that they have found with other.
For example, the New Jersey Antique Radio Club (NJARC) has, for some time, posted their monthly meetings on their YouTube channel. They have very enjoyable presentations. Last night was their virtual monthly meeting for June and they had a great talk by Prof. Joe Jesson on “What You Did Not Know About the RCA AR88.”
I am a fairly new member to NJARC and must recommend them to others. They are a very active group and are currently having Zoom conferences weekly between the members. They also host the RADIO TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM at the InfoAge Technology Center.
Last week, I received an email from Mark Erdle (AE2EA) referring to some videos by the Antique Wireless Museum which is hosted by the Antique Wireless Association (AWA). From his email:
The Radios (and Filming) of “Across the Pacific” presented by AWA member Brian Harrison. Brian served as the radio consultant for the 3-hour PBS documentary “Across the Pacific”, which tells the story of the early days of Pan American Airways and of Hugo C. Leuteritz, a RCA radio engineer who helped make Pan Am’s expansion across the oceans possible with radio communication and navigation systems. Brian explains how he worked to insure that this documentary portrayed the pioneering work of Hugo Leuteritz as accurately as possible. Much of the early radio equipment that Pan American used was custom made for Pan Am, and is quite rare today, but Brian hunted it down.
In addition to Brian’s video, you can also see Tom Perera’s updated presentation of “Phil Weingarten’s Fabulous Fakes” which was originally presented at the 2007 AWA conference:
Here are some other videos that people have passed along to me that I have found enjoyable. Most of these are radio-oriented and I have omitted the many cat videos:
Thank you for sharing these links and videos, Bill! I’ve been watching Phil Weingarten’s Fabulous Fakes this morning–what a fascinating bit of history!
Post readers: Have you discovered videos and sites while social distancing (a.k.a. Social DXing)? Please comment and share your links!
Earlier this week, I stumbled upon this Bell Telephone short film about the beginnings of the mobile phone network:
I don’t know about you, but I love the view inside the trunk of the car! I bet that tube receiver and transmitter both weighed over 100 pounds. Although the system wasn’t full duplex, it must have felt pretty amazing to place phone calls while mobile.
Thanks for sharing this, Dan. I must admit, it seems the BELKA-DSP has some excellent receiver characteristics. I like the backlit display and the rugged, simple form-factor. It doesn’t have an internal speaker, but based on Fenu’s video, the audio sounds superb (especially if you’re using a quality amplified speaker like Fenu).
I had planned to review the little BELKA-DSP last fall, but simply had too many in-bound review transceivers. As I knock out some of these reviews, I might have to reconsider!
Alex Buevsky kindly supplied the English language manual for the BELKA-DSP last year. If interested, click here to download the PDF.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Eric (WD8RIF), who notes that the 25th episode of TX Factor was recently released. Here’s the show summary:
A post-election special – well, not really! Just a look at some more new and innovative AR products from this year’s Hamfest, including a potted history of the ever-popular and much revered range of transceivers and kits from Electraft with co-founder Eric Swartz WA6HHQ. There’s our free-to-enter draw with some excellent prizes from ML&S and RSGB to be won.
In this modern era of connectivity, we take the ever-present Internet for granted; it’s always there and continues to deliver our data from A to B without issue. But what would happen if that vital link failed? We visit Southampton and Portsmouth on the UK’s south coast to see how two city councils, assisted by a group of dedicated amateurs, plan to maintain their communications infrastructure via radio links alone, should the Internet go down.
