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If you’ve registered for, and plan to attend, the PARI DXPedition, please make sure you’ve joined our Yahoo Group. This is where we’re finalizing details and communicating about the DXpedition, noting any changes, updates, etc.
If you’ve tried to contact me recently and haven’t gotten a response yet (sorry about that!) it’s because I’ve been unusually busy: writing a shortwave radio buyer’s guide for The Spectrum Monitor, several reviews for WRTH 2016, plotting another reader challenge, and last but not least, putting together the final details of the SWLing Post DXpedition at PARI this weekend.
Soon I’ll be another kind of busy, at the DXpedition: exploring the bands, gazing at the stars, and hanging out with some of the SWLing Post community. Needless to say, it’s going to be fun, and I’m looking forward to it.
If we have Internet access at PARI, we hope to post a few loggings and photos from our Twitter account.
We have about a dozen registrants this year, a good start. If you can’t make it there, no worries; if all goes well, we may have another next year.
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Alan, who writes:
I really appreciate your site. It has been my favorite since I got back into shortwave listening and DXing…great enough that I actually subscribe to posts via e-mail so I don’t miss anything.
In case you are interested, I did a post about what I was able to hear using my Kaito KA1103 and a Sangean antenna while camped in a tent in the back yard. Nothing amazing by many people’s standards…but I enjoyed it enough to stay up too late!
Alan, there are few pleasures in life better than SWLing while camping–even if it’s in your own back yard! Thanks for sharing your experience and thanks for the kind comments. This weekend I hope to log a few stations from my tent at the SWLing Post DXpedition.
Many thanks to SWLing Post and Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributor, Brian Smith, for the following guest post and vintage recording:
Shortwave Radio 1974: Canada, Argentina, Spain, West Germany, Albania, utility stations
-Brian Smith (W9IND)
Want to know what shortwave radio sounded like in 1974? This 55-minute recording, recovered from a cassette, was never intended to be anything but “audio notes”: I was an 18-year-old shortwave listener who collected QSL cards from international stations, and I was tired of using a pen and a notepad to copy down details of the broadcasts. I wanted an easier way to record what I heard, and my cassette tape recorder seemed like the perfect means to accomplish that goal.
But it wasn’t. I soon discovered that it was simpler to just edit my notes as I was jotting them down — not spend time on endless searches for specific information located all over on the tape. To make a long story shorter, I abandoned my “audio notes” plan after a single shortwave recording: This one.
Hallicrafters S-108 (Image source: DXing.com)
Still, for those who want to experience the feel of sitting at a shortwave radio in the mid-1970s and slowly spinning the dial, this tape delivers. Nothing great in terms of sound quality; I was using a Hallicrafters S-108 that was outdated even at the time. And my recording “technique” involved placing the cassette microphone next to the radio speaker.
Thus, what you’ll hear is a grab bag of randomness: Major shortwave broadcasting stations from Canada, Argentina, Spain, Germany and Albania; maritime CW and other utility stations; and even a one-sided conversation involving a mobile phone, apparently located at sea. There are lengthy (even boring) programs, theme songs and interval signals, and brief IDs, one in Morse code from an Italian Navy station and another from a Department of Energy station used to track shipments of nuclear materials. And I can’t even identify the station behind every recording, including several Spanish broadcasts (I don’t speak the language) and an interview in English with a UFO book author.
The following is a guide, with approximate Windows Media Player starting times, of the signals on this recording. (Incidentally, the CBC recording was from July 11, 1974 — a date I deduced by researching the Major League Baseball scores of the previous day.)
Guide To The Recording
00:00 — CBC (Radio Canada) Northern and Armed Forces Service: News and sports. 07:51 — RAE (Radio Argentina): Sign-off with closing theme 09:14 — Department of Energy station in Belton, Missouri: “This is KRF-265 clear.” 09:17 — Interval signal: Radio Spain. 09:40 — New York Radio, WSY-70 (aviation weather broadcast) 10:22 — Unidentified station (Spanish?): Music. 10:51— Unidentified station (English): Historic drama with mention of Vice President John Adams, plus bell-heavy closing theme. 14:12 — Unidentified station (Spanish?): Male announcer, poor signal strength. 14:20 — Unidentified station (Spanish): Theme music and apparent ID, good signal strength. 15:16 — Unidentified station (foreign-speaking, possibly Spanish): Song, “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.” 17:00 — Deutsche Welle (The Voice of West Germany): Announcement of frequencies, theme song. 17:39 — Unidentified station (English): Interview with the Rev. Barry Downing, author of “The Bible and Flying Saucers.” 24:36 — One side of mobile telephone conversation in SSB, possibly from maritime location. 30:37 — Radio Tirana (Albania): Lengthy economic and geopolitical talk (female announcer); bad audio. Theme and ID at 36:23, sign-off at 55:03. 55:11 — Italian Navy, Rome: “VVV IDR3 (and long tone)” in Morse code.
Brian, this is a brilliant recording–regardless of audio quality–and we’re very thankful you took the time to share it. Propagation has left something to be desired as of late, so time traveling back to 1974 has been incredibly fun.
Post Readers: If, like Brian, you have off-air recordings on tape that you’d like to share, please contact me! Even if you don’t have the means to transfer your tapes to a digital format, I’m a part of a small community of shortwave radio archivists who would be quite willing to help.
My Grandfather had the same exact radio. I used to play around with the radio as a child, (especially with the shortwave bands, looking for number stations…). When my Grandfather died, about 23 years ago, the radio disappeared.
I decided this is the radio I want for my birthday. I could not remember the maker of the radio, nor it’s model, but I remembered how it looked.
I spent many days looking for all variations like “portable transistor radio” and so on, until I found a photo on the Internet: I was looking for a Philips 90AL765 radio.
I found it on Ebay. A very kind seller from Australia had it.
I purchased and receive the radio on the 26th of June (my birthday was the 12th of July). As soon as I got the radio, I opened it up; it needed cleaning (the case itself and the contacts).
After cleaning the contacts and washing the case, the radio runs (and looks) like new. I thought I would have to recap the radio, but it sounded perfect and without even a hint of hum, so I left it as it is.
It has the volume and tone knobs missing, but it can be operated with no problem. Sound quality is amazing (I added a video of the radio playing All India Radio on 6155 kHz)–it works very well on all bands and is very sensitive. By ear, the bandwidth sounds like 8 kHz or more. Radio bands are: MW, SW (2 bands) And FM.
The shortwave band is divided in two: SW1: 2.3MHz- ~7.4MHz, SW2: ~9.4MHz- 22.5MHz. For fine tuning on shortwave, the radio has a “Fine Tuning” control, which is a potentiometer connected to a varicap.
If you place the control in the middle (It lacks a detent spot) and tune in a station, this control will put you spot-on (the receiver is very stable).
Some info about the radio: According to Radiomuseum.org, the radio is dated to 1977, and was made in Austria (mine and my Grandfather’s were made in Singapore).
It contains 13 transistors, 3 of them are can transistors (not plastic).
Tuning is slide ruler type, and the only connection is A DIN5 for recording (wired for mono).
The radio can be operated from 4 D cells, or directly from AC (in the picture you can see the transformer). It can be operated from 230V or 120V. Note that if you move the plastic pin cover from the left pin to the right one, the center pin remains visible at all times. Also you will have to move the plastic cover piece on the back to the left.
The Ferrite is 14cm long, the telescopic antenna is 79cm fully extended, and it has an elbow joint that allows you to place the radio in your lap and still the antenna will point up with no problem. Only thing is that if the antenna is extended, the handle cannot change position since the antenna is in the way.
Width of the radio itself is 29cm (31cm with the handle and the knobs).
Depth is 7cm.
Height is 16.5cm (21cm with the handle).
All in all, it is a very fine radio and I love it!
Moshe, thanks so much for sharing your story!
Perhaps, one of the true virtues of sites like eBay is that they allow us to search the world for somewhat obscure devices that have such a strong family and nostalgic connections. Congratulations on your find!
Many thanks, Neil. I have checked the Euro Radio Facebook page and it appears they will broadcast on 6205 kHz AM, starting August 1st, 2015. I haven’t seen a schedule at this point, nor noted their transmitter location.
UPDATE:SWLing Post reader, Jarno, writes:
Looks like Euro Radio 6205 is a pirate and not an official station
SWLing Post contributor, Fred Studenberg, recently contacted me about an ingenious car (mobile) shortwave radio he’s designed. Though originally designed for his own personal use, Fred’s now considering initiating a production run of the radio for the commercial market. To do so, however, he needs funding to help pay for parts, and this is where we can help: by voting for his shortwave car radio design in this contest–! Fred writes with details about his radio:
I wanted a high performance shortwave receiver in my car without the clutter of a separate unit under the dash. It had to be easy to tune stations and not require any modifications to my car’s built-in radio and audio system. I looked everywhere, and there was nothing that even came close to meeting my requirements.
Being a retired RF communications engineer, I set about designing a high performance digital radio. It installs remotely in the trunk or hatchback area and broadcasts tuned shortwave audio to your car FM radio. No modifications at all to the car radio or FM system are required. It is powered right off your car’s power plug.
Operation is simple: tune your car FM radio to 88.1 or 88.3 and use a small handheld wireless key fob controller to scan through the 100 preset channels. You have access to full shortwave band coverage in 5 KHz tuning steps with excellent sensitivity and selectivity. There is even a digital noise blanker to eliminate spark plug ignition interference. You can also manually scan to find new stations to add to preset memory, quick tune to WWV for time checks, and even switch the audio bandwidth for voice or music.
If your FM radio has RDS display you can see the tuned shortwave frequency as well as a digital “S” meter. If your car radio does not have RDS, it still works. Just press the scan button on the wireless controller until you hear something interesting or go into manual mode and scan the various shortwave bands listening for something of interest.
This started as a project just for my use, but after I showed it to a few people, I was encouraged to make it commercially available. I’ve entered it in a design contest that will provide $10,000 worth of parts to help launch a production run.
You can see full information on the radio at www.carshortwaveradio.com and there is a link right at the top to take one to the voting site, or go directly to the voting site at Your IoT and look for the car shortwave radio entry.
If readers are interested in seeing this in production, indicate your interest by voting. You have to vote by logging in with your Facebook account, which presumes you have a FB account–if not, they are easy to set up, and you can use a pseudonym and leave out all the personal info they ask [for] at signup.
I voted for Fred’s design earlier today. It does require using your Facebook login to vote, but the contest site can only read the public profile you choose to provide, and–if you allow it–your email address.
If you have a Facebook account, please consider helping Fred out by voting for his shortwave car radio design!
SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, has recently noticed exorbitant prices demanded by certain sellers on eBay. Dan writes:
As readers of SWLing Post know, Ebay prices–at least asking prices–can often go completely off the scale.
While it’s true that prices can be as high as the market will bear, some recent examples are cases in point. The RF-2200 by Panasonic was an amazing radio for its time, competing with the SONY 5900W and some other models back in the early days of sophisticated portables. The 2200 was known, and is still respected, for its directional AM loop antenna, and is a prized part of the stables of many SWL’s today.
But let’s face it…only a 2200 found new-in-the-box, or in [like]-new condition, should fetch anything over $250-300. Other examples recently include a DX-302 for which the owner was seeking something like $1200. Price inflation has also been seen with SONY ICF-6800Ws. The [difference] with these sets is that they truly are in new or 10.0 condition, worth several hundred dollars.
New SONY ICF-2010s–[and] there are still some circulating that are new-in-the-box or in [like]-new condition–can and do bring prices north of $400, sometimes more. So do new-in-box SONY ICF-SW100s if they are complete with all accessories, in the box–but beware, they should be the newer modified versions and not the old version (you can tell this by looking at the hinge on the SONY, which should have a notch to indicate the revised version of the radio).
Another classic portable that deserves somewhat higher pricing is the Panasonic RF-B65. In [new-in-the-box] condition, these can go for more than $300.
So, [unless] you’re seeing astronomically high prices for RF-2200s, stop and think about it. These are old portables, and you should not be paying exorbitant prices–UNLESS you [encounter] a time capsule with a radio in the box that was never used. Even so, buyers need to ask multiple questions of sellers to protect yourself.
I agree completely, Dan. If you want to purchase an item at a fair market price or even a bargain, you must do your research before simply using the “Buy It Now” option on eBay. There are plenty of sellers who charge fair prices still; leave the stratospheric-priced items on the eBay shelf.
A case in point (above): never mind the grammar error in the above listing, the $125 “Buy It Now” price for the Tecsun PL-365 is frankly excessive. The PL-365 is identical to the CountComm GP5/SSB–a radio I recently reviewed–and is available new from Universal Radio for $79.95 plus shipping. And since there are currently no other listings for the PL-365 on eBay (I’m not sure why) this price might appear reasonable to a new buyer.
This same seller initially offered the Tecsun PL-365 for a much higher price–in excess of $180, I believe. While this seller has excellent ratings, and no doubt would stand behind the product, the markup is simply too high for me to endorse (hence, no eBay link here).
In the past, I’ve also noted a semi-rare vintage radio–a “boat anchor” variety with a market price of perhaps $1,500–up for auction with a first bid amount in excess of $20,000 US! Yet I felt confident of the $1500 market price because I checked and cross-referenced it in Fred Osterman’s Shortwave Receivers Past & Present, which provides fair market values.
So, while I continue to support eBay, which remains one of the most secure platforms from which to buy unique and vintage goods on the open market, I want to encourage readers to heed Dan’s warning:research all pricing before making radio purchases on eBay…and keep the holes out of your pockets. Note that I will never directly link to unreasonable eBay listings.
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