Tag Archives: shortwave

Which is the best? Sony ICF-2001D/2010 or ICF-SW77? The halfway score

Hi there, here is a summary of the first half of tests comparing the Sony ICF-2001D against it’s replacement the ICF-SW77. Both receivers are widely acknowledged as being amongst the best shortwave portables ever made, but how close are they in performance? Is there a clear winner after the first 8 reception tests? I hope you enjoy the summary video. Links to the first half of reception tests follow again, below, whilst the second half will follow in a separate post. Thanks and good DX to all.

Clint Gouveia is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Clint actively publishes videos of his shortwave radio excursions on his YouTube channel: Oxford Shortwave Log. Clint is based in Oxfordshire, England.

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Oxford Shortwave Log: dxing in the tropical rainforest of Pará, Brazil – part 1

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Hi there, I was fortunate enough recently for my work to take me to a very remote area of tropical rainforest in Pará, Northern Brazil and of course, I travelled with a shortwave radio. In fact I take a portable with me everywhere – even to work – just in case. During this trip I was using a Tecsun PL-680, for very specific reasons:

It can handle a longwire very well without overloading (I actually only used a 5 metre wire)
An excellent synchronous detection circuit and audio bandwidth filtering options
Excellent sensitivity, as demonstrating by the many DX reception videos on YouTube
If it got lost or damaged it would be a pain of course, but not difficult to replace

Although effectively travelling on business, I was hoping to find the time for a DXing session because I felt it would be really interesting to find out what could be heard on shortwave (and medium wave for that matter) out in the jungle, in the middle of nowhere! The environment was challenging – around 37/38 degrees C during the day and still 33 degrees C at 2 am, all day and night, every day and night! Furthermore, as you might imagine for a tropical location, the place was crawling with bugs lol, including mosquitos and thus a number of vaccinations were necessary, prior to the trip. Several days after arriving, I eventually managed to find the time for a DXing session in the jungle (with another the following week in Barcarena, on the coast).

So, what can you hear in the jungle? Part 1 of my group of reception videos follow below – I hope you enjoy them.

Tropical rainforest DX in Pará, Brazil: Radio Romania International 7335 kHz

Tropical rainforest SW in Pará, Brazil: Radio Nacional Brazilia 6180 kHz

Tropical rainforest DX in Pará, Brazil: WHRI 7385 kHz, Cypress Creek, Georgia, USA

Tropical rainforest DX in Pará, Brazil: Radio Mediterranee 9575 kHz, Nador, Morocco

Tropical rainforest DX in Pará, Brazil: EWTN (WEWN) 11520 kHz Vandiver, Alabama, USA

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Oxford Shortwave Log 200 metre Beverage antenna: further MW and SW reception videos

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Hi there, further to my previous post regarding the initial testing of the Medium Wave Circle-design 200 metre Beverage antenna at the woods in Oxford, UK, I am pleased to share further reception videos for both the medium wave and shortwave bands. For medium wave, I operated the FDM DUO via a laptop and the FDN-SW2 software, recorded the entire band at the top of the hour and retrospectiively analysed the signals. For shortwave I utillised the FDM DUO as a standalone receiver, routing the audio via the excellent Bose Soundlink Mini 2 speaker.

As a quick recap, the antenna was terminated at the ‘front end’ with a 650 Ohm resistor into a 1 metre-long, permanent copper earthing rod that I had previously driven into the ground, away from the route taken by the general public. The actual wire was orientated in a generally westerly direction, and thus nulling signals propagating from the east. At the receiver end, I utillised my self-built transformer, wound for a 50 Ohm input impedance (14 turns on the primary), thus making the entire set-up suitable for the Elad FDM DUO. It was quite a pain to set up, taking over an hour to deploy, however, the results were very promising. A scematic diagram follows below.

Links to the next group of reception videos follow:

The reception from VOCM St. Johns, Newfoundland & Labrador and WRCA Waltham, Massachusetts was unprecidented and another indication that the 200 metre Beverage configuration is demonstrating excellent SNR performance. Similarly, the reception of Radio Nacional Brazilia was an improvement on any signal I’d previously recorded with any receiver or antenna. Finally, the signal received from Radio Huanta 2000 – one of the more exotic stations on the Tropical Band and rarely heard in Europe – delivered discernible audio with this set-up, whereas previously I had only ever observed a carrier. All-in-all a very pleasing result, with more reception videos using this antenna set-up to follow in the coming weeks.

Right now I’m uploading SW and MW reception videos to my YouTube channel, recorded during my two week trip to Pará in Northern Brazil – it was really interesting to check out what can be heard on the radio in the middle of what is a very remote area of tropical rainforest. I hope you find the time to take a look. In the meantime, thank you for watching/ listening and I wish you all good DX.

MW DX with the 200 metre Beverage: VOCM 590 kHz, St. John’s, N & L, BIG signal!

MW DX with the 200 metre Beverage: WRCA 1330 kHz, Waltham Mass., big signal/ clear IDs!

200 metre Beverage: Radio Huanta 2000 4747.5 kHz, 0.5 kW, Peru; best signal clarity to-date

200 metre Beverage: Radio Nacional Brazilia 11780 kHz, booming!

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DRMNA: Interview with Mike of PantronX, maker of the Titus II

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Those of you following the upcoming Titus II receiver will enjoy reading this interview with Mike of Pantronix. Here’s a short excerpt taken from DRMNA.info:

[DRMNA] Can you tell us a little about the process taken to develop the new receiver?

[Mike] We became aware of the need for a digital capable receiver by a visit from TWR representatives about three years ago. Having designed RF products and receivers in the past, it intrigued me that there were no low cost method to receive DRM. This began research into the problem. Initially we envisioned and designed what we call an ATU (Antenna Tuner Unit) that plugged into a ‘standard’ Android tablet. Unfortunately as time and testing proved, ready made tablets had varying problems from vendor to vendor, model to model. The decision was made about a year ago that we had to do our own Android ‘tablet’ and integrate the ATU into it. Hence the Titus II was developed.[…]

Click here to read the full interview on DRMNA.info.

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Video: Five shortwave stations in two minutes

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, DanH, who shares the following feedback.

Note that he sent this to me about two weeks ago, but my life has been so busy the past few weeks, I’m still catching up on email. Thanks to everyone for understanding!

DanH writes:

We all know how hard it is to get good SW reception without a decent antenna at this point in the 11-year solar cycle. But, the past couple of days have offered good propagation conditions for reception here in Northern California. Here is a video I made this evening during the 8:00 p.m. hour, 10-11-2016 PDT (0300 hour, 10-12-2016 UTC). It isn’t all that bad. Here are five stations in under two minutes (but really, WWV doesn’t count). There is plenty to listen to. Voice of Greece is in the Greek language with great music. The other stations are broadcast in the English language.

Click here to view on YouTube.

Thank you for sharing, Dan! Wow–RNZI is quite a strong catch at your location! It’s so nice when conditions improve and that elusive DX pops out of the niose. At this point in the solar cycle, we just take what we can get!

Only last night, I was amazed with the Voice of Greece here on the east coast. Even as propagation conditions deteriorated, VOG held on at S9 +20db via my Elecraft KX3.

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On Sale: Shortwave Shindig T-Shirts

Oxford Shortwave Log: 200 metre Beverage antenna – initial reception tests

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Hi there, I have finally deployed the Medium Wave Circle-design 200 metre Beverage antenna (schematic diagram above) at the woods I use in Oxford, UK. It was terminated at the ‘front end’ with a 650 Ohm resistor into a 1 metre-long, permanent copper earthing rod that I had previously driven into the ground, away from the route taken by the general public. The actual wire was orientated in a generally westerly direction, and thus nulling signals propagating from the east. At the receiver end, I utillised my self-built transformer, wound for a 50 Ohm input impedance (14 turns on the primary), thus making the entire set-up suitable for the Elad FDM DUO. It was quite a pain to set up, taking over an hour to deploy the wire and connect both earthing rods and the transformer! However, intial results are very promising and here I am very pleased to share 3 reception videos with you:

The reception from Colombia and Ecuador was unprecidented and both of these tropical stations sound like local AM signals, aided of course by the Bose SoundLink Mini 2 (the Elad’s stand-alone audio is puny to say the least). The signal from Peru is weak, as would be expected, however, the low-gain/ high SNR performance of this antenna results in audio clarity that is better than I have ever heard previously from this rather exotic station. Further to these recordings, I managed to make two recordings of the entire MW band using the FDM DUO via the FDM-SW2 software and I’m hoping an analysis of the data will uncover some nice MW DX. Thus, all-in-all, a very good result with the 200 metre Beverage – more reception videos using this antenna to follow soon on my youtube channel Oxford Shortwave Log. Thanks for watching/ listening and I wish you all good DX.

Embedded reception videos with text links follow below: