{"id":21813,"date":"2016-10-17T08:22:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T12:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=21813"},"modified":"2016-10-17T08:22:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T12:22:06","slug":"winners-of-the-swling-post-dream-radio-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/winners-of-the-swling-post-dream-radio-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners of the SWLing Post “Dream Radio” Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dial_closeup_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many thanks to the 86 responses <\/em>we received from the SWLing Post <\/em>dream radio contest!<\/p>\n

Also huge thanks to Universal Radio<\/a> who sponsored this contest and made it possible!<\/p>\n

This morning, I entered the numbered contest entries\u00a0into a tool on Random.org.<\/a>\u00a0The following two winners were selected at random–one from the US, and one from Australia:<\/p>\n

Thomas in Florida, USA:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"ICR75\"<\/a>

Icom IC-R75<\/p><\/div>\n

“I’ve been interested in all aspects of radio since I was a small child. My grandfather got me interested in the radio hobby . As a teen I acquired an old Hallicrafters S-40B. I would listen across the SW bands for hours each evening. This was back in the day when the Russians were running various jammers across the SW bands and OTH radar other wise known as the famous Wood Pecker.<\/p>\n

I always wanted to upgrade to a more modern receiver that would have special filters to help reduce the interference caused from those types of man made devices. However, as the years went on, and I got married and raised a family my hobby fell to the wayside. It’s taken me almost 30 years, but I recently purchased an Icom R-75 and have gotten back into active SWLing again.<\/p>\n

It is an enjoyable hobby and looking to one day spark an interest in radio in my own grandchildren.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Adam Ellis in Melbourne, Australia:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"The<\/a>

The Yaesu FRG-7700 (Photo: Universal Radio)<\/p><\/div>\n

“As a school kid, growing up in the 80’s, I had a friend who’s father owned (a then) brand new Yaesu FRG-7700 with matching FRT-7700 tuner. Every time I visited at my friends house, I would look at the Yaesu in awe and ask to have a listen.<\/p>\n

His father was a VERY strict man and forbid any of the children from touching his radio or HiFi equipment. The combination of parentally installed fear and the mystique of such a military looking and expensive piece of kit meant that my curiosity grew and grew. One day, with his father safely away at work, we powered it up and had a tune around. After a few minutes, I was instantly hooked, having now heard SSB properly for the first time. My friend quickly got concerned that his younger siblings would tell their father that we had dared to use the Yaesu so it was quickly turned off.<\/p>\n

Well! My friend still got into trouble because we had left it tuned to an obscure frequency, along with several controls in the wrong position and his father realized it had been fiddled with! The feel of the controls and the glow of the dial lighting made that radio seem like the best thing I had ever seen and just had to own one. Of course, as a 12 year old, owning one meant selling many hundreds of newspapers! A feat all but impossible on my limited paper round.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 30 years and I came across a used example at a Hamfest, complete with FRT-7700 tuner in near mint condition. I made an offer which was accepted (AUD$150) and it came back to the shack with me, in it’s original box! Upon testing it out, it works flawlessly with no fading of the display or noise from any of the control pots.<\/p>\n

My only real disappointment with the radio is the minimum 1Khz tuning steps. It makes SSB a bit painful to tune. You need to save a frequency into to memory to use the memory fine tune control. It sounds very nice on AM and is mostly used for broadcast reception with a Wellbrook ALA1530 loop.<\/p>\n

Even today, looking at the Yaesu brings back the fear laden excitement of tuning around as a kid, with a petrified friend begging me to turn it off! I never did find out what his punishment was. The Yaesu FRG-7700 is now a part of a large collection of receivers, but is one I will not part with because it has taken me so long to finally get one! 73’s, Adam.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks to the generosity of Universal Radio<\/strong>, Thomas will receive a new copy of\u00a0Shortwave Receivers Past and Present<\/a> <\/strong><\/em>by Fred Osterman. As our international winner, Adam will be given a choice of\u00a0\u00a0Joe Carr\u2019s Loop Antenna Book<\/strong><\/em> or\u00a0Buying A Used Shortwave Receiver:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>A Market Guide To Modern Shortwave Radios.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve truly enjoyed reading each listener’s account about their dream radio–these stories bring back so many memories of my own!<\/p>\n

Once I discover a way to display the results here on the SWLing Post, I will publish\u00a0them. To keep the post from being too long,\u00a0I’m trying to investigate a way that the results can be embedded, much like an image slideshow.\u00a0Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to the 86 responses we received from the SWLing Post dream radio contest! Also huge thanks to Universal Radio who sponsored this contest and made it possible! This morning, I entered the numbered contest entries\u00a0into a tool on Random.org.\u00a0The following two winners were selected at random–one from the US, and one from Australia: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[713,545,3,43],"tags":[3264,5360,133,1017,58],"class_list":["post-21813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contests","category-ham-radio","category-news","category-shortwave-radio","tag-fred-osterman","tag-shortwave-contest","tag-shortwave-listener-contest","tag-swling-post-contests","tag-universal-radio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-5FP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21447,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/swling-post-reader-contest-remembering-your-dream-radio\/","url_meta":{"origin":21813,"position":0},"title":"SWLing Post Reader Contest: remembering your “dream radio”","author":"Thomas","date":"October 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Fred Osterman, President of Universal Radio, recently\u00a0expressed his interest in supporting another SWLing\u00a0Post Reader Contest. Of course, I eagerly agreed, and we quickly came up with a theme: Think back to your first days in radio...What was\u00a0your\u00a0\"dream\" receiver? \u00a0And why? Or--if you're new to shortwave radio--what is your \"dream\" receiver\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Contests"","block_context":{"text":"Contests","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/contests\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Sony ICF-2010 was my dream portable in the 1980s.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Sony2010.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Sony2010.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Sony2010.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Sony2010.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":21809,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/ends-today-dream-radio-contest\/","url_meta":{"origin":21813,"position":1},"title":"Ends Today: “Dream Radio” Contest","author":"Thomas","date":"October 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Think back to your first days in radio\u2026What was\u00a0your\u00a0\u201cdream\u201d receiver? \u00a0And why? Or--if you're new to shortwave radio--what is your \"dream\" receiver currently, and why? Many of us had\u00a0a radio they dreamed of in their youth, or when they first began to hanker after the radio experience. What was yours?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Contests"","block_context":{"text":"Contests","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/contests\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"dial_closeup_1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/dial_closeup_1-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/dial_closeup_1-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/dial_closeup_1-1024x683.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":21766,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/contest-reminder-remembering-your-dream-radio\/","url_meta":{"origin":21813,"position":2},"title":"Contest Reminder: Your \u201cdream radio\u201d","author":"Thomas","date":"October 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Think back to your first days in radio\u2026What was\u00a0your\u00a0\u201cdream\u201d receiver? \u00a0And why? Or--if you're new to shortwave radio--what is your \"dream\" receiver currently, and why? Many of us had\u00a0a radio they dreamed of in their youth, or when they first began to hanker after the radio experience. What was yours?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Contests"","block_context":{"text":"Contests","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/contests\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"dial_closeup_1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/dial_closeup_1-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/dial_closeup_1-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/dial_closeup_1-1024x683.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":22897,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/winners-of-our-holiday-radio-memories-contest\/","url_meta":{"origin":21813,"position":3},"title":"Winners of our holiday radio memories contest!","author":"Thomas","date":"December 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Please join me in congratulating\u00a0Renaud Hardy and\u00a0Bill Murray (AF7WM) who were picked at random out of the 45\u00a0entries in our Holiday Radio Memories contest! I have notified both winners by email and Universal Radio will soon dispatch their prize: the Eton Grundig Edition Mini portable shortwave radio! Thank you, Universal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Contests"","block_context":{"text":"Contests","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/contests\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Hallicrafters-SX-24-Christmas-Decorations-1024x940.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Hallicrafters-SX-24-Christmas-Decorations-1024x940.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Hallicrafters-SX-24-Christmas-Decorations-1024x940.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":36006,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/top-10-dx-of-the-year-contest-results\/","url_meta":{"origin":21813,"position":4},"title":"Top 10 DX Of The Year Contest Results!","author":"Thomas","date":"February 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to\u00a0Istvan Biliczky, from the\u00a0Top 10 DX Of The Year Contest who shares the following results from the December 2018 contest: Istvan tells me that the \"certificates are printed, verified, t-shirts are done, and all packed, will be sent this week.\" Check these photos: Brilliant news and congratulations to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Contests"","block_context":{"text":"Contests","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/contests\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/2018-awc-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/2018-awc-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/2018-awc-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/2018-awc-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":22532,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/december-contest-your-holiday-radio-memories\/","url_meta":{"origin":21813,"position":5},"title":"December Contest: Your holiday radio memories!","author":"Thomas","date":"December 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"[Update: This contest is over, but you can read all of our radio memories on this Christmas Eve post.] It's the winter holiday season here in North America, typically a great time to slip\u00a0into the shack, sip some warm mulled cider\/eggnog\/coffee, and explore the world via the shortwaves, mediumwaves, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Contests"","block_context":{"text":"Contests","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/contests\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Hallicrafters-SX-24-Christmas-Decorations-1024x940.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Hallicrafters-SX-24-Christmas-Decorations-1024x940.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Hallicrafters-SX-24-Christmas-Decorations-1024x940.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}