oh cool! i just got a short-wave radio!

what are some cool things i can do with this... i've already tried to pick up police frequencies but was unsuccesful

lol this is exciting!

Get this: www.wrth.com... - World Radio and Tv Handbook.. it's THE Book that covers All shortwave stations world wide.. buy this once a year and you have the world at your ears.

These are lists of frequencies and other cool stuff you can find on the web.

www.blackcatsystems.com...

and, www.dxing.com...

and, www.shortwaveradio.com...

There are tons of great places to listen to around the world. I used to have 2 SW radios. a new radio Shack DX 440 and an old halicrafters with vacuum tubes. Sometimes the old halicrafters worked better after it warmed up.

I used to listen to live news from over seas and cross reference it with the news reports on CNN. It was fun to see how CNN would twist and shape a news story just to give it an 'american' spin. This really woke me up to how corrupt and censored our media is.. this was back in the early 1980's.

Another fun thing you can do is build your own homemade antenna. There are tons of free plans and antenna websites. The better the antenna.. the better you will pick up hard to get stations.

You can keep a Dx log.. DX stands for distance.. its a hobby of lots of people to try to tune in hard to get stations and they record the shows they listen to in a notebook and what times they were able to pick up the station. You can find lots of DX Shortwave sites on the net.

I miss my radios.. I may get one again. I hope you have as much fun with yours as I used to have :-)

EDIT: Oh yeah.. and you can get music, news, entertainment from all over the USA and world wide. Plus you can pick up odd things.. like the Atomic Time Clock. You may get strange beeps and chirps from teletype machines. You can get things you aren't supposed to get like CB's and ham frequencies that bleed over to the SW bands. Not so good for police chatter, because they use different frequencies.. but that's just it about SW.. you never know...

Also do this: Search the web or get some books on Shortwave radio so that you can understand what type of radio wave shortwave uses and how it travels around the world and the best conditions to listen under. With some basic understanding of these things you will find listening to be much more enjoyable.









[edit on 29-11-2009 by JohnPhoenix]

i have had mine now for about a year, i need a better antennae setup. I also have a scanner, then again i need a antenna to get some really neat stuff. have fun!!!!

reply to post by Sacrosanct


You are not going to catch police on that, you need a Trunk Tracking Scanner for that. You will however catch some interesting World Band traffic. Everything from music, to political views. You can also listen to some HAM radio operators I am one... . Here is an interesting link for you.


World Band Radio

Enjoy!

[edit on 29-11-2009 by desertdreamer]

Try if you can get alien frequencies
I heard someone in the past actually did it, but i dont buy the story on how the aliens then offered him to visit there home planet.

Originally posted by Agent_USA_Supporter
Try if you can get alien frequencies

I heard someone in the past actually did it, but i dont buy the story on how the aliens then offered him to visit there home planet.

Are you serious??? HAHA, that made me laugh!