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G6Tanuki · 15th May 2019, 8:44 pm

These days there's very little of interest on the shortwave broadcast-bands: the old-time 'nation state' operators [Radio Nederland etc, along with the wackier propaganda-stations] have all gone.

There's still a bunch of interesting Sunday-morning free-radio stations around 6.2 to 6.4MHz though, if you're really into 1970s/1980s music-heard-through-severe-fading!

Amateur-wise: nobody uses AM-voice these days, it's 99.99% SSB - which means you need 'tight' IF-filters, and non-drifty local-oscillators/BFOs. The biggest problem you're likely to find - irrespective of the receiver you use - is the level of QRM from plasma-TVs, light-dimmers, SMPS wall-warts etc: a good antenna can help here (magnetic-loops, for example) but the limit to weak-signal reception is no longer receiver-noise like it was decades back.

15th May 2019, 8:44 pm	#7
G6Tanuki Dekatron Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Wiltshire, UK. Posts: 13,996	Re: Short Wave listening These days there's very little of interest on the shortwave broadcast-bands: the old-time 'nation state' operators [Radio Nederland etc, along with the wackier propaganda-stations] have all gone. There's still a bunch of interesting Sunday-morning free-radio stations around 6.2 to 6.4MHz though, if you're really into 1970s/1980s music-heard-through-severe-fading! Amateur-wise: nobody uses AM-voice these days, it's 99.99% SSB - which means you need 'tight' IF-filters, and non-drifty local-oscillators/BFOs. The biggest problem you're likely to find - irrespective of the receiver you use - is the level of QRM from plasma-TVs, light-dimmers, SMPS wall-warts etc: a good antenna can help here (magnetic-loops, for example) but the limit to weak-signal reception is no longer receiver-noise like it was decades back.