Reception from here

[adibrook]

Well...im getting more used to the TRIO JR500s machine, and i remember where everything is now, and its abit confusing. I though id start a new thread about it as suggested, since this is more about the reception im getting rather then the machine itself.

Basically...everything above 21MHz is totally dead. Not a single whimper on there at all.

14MHz seems totally dead, although i do remember once i herd something on there. But at the moment...not a sausage...the entire band has not a single whimper.

7MHz seems to be full of all sorts of stuff, but mainley commercial radio stations, appart from a little chunk around the 500 mark.

3.5MHz seems totally dead appart from one solitary commercial station of some language i dont know (thats a rare thing!)...but sounds east European...maybe Polish. This station is right next to 0 at the beginning of the scale.

On VVW, there are a few commercial stations near the top, one being Spanish.

So all the cool stuff happens on 7MHz, which is mainly full of commercial stations, exept a little chunk between 490 and 510 which has alot of different CW stuff, mostly too faint for me to get a good signal on, appart from one from Bulgaria which im getting a great loud and clear signal from.

That brings me to my next point. Why am i getting so much from eastern europe?

It seems stations from Bulgaria/Romania/little bit of Russia are the strongest, much stronger then for example France which seems very faint.

is there some kind of atmospheric phenomenon that means that 7MHz from eastern europe somehow make it here better than others?

Is this about normal reception for a 10 meter piece of wire across a roof in South england?

[Station X]

If you're not getting anything on 80 metres (3.5 to 3.8 MHz) I'd say there's something wrong with the receiver.

[adibrook]

Hmm...thers one station on 3.5 so i figured the reciever cant be dead.

[paulsherwin]

The active radio amateurs on the forum will know more about this than I do, but we are living in a bad time for SW radio reception, both amateur and broadcast. We are right at the bottom of the sunspot cycle, which has a huge impact on SW reception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

In Europe there's the additional problem that most mainstream broadcasters have axed SW transmissions to this region during the last 5 years. This doesn't affect amateur transmissions of course.

Paul

[dsergeant]

I will respond to your PM later, but thanks for that.

Firstly I think you are reading that dial wrong, according to the user manual (which a Google will find) you use the RED readout on 80m and 40m. The amateur CW signals you are hearing will be around 000-040 there will certainly be no amateur signals at 500 unless your dial calibration is VERY out.

At the time of day you are listening you should be hearing loads of amateur signals on 80m and 40m, both SSB and CW. So I would suspect a receiver fault on 80m at least. There is though some commercial traffic on 80m (including illegal fishermen which you seem to have found), and plenty of very strong broadcast stations between 7100-7300 - if you aren't hearing those you have a problem. 30m (10100-10105, 100-150 in the WWV position) may have a few CW and data signals but probably weak at that time. 20m will probably be dead, but will have plenty of signals during daylight (CW and SSB). 15m and 10m you can forget about, with no sunspots they are not going to be usable for a year or two yet.

Hope this helps.

Dave G3YMC

[Station X]

Adi.

Let me assure you that there is shed loads of amateur traffic on the 40 and 80 metre amateur bands and you should have no difficulty in receiving them at your QTH (location) on the JR500S even with a modest aerial.

Download the operator's manual from here:-

http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/knight/a2516

and study it carefully.

Pay particular attention as to how the tuning dial is calibrated and the use of the preselector control. You may find that the dial needs resetting to give accurate readings. It's generally a matter of holding the knob still and rotating the dial against a friction stop.

As this receiver has no LSB/USB switch, LSB is automatically selected on 40 and 80 metres and USB on the other bands. For this reason there are two tuning scales one red and one black. I have a vague recollection that one scale reads backwards.

In the UK the 80 metre band extends from 3.5 to 3.8 MHz and the 40 metre band from 7.0 to 7.2 MHz. Don't expect to hear any normal AM signals except around 3.615 MHz. The preferred mode of transmission is SSB and careful tuning is required to resolve this. There is a knack to it, but you'll soon get the hang of it.

[Skywave]

Quote: It seems stations from Bulgaria/Romania/little bit of Russia are the strongest, much stronger than for example France - which seems very faint.
Is there some kind of atmospheric phenomenon that means that 7MHz from eastern Europe somehow make it here better than others? [Adi Brooke]

What you are witnessing are the vaguries of SW propogation - as outlined by others above. The frequency, time of day, time of year, where we are in the 'sun-spot cycle' all have a influence such reception. Then there is the issue of "skip". As far as you can control things, the type, nature, direction, etc. of your aerial will have a significant bearing on who you hear, where they are located, and the received signal strength - plus, of course the performance of the receiver - and the time of day/night that you listen and on what frequency.

Aerial design is a broad topic - but for general SW use, a wire about 100 ft. long and as high as you can get it and away from earthed obstructions is usually a good general purpose aerial. And this will have "directivity" to some extent. An earth connection usually helps on the lower frequencies.

HTH

Al. / Skywave.