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Author Topic: Your recent SWLing  (Read 1017 times)

VK2NZA

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #15 on: June 16, 2020, 03:03:17 AM »

Hi Renton
  As far as I am aware, Radio Australia's Shepparton Victoria's  transmitter site and great antenna farm are up for sale, however I hear that there is an attempt to save it as a Radio museum by local amateur radio clubs and othe interested groups.
I believe that it should be kept in mothballs and maintained in the hope that a future govt will recognise the folly and reinstate the facility and get serious about long range SW coverage throughout Australia, the Pacific and South-East Asia, the goodwill achieved through providing accurate "non fake"news and the high tech weather broadcasting capability Australia has, for especially the cyclone season in the Pacific and South east Asia is sorely missed in some regions now, as evidenced by the submissions made by a number of Pacific territories when it was announced the facilty was being closed.
Even in the  rural area of VK I live in we have appalling line speeds for the internet on old copper phone lines, while  metro and larger towns get hi speed fibre optic cables, many of us are bypassed.
Although satellite is available not always useful when mobile.
I am waiting for another broadband option however no-one can tell me when it will be operational.
During the extreme bushfires we had here in VK recently the publically funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation provided the best and only substantial; coverage of evacuation areas, road closures and evacuation centers, approaching fires etc.
Radio Australia as you suggest could relay ABC's "R National ' and only have the cost of operating the transmitters which was actually a paltry amount given the large budget the Federal govt had.
I digress, although SW listening has diminished in most 1st world nations the rest still listen on inexpensive "Tecsuns, Redsuns etc" to SW transmissions.
In my part of the world the number of strong signals from China, Southeast Asian countries is high and in Africa alone, Camaroon, Namibia, Ghana, Morrocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Angola and Algeria are all broadcsting on SW to local and greater areas audiences.
There is a place still for Ist world shortwave broadcasters to reach huge audiences!

I'll get off my rather large soapbox now ....gulp.
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ALPARD

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #16 on: June 20, 2020, 07:36:40 AM »

Radio Australia and Radio New Zealand had been the favourite DX stations in Europe. But it is sad that they are not on AIR anymore.

Recently I have been listening to Radio Japan, Radio Korea and Voice of Korea (DPRK) on 15 Mhz.
Their signals are quite good at times, but some days, they get difficult to receive due to fading and weak signal strength.

I am trying to put up better SWL antenna for DXing.  I was looking at active magnetic loop antenna with amps.

I wonder what you guys are all using antenna wise in SWL DXing. My long wire has limits in pulling the weak DX signals I found out.
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VK2NZA

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2020, 12:39:38 AM »

Alpard, hi. i'm located on a 300 acre property with lots of space and very tall trees so i am spoiled,
I have no local RFI or even grid supplied electricity to give me any problems.
 I have 4 HF wire antenna's all switchable from the shack, all are up at around 50 -70 feet
An 80 meter dipole,
an 80 meter OCF
a ZS6BKW
and last but certainly not least and 80 meter loop, the loop is by far the quietest antenna for receive and works exceedingly well, i find it doesn't produce neccessarily bigger signal but it is definitely less noisy making for better clarity.
i would certainly recommend a loop for receive especially if you have the space and or are in an area with RFI.
Mine is suspended at 6 points in the attempt to keep it as close to a circle for best performance.
  Ross.
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VR2AX

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #18 on: June 21, 2020, 12:27:00 PM »

It would help if you would disclose your (approximate) location.

In E/SE Asia, this is normal. A lot of it comes from small islands in the Pacific that act as relay stations.

Remember that people can speak 'fluently' in foreign languages..what you see(or hear) is not always what you get.
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ALPARD

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #19 on: June 22, 2020, 01:06:46 PM »

Alpard, hi. i'm located on a 300 acre property with lots of space and very tall trees so i am spoiled,
I have no local RFI or even grid supplied electricity to give me any problems.
 I have 4 HF wire antenna's all switchable from the shack, all are up at around 50 -70 feet
An 80 meter dipole,
an 80 meter OCF
a ZS6BKW
and last but certainly not least and 80 meter loop, the loop is by far the quietest antenna for receive and works exceedingly well, i find it doesn't produce neccessarily bigger signal but it is definitely less noisy making for better clarity.
i would certainly recommend a loop for receive especially if you have the space and or are in an area with RFI.
Mine is suspended at 6 points in the attempt to keep it as close to a circle for best performance.
  Ross.

Hi Ross

Yeah, that sounds great space you have in your QTH there. 
We are not so blessed with the space in the garden of this QTH.

It is about 25m  x 20m space, but it has a large wooden shed and lots of plants and hedges and some trees, so it is quite tricky to put up a good HF antenna here.

Right now, I have a long wire in L shape which is about 40m long. It works OK, but sometimes it suffers from noise, and on TXing it is not very efficient.

This poor sun spot cycle period is not helping the matters either, and it seems lasting so long this time.

Anyhow for my SWLing, I was using the LW, but it wasn't very good for DXing on 15Mhz and 9Mhz, so I am going to try a few active magnetic loop and also active HF preamp for SWL such as an old Plastar AA-30.  I also ordered a MFJ preselector too.

They will arrive this week, so I am looking forward putting them up, and listen about the HF SW bands for some DX stations I am after. :D

Will update here, what I heard with the new active antennas.

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ALPARD

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #20 on: June 22, 2020, 01:14:15 PM »

It would help if you would disclose your (approximate) location.

In E/SE Asia, this is normal. A lot of it comes from small islands in the Pacific that act as relay stations.

Remember that people can speak 'fluently' in foreign languages..what you see(or hear) is not always what you get.

We are in Europe, actually in UK.
It is quite difficult, if not impossible to understand the content of the SW BCL programs in the HF, if they are in non English language. I can also understand some Japanese and Korean, and some German, but that is about it.

  Although I can tell what language it is, it is not possible to understand what they are talking about.

So wouldn't they better broadcasting in more world wide spoken language such as English? in shortwave BC programs on HF. But that was just my personal wish. :))

Yeah, I found many transmission comes via some relaying station far away from the supposedly originated countries, such as Radio Japan program is being relayed via relaying station in either France or Germany, and their signal is very good. 
I don't know about that, I had a mixed bag of feelings. It is good that it can be heard in good and stronger signal, but I felt cheated that the transmission was not from the original country where they supposed to be transmitted from. :D
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VK2NZA

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #21 on: June 26, 2020, 10:51:46 PM »

Hi Alpard.
  Even a small backyard can yield some attachment points for a horizontal loop, they can work quite well for receiving at even 15 -25 feet and are due to their closed loop design noticeably quieter.
The  reason for raising loops as high as possible is generally for transmitting if one desires a more vertical take off radiation for DX rather than an NVIS cloud warmer that is great on 80 meters for local contacts.

Low loops can be very effective and you can wend them around your yard in a manner to get the loop as round as possible rather than two long narrow lengths with short sides that will act more like a folded dipole.

50 - 100 feet ie 25 feet square or so can work very well or even triangular.
Just put up as much wire as you can and you may be surprised at the performance.

Here in VK "squid poles" telescopic fibreglass poles are commonly used braced against some solid object or alternatively plastic/alloy telescopic pool cleaning poles are available at "K'Mart or similar variety chain stores cheaply and will get a wire up between 18 - 27 feet.

My receive only end fed long wire works well enough for receiving with a balun, but my 80 and 40 transmitting loops beat them everytime for readability, less noise.
As you know its all in the antenna!
  Ross.
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ALPARD

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Re: Your recent SWLing
« Reply #22 on: June 30, 2020, 03:44:14 PM »

Hi Ross

Great info & advice, thank you.  Yes, I am planning to work on the wire antenna in the back garden soon, and form a shape of loop either triangle or square.  I will also insert some sort of balun before connecting the coax feeder.  In that way, it will minimise the band noise, and give quieter reception?

Yes, you are right, I think you don't need to have a huge space to put up good antennas, although it helps.  I think if the element is small, then always use some sort of active amp, and use it in some situations where I want to copy very very weak signal.  I mean signals from Radio Korea, Radio Japan and Voice of Korea from Pyung Yang are all very very weak in Europe unless they are relayed by the nearby stations. But only some of the programs are relayed, and most of them come from direct from the transmitting countries, which make the signals very weak.

In that situations, I noticed the active antenna amps definitely help. Recently I got hold of a used Plaster AA-30 Active Amp, and this unit does the job.  It is amazing how, it kills the band noise, and it can peak the signals that I am after by the tuning knob, and it works.

But I am going to put up a loop for receiving on HF, and work with in conjunction with the AA-30.  I got some DX logging already on HF such as Radio San Miguel from Bolivia transmitting power is only 500 watts on 4700Khz, and they were coming in nicely. And have been listening to all my favourite stations such as Radio Japan, Radio Korea regularly with much improved reception with the AA-30.
Hopefully the loop antenna will even boost more on the reception quality.

Thanks & enjoy the DXing.
73

Al.
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