Posted on 01/16/2009 5:29:03 PM PST by mylife
So why bother with shortwave?
It's easy and cheap -- and fun. You can hear and learn things that you would never find even if you work your search engine like a mule. From Swaziland to Paris to Havana, shortwave broadcasters can surprise an adventurous listener more than any MP3 playlist.
"You tune carefully, twist the radio from side to side, and there's still a bit of a 'Hey, I made this happen!' sort of thing," said Harold Cones, retired chairman of the biology and chemistry department at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.
It's also magic. Shortwave radio enthusiasts acknowledge the thrill -- the romance, in a way -- of going out at night and snaring news, music, odd bleeps, religious zealots and other broadcasts from the wild sea of frequencies in the sky.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Those are both legendary rigs.
You should give them to me.)
It was a Drake R7.
I am beginning to understand that. The Yaesu FT-101 also has the SP-101P and a FV-101 along with it. My father bought them from a company in Hong Kong called Pacifica Products Ltd. between Oct. 1972 and Feb 1973. He was stationed in Laos at the time and they shipped them to him in care of the U.S. Embassy, Vientian, Laos via Cathay Pacific Airways.
I have all the receipts and shipping papers plus the manuals. The equipment is still in the original boxes.
My father set the system up and used it for about 2 months in Laos then it was all packed up and sent back to the U.S. when he retired. He never used them again.
I really should get active again. I was first licensed 30 years ago and there was a time when I really enjoyed the personal relationships with the folks around, and I was very involved in a local group that developed a great mountaintop repeater site from the ground up, and I was trustee of a private 220 box a subgroup of us owned and kept there for a time. Over time I became involved in some of the statewide orgs, plus ran a packet BBS for a number of years and those were rather impersonal activities that left me somewhat jaded about the whole thing (there are way too many people on power trips in those asset coordination outfits), so after I pulled the plug it has taken me a long time to start looking back very hard.
But these times are getting me interested in starting over and this time just keeping a low profile, enjoying the things I like about it as I did in the beginning. I have a whole bunch of been there done thats under my belt so I ought to know what to avoid.
Okay... Here is the basis for the two items above:
Wave Trap - I wrap 84 turns of 24 gauge enameled magnet wire (the same kind you use to wind the coil for the crystal radio itself) around a 2 inch coil form. You leave a lead on each end - one to hook up to the antenna lead, and another to send the signal on to the next wave trap (if you really need one), or the antenna tuner and then on to the radio. Now, around the coil that you have already wound, you wrap another coil over the top of it: 12 turns of 22 gauge magnet wire, centered in the middle of the primary coil you've already wound. This second coil of 12 turns is called the "secondary" (wonder how they came up with that?). Okay at this point, you have the primary coil (the first one you wrapped around the coil form) with its antenna lead and its output lead. You have the secondary coil with two leads that we have not yet used. Here is where you may have to purchase a part. You need a 365pf (365 picofarad) air variable capacitor. This is a tuning capacitor. It has a rotor (a part that turns) and a stator (a part that is stationary.) You hook one of the leads from the secondary coil to the little solder lug for the stator (all the solder lugs go to the stator). You fasten the other wire from the secondary to the frame of the little capacitor, as it is the connection for the rotor. This is usually accomplished by fastening the wire with a screw through an already threaded hole in the frame of the capacitor - BUT BE CAREFUL that you do not use a screw that will go too far into the frame and touch any of the little blades of the capacitor. That is the entire construction - two coils, and four wires to hook up. Now to use it, you tune your crystal set to the station that is overpowering everyone else, making sure to listen for the loudest signal. With your wave trap hooked up to the antenna and then passing the signal on toward the radio, you slowly turn the little capacitor and at a certain point, you will notice (in your headphones) that the strong station is either totally nulled, or at least severely weakened. If it is only weakened, you may wish to put another wave trap in line, and knock out the strong signal even more. The wave trap is basically just another crystal radio without a rectifier crystal or diode - when you tune the frequency on the capacitor, it pulls all, or most, of that resonating signal out of the antenna line that is feeding your crystal set. So to your crystal set, it is like the signal doesn't exist, and you are free to tune in the other weaker stations. Using my twin wave trap and the tuner that I will describe below, I was able to tune in WGN 720 and WBBM 780 out of Chicago, 740 WJR out of Detroit, and AM740 out of Canada on my first night of reception, about 10 minutes after I completed the crystal set on which I had been working... And I live in TENNESSEE! So wave traps are a Godsend for someone with a 5 kilowatt blowtorch in their backyard!
Now, the tuner... One of the simplest things you can build to help really pull in the DX stations, be they AM Broadcast Band or Shortwave. And it can be used on any radio that uses an outside wire antenna - crystal, tube, or solid state. First you need another tuning capacitor. You can buy one like I describe above and use it or, if you are like me, you can go through your junk box and find an old dual gang tuning capacitor (it is like two capacitors built into one frame) from an old radio that you couldn't bring back to life for some reason. The best ones are found in old 5 tube radios... Big old capacitors that look like a bunch of little fans that mesh together, but do not touch each other (this is important, I'll explain in a minute). You don't have to wind any coils for this. Just mount the capacitor on a board. You run one wire lead to the frame, and then another wire lead to the little solder lugs. On the solder lugs, you can either run another wire through all of them to make sure that you are using the entire capacitor range you have available to you, or you can put a little switch in between the lugs for the two different sections of the capacitor. At the flip of a switch, I can increase the usable capacitance of my antenna tuner. Either way if fine, it is up to how much work you want to put into the tuner. To use the tuner, I set the capacitor so that the blades are meshed 50%. I then tune the station that I wish to receive. I can then add or subtract capacitance to my antenna system by turning the tuning knob on the capacitor. The object is to make the antenna better resonate at the frequency you are trying to receive.
I like to dress my crystal sets and accessories up a little bit, so I go to the local hobby store and buy the wooden plaques that they sell for Susie Homemaker to paint "Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a DADDY" on... The little wooden ones about 6" x 10". I sand them smooth, and then mount my radio components to it. I run the wires that require external attachment to 8-32 screws that I purchase at the hardware store. The screws are run through the plaque, held in place with matching brass nuts. I then use an 8-32 thumb nut, like the kind that holds the cap on your porch light to keep the bugs out, to hold the wires to the screw. It makes for firm, stable connections, and looks vintage at the same time.
If you look at a basic diagram of my set-up, it is like this:
antenna--->wavetrap--->wavetrap--->tuner--->crystal set radio--->a very good ground system.
So there it is.... HOPE THIS HELPS!!! For anyone interested in crystal radio, I would urge you to go to www.midnightscience.com . They have a supply of parts, plans, books, and even some kits that go beyond the crystal that require batteries.
Regards,
Raven6
There is a average looking used/working FT101E on Ebay right now with a buy it now of $419, and a similar used/working KWM2A with a minimum bid of $500 and an incomplete junker that is bid up to $300 as is.
What you have is almost certainly worth a lot more - so take good care of them and don't let anybody steal them. And if you do get tempted to fire either one of them up you should have the power supply components checked out because of their age. I think (though not positive) they are both only 600 or 800 plate volts but still blowing up a bad capacitor is a possibility and that would ruin their value.
I know enough to not transmit on them without an antennea or load on them.
You’re stretching my memory now. Although Drake was known for building some nice gear, I think I remember hearing rumblings about lemons in the R7/TR7 line, and it was a major evolution from their earlier lines - but a neighbor of mine ran a RTTY mailbox on a TR7 (and an AppleII computer) for almost 20 years, and that’s hard duty. The rig sat on his top shelf and just worked.
As I recall, most amateur radio and SWL equipment at the time (like guitar amplifiers and Russian MIGs) used extremely conservative technology; and the R7 was one of the first units to use digital circuitry. My theory is that the company didn't have any experience with digital stuff and didn't know how to deal with it.
My other rigs are a Kenwood TS-711A 2 Meter All-Mode, and a TS-811A, also all-mode.
My mobiles are all Icom, because they're just tough radio's.
That definitely gets me pointed in the right direction. Thanks!
...spot on, I think. Some outfits (Ten-Tec comes to mind) were more successful with their earlier digital gear and others held off until the technology was more mature. In those days though Ham radio was still about innovation and somebody had to blaze those trails. For that, Drake deserved a lot of credit.
And a good working Drake R7 fetches an unbelievable price these days.
I would love to know if they are in existence now, if the owners have emerged from tax prison, etc., or what became of them.
It is truly amazing that in America, that time touted as the greatest country on earth, the world's only superpower, etc., that people had to listed on the short wave to get the truth about the Clinton's prior to their first presidential election.
Thanks for checking in. I almost missed your post.
I wish I had known more about radio as a kid.
It would have kept me off the streets L0L
I enjoy being able to hear Australia or Sweden deep in the woods of NE Tx.
It is a hoot.
I just throw a longwire up over a tree and my little kaito 1103 fits in a pocket(cargo pants)
I always take this thing with me when I travel.
What did the wifey get you?
Funny, most of the guys on 20 meter this AM are black L0L
You need some basic soldering skills to build the kit in a few hours, and it worked great on my scanner. I couldn't pick up much on my portable short wave radios (Grundig YB400PE), mostly due to interference where I live.
I recently tinkered with the antenna and possibly shorted out a component, so I'll probably order another one from Ramsey (or maybe have them fix it for me).
They make some fun kits to build at home for radio transmitting and receiving.
-PJ
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