Shortwave radio help?

[billt]

All people at Radio Shack can do today is sell batteries. And you had better bring the old ones or they'll sell you the wrong kind.

[Rastus]

Yeah, I know.  It's an old thread.  However, for $18 plus tax I picked up a little AM/FM/SW that I took on vacation.  It worked fine.

It really does well on AM...which surprised me.  The shortwave is only AM and operates only from 4.75-23.80MHz.  So it's not a general coverage receiver and does not receive single sideband which you would want for listening to Hams on the radio.

But for $18 from Amazon...it's dang hard to beat.  I like that it has both scanning and setting frequencies which is good...but you can tune with a dial and see the frequency digitally.  Not a bad trick and especially not at this price.

It's small enough to pack around anywhere and cheap enough that you don't worry about losing or breaking it.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9FB9K57?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

[Rastus]

So ok....did anyone pick one up?  I bought one for my brother in law and he loves it.

[Rastus]

Working with the FRG-7 from Yaesu right now.  It's...I dunno...at least 44 years old but it has been recapped and tuned in the last several years and works like new. 

I like listening in on WWL-870 AM in New Orleans.  Especially the Saturday morning (5 AM - 7 AM) Outdoor Show with Don Dubuc ( https://www.dontheoutdoorsguy.com/ )to keep up with the fishing and hunting back home and along the coast.

Wintertime is easy because of atmospheric conditions but summer is tough.  Have any of you guys ever put up a Beverage antenna?  I just ordered 1,000 feet of wire to build one out.

[alfsauve]

As a kid dad had a Knight SW radio and we listened to a few things.  But not often.  We did hear Sputnik, though which was really cool.  Mainly by accident.  One of my first kits was the Knight regen receiver.  Had fun building it with dad's help. 

I've never built a "beverage" antenna, unless you mean soldering beer cans end-to-end to make a 2m 1/4 vertical.  I do have a tuned (I'm into tuned antennas) end fed, 1/2 wave HF wire antenna coming for Christmas.   Good luck with yours. 

[Sponsor]

[Rastus]

When I can get around to it for the Beverage I will string out 950-1,000' of wire 8-10' above ground in the direction I want to receive from.  While the antenna has negative gain it really has no gain off the sides and from behind because it's a traveling wave antenna so it loses current from the signal.  They are really quiet antennas for AM radio and lower ham HF frequencies.  The lightning crashes and other interference from adjacent stations pretty much disappears. 

[Big Frank]

FRG-7 sounds like a type of anti-tank rocket.

I heard of a Beverage antenna but couldn't remember what it was. A Beverage antenna consists of a horizontal wire from one-half to several wavelengths long (tens to hundreds of meters / yards for shortwaves; up to several kilometres / miles for longwaves) suspended above the ground, with the feedline to the receiver attached to one end, and the other end of the wire terminated through a resistor to ground. The antenna has a unidirectional radiation pattern with the main lobe of the pattern at a shallow angle into the sky off the resistor-terminated end, making it ideal for reception of long distance skywave (skip) transmissions from stations over the horizon which reflect off the ionosphere. However the antenna must be built so the wire points in the direction of the transmitter(s) to be received. It reminds me of something I saw for an early detection or missile command radio system or something of that nature i saw pictures of someplace within the last couple of years. I think one was 10 or 20 miles long, right through the woods in the middle of nowhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverage_antenna

[Rastus]

FRG-7 also known as the Frog 7.  It's old and radios like the Tecsun PL-880 are just as good, with some things better and other things worse.  But, the Frog looks like all the shortwaves did when I grew up so it's my main radio.  The Tecsun use on single sideband is easier as it has both USB and LSB switches whereas the Frog uses a BFO to get both. 

[Jim Kennedy-ar154me]

FRG-7 also known as the Frog 7.  It's old and radios like the Tecsun PL-880 are just as good, with some things better and other things worse.  But, the Frog looks like all the shortwaves did when I grew up so it's my main radio.  The Tecsun use on single sideband is easier as it has both USB and LSB switches whereas the Frog uses a BFO to get both.

I had a Frog 7 for years. I only traded it away when I updated my license to Extra and got a Yeasu DX 3000. The Frog was an excellent radio and have a big following.

[alfsauve]

I got to thinking that my ICOM 706 is getting quite old, so I looked it up.  Purchased from HRO March 1997 for $1,295 which was a fortune at the time... still is come to think of it.  Almost 29 years old.     Maybe it's time to be thinking about the next purchase?   I'll probably stick with ICOM, not because it's necessarily the best but I do like and understand their UI.  Sometimes the accessories are interchangeable and I'm just comfortable with the brand.   [TLDR:  Back in the '80s a friend and I decided we could simplify life if we picked a good brand and just stuck with it whatever the purchase.  Of course we'd change brands if warranted, but rather than be razzled-dazzled with all the flashy options, we'd stick with one brand to make shopping easier.  Sperry for outdoor shoes, Bass for formal ones as an example.  Of course I've changed shoe brands a while back to Sketchers.  They're not only very comfortable and light but they support the 2A.    So for radios I've stuck with ICOM.  Overall all the brands have about the same features, just in a different package, price and with varying UIs.

So what would be the next HR rig?  If it's ICOM I'm a little confused as to what's available.  I'm not going top end multi-multi-thousand.  Basic rig.  7300 seems to be the mid-line desk top rig.  718 the lower cost option.  But what about the 7100 with separate front panel?  Is there a Yeasu or Kenwood champion out there that can convince me to change brands?