A basic - very basic - introduction to Shortwave listening
This introduction to shortwave listening starts with a bunch
of horses.
My favorite couple - Ben and Judy - was planning to spend two weeks baby-sitting a
bunch of horses on a friend's horse farm while the farm's owners (good friends
of Ben and Judy) vacationed.
Ben decided it would be fun to take a shortwave radio along. That part was easy,
I have plenty so I could offer him a little
Sony 2010.
It's my favorite of the relatively small (about the size of a box of Ritz
crackers) battery-operated shortwave portables. It's no longer in production but
does an amazing job. You'll find them on eBay used - not always but often. The
price for a used 2010 is in the $200 to $250 range.
After deciding to loan the radio to Ben I tried to find a Web page that
introduced him to shortwave listening. I wanted one aimed at a rank beginner. I
was shocked to find that none of them were just right for someone in Ben's boat.
They either assumed some knowledge of shortwave
listening and were too complicated or, on the other end of the spectrum, were so
general and shallow that they offered no help in actually using a shortwave
receiver.
I didn't find a single one - I'm sure one exists but it didn't turn
up for me - that started right at the beginning and offered practical advise in
a way that a complete beginner could understand . (What you will find on the Web,
just searching for "shortwave listening" is excellent - much better than what I
offer here. There's much more detailed information all over the Web for those,
unlike Ben, who aren't starting from scratch.)
Anyway, I wrote a note for Ben that offered some of the really basic
fundamentals. In Ben's case I supplemented that with a one-on-one tour of the
Sony 2010 radio. So you'll not get that. But I do think that some of what I told
Ben would be of help to someone who wants to try shortwave listening but finds
the information on the Web too confusing.
Keep in mind that I've truly over-simplified here. True shortwave enthusiasts
would find plenty that they'd want to change I think. It would be the same for
me if I read something like this cold. But my efforts here are to make it
possible for someone with no experience at all to be able to take a shortwave
radio and use it to tune in a few stations.
OK. Here goes
Most of this is just a cut and paste job from the note I sent
Ben.
Things to know:
1. Generally speaking you'll hear more stations in the evening - starting around
dusk and continuing into the night. (When I was a kid we used megacycles and
kilocycles ... megahertz and kilohertz, the terms now, describe exactly the same
frequencies ... only the words have changed, not the frequencies).
2. Higher frequencies - maybe 14 kilohertz and upward - do best in the daytime.
Lower frequencies - between 14 and 5 kilohertz do best at night. Keep in mind
that you'll still find stations that you can hear just find on the higher
frequencies at night and the lower frequencies in the daytime ... it's just a
general rule.)
3. Unlike tuning in 750 AM and getting WSB every time, commercial overseas
broadcasters use different frequencies at different times of the day. So you may
tune to 6 megahertz one time and get Radio Havana (that's actually a frequency
it uses) and tune there another time and get another station or nothing at all.
4. Atmospheric conditions are the biggest factor in reception - what may tune in
clearly one day, may be hard to listen to the next. The next biggest factor is
the antenna. You'd be amazed at how well the radio does when connected to one of
my external antennas. But - for now - using the whip is the way for you to go.
5. Generally there is going to be some static and fading, even under good
conditions. Under bad conditions, there will be more. This can be annoying to
some people. If it turns out to bother you greatly, you may not enjoy shortwave
listening. Also, if it bothers your spouse or other family members, you can use
earphones. Earphones can also be handy because they make listening to weak
signals a little easier than listening using a speaker.
6. At first I'd just use the whip antenna for shortwave. It'll work pretty well.
For instance, when Mary and I were in Nova Scotia I used only the whip antenna
on the Sony 2010 and was able to listen to my usual ham radio group that I join
in on Sundays. There is
a plug to attach an external antenna but I doubt that you would ever need to
bother.
7. I'd concentrate on overseas commercial stations at first - and not bother
with the ham radio signals. These commercial stations usually have stronger
signals also there is a different technique - and different settings to fool
with on the radio - for ham radio.
8. Almost all times are expressed in Coordinated Universal
Time (usually you'll see that expressed as UTC ... don't ask me why it isn't
CUT). It's actually the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or what we called Zulu
when I was in the Army. You can check out the current
time in UTC
here.
Getting started
When Ben and I finished our short one-on-one tutorial he knew how to turn on the
radio and how to tune the frequencies. Since you're missing that tutorial you
can use the manual that came with your radio to learn about the controls. Unlike
the radio you have at home or in the car, there are a lot more controls on a
shortwave radio. The number of controls varies from radio-to-radio.
The first thing to do, rather than try to find a specific station is to randomly
tune around the bands to see what you can hear. So it'll be more like fishing
than hunting. You'll just drop your hook and see what bites, instead of stalking
a specific station.
(I gave Ben a book listening frequencies for various overseas station, you can find something similar here.)
Some frequency ranges seem to offer better chances that you'll
hook something at a given time. So tune through these frequency ranges at first:
5900-6200
9400-9900
At 10 kilohertz exactly you'll find WWV, it's the National Bureau of Standards station that gives the exact, official time. Not bad for setting your watch. It also has broadcasts on 5, 15 and 20 kilohertz - you'll hear the same broadcast - it uses these other frequencies so that a person can always find a good signal any time of the day from any location.
11,600 - 12,100
15,100 - 15,800
Those are not the only frequency ranges - not by a long shot - that offer
commercial shortwave broadcasting. It's just a good place to start. So feel free
to tune around.
The shortwave bands have changed a lot since I started listening. Nowadays many stations have abandoned shortwave altogether since they can use Internet radio to broadcast - no static, no interference. And some like the BBC continue to use shortwave but have stopped beaming signals toward the U.S.
Also keep in mind that you'll find things other than
commercial broadcasters and hams - there will be military units, airplanes
keeping in contact with controllers on overseas flights, and even a few - truly
- spy stations.
As you tune around you may hear signals that are strong but garbled. We call it
a "Donald Duck" sound. That usually means that the station is using single
sideband instead of AM (keep in mind that while we talk about AM stations when
discussing regular U.S. broadcasting stations ... it's really one of the methods
of processing a signal - like FM, AM and then single sideband). Anyway, most ham
radio operators use single sideband. A few commercial broadcast stations use it
too. I don't think you should bother with it at first, but I'm going to offer a
brief explanation.
Stations using single sideband (we call it SSB) use either the lower sideband or
the upper sideband. You'll see a switch on the radio that can be moved from LSB
(lower sideband) to USB (upper sideband). Ham stations use LSB when on the lower
frequencies ... 7300 and below ... and USB on the higher frequencies). However,
military stations and other commercial users who broadcast in SSB almost always
use USB, no matter what the frequency.
You'll find, when tuning any SSB signal, that tuning has to be more exact.
That's because SSB uses a much tinier slice of the spectrum.
Again, you probably will want to wait before experimenting with it.
But, if you don't want to wait, here are the ham radio frequencies you are
likely to encounter:
3500 - 3800 -- that's the 80 meter ham band. Most signals will be SSB and
all that are SSB will use LSB. There may be a few AM ham stations.
7125 - 7300 -- that's the 40 meter ham band. My favorite. It'll be almost all SSB and all will be LSB.
14,125-14,300 -- that's the 20 meter ham band. It's considered a great band for
DX (distant stations). It'll be SSB but will all be USB.
At the lower end of all these frequencies you are likely to hear CW (that's
Morse Code).
Now let's talk specifically about using the Sony 2010
This was aimed at Ben - I realize that most of you won't be using this specific radio. So unless you are, this part will be fairly useless to you. The controls on a 2010 work in a fairly unique way so there's little here that will help you with a different radio.
OK, I warned you that this would be very simple stuff. To prove that, let's talk about how to turn on the radio.
At the top left there is a switch - labeled POWER - that has 3 positions, ON, OFF and TIMER. Set it to ON.
Next, to control the volume look at the sliding control at the bottom right, labeled VOLUME.
To tune the radio, you can use direct entry - to key in a frequency using the same kind of a keyboard you'd find on a computer - or you can tune with a knob.
So, let's use a combination of both. One of the frequency ranges I thought worth checking out starts at 5,900 megahertz. So we will use the keyboard to start there. You'll find the white number keys just to the left of the volume control.
Press 5900 then hit the EXECUTE key (a large white key at the bottom of the number keypad).
Unless you hit a wrong key the radio will now be set at 5900. The display will show: 5900.0 kilohertz. When you do hit the wrong keys or enter a frequency that the radio can not cover you'll get an error message on the display - just try again if that happens.
Let's look at some other information on the keypad before we tune around. As it stands now it shows WIDE. That means that we are using a wide filter. If there was interference - other stations near - we could press a key to narrow that down. Look at the row of black keys under the display, there are these keys: WIDE, NARROW, SYNC, USB and LSB/CW. You'd simply press the NARROW key to change the filter. But, for now, let's leave the radio set on WIDE. We'll get to some of the other controls later.
So now we can use the knob to tune through a range of frequencies. The knob is at the top right - on the side of the radio. Under tht knob there are these settings: FAST, SLOW and LOCK. When I'm tuning around just to find a frequency range that is active, I use FAST. Once I find a group of stations, I change the control to SLOW. The LOCK setting comes in handy if you are listening to a specific station and don't want to accidentally change the frequency.
The antenna
I will give you a short section of wire that can be used as an antenna in place of the whip. You're welcome to try that to see if it brings a weak station in stronger. The antenna connections are on the left side of the radio. Plug it into the one labeled AM. Once you've done that you can collapse the whip antenna.
The external antenna will work best if you're sitting outside. And it will work best if you can stretch it out, rather than letting it just collapse in a pile on the ground. If you ever became interested in listening, you would find that a relatively long stretch of wire - maybe from a window to a tree - will work even better. Or, just taking a long piece of wire and stretching it out inside a room can do fine. The antenna I'm furnishing is very short and may not work much better - or even as good - as the whip antenna. It's just something to experiment with if you want to try it.
By the way, depending on the construction of your friend's house, the radio - with either antenna - may work considerably better when you are outside. Again, that depends on the house - you may find that moving outside doesn't make much difference.
The amateur radio bands
You can try - if you wish - to listen to the small group of hams that I take part in every Sunday at 8:15 a.m. or so (sometimes it's a few minutes later). If you want to try to listen, then key in - using the keyboard - 7141. Then hit the key on the front for LSB.
Because of the way radio waves travel, there's something that might strike you as odd. Close stations are actually more difficult to hear than those reasonably far away. So you may hear the other stations but not me. Listen for N9GA in Illinois and - some mornings - W4VV. That's Gary and Frank. I'm KQ4YA and my uncle, another Bill, is W8JHT. My uncle lives in Gwinnett so it's possible that you would only hear Gary or Gary and Frank and neither of the Bills.
Also, if you try that frequency and don't hear us, tune slowly upward. If there are other stations using that frequency or that are close to it we sometimes move up a bit. You'd never need to go higher than 7146 though - I can't remember a morning that we've gone higher than that. We never try lower since there is an established group that's always below us on that day and time.
When things go wrong
1. You turn the radio to ON and nothing happens. First check the small green slide switch on the left side of the radio. It's a master ON/OFF switch. It's normally used to make sure that the radio won't come on accidentally when it is in your luggage. So make sure that switch is in the ON position. Other things to check would be batteries - not just that they're fresh but that they haven't somehow jostled out of position. By the way, there's a battery check switch on the front of the radio. Pressing it should put the red LED lights into the part of the scale that's green.
2. Error messages on the screen - usually it just means you entered a frequency incorrectly. If you can't get the error message to go away try turning the radio off and then back on again.
3. The radio has two sets of batteries. On top you'll find 3 of the DD flashlight type batteries. If you removed those batteries you'd find 3 of the AA type. I changed all these batteries before giving you the radio. You'll not need to change them. But, just for the record, here's what would happen if one set or the other went dead. If the AA batteries are dead, the radio flat won't work. If the DD batteries get weak, it won't work very well. If dead, it won't work.