Author Topic: Looking for a good HF radio...  (Read 6745 times)

Offline blizzard242

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Looking for a good HF radio...
« on: August 22, 2006, 02:47:50 AM »
I am looking for a good Hf ssb radio that I can use to listen to HF air traffic. I should have asked this first can I pickup Hf in south eastern MI. I have a cheep little handheld shortwave radio from radio shack that picks up alot of stuff so I should beable to pick up alot on clear night.



Offline dave

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Re: Looking for a good HF radio...
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2006, 02:36:46 PM »
I am looking for a good Hf ssb radio that I can use to listen to HF air traffic. I should have asked this first can I pickup Hf in south eastern MI. I have a cheep little handheld shortwave radio from radio shack that picks up alot of stuff so I should beable to pick up alot on clear night.

This can be a difficult question to answer.  Do you have a budget?  Are you interested in a transceiver (e.g., are you about to get a ham radio license, or do you plan to?) or just a receiver?

There are many options, but as with VHF/UHF, your ability to put up a reasonable antenna will be more of a determining factor in reception than the radio will.

For example, the Atlantic HF receiver is a tiny Yaesu FT-817 portable HF transceiver but it's hooked up to two very good antennas.

Dave

Offline blizzard242

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Re: Looking for a good HF radio...
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2006, 12:23:38 AM »
I would rather have a recever than a recever, (In Pharmacy college so the ham cert. would be out of the question untill next summer). The antenna is no problem. As for a budget, looking for the best for my buck (have not graduated yet). any advice would be great.

Offline MathFox

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Re: Looking for a good HF radio...
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2006, 06:06:26 AM »
I did listen to shortwave radio, as a hobby several years ago. Michigan is far from an ideal place for a permanent HF feed, because reception certainly will depend on time of day and condition of the atmosphere. OTOH, it should be possible to receive Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific communication (depending on time of day.)
Having a good antenna, away from sources of noise, makes a lot of difference. For good ssb reception you like to have stable oscillators; a 100 Hz frequency shift is very noticable.

Offline dave

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Re: Looking for a good HF radio...
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2006, 09:31:49 AM »
Check out:

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr.html
(Table Receivers)

and

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/portable.html
(Portable Receivers)

If you opt for a portable receiver, make sure it has some sort of external antenna jack.  You won't get too far (pun intended) with the internal antennas on shortwave.

The Icom R-75 is a pretty decent receiver, and they can be found used on eBay for under $500.

Good luck and happy listeneing!

Dave

Offline MathFox

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Re: Looking for a good HF radio...
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2006, 05:29:14 PM »
I dug my old Grundig Satellit 1400 SL SW radio up from storage and played for an hour. So far I achieved to receive Shannon VOLMET @ 5505 kHz readable but noisy. Not really DX .ie to .nl, but I'm just using the standard antenna that is built into the radio.
I found that receiving the ATC is significantly harder: transmissions are shorter and signal strength is lower; noise levels over here are significant.