Shortwave Radio. The long and the short of it. http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/02/shortwave-radio.html By Ken Denmead EmailFebruary 06, 2008 | 10:37:00 AMCategories: Radio and kids
Swradio A cross-post from reader Matt Comstock's blog: My son is working on his Radio merit badge. I´ve had a shortwave radio for years, but I´ve never figured out when to listen and where on the dial to look for stations. This gave me a reason. This has been a lot of fun. I´ve listened to Radio Havana Cuba - they were talking about the School of the Americas, aka the School of the Assassins (see http://www.soaw.org/) I learned that China has been having some trouble with snow on China Radio International. I listened to a discussion of aboriginal displacement on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that sounded a lot like our own country´s history and Native Americans. I listened to a couple of folks talk of the strange things they´d eaten, riffing on the upcoming Year of the Rat on Radio Taiwan International, "Rat´s not that bad." They also noted in response to a listener´s letter, that the reason they were off-the-air the other night was due to radio-jamming by mainland China! I heard a really really really bad cover of Radar Love on Radio Nacional de España. Here´s a couple of really good site for finding out what´s on: http://hfradio.org/swbc/ http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/ Here´s a really detailed discussion of radio propagation and the ionosphere: Introduction to HF Radio Propagation A good book for schedules is Passport to World Band Radio. When you think about the radio vs. the web, it´s hard to imagine that shortwave could last. In fact many countries no longer aim their broadcasts toward the US (BBC , Deutsche Welle) and I wonder if that´s not part of it: online radio and podcasts are much cheaper than a huge antenna. But no one can tell what you´re listening to on the radio. And you can´t get web access everywhere yet. Combine HF with the web and Open Spectrum gets interesting? Or becomes amateur radio? I am having a blast! My son? Not so much. What are some good ways to pique a kid´s interest in Shortwave - or should listening to static be its own reward. That is, if he´s not interested so far, will he ever be? Interestingly, he´s way more interested in Amateur radio and actually talking to people than in simply listening. I guess this is similar to our differences in playing computer games - I like playing against bots, he likes playing with foul-mouthed wackos online. ________________________ http://zliangas.blogspot.com (radio tech , gadgets, grk ethics) http://zlgr.multiply.com (radio monitoring site plus audio clips ) MAIN SITE http://www.worldisround.com/articles/302315/ (Litohoro) 321199/Tinos http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachgr pictures upload http://www.geocities.com/zliangas http://www.myspace.com/310100806 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=770974854 http://del.icio.us/gr_geek ........ Zacharias Liangas , Thessaloniki Greece greekdx @ otenet dot gr --- Pesawat penerima: ICOM R75 , Lowe HF150 , Degen 1102,1103,108, Tecsun PL200/550, Chibo c300/c979, Yupi 7000 Antenna: 16m hor, 2x16 m V invert, 1m australian loop ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
