(no subject)

I used to listen to Shortwave radio a lot, but haven't done much with it recently because I was always dissapointed in the results. But a few days ago I was showing a friend around the shortwave bands, and decided, you know what? What would it take to get a relaly really good signal on my setup.

I sat down, and looked at how I work my radio. It's just an SDR USB radio plugged into my desktop, plugged into an upconverter so I can listed to shortwave, and then plugged into a 25 foot antenna.

So I asked around, got some advice, was told specifically how to set up a killer setup using these devices....and....

Now it's Laptop -> USB SDR Radio -> Upconverter -> 9:1 Balun -> which splits into a ground wire (just a long wire wrapped around a nail shoved into the ground!) and a ONE HUNDRED foot antenna I already had.

And the results are night and day. Stuff I could barely see on my screen, was coming in strong, signals were super clear, and I was picking stuff up from New Zealand, Korea and even the Middle East with pretty good quality. Turns out the grounding was the problem. In that I wasn't doing it. Oops.

I'm thinking about remounting my antenna permanently to the side of the apartment, along with the ground, and starting to scan the stations again.

If I can ever find the time.