Favourite SWBC band?

[w8cbc]

The reason I left off 16m (18900-19020) and 11.5m (25670-26100) is there are only 10 choices allowed.

Anyway. I was a SWL long before I considered a ham ticket. 19m was/is my favourite. It's worldwide, everyone uses it, and it was on 15070 I one day heard the BBC going around the world three times (main short-path signal plus six echoes).

[AG3Y]

Right now, during this part of the Sunspot cycle, 31 meters would have to be my choice. Stations come in strong and clear throughout the evening and night-time. And they don't mess up our ham bands!

73, Jim

[n2nh]

When I listened to SWBC, I would follow the Beeb (BBC) from 19M to 41M as night fell. At 0200G, I'd try to get Radio Luxie (Luxembourg) on 49M, which would be a hard one to get. I used to get it once or twice a week and hoped to listen to the top ten rock songs in Europe. Got Donna Summers on it a year before she was a hit here in the US, back in the '70s... http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I suppose it would be 41M for the same reasons most people like 40M.

[KG6YTZ]

I've always had the best luck with 31m reception. #Of course, where I am, a lot of it is Pacific Rim stuff [translation: "China and Japan"], but it's usually fairly easy to get Australia and New Zealand as well. #I can also get various European stations such as Deutsche Welle and Radio Netherlands.

Is there ANYTHING even remotely entertaining originating in the U.S. and audible on basic receivers in California? http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif #I hear VOA on various frequencies, I hear evangelism ["Eternal Light Christian Family Home World Faith Gospel Bible Outreach Ministries International, live from Hallelujah, Florida"] ad infinitum ad nauseum, but other than the occasional VOA newscast, I rarely hear any domestic SW signal worth taking my fingers off the VFO.

[w8amd]

Although I like them all, I might as well go for 41 meters. The stations give me heck on my favorite amateur band but from the swl angle it's a great band also.

[w5alt]

I listen to all the bands, especially when I'm sitting around working on other things. But the tropical bands have always been my favorite. No standard programming, challenging to catch, etc. And when you see how some of those stations operate, you understand why it's challenging to hear them!

73,
Walt, W5ALT

[KG6YTZ]

An afterthought... The domestic SW signal I listen to most often is WWV. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif And that's only to set clocks and watches, or to calibrate my DX-160 dials to 10 MHz.

[W5HTW]

Ah, Radio Luxembourg! When I was in Europe that was the one station we Americans listened to the most. Or at least, the people I knew. From time to time I still stumble across them.

(Incidentally, when I was in France, in the very late hours we could often hear WKBW in Buffalo!)

I still enjoy Cuban music and often listen to Havana Radio. Mostly, though, I just tune around the SW bands until I hear a program or music I like, and I listen a while. Listening more for content than for anything like DXing.

Seems most American SW stations are religous junk, so nothing in US SW is of any interest. Sometimes the more exotic music from the Middle East is a neat change, and once in a while stations from the Far East.

Mostly, though, I enjoy the Latin music.

Ed

[N1XHF]

I listen to 49m nightly at night to go to sleep. Mostly the BBC though Or radio Netherlands.

[w8cbc]

I remember WRNO's first few years. A rock station on SW, cool! Then there was KUSW. I still remember - 15225 all day, then it'd be jumping all over the place at night.

I've always been more a programme listener than a DXer. The BBC was always my first port of call. With its relays all over the world and massive transmitter farms in the UK, you could hear it any time, anywhere. It's not so much the case now of course, but I can still usually dig something up. I did learn a lot about propagation from BBC signals that were hauling themselves in. In some cases, the best signal was one meant for elsewhere - such as 17 metres out of Hong Kong during local (northern Ont) summer evenings back in the early 90s.

I used to like Medianetwork and Research File on RNI, I listen to CBC via the RCI relay, and Radio Australia on 9580 is the most reliable morning signal of anything - sometimes, when everything else is wiped out by magnetic storms, it's the only thing audible - so I have it set when I need to use the wake-up.

I've always been intrigued by the Commonwealth countries' national broadcasters. So the ABC's domestic relays on 19 and 60 metres caught my attention before they were shut down.

That Crosley I had as a kid turned me on to 49 metres. The most reliable night-time band no matter what the conditions. It's still my second favourite after 19.

[WA2ZDY]

I too remember WRNO fondly. I had a job once where I sat in a construction type office trailer all evening. The New York stations didn't come in worth beans on FM, but WRNO came in just fine and dandy on 13760 and 7455. I spent a lot of cold winter evenings in that trailer with WRNO tuned in on the junk multiband portable and the coathanger for an antenna.

[w8cbc]

I often had it on the Sangean when I was out on the river in the early 90s. The local FMs out of Sudbury were (and still are) rancid. I think by that time they were mostly relaying WRNO-FM. It wasn't long after that they got heavily into block programming.

In the early 80s, they played Abracadabra a lot for some reason. That whoosh in the song told me the audio was one side of the stereo source, not summed. I sort of wonder about that. Another one I heard lots on WRNO then was Rosanna. I've always associated Toto with New Orleans since - though I'm guessing they're from elsewhere (I never bothered to look it up).

I still have their QSL card someplace. 1982, I think, for 7355. I'd really wanted to send a report for the FM side but it wasn't until 1997 that I picked it up by sporadic E and by then WRNO-FM was one of those cookie-cutter classic-rock stations that bore me silly.

I also recall that KUSW, just before it was sold to some Ministry or other, became hard. Ozzy and some of the more obscure Pink Floyd for example. It certainly went out with a bang.

[WA2ZDY]

Yeah, maybe it was 7355 and 13720 . .. I dunno now anymore! #And I don't remember what KUSW programming was but I must have liked it ok. #I had a few of their stickers around, including one on my TS440!

I guess it was about 1987-1990 I was listening to them, not since. #I've tuned around the SW bands and sometimes I hear something interesting and listen in, but I never really take note of who or where. #I just tune around.

I do remember hearing CBC on 6005 or 6010 years ago, apparently domestic service to the Territories. #That was fun, caught a hockey game every so often. #But with satellites, I guess domestic services everywhere are fading except in the third world. #

As a kid I spent more time dodging Radio Moscow on the 40m Novice band than listening to SWBC. #2pm to 8am every night, Radio Moscow and assorted other iron curtain propaganda non-stop. #And yet we Novices made plenty of contacts just the same. #It was a challenge but we learned from it. #I also spent a lot of time copying commercial traffic on the mill with my HQ120. #Good practice though I went through a lot of paper and typewriter ribbons!

[w8cbc]

I'd imagine that a moderate to weak 41m BC signal would do for CW - offset about 700 cycles and fire away, they're providing the BFO. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I tune around 40 at night though and everyone I can hear is clustered in the quiet spots.

Which all brings me to something. I don't recall the realignment exactly. Were SWBC to vacate 7100-7200? Did we get something below 7000 to compensate or do we still share 7200-7300?

[WA2ZDY]

There was no such thing as "moderate" when it came to SWBC signals on the 40m Novice band! #Radio Moscow came on first every afternoon and stayed well into the night. #I did send a reception report once and got a nice bit of info back. #They claimed to be running 120kw transmitters in Odessa. #Well trust me, there was no way that was true. #Most "experts" tended to believe the truth was more like a megawatt per transmitter in suburban Havana.

(The citizens behind the iron curtain were usually on the edge of starvation not because of military spending but because of the oil needed to run those power plants!)

My one crystal was on 7123 - so I got to listen to the 2600 Hz note (I like a 600 Hz note for copying CW even today) from Moscow's 7125 outlet all night long. #But it was fun none the less! #And back then in the heat of the cold war, they were on every ten KHz!

WARC '03 did change the 41m BC allocations over time. #I believe 7100-7200 is to be vacated in R-1 and R-3 by 2009, and 7200-7300 sometime after that. #Apparently though some things are moving faster than that. #And some European nations have started to authorise their hams the use of 7100-7200 already.

[w8cbc]

Ah, that's right, I'd forgot - novices had to use crystal control. I wonder - is that still the case for the few novices that are still around?

It does appear in my recent goofing around that 7100-7150 is becoming quieter.

I've been hearing US-based (and damned strong, they have to be sited within the US) religious broadcasts in 90m and just above 60m the last few years. Recently in 120m as well. I've also heard them blasting away on the old VOA relay freqs (I liked ISB) such as 6873 and 7651.

How come they don't have to follow the same rules as (just about) everyone else?

[WA2ZDY]

Novices were allowed VFO control about the time I got licensed. But I used a crystal - 7123 - for the first several months I was on the air, first with a 6L6 oscillator then with a Globe Scout. Fun times. Then I got a Heath VF-1 - what a blessing that thing was!