Anyone use their ham setup for shortwave listening too?

[Corey]

I often turn on my Yaesu 857D when I am in the Safeway parking lot waiting for them to open up on Sunday morning when I do my main grocery run for the week.
I usually listen to 7.135 to 55 MHz to long distance hams talking, but yesterday I tuned up a little further to 7.325 MHz, and I heard a Japanese broadcast with both a woman and a man speaking.

Of course I can not understand a word, but it was pretty cool.
I had the radio on LSB to listen to the other hams talking, but I switched it to FM and the Japanese broadcast sounded better, and even better yet when I switched it to am.

The only thing I am finding is a Turkish broadcast called The Voice Of Turkey listed on this hams page on that frequency via Google.
http://ki7f2.blogspot.com/

I use to listen to shortwave a lot back in the late 60s/early 70s on a Hallicrafters S125.

So anyone else use their ham setup to listen to foreign broadcasts?

 

[1911]

Other countries don't necessarily have the same commercial frequency allocations that we do, so at certain times of the night I will hear what sure sounds like foreign tv or radio shows on some portions of the 10, 17, or 20M bands where we have ham privileges. But for me personally, it's more fun to actually talk to people from other countries instead of just listen to them, so that's what I do with my radio time rather than listening to traditional short wave broadcasts. The cool thing about ham radio is that there are so many different ways to communicate on so many different bands that there is room for every interest and taste - so if SW floats your boat, then have fun and enjoy it Corey.

 

[gary in ohio]

Usually the bigest issue with using ham radio on SWl signals is the lack of a good AM filter...

 

[Corey]

Scroll on down to post #7 here.
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=20127.0

Yesterday again I was listening to 7.220 MHz which is a ham frequency, but what I heard was a dedicated radio broadcast with a woman and man in a studio, and music playing while they were talking.
I guess if you wanted to talk on that frequency it would be kind of hard with the foreign station talking over you.

Something I also need to look into with my 857D is engine static.
If the rig is running, I get a lot of static.
Turn the engine off, no static.

On all of my past CBs there are ANL switches for eliminating static.
The 857D does not seem to have one, unless it is in the menu somewhere to activate it.

The powerwire for the radio does no go by the engine at all, it comes out of the firewall and goes directly to the battery and is fused there as well.

 

[1911]

Something I also need to look into with my 857D is engine static.
If the rig is running, I get a lot of static.
Turn the engine off, no static.

On all of my past CBs there are ANL switches for eliminating static.
The 857D does not seem to have one, unless it is in the menu somewhere to activate it.

The powerwire for the radio does no go by the engine at all, it comes out of the firewall and goes directly to the battery and is fused there as well.

A few things you can do to help Corey:

1. Don't run your power wires and antenna coax together along the same path; separate them as far as possible.

2. Use clamp-on ferrite chokes on your coax, one as close to the radio as possible and another as close to the antenna as possible. There are different mixes of ferrite so choose a mix that is appropriate for the frequencies you are trying to filter for. I buy mine from dxengineering.com, they have a good selection.

3. Thoroughly bond the different parts of your truck (exhaust, engine, body, etc.) with braided grounding straps. This helps a lot and is worth the effort IMO. If you search on the interwebs there is some specific advice and instructions on how to do this most effectively; sorry I don't have any links bookmarked.

 

[Corey]

Thanks, just saw this with a Google search.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103222

Would that one work, or would it be better to look on the site you listed?

 

[1911]

Thanks, just saw this with a Google search.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103222

Would that one work, or would it be better to look on the site you listed?

I don't know Corey, the Radio Shack one doesn't say what frequencies it is intended for. The DX Engineering ones are made specifically for HF frequencies. If you can buy the RS ones locally, you're only out $12 if they don't work I guess, and you could try them right away.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Those Radio Shack snap-on ferrites are sorta expensive. Something that will snap on a RG-58 (0.195" OD) should be about $3 from Amidon, Fair-rite, CWS or the like. I personally like mix 77 (sometimes called 73) for broadband chokes but 31 and 43 can work, too. It would take a lot of 31 ferrites to match a single 77 on 10m and lower. Mix 77 would be terrible for HF resonant circuits but is very lossy below 50MHz, so makes a great choke. I suspect that what Radio Shacks sells is probably 43, but no way to know without testing.