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Message from gccradioscience at Friday, 15-Jul-11 22:55:42 GMT

I am sorry, but what is going on here? I remember back in the winter and last summer was able to receive long wave stations very clear. Has anyone noticed that most of these receivers are not receiving no long wave Non Directional Beacons and broadcasters? These tuners now are like my beat up Grundig G8. People like myself want to hear long wave broadcasters cause I cannot just simply put up a long wire antenna outside my apartment window. I try to even tune in the European receivers and most are not tuning in clear, and when I was at one of the French receivers darn thing could not even pick up France Inter a local Long wave station on 162 kHz and not even BBC 4. I don't know if it's seasonal antenna configurations or just lack of interest gaining. I mean you can receive AM very clear, SW very clear. We should have all tuners tune everything from 10 kHz to 1.3 GHz or higher even if it's Y connecting a loop antenna that is broadband and a discone antenna. They have active antennas out there that receive from 10 kHz to 30 MHz they have them at North Country Radio. I would put in a radio receiver and make sure that it covers all frequencies and no drop outs. Sounds like we need some better antenna engineering, I will do my best to help.

Adam Ebel
Virginia Beach, VA
LW DXer since 1992

Message from ted707 at Wednesday, 20-Jul-11 03:03:10 GMT

I'll put up another Icom PCR dedicated to whatever band you like if you'll kick in the active antenna.

Message from gccradioscience at Wednesday, 20-Jul-11 03:32:25 GMT

Which active antenna do you recommend? I do use a active antenna all of the time over here where I live. I even modified the Radio Shack Shortwave antenna to receive long wave frequencies and now it needs an enclosure. So that is the reason why long wave band is poor is that there is no dedicated antenna for that region or the HF antennas are put away until the winter sets back in?

Message from ted707 at Wednesday, 20-Jul-11 05:25:45 GMT

Well there's the problem... I am in South Texas, where the longwaves are scarce. Not sure what, short of a seriously Long Wire would work. I looked at the North Country stuff but I'm not convinced it would be immune to all the electrical noise I have around here.

Message from gccradioscience at Wednesday, 20-Jul-11 05:53:05 GMT

Don't worry, you are not the only one who has poor long wave reception maybe winter is better for LF. My best long wave reception would be only the living room, I might install a cable in the next room when I get the time. I am still looking around for PC based tuners, and I am looking at the RX-320 D as my first PC based receiver, but I need help soon when I get it to put it online. I cannot wait to share my receiver with all of you folks in the future.

Message from AB9IL at Thursday, 21-Jul-11 02:33:11 GMT

Winter is definitely better for longwave. I've listened around a bit, and signals aren't ideal this time of year. Also, there is a lot more QRM in the LF and MF spectrum due to all sorts of electronic devices, power lines, and junk technology. Some of the newer software defined receivers do a great job of filtering out some of this noise, but it is tough for the receiver hosts in populated areas.

We need more hermits who live in isolated areas (with broadband) and large antennas...

Message from vitesse at Friday, 22-Jul-11 19:04:50 GMT

Wellbrook ALA-1530 active loop antenna (1m) does an interesting job in LW. Sometime I can receive really clear signal where I live in saint-jean-sur-richelieu, quebec, canada. It does a great job at removing unwanted electical noise. Summer is not the best time to do TA-DX on LW :(

Message from vitesse at Sunday, 28-Aug-11 04:12:21 GMT

I have try the LW band this night. I haven't done any radio activity this summer and I'm surprised about the quality of RMC 216khz here in saint-jean-sur-richelieu, Quebec, Canada

Beside the fact that I get a little bit of interference from CLB and BX NDB (Non directional Beacon) The station sound almost Local.

you can listen to the sound here:
http://fmdx.gotdns.com/audio/media/rmc216-27-08-2011.m4a

Message from Lanta at Friday, 09-Sep-11 19:13:27 GMT

In case people like to listen online to the LW stations web stream try my home page it see the LW freq and you can tune in online

Dutch http://users.telenet.be/offshoreradio/lange-golf.html
Eng (same page) http://users.telenet.be/offshoreradio/long-wave-english.html

ps click on the speaker to open stream (most is WMA)

73 Herman

QTH Gent Belgium


Last edited by Lanta at Friday, 09-Sep-11 19:17:41 UTC

Message from de9man at Friday, 09-Sep-11 19:50:31 GMT

Hi gccradioscience (Dear Adam Ebel),

Yes Sir, you are right because You have gotten a lot of LW Radio Stations from all over the World in the last some years but now in these days the Sun Spot Numbers are increasing and that´s means that the Low Frequencies as Long Wave and Medium Wave has no any chance to cover the Long Distances in the Day times. The LW/MW can only reach the Far away Stations in the Darkness of the Night but not too good as in the Low Sun Spot Numbers Period called Solar Cycle 24 (Duration from Mid 1997 till Mid 2010). Please look at this attached Chart of Sun Spot Minimum Days of the past few Years:

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Since 2004: 821 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days
Todays SSN: 47.

So You can get more LW-Radio Stations again in the Winter Period but due to the High Sun Spot Numbers Period may be not too Far Stations and may be not for the long Time in the night until the Low Sun Spot Numbers Period comes again may be in 4-5 Years.

Thank you very much for your announcement to share one SDR-Radio with the GT-Community. I Appreciate this very much. With Best Regards Yours Sincerely

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