yeah so on my profile it said im a DXer. and im no longer in japan im in Springfield Misouri until tuesday then i go to long beach in cali. but today i just bought a New Shortwave radio and have been picking up alot of frequencies around here. ive latly been listening to a station in north carolina. any comment for fun are more than welcome and any frequencies too tune into would also be great

wow way for no one to comment at all

how much does a cheap shortwave radio cost?

around $20 dollars or so. like this one by coby is only 10 http://www.amazon.com/Coby-CXCB91-Band-ShortWave-Radio/dp/B0002IYQDM/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1299806509&sr=8-16

and Kaito makes some cheap ones as well

I've got an Icom R75, which is a quite decent desktop set, but can't dx effectively since I'm situated in a urban area.

I use a 35 foot outdoors sloping random wire, an indoors 100 foot zig-zagging wire, and a Torus Tuner (active tuned loop) antenna.

I used to listen much more to shortwave but with the decrease in broadcasters and broadcasts aimed at my part of the world, the internet is just so much more convenient to access stuff like the BBC.

Now and again I catch North Korea's crazy rants. Stalinist, cold war broadcasters are pretty entertaining. Havana has had its moments too but is nothing compared to NK.

DXing is more of a hobby. the Icom receivers are nice. i managed to DX a station all the way over on the east coast with about a 30 ft longwire antenna indoors on a portable. you should try getting an antenna and elevating it above your house or apartment

It would be hard to situate my antennas better than I have.

I never could recieve the Spanish language tropicals like I wanted but I have still grabbed a few relatively weak and distant stations.

Japanese utilities aren't too hard.

Some small local South American stations have been reeled in.

Still no Vanuatu, and I tried for years. It's just too hard a catch I guess with local interference (certainly the gear is adequate for the task).

ah for sure. if i were to use a longwire and connect it to my AM transmitter would that work? im thinking about running 150ft or so

See there's the problem, unless I can "borrow" some wire from my neighbor's HVAC unit I'm going to be relying on welded coat hangers.

u can use speaker wire or some sort of copper wire that passes current throught it

You want to transmit or just receive?

need to transmit

I've never transmitted but I think you'd be better off with a commercial antenna for such things.

i know that but i cant get that right now which is why i was asking if it could work somewhat

maybe it might because ive seen people qrp far on HAM with that

If you have a defunct piece of electronics like a radio or tv around there is probably a coil of magnet wire inside. It's that very thin copper wire.

25 feet or so of that connected to the antenna would be enough to make a big difference and since it's so thin it can be very unobtrusive.

Any more than 25 feet and, depending on the model but which is typical for inexpensive compact SW radios, you'll probably just overload the receiver.

Google would have some answers. More than I'd want to hazard, anyway.

yeah it says you can use it on the instructions for low power transmitters. ill give it a try. it might be a good idea to ground it though

ok thanks. i can get alot of stations here in cali. i never managed to get anything from over the ocean though probly because im only using a portable with 30 foot speaker wire indoors and my house blocks out RF signals really bad

I never saw this thread until now, but I'm also a DX'er as well as a ham.  I mainly listen to utility stations, such as military, aeronautical, maritime, as well as the secretive spy numbers stations.  I've also got an Icom R75 for my main receiver, but also have a Sony 2010 portable, and a Radio Shack DX-402 portable which is quite a bit smaller than the 2010.  Unfortunately these days with a busy life and a 1 year old son, I don't have much time for SWL'ing.