hey,

i just got a great analogue shortwave receiver from my pops, and i'm in the process of figuring out just how to get my outdoor antenna around the tree out front (right now the current plan is: 1. tape rope/wire to baseball. 2. throw baseball through fork of tree trunk, aiming from window. 3. try to tie rope from ground, but then inadvertently pull down entire thing. 4. go back upstairs to try it again--after all, there's almost NOTHING that i haven't successfully jerryrigged--for a while, at least. 5. fall out of window as result of trying for a really good fastball, and dying slowly and painfully, thereby negating all shortwave listening forever). anyway...is there anyone i can call for free help (like ComEd or something)? surely someone has experience with this, who doesn't have a ladder (like me). i get alriiight reception inside, but the higher MHz bands that i want could be improved.

and the other thing i wanted to know is, does anybody around this board transmit anything worth listening to? i can't CQ but i'd like to listen to anyone who can, or thinks they're funny enough to spout monologues at odd hours.

also, if anyone knows of any good programmes, let me know?

88's,
jet.

jet's such a dork, she just called me to see if anyone had responded to this yet.

someone please, make her day?

if it can wait until easter, i could swing by and climb the tree. i'm actually 7/8 polish and 1/8 monkey. so trees are no problem. only thing is i won't be in town until easter. can it wait?

also, i know it isn't shortwave or nothin, but i've heard funny stuff on 88.7 or 89.3 sometimes. aw hell, that was a shit suggestion.

i tried though!

honestly jet, what kind of programme are you looking for? someone ranting, i gather, but about what? i don't do that radio shite (though i do have a mobile scanner, which i find police stuff interesting sometimes, especially in the district) but i know someone who's a full-blown HAM dood. as in, has talked to other HAM doods all over the world. i really don't get it, personally. and i don't think he broadcasts anything funny or anything, but i can ask him for suggestions if you give me an idea of what you're looking for.

also, i'm not really a monkey. that was just a cover for what the other 1/8th really is.

hey jet, i'm a SWM, maybe me and you can get together sometime?

i kid.... i kid.....

I heard some crazy shit once on the SW band. Some guys ranting about the coming armegeddon and thus hawking solar cells, hazmat suits, water purifiers, and gensets. Their sales pitch centered on the fact that "all those urban dwellers will be screwed if they don't have this stuff". There also seems to be no shortage of shit brained evangelicals doing their thing on SW.

I listened for about 20 minutes at which point they went off the air.

I think it was somewhere in the 6 MHz area, but cannot be more specific as I was listening on my grandfather's 1938 Zenith 7-D-222 that I had just recapped and the display dial probably has 1% accuracy.

hey, slowriot, what kind of mate are you if you don't even call me to tell me that people actually DID respond? ...thanks for nothing!

anyway, honestly, i mostly just enjoy listening to broadcasts from germany, russia, china, panama, etc., because it's just so fucking cool to realise that radio waves being broadcast from the other side of the goddamn world is making their way to my receiver, and being enjoyed by me and my cats on our end. everything about shortwave listening--even the time broadcasts from ft. collins, colorado--are absolutely fascinating. the static that pervades nearly every signal is hardly a hindrance. when i was a kid, my pops was always listening to the shortwave, and thus i guess there's a sentimentality which i have for it, but mostly i just fucking love listening to radio that's not corporate, poor-taste assdance "music". there are only two FM stations that i listen to here in chicago, wnur being my favourite--but this morning i was compelled to welcome silence over the annoying farts of some stupid jazz trumpeter. and so, when i get home, the shortwave is the first thing that comes on. i love it.

basically, i try to use it to the fullest extent possible--besides listening to all the different broadcasts and trying to figure out what languages i can identify, i can adjust my clocks to the correct time, to the second; i listen to ham conversations from god knows where; i practice learning morse code and try to decode CW that i hear being broadcast. i also listen for cb, civil, and ship-to-shore transmissions, and the other night i even caught the tail-end of a transmission by (i'm assuming this is only self-proclaimed) "God's Gift to Amateur Radio".

so, in other words, i'll listen to pretty much anything i stumble onto.

74's,
jet.

oh, yeah, except the scary-sounding right-wing crazies. i mean, i'll listen to them, but only for shits and giggles...for the most part i can't get past the evangelical bullshit fast enough.

I'm a ham (K8MZO) as well as a long time SWL. I actually like listening in the "basement band" below 530kHz, but a lot of receivers don't go that low.

Have you tried to listen to the shortwave pirates on 6955kHz? Fun stuff there.