Below our teetering pile of books, underneath our stacks of articles that make us angry, past our megabytes of bookmarked disturbing facts, and down beneath the layer of bumperstickers slapped on in disgust, we all have a lot in common. We are, by and large, explorers, and face it, in the most positive sense of the word, geeks.

We are all here for different reasons, but I believe it is safe to say that we all have apolitical, non-controversial and interesting things to share. We do have lives beyond the headlines and the lurid details of other folks. For one thing, we like to catch waves of energy and listen to them, or work somewhere where those waves are created, excited and released. Um, yeah, that's pretty geeky.

Here is a radio related tangent. It is geek friendly and fun for everyone: DX'ing. So, to pick up from the HD Antenna thread, Alfredo, KYOI was located on Saipan and built a cult following. I loved this radio station and was surprised to find out how big it really still is -- years after signoff!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KYOI

High energy radio with a fantastic variety of music meant for a primarily Japanese audience. I still have my QSLs and my tee-shirt. I will sport it to the next pow-wow. I should dig to see if I still have any of it around that I recorded. An old friend of mine might have some KYOI on tape too.

How about everyone else? Hams? SWL'ers? MW DX'ers? Lowbanders? Pirates? Curious?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DXing

Was a HAM. Gonna get licensed again here soon.

My fave is HF Phone for interacting on the radio. (I do code, but poorly.)

As a listener, I enjoy older radios on AM at night... Always have, always will. Spent a lot of time with an older Hammurlund, DXing all over the place, with a long wire in the trees.

These days it's messy, but if one is somewhere quiet (RF quiet) outside the city, for example, the experience can still be pretty good.

A quick spin along on my Sony boombox here in NoPo:

11:30 KPQ 560 Wenatchee
Weather and a PSA from someone who sounded somewhat intoxicated, or exhausted, or both, then more Art Bell

11:35 CISL 600 Vancouver
"Kind of Hush" Carpenters and "Rainy Day People" from Gordon Lightfoot and "Downtown" from Pet Clark all accompanied by a lively DJ.

11:45 KDWN 720 Las Vegas
"Leroy's Sports Hour" talk about betting and the Warriors. Baseball scores at 11:50.

11:50 CJDC 890 Dawson Creek
Quick station ID then "Imagine That" Diamond Rio

11:55 CBR 1010 Calgary
Jazzy piano music in CBC news with the French election as the lead story

12:05 KXTL 1370 Butte
"Magic Carpet Ride" Steppenwolf and "Too Late to Turn Back Now" Cornelius Brothers, liner and into "Turn Turn Turn" by the Byrds, and ID and "Operator" Jim Croce

12:15 KITI 1420 Centralia
"One" Three Dog Night then cheerful DJ with a bit of banter and ID into "Mother and Child Reunion" Paul Simon and "A Summer Song" Chad & Jeremy

I was a pirate when I was about 14 - 15 . . . I still look over my shoulders for the FCC anti-pirate squad. I suppose it was a good thing I couldn't afford any kind of linear amplifier with decent power -- I'd have to turn myself in out of guilt.

I also had a map of the stations I DX'ed. I'm still hoping to find that map someday.

Not bad!

My current location (Parkrose) is actually decent. It's a bummer for FM, as there is a hill between me and most all the towers... AM is pretty great though.

I've only got one fairly crappy SW radio. It's a multi-band boom box. (does have stereo expand mode though! IBOC is no good with this, but most other audio sources are.) I used to tune SW often as a kid, I largely don't bother these days. Maybe I'll try some DRM listening at some point.

We've a nice GE Super Radio III, sitting in the green house. That's where the summertime vices get done. I catch my aging father in law, tuning around the dial later at night sometimes. Once bitten, the bug continues to tease it seems...

Great thread, Littlesongs.

I'm a SWL and have received QSL cards from some of the very countries I've ranted about on the political side of this board, including North Korea, the former East Germany and Cuba.

Herb

So, where's the action at on SW these days?

I've had a hard time picking up much for a few years. Maybe sunspots?

Herb

> So, where's the action at on SW these days?

Because of the low sunspot activity, everything is at 15 MHz or below, primarily in the evening hours. During the day, you might try looking for the shortwave simulcast of the Vacouver CBC affiliate on 49 m. From the on-air announcements, it sounds like this is a simulcast of the 690 AM programming, and not the network feed.

I looked through the Wikipedia page on KYOI, the "Super Rock" station. I had read a description of this station in Radio Electronics magazine back in the early 1990s (about 1991 or so). I'm pretty sure that I have that old issue of the magazine somewhere. As I remember, that R.E. article said that all of the commercial-sponsored shortwave stations ran into the problem that large national sponsors were difficult to get.

I agree with the thought that SWL is rough these days. Not only are there fewer stations, but it is definitely not the same DX'ing it was in the 1980s. Sunspots have a great deal to do with it. I also think that our technology -- noisy computers, more radio stations, etc. -- and urban population density has affected listeners in Portland.

I also agree that it is a tough sell to do commercial SW, but I wonder what might have happened if KYOI had survived. It seems to be that an apolitical "Rock-n-roll blowtorch" would be very popular in an emerging China, and could sell ads to Coke, Pepsi and all the other U.S. companies seeking market share.

One of my first DX discoveries, around 1971, was hearing Oklahoma City on 1520 (KOMA), then turning the radio the other direction to hear Oregon City (KYXI) on the same frequency.

Then I discovered XePRS 1090, "The Soul Express." Unfortunately I must have found it about 5 minutes after Wolfman Jack left.

Most of my radio listening in the 70s was AM DX, which was better than most Eugene radio.

Then I was absolutely floored with my first discovery of FM-DX while traveling through eastern Montana in '77. The dial was swamped with Indiana and Ohio stations from about 1000 miles away.

There is a very interesting philosophical question buried in this thread about using pop culture in an international medium, like shortwave radio, to transcend national geographical and ideological boundaries. I had never thought about KYOI, WRNO, and KUSW in this way before. I would suspect that, at least in theory, these radio stations would have have an edge over the VOA because they were independent broacasters.

An additional question is, could something like this ever happen with the Internet and if so, how would it be executed? Maybe it is happening already with mailing lists, social networking sites etc. On the other hand, maybe it is not really happening because there are so many choices on the Internet that one can just stick to looking at websites that reinforce one's ideological positions. I don't know what the Internet's net effect is in this area, and it may still may be too early to tell.

I think it is difficult to gauge the impact of the web in China because so much of their internet surfing is hidden from the government. What was great about SW -- and still is -- is that it uses existing technology. It crosses the barriers of infrastructure, class, location and age with ease. In 1997, there were 417 million radios in China. One can only guess, with their increased spending power and manufacturing base, how many are there today. A truly subtle station could broadcast 24/7 without jamming. It could also make the world that much smaller.

Anybody here playing with shortwave DRM yet? Right now on 9.405 Mhz I am hearing a strong (10 over S-9) signal that sounds sorta like IBOC "sidebands"... Time to build that 12 khz converter and get some software, I guess.

EDIT 8:08
Well the digital signal went off at 8:00 (0300 UTC) so the frequency and time are consistant with the DRM signal from the Montsinery (French Guiana) site.