Welcome to the Radiodog RU-vid channel! Here you'll find lots of videos of me playing with radios. That's about it. I am a minor collector of portable radios, with a particular fondness of 70's-era analog portables. I enjoy shortwave listening as well as medium-wave listening and DXing. If the radio has a glowing dial, all the better!
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23:30 Sounds like that woman is talking about the coronavirus, and I just noticed the date of your upload, I'm guessing things were about to get interesting for you not much later! Very nice antenna. Why is it called "random wire"? Isn't this just a type of long wire?
Excellent educational video! Really pulled together and cleared up a lot of gaps a had regarding the association between the different bands. Felt like I was in a class listening to a knowledgeable professor. Thanks!
In daytime I can barely get the local AM stations. At night I can regularly get AM stations from 600 miles away and the bands are crowded! It blows my mind that so many signals are just floating around and most people have no idea about them.
Really depends where you live and how polluted your area is with signals. For me it made a massive difference over shortwave. If I drive way out it makes no difference over a simple long whip antenna.
Thank you so much, sir, just for being there and I hope that you are well as there were no videos from you for months. I always thought that I was the only one (or one of very few) who does what you are doing here (in addition to short wave), especially during long drives or long walks that happen to be somewhere between 6pm and 6am or so. It is awesome to get MW stations that are supposed to be local (music, propaganda,...etc) from places that are up to 1000 miles away or more and to see how different the contents are even after a couple of evil creatures started buying everything recently. I once heard a commercial all the way from Richmond, VA about a "Gentlemen's Club" downtown!! Thank you for informing me (and many others through me) about the wonderful website/map that helps identifying the not-so-clear signals. During drives, it helps if what you're driving has tune+/tune- buttons in the steering wheel in addition to a scan and/or seek button. In long walks/hikes, allow me to suggest this little gym that I had 4 of through the years and I think is the best pocket MW DX radio ever made, the SANGEAN DT-180. First, you won't pay more than $30 if you find a new or "open box" one on ebay or goodwill or similar, but more importantly, they thought about every little feature of greatness and added it. The biggest thing is that you can fully use it while it is in your pocket, including rotating its axis as it is small enough. It has enough buttons that are at unique locations that you can feel in the dark without having to look. Other features are, power...it only uses 1 AAA battery that lasts forever with the default 90 min auto shutdown power on that can be bypassed by long press power on and the 90 minute limit can even be adjusted (when it shuts down due to depleted battery, I just take the battery out and clean the contact points and put it back to make it last a few more weeks). It is even anti accidental power button touches as you have to press it "for real" before it comes on. Another very important feature it excels at (that later more famous and very much more expensive ones, like the DT-400, skipped) is presets and memory as there is a separate button for every preset that you can use both ways (save or recall) from your pocket (5 buttons). There is a button for extra base if your earbuds/headphones are on the crappy side and a "lock" slide switch. They do not have some features that some people identify these days like USB charging the single battery (I think carrying an extra AAA battery rechargeable or not is more practical) or an external speaker or weather (no sense in that) but it does have a tiny super capacitor inside that keeps the presets and settings when changing the battery.
Thanks for the instructive and useful video. You've just got a new subscriber. Videos about antennas for SWL aren't common, so I'm glad I've found this one. I have two questions: - unless I missed it, you don't tell exactly how long this antenna is. You mention 80ft = 24.38m at some point, so I guess that's it? - what do you do with the grounding wire? just lay it on the ground or actually ground it by connecting its end to some kind of copper rod plugged into the soil? Many thanks in advance if you can take a minute to reply to these questions. 73, Alain
I had the Tecsun PL-880 and I couldn't get ONE SW station from my house, but with the XHDATA D109 I received a solid 30 station with just the standard antenna. So the $40 XHDATA D109 outperforms the $180 Tecsun PL-880. The XHDATA D109 also has equivalent sound quality. I returned the Tecsun PL-880 and kept the much superior XHDATA D109.
I have that same antenna, but the tantalum capacitor burned out and I don't know its value. I have searched the internet and have not found the schematic diagram. Could you please help me. Atte. Yerko
Starting about 1990 I worked in Asia. Some of the countries I worked did not have free press, so I bought a sw radio to pick up BBC and whatever else to feel not so isolated. I soon discovered KCNA from North Korea, which had the looniest hard core propaganda broadcasts. It was old school Stalinist newspeak, right out of 1984. It was the most entertaining thing I ever heard on the radio.
Good project. Inductive coupling off a longwire. Very cool. And yes, the red wire and black wires obviously were connected. Black longwire to end of red wire, red wire coiled up to be set near the radio -- with the other end coming off the coil going to the ground rod. Very cool and inexpensive set up. And it works.
Dont waste your money on sw radio. I was looking forward to mine and only thing i hear is Spanish and church. Just giving anyone a heads up if they're thinking about getting one
So here's how it's gone today: I was Youtubing vids to figure out how to fix the battery compartment door of my tiny Sony ICF-SW100. Shortwave radio was my go-to English language connection when I was living in Bavaria in the late '90s. I was into SW in my teens in the late 80's also. It reminded me of how much I loved listening to weird back of beyond broadcasts from tiny rooms, the other side of the world before the internet. It left a lot to the imagination and a bit like if Robinson Crusoe had lived a couple of hundred years later and had a radio. Anyway, the research sent me down a rabbit hole, wondering if people still broadcast on SW. It's been an eye opener and I happened upon your channel just to understand the basics of it all again. I'm now hooked once more and have been going through your vids one after the other while I work. This is really good output man. Many thanks.
It’s a brilliant radio. It’s the first one I’ve bought within the last few years with an actual analogue tuner. It’s not choppy when searching for channels. The sound is great. Mine arrived today and it’s refurbished but it’s really clean, has a box, power adaptor and the handle to install if needed. It’ll replace my much smaller Sangean SR-35.
I got one of them radios for a low price but mine drifts a little lots are up for sale on ebay but for silly money i got a grundig satellite 2100 no ssb but the shortwaves are verry good on it i like to listen to the broadcast stations on am sadly its not like the 70's lots have gone
This is not well explained. Radiopeople already know this. Those unfamiliar with radios and antennas will wonder what became of the other ends of the red and black wire. Not good!
Just had a surprise. I missed my bfo unit. That is separate for my rig gives me ssb by mixing the signal from a stand alone unit. So as I was listening I picked my cellphone. The noise from the phone mixed to produce a reformed voice. In a word the noise mixed and returned a crude readable audio..😊😊😊😊😊😊
I prefer AM, medium wave to Listen to music especially at night when signal might come in suddenly roaring. But, stations i Listened to where based on European mainland to Gb, an suddenly those from Fr an from northern neighbour stopped in 2015-16 broadcasting on medium, an t Dutch also before, so i went over to internet stations, bt quality of music aint so good, an when they ran-their medium wave next to their internet service, itwad behind medium wave.!! However, if a country wants to stop another countries internet radio coming thru, it means we have Lost that station,!!
Thanks for the great video. I miss my old "long wire" antenna I had at my last house. I'm planning to install one at my new place. I think the ground wire is almost as important as the wire itself. It helps reduce noise if done correctly. I'm looking for a grounding rod and then I can do my installation. Let us know what other radios you plan to use, and do some long distance DX'ing.
