Anyone here into radio? HAM, SWL, DXing, etc

[RhoXi]

Just curious since I figure there's probably a decent overlap around here.

I got into SWL a couple years ago after inheriting a home stereo 8-track player (which is another story all together) that just so happens to have AM/FM/Shortwave reciever built in. After playing around with it and hearing my first Japanese language broadcast one night, I was hooked.

Right now my setup is a Tecsun PL-880 with about 35-ish feet of wire hung over the rain gutter as the antenna and it works pretty decently. Currently looking into getting a SDR and setting up a proper end-fed longwire antenna or maybe a ground loop.

So who else is scanning the bands around here? I'd love to here about your setups and interesting catches.

[Rainmaker]

I know nothing about SWL (had to google it, haha), but I've had my HAM license for about 10 years. K0DIY. I've got a couple Baofeng handhelds and a Yaesu mobile station that used to be in my vehicle (in a box now since we bought a new car a couple years back).

[OpusX]

Hello fellow amature radio ethusiast. Didnt have a lot of time tbis past weekend but I did get outside to make a few contacts for Filed Day.

Licensing is worth it. If you thinking listening to far off signals is fun, wait until you can talk back.

[OpusX]

Awesome kit build. Worth the ~$90 on Aliexpress. Must use headphones and it has some birdies, but cost to use ratio is high.

[XEMON]

Damit, now i need to learn CW 😅

[OpusX]

Its an SSB/AM/FM/CW rig. So you can do voice morse and digital modes

[XEMON]

Got into HAM from the electronic/SDR side ... especially the RFID tech
I have an SDR, and looking at a full duplex one with a few amps to get some more fars
What are you looking at?

Also got a kenwood i need to set back up, and now i can actually setup an antenna, i need to make one 😅

[OpusX]

HackRF, LimeSDR, both quite nice

[RhoXi]

Licensing is worth it. If you thinking listening to far off signals is fun, wait until you can talk back.

That is something I've considered but idk what I'd do with it. Then again, I guess it'd be cool participating in contests instead of just listening to them.

What are you looking at?

I was looking at the RTL-SDR blog V4 but the other day I found the Airspy Discover HF+ which seems a bit more substantial. Really though, I'd love to get an old desktop reciever but with the used market being weirdly high (imo) and low cost SDR performance rivialing or even beating some old recievers it's had to justify. I definitely would preffer twiddling knobs over sliders on a screen though.

[OpusX]

I'm just going to leave this here...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003908457475.html

[RhoXi]

Seems like a neat little transceiver and cheaper than the reciever I was looking at.

[Brandon]

not really the same thing but lately a few of my friends and I have been getting into building Meshtastic/Meshcore nodes and repeaters.