There’s lots of software defined shortwave radio (SDR) receivers that are available on the web. You don’t really need a physical radio anymore to listen to the audio that is constantly flowing on the airwaves. This is one of many places to start: http://websdr.org/
I have known about amateur radio for a long time, but never really looked into it. Thanks for the tip. It actually seems really interesting.
How many people actually own shortwave-receiving radios though?
It’s funny, I was JUST hankering to take my SW out to browse the airwaves, and then I log on to see this post.
I have a Halicrafters S-119, still runs on tubes. Picks up 2-16MHz.
I already spent some time rummaging around for my antenna, but I can’t find it and don’t have a spool of wire handy, so I’ll need to work on that. Last time I had it set up was a couple years and 2 moves ago.
Just alligator clip it to your gutter, should be fine.
I bought a Tecsun PL-330 on eBay last year. I can’t say I use it very often, but once in a while I roll out my cable antenna (and try to avoid the multiple China Radio International channels which are everywhere).
I’ve heard of “pirate radio” since decades ago but never understood what is pirated about it.
are they broadcasting pirated music? broadcasting from ships committing maritime piracy? drinking Captain Morgan?
So, once upon a time, the radio airwaves were free for anyone and everyone to use as they liked. There were incompatible protocols, congestion, crowding, and so on and so forth. One day, the Titanic sunk, and a major contributor of it was the fact that there were no standards for ships to be listening for distress signals on the radio.
So international regulations were established be treaty, the Radio Act if 1912 in The US, and the International Radiotelegraph Convention of 1912. These laws and treaties not only established mandatory radio watch for ships at sea, but also sought to reduce crosstalk and bandwidth hogging by people— you’d need to get a radio license to transmit on a specific frequency for a region.
A public spectrum was established for anyone to use, and another spectrum was reserved for dedicated amateurs to advance radio technology (requiring a test to prove dedication— HAM radio), another spectrum was dedicated for government use (such as police), another for hospitals, and another segment for commercial usage.
If you violate the licensing requirements, you are a pirate radio station… and this is actually taken quite seriously. Regulators will actually take measures to track you down. One thing that the HAM radio community does is something called a “fox hunt”… it’s basically like a region-wide game of hide and seek, where the hider is repeatedly broadcasting a radio signal, and the seekers use whatever technology they can muster to track the hider down. The hiders also use sophisticated means to hide their location, such as bouncing signals off of water towers to hide the origin and other even sneakier tactics. Fox hunts are a lot of fun, but always end up with the fox getting caught.
Pirate radio tends to end up the same way.
I think what it means is that they broadcast on restricted wavelengths.
thank you
