Quote:
Originally Posted by jr_tech
I hope that you are not overlooking the possibility of some excellent SW reception on the higher bands during the daytime. Right now (about 4:10 pm) for example, I am easily hearing the code practice sessions on W1AW from my location near the West coast on 14.04750, 18.09750 and 21.06750 mHz. I am not hearing W1AW on 7.04750 and below. Also not hearing it on 28.06750 mHz.
jr
|
I tested my Royal 3000-1 on all its shortwave bands a couple days ago. It works, but the stations I heard were mostly high-power religious broadcasters. (I was using the radio's built-in FM/SW rod antenna, as I cannot erect outdoor radio antennas here due to lease restrictions.) I tried looking for WWV on 5, 10, 15 MHz and found what sounded like it, but the signal was so weak I couldn't be sure what station I had. Same for CHU in Canada. I thought I heard something that sounded like their clock ticks on 3.3 MHz, but again, the signal was so weak I couldn't be sure whether it actually was the Canadian time and frequency station. This struck me as odd, since I live within one mile of the south shore of Lake Erie and should have been hearing CHU coming in like gangbusters. The radio's performance on the AM broadcast band is good, but not great and certainly not fantastic; I can hear most Cleveland AM stations, including a 5kW oldies station about 35 miles east of here, during the day.
FM reception on my Royal 3000-1 is, again, good but not great. It gets most Cleveland FM stations and a couple of out-of-town ones fairly well, but it isn't too good with distant FM reception most of the time even though, being as close to Lake Erie as I am, I should be hearing some stations from Toledo and Detroit, not to mention southwestern Ontario, Canada during good weather conditions. I have heard one station in Sandusky, Ohio on 94.5 MHz, but to date no other distant, out-of-state stations. I chalk this up to the fact that the Royal 3000-1, built in 1966, was one of the first AM-FM portable radios and is not nearly as sensitive as its predecessors; this means the radio was not meant for use in low-signal areas such as far suburban or fringe. (I have a Royal 1000 from 1958 that works better on AM, and probably shortwave as well, than the Royal 3000-1.)
As far as CW reception goes, even if I could hear W1AW here (actually, I probably can, as I am only a couple hundred miles from Hartford, but it would be worthless as I am about to explain), I couldn't use the station for code practice since the Royal 3000-1 does not have a BFO circuit, which of course is a necessity for code reception. As the radio is now, W1AW's automated code practice sessions would sound like thumps instead of tones. I could use the receiver in my Icom IC-725 for W1AW reception if I could put up an outdoor antenna, but, for reasons I mentioned above, this is absolutely out of the question.
If W1AW were available on Echolink, however, I would be able to get code practice that way; maybe that's my answer to keeping my code-copying skills from getting so rusty it wouldn't be funny. I'll have to look on EL's station list; I'm almost sure they do have W1AW there, and being on the Internet, the code signals would, of necessity, have to be modulated.