Radio recomendations
 

My old table top radio took a spill and has a broken antenna. I went to Radio Shack and saw a Grundig for about $100.

Are there any good recomendations for a quality radios.

E-A

Re: Radio recomendations
 

I've also been thinking of buying a short-wave radio. I'm thinking in terms of a quality radio in a small light weight package. Heavy items will get left behind if you have to bugout.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

I have bought and sold MANY SW/FM type radios. If you can't find what you seek in the $100 and under range you just are not trying.

Radio shack used to have three models that fit the bill. The one I kept is a very small radio using AA batteries. It would fit in your back pocket. Or a large front blouse pocket of an army jacket.

But remember ONE THING. That if you buy any SW type radio, purchase an extra long antenna that you can string out and then roll back up. Radio shack USED to carry these though I am unsure if they still do or not. Mine does just what I said. It rolls out. Then when you are ready to move on, you wind it back into the plastic case.

If you want superior quality, drop an extra $100 and step up to a Sangean made SW with the Radio shack name on it. About the size of a book. Still small and light enough to not leave behind, but can pull in all stations without the antenna. Though the antenna still helps.

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I have a number of different SW radios. The Grundig is probably the least expensive of them all, and it performs the best. I've been impressed with Grundig's quality.

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www.ccrane.com still carries the antennas.

What's the smallest shortwave that's worth having?

What is the best 2-way ham/talk/SW/scanner available?

Remember kids, radios are highly susceptable to EMP! (You don't want to know how I know this) Are there hardened/swamp-ready radios?

TS

Re: Radio recomendations
 

Grundig Traveller VII
:wavey: works for me

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Does anyone know about these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Emergency-Radio-...ayphotohosting

There are some at my local grocery store for $15 and i'm thinking about getting a set.

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EMP ONLY EFFECTS ENERGIZED CIRCUITS. PERIOD. END OF STORY. So your radio stored on the shelf with NO batteries in it will function PERFECTLY. You automobile on the other hand will be toast.

And TS you should have INCLUDED THIS TIDBIT, if as you say YOU ALREAD KNOW THIS STUFF.

geez louise, ya try and help someone out...

Re: Radio recomendations
 

This one's not bad:

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0777.html

...Picks up gauntlet:

EMPs CREATE the power in the circuit. The power is external. The antenna channels it to the cicuits. This is why a nearby--not direct--lightning strike can blow even big, simple electronics like flourescent lights. (In fact, you can make a lighting supressor like a surge protector from them.)

This is an exaggerated version of what a batteryless crystal radio does. The EMP itself would light the radio via the antenna, as well as any other long wire that happens to be in its path, and the power received ends up at one of the ends, blowing the sensitive circuits. In fact, the Quebec power grid was taken down during sunspots in 1989 with this exact mechanism.

http://www.hydroquebec.com/solar_storms/

I don't believe you on this one, Wallew. If it were that simple, the military wouldn't go through the trouble of hardening and making faraday screens and cages for their equipment.

TS

Re: Radio recomendations
 

TS,
Again not trying to twist your tale. But as the OWNER of military hardware, especially a 1963 Kiaser Deuce, believe me when I tell you that what you say is close, you would have to be ON TOP OF any nuclear detonation for that type of electrical current (via EMP) to do the type of damage you suspect will occur.

Plus, please note that some of the military equipment you are discussing CAUSES more damage than EMP.

When the USS Enterprise ran across a submerged sand back back in late 1985 it had to be repaired. I was in charge of all computers at the shipyard that did the repairs. ON THE DAY the the Enterprised entered drydock, we had to SHUT DOWN and COMPLETELY disconnect all computers or see them FRIED from the radiation emitted by all the electronics aboard the Enterprise.

But regardless of ALL that, keeping a radio wrapped in foil, with batteries seperate, in a below ground location (a cellar or basement works great) will resolve all the problems.

But IF there is SUCH a nuclear detonation that releases the type of EMP you are talking about, exactly how many BROADCASTING STATIONS do you expect to be able to pick up? Not many that is for sure.

best regards and my respect to what you say

Re: Radio recomendations
 

On that we agree. The most rudimentary faraday cage, like a metal box, tin foil, or even metal window screens of the right mesh and overlap will work. So it's the tinfoil or basement (and also not leaving the antenna exposed) that solves the problem.

Yes, an EMP, for all the hype, would have an unknown and unpredictable effect. If you somehow EMP'd a whole city, even things in the electrical shadows of that city would probably work, while some stuff you'd think too big to be affected would fail if in a bad location. In that sense, it's like lightning striking everywhere in an area at the same time. And I believe the power would drop off pretty sharply from the zero mark. Antennas and towers, probably phone, cable, and power lines would be excepted though, since they're perfect receivers and wide open. And it's not like we don't use or need those things. Cell phone calls in an emergency, anyone?

Other than for storage, why is removing the batteries desireable? Isn't the power switch enough of a gap?

And yes, we can't imagine the power that the best antennas and radar dishes in the world can put out. One of those has to be like its own portable jamming station. Even the electric boiling off the reactors must be like driving under a national power line. --A good indicator of how sensitive electronics are, though, or at least the tiny, cheap, ungrounded civilian ones.

It's an interesting subject, has there been a thread linking estimations of damage from EMPs? What with the news lately, it sounds like we may need to brush up on this.

TS

Re: Radio recomendations
 

I have two Sony 7600 radios; one is complete toast, the other has an broken upper sideband switch. The first Sony worldband radio I bought, w/o sideband was toast 12 years ago. I also have a Grundig Yachtboy I got on ebay for $30; works fine, no battery cover; big deal.

The portables are pretty cool, work okay for a while, but are not rugged. Did I "abuse" the Sony's? Yeah, if using them on a stand daily is abuse. The damn things are just not made to stand up to daily use.

First radio I bought with sideband was a Panasonic 2800/2900. This had a tunable Beat Frequency Oscillator. A great radio, one of the first with digital tuning display.

The only radios worth owning, unless you have the romantic idea of living out of a backpack, are serious tabletop models. Yaesu, Icom, Drake, Grundig's larger portables, Lowe, AOR; well, you get the idea. Prolly left a few makers out.

I have a Kenwood R-1000, a Drake R-8 which has 100 memories and superb standard filters and selectivity, and a Yaesu amateur transceiver with 10 memories and 150 watt output on ham bands.

The computer driven portables work really nicely when connected to my dipole antenna via an adapter jack. *** You portable reliant guys ought to really have a decent dipole or longline antenna with balanced feed line, those little whips are just for fun.***

All the full-size rigs are portable. They will run from a 12v battery, can be installed in your auto.

I keep my radios in large metal ammunition boxes. Not really a faraday box, but at least I'm trying. Don't most of you live where you bugged out to anyway?

Lots of tabletops on Ebay; or Universal Radio and Electronic Equipment Bank and other ham gear dealers (if there are any left in business). Ham radio has pretty much died out. You might find stuff at a pawnshop or watch garage sales. Very few of our generation picked up the hobby, too damn bad.

I would love to have a 2kw amp, antenna tunere and HD power supply; plus all the other gizmos top of the line Icom or Yaesu ham setup to play with. Amazing to hear a QSO between a guy in Ohio and England, or California and New Zealand.

Soon, having a GOOD radio will be about the only way you will get any "news".

Hope you have a durable machine to work with.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

Can you offer us more knowledge on antennas in general money matters?

:yippee: antenna is very important too

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I concur with all that's been said. Two things jump out at me.

First from TS, the reason I ALWAYS keep batteries and radios seperate has nothing to do with EMP. At one point a long time ago, I had a battery split on it's seam and 'bleed' all over the inside of the radio. It was a mess that took forever to clean up and correct.

Second was from MM, and I'm not sure ANY news that you will receive from far away (ie via Shortwave) will do you a whole lot of good locally. Having an AM/FM radio - then sure fine. BUT just a Shortwave, I doubt the fact that China (Germany, England, Australia - pick your country) finally got a working station online is going to do ANY of us any good.

But for sheer entertainment value, hearing from another part of the world might break the boredom factor. Other than that, well I'm not sure how much value any of it might have.

Again, the TV series 'Dark Angel' is in reruns on SciFi channel - four one hour shows every Monday night (check your local listings). The premise is EMP destroys 'America's might'. Hokey for sure. But it gives ONE PERSONS view of what an after tshtf scenario might look like.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

I've had new alkaline batteries blow up for no good reason. --Just because they did freeze/thaw in the auto 100 times, the sissies. It was such a mess it actually wrecked the circuitry.

BTW, rechargable alkalines are a good option. They charge 10-50 times, and unlike NiMh etc, hold a charge like a standard alkaline. I've heard there are chargers to do this on regular alkalines, but these were special batteries that seemed somehow keyed to their charger.

Anyone figure out what the new Ni-Ox batteries are for? They look the same as the others to me.

TS

Re: Radio recomendations
 

Antennas are what supply the real "juice" for a radio. I found this link by googling dipole antenna, http://www.electronics-tutorials.com...nna-basics.htm

My dipole has 2 strands of 73 feet of copper wire attached to a balun made by unadilla with a PL259 jack. Each end of the copper wire has an insulator/rope stay. The antenna is suspended about 15 feet above ground, (higher would be better). The feed wire is light coax cable about 50' long, with PL259 connectors on either end. The PL259 attaches to the table top's antenna jack. RadioShack sells an adapter with a jack to miniplug for use in the external antenna plug of a Sony, Yaesu, Grundig radio.

Some, maybe most, portables ship with a longwire clip antenna that attaches/clips to the external antenna. These often will overload the receiver and while they raise the noise-level of your reception, they are not really an aid to pulling in weak signals.

Listening with headphones is the BEST way to really hear weak signals. A tape recorder will also work for you, maybe a VCR since you get 6 hours per tape and can likely buy them for less than cassettes, cds etc.

There are many websites devoted to Amateur Radio. Most will have antenna design sections. There are many different ways to rig an antenna. If your home doesn't have a metal roof, you can string one in your attic.

There are several formulas for determining antenna length. Most are based on optimizing your antenna for one frequency. It will receive others very well, but is not "tuned" for other freqs beyond harmonic multipliers. This is why Hams will often use an antenna tuner for broadcasting on several bands. Easier to tune the antenna than have 8 or more strung up in your yard or mounted on a mast.

Essentially, you want to isolate your antenna from your feed line, to get best results. You want to use a balanced or constant resistance wire for your feed. 50 ohms is considered optimum. If you are feeding a scanner, maybe 75 ohms.

Experimentation with antennas is fun. You also want to learn about propagation of signals. Monitoring Times magazine publishes about the most detailed Shortwave Broadcast schedule listing by station for times and frequencies. Worth having a copy in your kit. There are many internet sites that may even be more detailed. I would also learn about the Utility Bands. Bob Grove, publisher of Monitoring Times used to sell a bound SW Listeners Guide with freq listings from 0-30mhz. You might find one at your library, or google Grove Enterprises or Monitoring Times, maybe he still sells it?

Re: Radio recomendations
 

My Grundig Yachtboy doesn't eat batteries anymore. I got a set of NiMH batteries in it that get a charge every morning from a VW solar panel mounted on my bedroom window. Charges my work flashlight too. Nice to have a radio alarm clock you can count on ...

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I think the Freeplay Plus is nice looking. Not exactly cheap but not bad. And you can buy the A/C adaptor for it and use it all the time. The power goes out and your battery finally discharges? You can use the hand crank. And they sell the long antenna also as has already been pointed out by another.

http://www.ccrane.com/radios/wind-up...lus-radio.aspx

Gregg

Other places to look:

http://equipped.com/

http://beprepared.com/

That last place often has the very best prices on lots of things. Highly recommended!

Re: Radio recomendations
 

I evaluated the little crank-handle Grundig (the kind they sell at Radio Shack / Circuit City) for local Emergency Services and was disappointed. The sound was muffled and the reception was very poor in valleys. For my purpose, the little vinyl carry bag was pointless.

I was asked to look for best sound quality and best reception for a 72 hour "Grab 'n Go" kit. After trying several radios, I chose the Pocket AM/FM RadioICF-S10MK2 by Sony. The original Energizer batteries are still good after about three months of play for about 2 hours/day. I have dropped the radio a couple of times, once quite hard, and it still works fine. I prefer the metal case to plastic.

The 'crank' strikes me as a gimmick, but if you want it, Sony has a model Emergency RadioICF-B01 that's very similar to the Grundig version.

I didn't evaluate short wave, so can't comment on that.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

Thanks for your posts on this thread, gentlemen. Very informative and "grounds for further googling".

Best to all.

d

Re: Radio recomendations
 

http://www.countycomm.com/gp4light.htm

Or speaking about EMP:

http://www.countycomm.com/gp4GOVPACK.htm

Funny site. Lot of useful stuff.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

Thinking about it some more, will shortwave be of any value if tshtf?

Im dealing with whats in my immediate AO ....will listening to someone in another country or in another state be of any value to me?

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Shortwave is the poor man's CNN ... but you get local news of other countries .... this really helps you understand geopolitics. If the other country's politics disagree with our corpmedia stuff, you'll hear it.

Lots of pirate radio broadcast too :bandito:


.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

Sonys are nice portables. For table top I have a AOR 7030+ running on a dx sloper. I also have a couple 200ft. beverages and a Wellbrook loop antenna.
Dipoles are nice, but too hard to hang for my situation. They need to be up high to work really well.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

Sometimes its more fun plugging my VHF scanner into my computor and decoding local pager messages ....

.

Re: Radio recomendations
 

I would suggest Kaito, it's not because I'm a chineese national either. They are new radios that are CHEAP. You can buy two at the price of any CCrane, or Grundig, and do the same thing. Anyways if you want good reception there is no skirting the fact that you need a decent antenna regardless. If you want to hear VOA with their 50 Megawatt sation, sure get the one with a telescoping antenna, but if you want the hear anything, get a good antenna and a radio with an external antanna jack.

I have a Kaito that I listen to on the porch, and I've dropped it about 5-7 times, and it keeps going. Yeah it's just a 9 dollar AM/FM radio, but it's got my vote. And if they build their SW radios the same, you can expect the same.

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The Vacuum bag thread made me think, it is possible that a mylar ziploc bag would be emp-resistant? It would seem so. That would be a light, easy, portable, field-ready solution.

Any ideas?

TS

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Does anyone know how the scramble codes on ordinary "walkie-talkies" work? 4 digit shared key?


What does FRS/GMRS mean and how do they code 100 "privacy" channels?

TS