Path: utzoo!utgpu!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CUVMA!SWL-L Date: Thu, 1 Feb 90 10:20:59 EST Reply-To: Larry Johnson Sender: Short Wave Listener's List Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was From: Larry Johnson Subject: Re: San Francisco Bay Area SWL X-To: swl-l@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: UofToronto LAN redistribution Message-ID: <90Feb2.164632est.58694@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> Newsgroups: bitnet.swl-l Distribution: ut Approved: devnull@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu In article <35287@mips.mips.COM> crisp@mips.COM (Richard Crisp) writes: >In article <14359@jumbo.dec.com> broder@src.dec.com (Andrei Broder) writes: >>Unfortunately it seems that the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, >>is one of the worst areas for SWL. [...] > Would a SONY >>2010 be enough, or a table top is a must? Or should I move :-?) >I am currently using a SONY2010 with a SONY AN1 active antenna, and I >also use an R390A with the same antenna.... > >I have received South Africa, Bulgaria, East and West Germany, Holland >London, Moscow, Bejing (why don't they call it Peking anymore?), Taipei, >Tokyo, and of course VOA (yuk). This has not been significantly improved >with the AN1. A couple of years ago I traveled several times to Silicon Valley, and took my 2010 with me. I used the ~10 m wire antenna that comes with it, strung around the hotel-room window. Yes, evening reception from Europe is nowhere near as good as from the East Coast, and evening tropical band reception from Latin America--always a good bet from my then-home in Miami--was virtually nil. BUT... I'd get up at 5:00AM every morning, and not just from the jet lag. The dark-path reception to Asia was something I--as an East- Coaster--could not have imagined. AFRTS Tokyo, 10kW, on 75 m. Kuching, Malaysia and Singapore (tentative) on 60m. Taipei's "domestic" service to the mainland (not via WYFR), heavily jammed, on 6087 kHz. Peking's (the BBC and I still call it that, I consider it enough of a concession not to call it Peiping :-)) domestic services, and "domestic" services to Taiwan, just about every everywhere below 10 MHz. The international services, such as Korea (North and South) were so easy to hear as to be hardly worth mentioning. As the sun came up, these frequencies would deteriorated rapidly, of course, but even at 9:00 AM, I could receive Peking's domestic service on 7504 kHz for a Chinese friend while standing in the office parking lot and using only the 2010's built-in whip. >After dark, it seems that WWV gets hard to pick up on 2.5, 10, 15, >and 20 MHZ (I can generally get it on 5MHZ, sometimes on 10 pretty >well). I usually concentrate on SW bands near there. Good luck. In the early morning 5 and 10 MHz were good for judging reception to Asia. On a fairly good day, I could easily hear WWVH, JJY (Tokyo), BPM (Xian, China), and BSP (?) Taiwan. Hearing their four voice ID's just before the hour--all given by women: two in Chinese, one in Japanese, and one in English--was in itself worth getting up early for. I don't know what the current sunspot peak is doing in the Bay Area there, but with Peking coming in on 11000, 11040, 11330, etc. kHz here in Virginia, you can bet I'll take my 2010 the next chance I have to go out there. -- Larry Johnson INTERNET: lrj@fibercom.com FiberCom, Inc. UUCP: uunet!fibercom!lrj P.O. Box 11966 PHONE: +1 703-342-6700, 800-423-1183, X317 Roanoke, VA 24022-1966 FAX: +1 703-342-5961