Listening in

I am starting to listen to shortwave a bit more again. I actually caught WBCQ's Area 51 for the first time. I must be in the wrong spot or just listening in at the wrong time. I usually depend on the internet feed to hear it. I love the internet feeds but it is not the same as getting ti over the air. Somehow getting the dirty analog signal is more pleasing the clean digital signal. Who knew?


I also picked up Voice of Russia for the first time in many a moon. I am wondering if propagation is improving. It would be nice. I have gotten very lazy about turning the radio dial and just doing the net stream.Internet feeds are great but it is not the dx hobby. There is a lot of good info online so I praise it but it can also a distraction from turning the knobs and listening to the airwaves. I would just use the old excuse of that there is never enough time but it falls hollow but it is also very true. I am very much the slacker about my hobbies and divide my attention too thin.

CFL and weird Radio Reception

I love the Canadian Football League and have not been able to follow since I moved away from the Detroit area. (I miss CBC TV). On Saturday, I found out that my favorite CFL team was playing so I looked the Edmonton station that carries their games on the web. They were playing the Hamilton, Ontario team. This is were it starts getting weird or not so weird in this age of the internet. I was listening to a game being played in Hamilton being carried by an Edmonton, Alberta Radio station website while I was in Indiana. It was a getting streamed through my computer to a Fm transmitter so i could hear it through my radio because it has better sound than the computer.Talk about taking the long way around to getting the signal. My team lost but it was a fabu close game. It was decided by a touchdown in the last quarter. The geek side of me was loving the technology involved in bringing me the game. Yeah, this is not necessarily getting things via the airwaves but there is the RF tie ins so please forgive me. It is nice how technology gives you entertainment choices. Having usable choices is freedom. Got to love that.

Listening in

Not much to report in. I am trying out to somw web radio streams. I found one that has some old time radio. I am also looking into some links to help start up the weekly webness on here again. Hoefully, I can also get some over the air listening and start posting to this blog more.

Hockey Season is Over

I love listening to Komet Hockey on WOWO radio. It is one of the nice local flavors of life in North Eastern Indiana. The good news is that they won the championship and I got to hear the winning game. The bad news is that I won't be listening to hockey until next October. I guess the good news is that I get to listen to ther things on the radio now. Maybe I will get a bit more time to aid to this blog. We will see.

Thanksgiving Week Listening

You would think that with a holiday weekend last week, I would have had plenty of time to do some DXing. Unfortunately that is not the way it winds up. Between friends and family, the weekend was very enjoyably used up way to early. To be honest, an NCIS DVD marathon ate up a lot of the weekend. The pains of competing interests. Maybe I can get a bit more listening in this weekend.

Radio Netherlands

I have not been hearing Radio Netherlands on the radio lately and found out why. They have abandoned the English service to North America. Although I am not the most regular listener, I did like tuning in quite often. I am going to miss listening to them. They still have podcasts I can listen to. Even though this is enjoyable, it is not quit the same as the magic of listening to short wave radio. Other than writing them to ask for it back, I don't know much taht I can do to get the station back.

My Grundig

I am really glad that the model of Grundig I got can run off two types of batteries. I ran out of the D cell batteries I usually run it on and only have AA batteries. Fortunately I can run it off either size. Phew! Not the getting batteries is that big of a deal but I hate shopping for one or two items and I really did not want to wait to go portable with the radio.

Challenges for the Shack

It has been a challenge listening to the my radios the way I want. Between some really non stellar listening conditions and wanting to listen to podcasts and audio books. it does not leave much time to scan the airwaves. I guess i am my own worse enemy on this one and it is going to get worse come October when the Komets come back onto the radio for hockey season. Even if these were not in place, there is always the challenge of getting the time or at least the prioirty to sweep through the bands. Even if I am listening, sometimes I get into the rut of listening to the same half dozen shows. That isn't all bad. I really like those shows but it is at the cost of finding out what else is out there. This, i think is the eternal struggle of any hobby. Where do you actually focus your resources on? And if you have more than one hobby. the problem only grows exponetially.

Listening to the Police Scanner

I originally got a police scanner as a way to get more information on the weather around here and hear the local news a bit faster. Some could say I am nosy but I am not going to go there. I have gotten that and a whole lot more. I enjoy hearing from the county airport and the trains going through town. I also get to hear about people's woes and dumb things that they have done and the law needs to get involved. There are some cases where I am wondering if the gene pool should not have been chlorinated a bit sooner. It is an interesting world out there.

Tuning in the Fourth of July

Tomorrow will be the Fourth of July and I will be turning on the radios. I will be listening to the police scanner for reports on the fair and the fireworks coordination. I will also be listening for all the bad boys and girls who will be stupid with their own fireworks. I will also be monitoring mw, fm and shortwave for any special programming I hear. Hopefully between the listening and enjoying of the fourth of July celebrations I can take enough mental notes to report anything interesting I hear over the weekend. Until then.

Ok I am addicted

I went to Cincinnati for the weekend for a friend's wedding. I was going to leave the radios at home but wound up taking too along anyway. That is so pathetic but in my defense one of them was a police scanner with weather radio so I could keep up with the weather this weekend. I guess I am doomed to never being fully away from the shack.

Back in the Saddle

For the first time in a while, I had two full evenings of shortwave. It was almost entire WBCQ but it felt like visiting home. Listened to Bluegrass State of Mind, 867-5309, Allen Weiner Worldwide, Timtron and Marion's Attic. What a collection of good music, humor and generally weird stuff (not to forget the red stuff that Timtron drinks). I got a new shortwave that seams to be working out really good. I will give a review on it later. I am kinda proud of the fact that I have the scanner going on in the background. It has been too long since I have listened to that and storm season is warming up.There are things I need to learn to get more out of that unit.

I had to laugh when I canceled the satellite tv a month ago. The rep asked what were we going to do about tv, I felt like asking him if he knew about over the air tv and that there are other medias other than the one eyed mind sucking monster called tv. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy tv but it is no where near the only show in town. Between the internet, radio, and my mp3 player, plus all the other things both necessary and fun, i don't miss having the tv on most days. I still watch some but it is increasingly little.