>>7
>>8
Anyway for shortwave, the best way to get into it these days is an SDR/software defined radio. They offer a really good way to get into shortwave radio without spending 150-200 dollars or Euros on an actual shortwave radio. The nice thing is they aren't only for shortwave. For example, the RTL-SDR v4 is a cheap USB dongle you can get that can receive anything between 500 kHz to 1.7 GHz meaning you can do a lot of shit on it. Here are some examples of what you can do with an RTL-SDR:
- Use as a police radio scanner.
- Listening to EMS/Ambulance/Fire communications.
- Listening to aircraft traffic control conversations.
- Tracking aircraft positions like a radar with ADSB decoding.
- Decoding aircraft ACARS short messages.
- Scanning trunking radio conversations.
- Decoding unencrypted digital voice transmissions such as P25/DMR/D-STAR.
- Tracking maritime boat positions like a radar with AIS decoding.
- Decoding POCSAG/FLEX pager traffic.
- Scanning for cordless phones and baby monitors.
- Tracking and receiving meteorological agency launched weather balloon data.
- Tracking your own self launched high altitude balloon for payload recovery.
- Receiving wireless temperature sensors and wireless power meter sensors.
- Listening to VHF amateur radio.
- Decoding ham radio APRS packets.
- Watching analogue broadcast TV.
- Sniffing GSM signals.
- Using rtl-sdr on your Android device as a portable radio scanner.
- Receiving GPS signals and decoding them.
- Using rtl-sdr as a spectrum analyzer.
- Receiving NOAA weather satellite images.
- Listening to satellites and the ISS.
- Radio astronomy and Galactic Hydrogen line measurements.
- Monitoring meteor scatter.
- Listening to FM radio, and decoding RDS information.
- Listening to DAB broadcast radio.
- Listening to and decoding HD-Radio (NRSC5).
- Use rtl-sdr as a panadapter for your traditional hardware radio.
- Decoding taxi mobile data terminal signals.
- Use RTL-SDR as a high quality entropy source for random number generation.
- Use RTL-SDR as a noise figure indicator.
- Reverse engineering unknown protocols.
- Triangulating the source of a signal.
- Searching for RF noise sources.
- Characterizing RF filters and measuring antenna SWR.
- Decoding Inmarsat STD-C EGC geosynchronous satellites.
- Listening to the ISS (International Space Station).
- Receiving images from Geostationary weather satellites.
My favourite things to do with mine - apart from listening to really distant shortwave broadcasts and amateur (ham) radio nerds - is downloading images from weather satellites in orbit around the planet, radio astronomy and listening to things like cordless phones. Here's a link to Amazon that has the RTL-SDR v4 (you want v4, not the v3 or older) that includes an antenna kit, though you can easily make your own. I assume you're not Canadian so you will probably want to look it up on the Amazon website in your country if you're interested: https://www.amazon.ca/RTL-SDR-Blog-RTL2832U-Software-Defined/dp/B0CD7558GT/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2DMUIDYKI5XWK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.sfbFJPG624K7g9NEHFje-WjbfTzVugNXu3v85Zg0q2YEWPUqaln_yMNWM6x-K-mbsHm6grlKQQ8XN0DT_iPERKbCiFMtSmgZs7V4Za-RuZ4DV0-58Ov0HTcrNwbN0oqx4r8WJJ5paoH9qs-yghulOt_Sh9L390TNAVmRWSMhOiowMQkVfUPOCs9qsmWhsuyKLkF_TcusJyLQFa0hCNc0ZUFCDTLpuL-p8MLx0jBTV47u_qxOE5-yLRlJuhe512ZU6NrLfkApR1e3r3mGmPf0VBHjFNhvoAw1oEmmkxO6dtE.cFdjXlwt6cfiWiXTWoS5Ty-g5WX1dnlPeY3FlNBHRVo&dib_tag=se&keywords=rtl-sdr+v4&qid=1714683499&sprefix=rtl-sd%2Caps%2C209&sr=8-4