Short Wave Listening or SWL
When I’m not working and just resting at home, I like to listen to the HF radio bands and for that last few years I have been using and experimenting with various cheap SDR receiver dongles. I have constructed many different stealth aerials (antennas if you’re American) to cover all the frequencies of interest and had some extremely pleasing results since they are all hidden in the loft (attic) of my house in the UK. What is a challenge especially on lower frequencies is the noise created by many domestic appliances. Low power lighting is usually LED lights that are fed by small oscillators which generates a great deal of mains-borne noise and subsequently raises the noise floor making some frequency bands inaccessible. In the picture below I am receiving Shannon Volmet on 5505 Khz using a “Ham-It-Up” Converter and a NOOELEC SDR USB dongle.
Besides Short Wave Listening, I’m also interested in listening to other frequencies and nodes. As technology improves and becomes cheaper, the ability to decode or demodulate other types of traffic is now within the reach of the home enthusiast with a simple SDR receiver and aerial/antenna setup.
There are vast examples of enthusiasts on YouTube who with perseverance have managed startling results and have documented them with easy to follow instructions.
This small Xeigu G90 has an exceptional receiver although a little small to see.
I have a number of HF radio receivers and transceivers some are home built, others purchased. I have an ICOM IC-7100 shack in a box, a Xeigu X6100 and my home built HF Transceiver on the shack bench. See my blog post on the home built HF Transceiver here ->https://g7uay.com/home-made-dsp-hf-transceiver-build/