Frustrated over my new "hobby" of ham radio

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presumably, the countries that allow FM @ 11 meters, must be using very narrow-band FM. have you heard those transmissions?

My father gave me a cheapie, multiband radio with AM/FM and 9 SW bands, it is a non-branded cheap, Chinese radio. However, depite that, I did pick up Romania no problem. The FM band is from 76 to 108 Mc, I know in Japan, it is from 76 to 90 Mc, Wikipedia says now 95 Mc. In Europe, especially the UK, it was from 87.5 to 100 Mc, then 104 Mc and then finally to 108 Mc. 100 to 108 was for the police. The USSR and Warsaw Pact, it was from 65 to 74 Mc, the OIRT band although they also use 87.5 to 108 like the rest of us. Europe is also interesting, they have longwave from 148 to 283 kc, it is like a second AM band. There have been some ideas for a second AM band that would be around 2300 - 2500 kc which is allocated to international broadcasting but that was shelved in the 1980's. I do remember the expansion to 1700 kc in the AM band around 1990 or so and AM stereo. As to my little radio, it is a nice gimmick, don't have to worry about the changed in the FM band if I ever go to Japan although many digital radios can tune down to 76 Mc if you play with the settings, my Grundig G6 Aviator, Buzz Aldrin radio does that. My BaoFeng UV82L tunes in FM too and I can tune in 65 to 108 Mc.

Getting back to AM stereo, it did sound pretty good, especially when you heard it over a MOPAR radio (Chrysler and Co.) although my 1994 Ford Explorer did a decent job in AM stereo. 1600 to 1700 in the AM band is interesting too, I once picked up KDIA from Berkeley, CA n Pittsburgh in 1640 and here where I live in the Ohio valley, there is NOAA Radio on 1700 kc in addition to 162.525 Mc. That part of the band used to be for Civil Defense in the late 1940's and 1950's for two way radios and later on, cordless phones were there and thy used FM mode. I have an old Philco 2 band radio from 1953 that is AM and the MB, Marine Band, above AM to 3500 kc or so. The "CD" symbol falls in the 1600/1700 area. It was my grandfathers and I saw a picture of my mother doing her homework as a teen while listening to it, she remembers picking up cops on it too.

Can't say I have but I never really seeked them out either. I might try once I get this new laptop in shape but I have to do job hunting first, maybe this weekend, I'll give it a whirl although Windows 10 is a learning curve right now. I know the Iranian Radar was supposedly in AM mode but I heard them in Upper Side Band, USB but the spectrum analyzer told me where to tune. You CAN tune in FM signals on an AM radio, you just go off frequency a little bit where the FM signals in "converted into AM" and you can listen in. IT sounds a little fuzzy until you learn to tune them in, but at least you can sit by and "read the mail." The early cordless phones used 49 Mc for the handset and 1.7 Mc for the base and both were in FM mode. Even just at the top of the AM band, I did my share of tuning in cordless phones using FM on those low frequencies. I had one of those phones myself, it was a brick, but I got close to 3/4th of a mile out of it.

i had no idea FM was used on frequencies as low as 1.7 Mhz, band width hadda be pretty wide. i do remember the 49mhz cordless phones, they did have a nice wide range compared to the new ones which barely reach to the other end of the house. i wonder what their output wattage was?

I've seen and heard equipment for 11m FM in operation. The bandwidth isn't that bad, at least to me. At some point, I need to ask a comm engineer why FCC has that restriction.

USB is AM without the carrier and the lower sideband.

FWIW my equipment here tunes from 100Khz to 6m, FM broadcast, Aircraft, VHF high and UHF in all modes (AM, FM, SSB, CW etc.). My handhelds can receive AM and FM to 1.3GHz. I can transmit on every band from 160m through 70cm. There are preset buttons for controlling audio bandwidth as well as digital noise filters.

Sometimes I still like to play with cheapo AM/SSB receivers, though.

i prolly may have asked this before but for some reason the answer was not clear to me- can FM signals below MUF do "skip"?

Absolutely.

In the early 80s, I used to be able to see (and hear) TV (US analog tv had AM picture and FM audio) from all over the eastern US from the Laurentians 70 miles north of Montreal every time there was a sporadic-E opening. That and law enforcement from southern and midwestern states was regularly heard on VHF low band. Could also hear FM broadcast stations from the same areas.

Fabulous northern lights, as well.

Last edited by Archmage Arcane on 22 Aug 2019, 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

did you use a run of the mill [5-10' mast atop roof, deep fringe directional] tv/fm antenna installation for your tv to be able to receive these exceptionally distant signals? i never lived anywhere quite dark and clean enough to see clear auroras.

Just the telescopic antenna on the portable TV. We had some great conditions during the peak of Cycle 21.

Yep, definitely miss aurorae. Too much light pollution here as well.

i had no idea that skip tv signals were that strong! have you ever dx'ed any DTV signals?

Haven't seen any skip on DTV. I guess it should work. Researched this in a couple of other forums and the word is that it happens, but not as frequently as with analog TV. Google 'dtv dx' and 'cliff effect'.

more often than not, one is lucky to get a mostly intact still frame here and there. might have some confetti or ribboning in it. most dtv channels are above the MUF so the only alternative distant propagation techniques are via temperature inversion or when the sunspots are high/ionosphere is low.

They're all above the MUF. You have to wait for tropo ducting or sporadic-E propagation.

what is the most distant AM radio [broadcast] station you've heard? i've heard LA before, a few decades back [about 1200 miles distant]. also heard clear-channel KSL 1160AM from salt lake city, about 860 miles distant. it came in clear as a bell with no fading.

I've heard Central American stations occasionally. I can hear Cuban stations when conditions are right, or if I make a capacitive-coupled loop and point it south. Trying to remember if I ever got anything from South America (I suppose PJB, which was on 800 in Bonaire with 500kW (when it was Dutch) is close). Never heard anything from Europe on MW or LW. Furthest west I've heard would be Fort Worth-Dallas (WBAP 820) or Minneapolis (WCCO 830) or Des Moines (WHO 1040).

Last edited by Archmage Arcane on 27 Aug 2019, 4:25 am, edited 1 time in total.