I haven’t had a decent shortwave receiver in forever but I once enjoyed listening more or less randomly to whatever popped up. I never paid attention, I just pretended SW was AM and turned dials. That was a long time ago.
I’ve just about decided that the Radio Shack AM/FM/Shortwave travel radio I’ve been noodling around with couldn’t pick up decent shortwave if I soldered it to a station’s transmitting antenna, stuffed cocaine in the battery compartment, and threatened its family with a knife. I even tried crudely running the audio through flidgi and nothing… as far as I’m concerned the display is “the matrix” and I’m probably listening to my fluorescent lights.
I don’t really want to go down the rabbit hole on this. I just want something brick stupid that will actually… you know… receive something. Hopefully easy enough that I can operate it without a lot of planning ahead; voice, audio, BBC, the final words of Fidel Castro, aliens, whatever. The words here are “cheap” and “easy”.
Any advice? I defer to folks who pay attention to this sort of thing.
A.C.
P.S. A HAM transceiver of the correct configuration could work fine too. Right now all of my HAM stuff is set up for the wrong band. I’m just assuming a transceiver will cost more than a receiver and did I mention I was looking for cheap and easy. (Yes, I’m licensed… not that it matters if I just want to listen to the news or music.)