Ignorant question about HF radio

Hi Mike,

Thanks for replay. I been trying to use AM to listen to ABC, but sound quality still nowhere as good as from “AM-FM” radio. Awaiting for your “good PDF”.

Thanks
Serg

Hi Serg

Take a look here:

HF Guidebook

Also some good info here:

Good info

And, of course, I can’t pass up an opportunity to put in a plug for Amateur Radio, you can programme you’re Barrett with Amateur frequencies.

Foundation Licence

With an Amateur Radio Licence you are not limited to the few VKS737 frequencies but have access to whole swathes of the HF band and are able to communicate with people across the world. One of the real pleasures of camping for me is being in the middle of the bush, miles from anywhere, and being able to chat with someone in Peru or Italy or Japan or America or…. :)

Mike Harding

PS. Sound quality - none of the HF transceivers will have sound quality to match a car hi-fi. Their audio stages are usually low power and not that great on distortion etc, plus they have a small speaker with limited frequency response. Normally this doesn't matter because they are intended for listening to the voice from a simple communications perspective and are perfectly adequate for that.

A couple of things you can do: add a quality external loudspeaker or use an "FM transmitter" to send the HF radio audio to the car hi-fi.

Personally I find the output of my HF Amateur radio (Yaesu FT857D) to be quite adequate for ABC, BBC etc but I wouldn't want to listen to Chopin through it :)

Mike Harding

Mike,

Thanks a lot – great book and I will study it with great interest. As for inferior sound quality – I had throw away stock speaker without even connecting it! Apparently it related to antenna. When I listen to AM broadcasting immediately after switching transiver on then it is OK. Still not as good as “AM-FM” radio (strange indeed, considering that those radios fairly primitive comparing to my transmitter), but close enough. Problems begin after I press PTT button – antenna get self-tuned to transmitted frequency and became totally “detuned” for AM broadcasting. I been told by supplier that it is normal and there is no way to put antenna in “generic” mode (forget about tuning it on "prohibited" frequency!) except of power cycle transiver. Sounds quite moot indeed.

As for ARL – I been fascinated by this stuff for ages, but frankly life not that long and free to fulfit 5 almost full-time hobbies. Probably when I get older and less mobile :-))))))

Cheers and thanks
Serg

I found it a good book...co-authored by Doug Taylor from Lake Macquarie Communications (Radtel).

Oops...No speakada radio

Thanks Footloose, but that reference is way too “plain English” – I would not mind a bit technical info as well. :-))))))))

Thanks
Serg

How technical ? The gook on this site is good, but not that "technical." Try the ARRL Radio Amateurs Handbook for technical.

Footloose,

Thanks for exceptional hint. I did not know about this book. It is my best download ever – practical yet technical enough (but not too much).

Cheers
Serg

It's not bad. I have a ciopy somewhere around here that I refer to from time to time.
I think I had most of it memorized by the time I was about 15...but it was a bit thinner then...and so was I :))
There's also an antennae book by the same people which isn't bad.