4 ms·

I like radio, I grew up with short wave and still remember picking up stations late in the night in languages I’d never imagined existed. I recently bought a c

by postit 5y ago

I like radio, I grew up with short wave and still remember picking up stations late in the night in languages I’d never imagined existed. I recently bought a cheap SW radio to play with my kid and I got surprised by the amount of stations from china broadcasting strong signals over basically anything.

helloguillecl 5y ago
I’d also do the same! Back in the 80 in Chile meant no access to foreign languages so SW was incredibly amazing for me. What radio do you suggest so I can show it to my children?
AnonymousPlanet 5y ago
I recently got an SDR dongle, remembering similar experiences from my childhood. I noticed the exact same thing about Chinese radio stations. At first I thought I was lucky to find some reflections from the other side of the world. But globally tuning around via kiwisdr.com made me realise that these must be locally repeated. This is a remarkable phenomenon. Together with a load of other government supported stations from the US, Britain and France and the occasional apocalyptic warnings by Christian radios, this makes the air full of someone's propaganda. Realising that was a bit sad.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Sounds similar to Radio Free America via Man In The High Castle vein. Broadcasting "freedom" around the globe kind of a thing only in reverse.
trasz 5y ago
Can also be done with WebSDRs, like http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901 http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901. Regarding China: I've recently discovered that Chinese radio has Polish language programme. It's mostly (Chinese) music, but it's the first time in my life I've heard Polish spoken with Chinese accent, and it's quite unique. (Not "unique" like engrish or other stereotypes; it's just that Polish isn't particularly popular as a second language.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tzs 5y ago
Another interesting way to explore radio from around the world is via the streaming feeds that many stations now provide. A great site for this is http://radio.garden/ http://radio.garden/ which shows a globe with lights showing stations. Click on a station and it starts streaming. It is quite fascinating. Radio.garden has been discussed a few times on HN. Here is one such discussion [1] that contains useful links to other world radio exploration resources. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477771
- dylan604 5y ago
  While I'm sure this has some great stations that would normally be beyond the range of people listening, there's something that feels like cheating (for lack of better word). It's just not the same as spending time making "small moves" to dial in by hand a signal and then figure out where it is originating. I have a feeling there's a lot of that kind of nostalgia that makes SW/HAM radio ops interested vs just clicking a preset. Then, to hear a station one day but not be able to pick it up again for some time because the one time you did get it had some specific atmospheric condition that isn't always present. Of course I'm projecting my own personal feelings about it, but I doubt I'm alone.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    You are not alone. I love radio too. I still remember the time I got to use a super het Zenith AM / SW radio. It was tube type, sensitive as heck, and had a few nice features, including three bandwidth presets: 3.5khz, 5khz and 8khz. My grandfather had it connected to an excellent outdoor antenna too! At night, there was not a single spot on the dial where no station could be heard. It was amazing! One could hear "the noise of our world" and listen to stations from all over the place, and it would vary some due to propagation changes naturally occurring. SW was as good and the difference being stations from all over the world. You know this, of course, but I wanted to paint a picture for others. So there I was listening, and grandma would run the mixer, and the neighbors electric fence, a car starting, maybe a bit of atmosphere noise from a small lightning discharge all combined into the program, plus the world piped right into my ear. Most of the time this sounded way better than I am writing here. It is like having another sense! And it present, immediate, right here with me, right now. And in my mind, I pictured the world, far away places like points of light. On a good night, it was like no light pollution where one can see so many stars! And one of those little portables might be like in town, not so many stars, but plenty of bright ones. In my mind they are all transmitting and we get to listen and get news, happenings, brought to us as fast as possible. There are few effective differences. Noise being one. It will be what the world is doing there, not here. Other things may crop up. It may be night there. AM radio was the first tech I considered magic. The world is alive and so are we! And that radio being like another sense invokes strong feelings in some people. Did in me.

by postit 5y ago

helloguillecl 5y ago

I’d also do the same! Back in the 80 in Chile meant no access to foreign languages so SW was incredibly amazing for me. What radio do you suggest so I can show it to my children?

AnonymousPlanet 5y ago

I recently got an SDR dongle, remembering similar experiences from my childhood. I noticed the exact same thing about Chinese radio stations. At first I thought I was lucky to find some reflections from the other side of the world. But globally tuning around via kiwisdr.com made me realise that these must be locally repeated. This is a remarkable phenomenon. Together with a load of other government supported stations from the US, Britain and France and the occasional apocalyptic warnings by Christian radios, this makes the air full of someone's propaganda. Realising that was a bit sad.

dylan604 5y ago
Sounds similar to Radio Free America via Man In The High Castle vein. Broadcasting "freedom" around the globe kind of a thing only in reverse.

trasz 5y ago

Can also be done with WebSDRs, like http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901 http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901. Regarding China: I've recently discovered that Chinese radio has Polish language programme. It's mostly (Chinese) music, but it's the first time in my life I've heard Polish spoken with Chinese accent, and it's quite unique. (Not "unique" like engrish or other stereotypes; it's just that Polish isn't particularly popular as a second language.)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tzs 5y ago

Another interesting way to explore radio from around the world is via the streaming feeds that many stations now provide. A great site for this is http://radio.garden/ http://radio.garden/ which shows a globe with lights showing stations. Click on a station and it starts streaming. It is quite fascinating. Radio.garden has been discussed a few times on HN. Here is one such discussion [1] that contains useful links to other world radio exploration resources. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477771

dylan604 5y ago
While I'm sure this has some great stations that would normally be beyond the range of people listening, there's something that feels like cheating (for lack of better word). It's just not the same as spending time making "small moves" to dial in by hand a signal and then figure out where it is originating. I have a feeling there's a lot of that kind of nostalgia that makes SW/HAM radio ops interested vs just clicking a preset. Then, to hear a station one day but not be able to pick it up again for some time because the one time you did get it had some specific atmospheric condition that isn't always present. Of course I'm projecting my own personal feelings about it, but I doubt I'm alone.
- ddingus 5y ago
  You are not alone. I love radio too. I still remember the time I got to use a super het Zenith AM / SW radio. It was tube type, sensitive as heck, and had a few nice features, including three bandwidth presets: 3.5khz, 5khz and 8khz. My grandfather had it connected to an excellent outdoor antenna too! At night, there was not a single spot on the dial where no station could be heard. It was amazing! One could hear "the noise of our world" and listen to stations from all over the place, and it would vary some due to propagation changes naturally occurring. SW was as good and the difference being stations from all over the world. You know this, of course, but I wanted to paint a picture for others. So there I was listening, and grandma would run the mixer, and the neighbors electric fence, a car starting, maybe a bit of atmosphere noise from a small lightning discharge all combined into the program, plus the world piped right into my ear. Most of the time this sounded way better than I am writing here. It is like having another sense! And it present, immediate, right here with me, right now. And in my mind, I pictured the world, far away places like points of light. On a good night, it was like no light pollution where one can see so many stars! And one of those little portables might be like in town, not so many stars, but plenty of bright ones. In my mind they are all transmitting and we get to listen and get news, happenings, brought to us as fast as possible. There are few effective differences. Noise being one. It will be what the world is doing there, not here. Other things may crop up. It may be night there. AM radio was the first tech I considered magic. The world is alive and so are we! And that radio being like another sense invokes strong feelings in some people. Did in me.