As I find myself getting into Short Wave Radio again I find myself picking up more radios to play around with and assess. The latest acquisition is a Sangean ATS-909X. $205! OUCH! But lets see what we have before we pass judgement.
First of all in the batch of current model short wave portable radios this is by far the most attractive of the bunch (in my opinion). Attractive is good but sound, sensitivity, and selectivity are really what matters with a radio of this caliber.
Here’s something you haven’t heard about in a while. Short Wave Radio. Heck, walk around Walmart, Best Buy, Target, wherever and you CAN’T EVEN FIND A SHORTWAVE RADIO IN THE STORES ANYMORE. It seems like a dead medium. And yet it isn’t.
When I was a young boy I had a great big tube Short Wave receiver that a friend of my fathers gave to me, and that’s the way it worked back then. The old hams would happily teach the up and coming hams. Anyway I spent untold hours listening to that thing and was always stunned and amazed at how much content and how varying it was. And of course back then the prize was listening to a station as far away as possible.
Well, Short Wave sure has changed. There aren’t nearly as many stations, even less high power stations and most of Short Wave seems to be mostly Christian content, and political propaganda. Also you’ll find a healthy dose of Patriot and Prepper community folks and alternative news sources. And when I mean alternative, I mean alternative. Out there stuff. Also you’ll hear hams talking, morse code (CW) and various types of data, some of it critical such as NOAA Weather Fax (WEFAX), Radio Teletype (RTTY), and real life spies transmit coded messages called “Numbers Stations” on Short Wave as well. Short Wave is very much still alive and well but clearly not as active as when I was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s.
The Tecsun PL-880 is one of the finer Short Wave table top radios being made today. One of the best features of it is that it has a Line Out feature which means you can plug it into a computer and record. Well………..sorta. If you plug it into a computer it is full blast line out which overloads and distorts awfully. There are no instructions in the manual for turning down the Line Out volume however there is a super top-secret page of firmware hidden features that tells you how to turn down every band EXCEPT short wave. Here’s the entry: