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Taking a Radio Camping

(ewpratten.com)
139 points ewpratten | 1 comments | 27 Jul 24 02:26 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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jnord ◴[27 Jul 24 06:57 UTC] No.41084907[source]▶
Back in the 70s when shortwave was still king, we used to pack communications radios, rolls of antenna wire and jump on a train to travel up to northern Scandinavia to listen to faraway exotic stations on the medium and shortwave bands. It was an ideal environment with no electronic noise, mainly due to scarce population, and we were free to roll out 500 meters of longwire in various directions without upsetting anybody. Fun times indeed!
replies(2): >>41085038 #>>41086974 #
1. femto ◴[27 Jul 24 14:53 UTC] No.41086974[source]▶
In the 90s I spent a few years working on the Jindalee Over-The-Horizon-Radar. It's in the HF band and located in a quiet spot in the middle of Australia. At that time it wasn't fully operational, so there were substantial periods where the research team had exclusive access. One of the techs was a keen radio amateur and used to patch his HF kit into the beamformed antenna array. Subject to the ionosphere not being complete rubbish he could roam around to his hearts content. A further bonus was real-time access to one of the world's best ionosonde networks. It was HF nirvana.