Shortwave Primer

An experience with a cheap, wind up “survival”  radio piqued my interest in shortwave.  Even though English broadcasting on shortwave frequencies is waning this may be your only source of information if the internet completely fails or the “kill switch” is thrown.

I had some single channel operator experience with the old PRC 77 and other VHF radios.   I have fooled with a shortwave radio a little, at least enough to get a Spanish radio station and a snake handling church with a transmitter, in the past.

Selecting a Radio

It didn’t take long to realize I needed a much better radio, if I was really going to listen to shortwave.  I’m not going to labor the details but the serpent gospel couldn’t be found on my windup Chinese turd.   So, I turned to the internet for advice.   One of the better product review sites I  found was Eham.net.  It includes  A LOT of amateur radio hardware reviews, They have listings for present day models along with older (used) models.

Note: Older (used)  reliable models merit serious consideration.

Comprehensive list of shortwave receivers with reviews and prices.

http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/8 

I settled on a cheap very basic model that has received a lot of praise.  The Sangean ATS 800 (aka Realistic DX/370) which is now out of production ($35 used).   A short time while later, I ordered another receiver, the Tecsun PL-660 ($90 new), which offered some more features.  Both have good  reviews and are priced fairly modestly for their features.

Finding Stations

But, finding the time, frequency and languages of the stations was tricky.  If you don’t know, shortwave listening is better done at night, and stations do not broadcast continuously like your local FM country station.

Short-wave.info is an excellent resource for finding this information.  The site is interactive and it knows the time of day and your location.  It even gives a little strength meter that lets you pick out more likely prospects to explore.

Other frequency listings

http://www.short-wave.info

http://support.radioshack.com/support_electronics/doc66/66356.htm#Time

http://www.endtimesreport.com/shortwave.html

After posting this, I had a big Duh moment.  I don’t want to overstate the obvious but all these online resources won’t work if something big happens.  Write or print these frequencies out that you think are important to you.

 

Get here via “www.hardtackbrigade.com”

Channel now set to "www.hardtackbrigade.com" -Over!

The domain  “hardtackbrigade.com” belongs to us.   Just use http://www.hardtackbrigade.com to get to here.  Helps google find the brigade  too.

 

Electric Energy from Wood with Redneck Tech

It may seem odd, to some, but internal combustion engines can be run on gas produced from plain old wood. The practice was somewhat common in petroleum starved axis countries during World War II. The trick here is gathering up all the parts and doing all the welding BEFORE the you go through an energy blackout.

One important thing to note is that the process basically pressure cooks the wood.  This can be an extremely risky affair since the device has a home made potential bomb built in.

For more information on wood gas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas