Graham,
First, I'd suggest you check out radio dealers there in the UK to see what
they carry in the way of SWL portables.
Since you are coming Stateside soon, you may also wish to check out two
dealers over here who specialize in SWL equipment: Universal Radio (in
Ohio): http://www.universal-radio.com/ or Grove Enterprises (in North
Carolina): http://grove-ent.com/ I have no financial interest in either
company, but I am a satisfied customer of both of them.
Both web sites offer a lot of info that you might find interesting. One
thing for sure: if you are trying to locate specific QRM sources, you
probably do not want a low end radio. Those tend to have poor selectivity
and too much uncontrolled gain. You don't mention the sort of QRM you are
trying to trace, so I don't know if you can get by with just plain old AM
reception, if you will want SSB, as well. Those sets with SSB capability
also cost a bit more.
One other option you may wish to consider: if you have an HF base station
radio that includes 160m and which is powered by 12 VDC, you might find it
just as well to put that rig in the car, connect it to power via the
cigarette lighter socket (or "power pocket" as they are called these
days), and some sort of simple antenna that you could drive around with.
After all, if you are only going to receive with it, power draw via the
socket is not a problem, and a simple antenna wire may be adequate. On
the other hand, if your vehicle creates a lot of RFI on its own, this
could be a self-defeating task. I mention this option for two reasons: 1)
Virtually any ham base rig will outperform an SWL portable hands down
because of vastly superior design in the receiver. (Of course, high end
base SWL receivers are another story.) 2) If you have no other SWL
interest other than to find this QRM, use of the existing rig would save
some cost.
Best wishes on the project.
73, Dale
WA9ENA
G8EWT <g8ewt@diacon.co.uk>
Sent by: rfi-bounces@contesting.com
03/12/2010 07:30 AM
To
<rfi@contesting.com>
cc
Subject
[RFI] Handheld Rx for Topband
Apologies but not exactly rfi but similar.
Like practically everyone else I'm waging a constant war against the QRM
found in modern day residential areas. I've often thought that it would be
much easier to track down the QRM sources if I had a portable receiver but
I've been unable to find one here in the UK that covers top band. Quite
often I've found that devices emit modest QRM in the AM broadcast bands
but
that the levels rise strongly above 1.7Mhz and in these cases a normal
broadcast portable isn't a great deal of help.
Can anyone give me the model number of a reasonably priced radio that
covers
2MHz that's available in Europe? Alternately I will be visiting the US in
April and could arrange for delivery to my hosts there.
Thanks for your help.
73
Graham G8EWT
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