The magic of a tuner

[Masterlu]

MtnHam... Welcome!

[chessman]

MtnHam, welcome aboard!

[MC352]

A tuner of any kind, AM, FM, SW, are all magic, as long as your turning a dial to tune a station. Pressing the scan button, just doesn't cut it.

I like tuning around to try to find new stations.

[TommyC]

Speaking of tuner, there's a Burmester 978 Reference tuner on the 'gon right now. Looks like the ultimate tuner.

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by TommyC

Speaking of tuner, there's a Burmester 978 Reference tuner on the 'gon right now. Looks like the ultimate tuner.

Yep, I've seen it. Just can't bring myself to buy from complete strangers.

[Maks]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Steve.......Back in the 70's I work for a small 5000 watt AM radio station, KOHI in St. Helens, Oregon. It was my first full time on-air gig out of college. One day a post card arrived from Sidney, Australia. The card was an acknowledgment that the sender had heard our station on the air in Sidney. He state the time of day, noted my name as the on-air personality, and mentioned several commercials that were aired. I remember checking the stations daily log from the date mentioned, and sure enough we logged the two commercials he said he heard at the time he indicated. He was a DX'er, and enjoyed tuning the radio dial to see how far away he could hear a broadcast, then sending cards to let the stations know. That was his hobby. I was amazed that our little 5000 watt signal skipped off the upper atmosphere and bounced down half way around the world in Sidney, Australia. The station manager kept the DX post card. I sure wish I had it. I sent a short note to the DX'er on our station letterhead letting him know we received his post card.

I like to search the radio dial, too. Late night DXing is fun. The clear channel stations on AM come in good at night from all over the country. I have listened to KSL in Salt Lake, Utah, KSF in San Francisco, and WABC in New York on my radio while in Florida. Amazing. I even caught the short wave and long wave bug, and have two tuners, a world band radio and a UHF/VHF radio, connected to roof top antennas that let me hear broadcasts from all over the world. A few nights ago I was listening to an English broadcast I enjoy from Radio Havana Cuba, and another English speaking news cast from China Radio broadcast from Beijing. Lots of fun.

Wow, that's a great story and definitely something I would remember as well!

I'm still experimenting with placement of the RAA2 on my MR88 to achieve the best quality, but it kind of differs depending on what I'm tuning in. I'll probably give it another go tonight. I've been thinking about picking up a shortwave radio for kicks, but I'm not sure how much content is out there anymore thanks to the popularity of Internet radio.

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by Maks

Wow, that's a great story and definitely something I would remember as well!

I'm still experimenting with placement of the RAA2 on my MR88 to achieve the best quality, but it kind of differs depending on what I'm tuning in. I'll probably give it another go tonight. I've been thinking about picking up a shortwave radio for kicks, but I'm not sure how much content is out there anymore thanks to the popularity of Internet radio.

Steve.......Internet radio is cool, no doubt about it, but there is a lot of air content from around the world that will never see the Internet. Last night I was listening to a shortwave broadcast from Vietnam. I could not understand a word spoken except the word Vietnam during station ID, but the music being played was most interesting. I tune a lot of Spanish speaking stations, including a broadcast from Buenos Aires that plays a lot of Salsa music. I really enjoy DXing around the globe on my world band radio.

When I am more interested in local activities I turn on my UHF/VHF radio and scan the local Sheriff, local police, Highway Patrol, Fire Department, Forest Service, and Emergency frequencies. Sometimes I am able to tune aircraft to ground tower communications. There are a lot of activities on the airwaves.

Here's a photo of my two DXing radios. The bottom one is an Icom IC-R7000 UHF/VHF radio with manual, direct, scanning and memory tuning. The top radio is a JRC NRD-525 short wave and long wave receiver. I listen using either the Icom IC-SP3 external speaker or Sennheiser HD600 headphones. Both radios have line outputs for recording capabilities. DXing with these two radios is a lot of fun.

[Masterlu]

Great looking radios, and story Dan. That's one thing I haven't done... Yet!

[Formerly YB-2]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

Yep, I've seen it. Just can't bring myself to buy from complete strangers.

Take a chance. Just bought an Accuphase T-106 tuner from Lamerol Gatewood. Met him at the art museum in Trenton to complete the transaction. Turns out he is an artist from NYC (google him) who I would never had known if I had not taken the chance. Now I know an artist in NYC and have a truly great tuner. Win/win outcome.

[kev313]

Originally Posted by Maks

Does anyone else feel that a certain "magic" of a tuner is all part of a tuner experience? I'm in my 30s and I remember as a kid scanning around the AM band late at night and picking up far away stations from exotic locales such as St. Louis (I'm in Chicago) and being amazed. Something from St. Louis was making its way into my bedroom! When a buddy of mine got a shortwave radio my mind was completely blown.

Fast forward to my college days when Internet radio started to become popular and I thought it was cool to listen to college stations from remote areas, but it was never very exciting to me. Since then I had a series of AVRs with horrible tuners and never got into FM, aside from a great local college station. After I picked up a serviced MR74 2 years ago or so the magic returned. I was picking up fringe stations in the 88-92 band and discovering all sorts of interesting content. Finely tuning the station in via the analog knob made it seem like I was contributing to the magic of pulling these stations in.

The MR74 is in storage and I've got the excellent MR88, which kind of removes a little magic with its digital tuning, but I still get fascinated by scanning that lower band and seeing what I can find. I need to mount the AM antenna and see what I can find with that. I don't know why, but it's so much more satisfying to tune in a station with my MR88 than it is to just listen to an online stream. I'm not sure what my point here is, but does anyone feel the same magic with their tuner(s)? They're just FUN and that's what this hobby is all about!

In Chicago, try 88.7 (Loyola) and 89.3 (Northwestern). 89.3 has great jazz in the morning. The Hip Hop Project on Sat night on 88.7 is the best hip hop on the radio.