What Radio Did you start your listening hobby with?

[Northwest Radio]

My start, yee gaads. As a toddler I was fascinated with a vintage/antique radio my grandmother had in her home. With a bit of help from her, I heard my very first SW signals via its massive speaker. As I grew, she allowed me to operate it myself (Age 5 or 6 or so). I spent hours on a tall stool in front of it. I later in life discovered that it had a large rotatable helix/loop antenna in the cabinet. Wire and wooden dowels. Pretty cool.

It was an RCA Victor. Unsure of them model number but this is a photo of the exact radio I just found while producing this post. Man, I am gonna cry... (grin)

[Billy the Mountain]

A transistorized Zenith Transoceanic my grandfather had.  This was the 70's.  We only visited once a year or so, so I would sit and listen to the BBC, foreign broadcasters, and of course WWV.

Graduated to a Sony 2010 right after college (still have and use).  Had an R390/A for 20 or so years, recently parted with it.  I now use my trusty old TR7 mostly, although I'm dabbling in SDR and phasing direct conversion radios. . .

[Beerus Maximus]

Who would part with an R390/A! 

[Billy the Mountain]

They take up a ton of space, they weigh a ton, and honestly, there are better receivers out there.  I thoroughly enjoyed mine (complete with meters), but it was time to move on. 

The small sailboat I bought with the money has better dynamic range, but poorer selectivity.

[ninly]

Enjoying this thread.

The SWL bug bit me in 2005, and I got an Eton e10 for Christmas that year. Listened to a lot of stuff (mostly SW broadcast) with a longwire on that little thing, from Brooklyn, NY. I don't exactly remember the radio fondly, but it got me started, and the bug burrowed deeper. Less than six months later I had my ham ticket, and bought a Yaesu FT-757GX at a hamfest upstate. I was eager to get on the air myself ... but the damn thing had a broken TX. So I was back to listening, though now with a much better receiver. Started listening to pirates, which peaked around Halloween 2008. My now-wife and I then decided to move to Alabama, and radio took a backseat while I established myself anew. Recently got back into HF, finally, with anew shack setup for listening and ham stuff. Still pretty bare-bones, but having a blast.

[jc1974]

I started as a SWL is late 2003 with a Sony ICF2010 & Wellbrook Loop 1530 (the blue indoor one, which got stolen from my backyard, but its been replaced with a metal one). Art Bell from Coast to Coast AM was what got me interested after hearing him talk about the weird and strange things you could hear in the middle of the night on one of his shows. Around 2006 I kinda was obsessed with recording & archiving as many hams calling cq as possible, but that faded away after awhile. Here are some of the recordings: http://archive.org/details/Ham_2

[Rafman]

I started at 10 years old with a BC-312-D Army receiver [0.5-18MHz] that I got from a CB friend of my family's. I had a friend who also had one & when I was about 14 we started DXing together, each recording the audio to 1 track of a reel-to-reel recorder.

[radioreddz]

a radio shack DX 160 that i still have. sold a kawasaki 100cc dirt bike to get money for it. had to have it next to my cb radio equipment. it must have been 1974 or 75. i used a 30' length of speaker wire for the antenna.

[vk3fz]

marconi cr 100 naval rx

[cyberflexx]

Radio Shack DX392 and a DX350.. These are still my current shortwave receivers.  I have a Pro29 scanner and a Bearcat XLT 10ch scanner base as well.  Somewhere in storage is a cobra cb with SSB that runs 'hot' as well..

[BoomboxDX]

Cyberflexx, is your DX-350 the one that's branded as a Realistic or the one with the Radio Shack brand on the front?  Just wondering, as they are basically two separate radio designs.

[cyberflexx]

Cyberflexx, is your DX-350 the one that's branded as a Realistic or the one with the Radio Shack brand on the front?  Just wondering, as they are basically two separate radio designs.

Says radio shack  made in china.. Not the better of the two i dont think.

[Token]

a radio shack DX 160 that i still have. sold a kawasaki 100cc dirt bike to get money for it. had to have it next to my cb radio equipment. it must have been 1974 or 75. i used a 30' length of speaker wire for the antenna.

Ahhh, one of these:


(not in the order shown, but includes: DX-100, DX-150, DX-150A, DX-150B, DX-160, and DX-200, elswhere around here I have the DX-75, DX-300, and DX-302, as well as several portable DX series radios)

T!

[ChrisSmolinski]

My first "real" SW radio was a DX-160, previously I had been using a small portable, which is how I got hooked on the hobby.

[BoomboxDX]

Cyberflexx, is your DX-350 the one that's branded as a Realistic or the one with the Radio Shack brand on the front?  Just wondering, as they are basically two separate radio designs.

Says radio shack  made in china.. Not the better of the two i dont think.

I think it's the better of the two.  The Chinese made 350 has a better IF / AF chip inside -- it's a Sony chip which has an RF amp built in, as well as electronically controlled volume.

It has a little less selectivity than the Realistic branded, Taiwanese made DX-350, but has more sensitivity and I think it has better overall performance, esp. on MW.

I heard the SW CBC outlet in Newfoundland on mine last Spring, just using the whip antenna.  And I live in the NW US.