Help pulling in Pirate radio stations

[cyberflexx]

Lol..yeah i it from tibbspawn on ebay..looked dusty in the picture.  I hope it has a dsp.  He said it worked when i asked him the question.  I hope it was a good buy.

Wow not mich rfi tonight!!  I hear an uninident on 6925 played owner of a lonley heart song.  Fading in and out with stock antenna..

Im going to try to rig up something tomorrow for better signal.

[cyberflexx]

I had alot of success tonight with a speaker wire dipole connected to my telescopic antenna on my radio.
It wsd about 8 feet on each section.  I was pleased.  My ratshack amplified antenna only added noise to the equation so i removed it..

[Beerus Maximus]

Lol..yeah i it from tibbspawn on ebay..looked dusty in the picture.  I hope it has a dsp.  He said it worked when i asked him the question.  I hope it was a good buy.

The seller looks like a pawn shop. Not necessarily a bad thing. If it arrives safely, works, and cleans up nicely, it should be a good buy. Icoms are durable radios. I'd be surprised if it was DOA.

[L Cee]

You say you have a tree about 12 feet from your window. You could put together a end-fed wire antenna and mount one end as high up in the tree as you can get it. Coil the rest of the antenna and lead together and conceal them at the base of the tree or hanging from a low limb. When it is dark at night, you can go out and attach the other end of the antenna to another object in your yard (tree, fence post, deck rail, etc.) and feed the lead through your window. Even though the antenna might not be high above the ground, the extra length (and just being outside the house) should make a big difference. Maybe a lot of trouble....but it might be worth the effort   

[glimmer twin]

Congrats on scoring an R 75. I hope it works out for you. I am sort of renewing my dx'ing hobby & bought a new R75 & a Satellit 750 last month & I am very pleased with both of them.

[cyberflexx]

Got my receiver after work today..its very clean, the knob rubber is a little dirty but no biggie. It looks lightly usdd, a couple minor scratches on the top plastic, no big deal. The power supply was not nasty either.  It does have the DSP installed!! That sweetened the deal.

How can i tell if it has filter upgrades?  I can tell the screws have been removed as tthey are a little scuffed in the phillips notches.

[moof]

Go to usb mode and try pressing the filter button FIL-see if there is more than one option available. Try AM as well.  There may be a stock narrow filter there...not sure.  That will tell you how many filter deals you have going on.

[cyberflexx]

Go to usb mode and try pressing the filter button FIL-see if there is more than one option available. Try AM as well.  There may be a stock narrow filter there...not sure.  That will tell you how many filter deals you have going on.

There are N and W on AM and USB..are both of these stock?  What other upgrades could i check for?

[cyberflexx]

Looks stock other than DSP and its clean.  FL 272 9.0115 filter and a free slot and no option filter2 in the slot for it.

[RCCI]

Cyberflexx - Congrats on getting the "New" receiver!  I'm still looking to snatch up a good deal on Ebay. Had bids on FRG-7 Kenwood R-1000. I just have to be patient. How's with the antenna? Hope that situation works out for you!  

If the receiver didn't come with an operator's manual, those are usualy found on the internet free of charge  

BTW... If you're in need of a great UTC clock go to GOOGLE and type in HAM TIMER. Ham radio operator WF0GM created a nice 32 bit Windows program for UTC / Zulu readings. I use it to put in real time loggings at HFU on the computer. One nice feature, is that you can downsize it to work in the background on your bottom toolbar. There is even a 10 minute audio timer, for hams, to remind them of an ID check. It's FREE and virus free.

 ...Steve

[cyberflexx]

Keep looking, you will find one.. ALso set a timer for ebay aution end time and watch it the last 5 min.  thats how i got this one at the last 3 seconds.

I have the operating manual and service manual as wel as the manual for the software and I have the software that I found on a webpage.  I also have Phils R75 cookbook.  I plan on reading those tonight.

Right now i just use about 24 foot dipole made from speaker wire, that i put up in my living room.  Not exactly sure how i am going to be able to do an outside one without the wife complaining about holes, wires and such. 

I have a UTC clock on my cell phone and set my radio to UTC time.  Thanks for the information on the program, I'll look it up. 

I also found in my old box of scanner stuff, two Hamcom paralllel port devices that have a headphone jack on the end.  I guess I can use that to decode CW and RTTY. 

I am going to have to make a place for my radio gear and build up a computer from the parts I have laying in storage.   Not sure where I am going to make my listening station though.  Can't wait till we move to a bigger home, 2400sq feet just isnt enough with 3 little kids.

[BoomboxDX]

One way to connect an outside wire antenna to your radio indoors without drilling holes, or keeping your window cracked is to use alligator clips (only works if you have metal or aluminum window frames). 

Clip the outside antenna wire to the outside of the window frame, clip the indoor lead (that goes to your radio) to the inside of the window frame.  When you're done listening, you can unclip the leads from each side of the window.

[cyberflexx]

Awesome idea!!! Thanks..i will do that today!!  I can run wire from my sliding glass door frame around the top of my deck posts. That will give me a good 30feet outside about 20 feet off the ground.  Then another 20 or 30 feet from the inside frame to my recliner.  It wont be dipole though.

[cyberflexx]

Made my connections out on the deck and hooked it onto my sliding glass door.  Made another wire with clip to attach on the inside.  I wait for kids to go to bed so it will be quiet in the house before i can test it.

[cyberflexx]

I had so much noise last night and couldnt pull in much in the pirate bands.  I messed around with the anteanna some and disconnected my outside clip, and ran the wire down my hall way and made another wire the other direction to my window curtain.  The noise dropped way down to 1 or 2.  I went through the house turning off things like the fish tank pump, laptop charger, made sure my lamps were off and the heatpumps were off.  I couldnt isolate it in my home.  I did notice my outside line was running parrallel with power lines that were 50 feet behind the house.  I am wondering if that might have been the issue.  I changed my antenna routing a few minutes ago to make the wire perpendicular to the power lines and i ran the speaker wire into my tree about 8 feet off the ground. 

With my indoor anteanna tinkering, Glimmertwin, and KiloKat and Light Keeper were hearing numbers on 6.0165 ( i think it was) and this was suppose to be Havanna Cuba english time slot.  There were data streams in the signal as well.  very interesting night with that, anyway. 

LightKeeper suggested a loop anteanna.  I'll have to dig around and see what I can find out.