I received my Eton E5 shortwave receiver today (woot!). I took some pictures of the unboxing, and posted them on my Flickr account.

UPDATE: I moved the images off of Flickr (see below).

Sorry about the quality. It looks like my white balance was off on my camera.

I have been trying to find a good template of a QSL Log page, that I could print out to make it easier to keep track of logging the stations that I pick up on shortwave. I know that there are plenty of good computer programs that handle this, but 1) my receiver is not near my computer, so I have to use pen and paper, 2) one of the reasons I am playing around with shortwave is to get away from my computer.

I have been playing around with my Shortwave receiver the past couple of days, and have been having fun finding and listening to stations. However, I haven’t been able to get any real strong signals in, except for gospel broadcasts from the U.S. So today, I built a simple antenna consisting of about 25 Feet of single stand wire soldered to an alligator clip. I laid the wired out my window, across my deck, and up the hill, and then clipped it to the whip antenna of my receiver. Wow! I was blown away with how much such a simple antenna improved my reception. I am getting a lot more stations tonight, at much stronger signals (I have been listening to Radio Netherlands all night, and it sounds like a local AM station).

Before I first went to Europe about 10 years ago, I got my first shortwave radio (a SONY ICF-SW7600). I used it to keep up with the news (mostly BBC), and listen to broadcasts from countries with in Europe. Well, I haven’t really messed around with it since then, but over the past couple of days I have been on holiday, and getting a little bored (there is only so much XBOX 360 one can play). So, I started looking into Shortwave radios again, and pulled out my trusty old Sony to see what I could pick up in San Francisco.