Being a SWL

One of my hobbies was Short-wave Radio where you can listen to stations from around the World, learning about people, places and lives often different from you own and maybe have a request read out.

It's something I did from the age of eight where as a young boy I'd listen to Transworld Radio moving on the the Shortwave Merry-Go-Round show on Swiss Radio International a couple of years later and joined a 'ham radio' Society as a teenage boy.

If you gave a report of how well you received that station together with comments on the show you listened to then often you'd get colourful postcards and assorted goodies.

Doing this requires a certain level of organizational ability to recall where on the dial the station is and what the best time to listen happens to be because radio waves using these frequencies aren't just received  at a line of sight way, they're reflected making it easier to receive at certain times compared to others and also as the seasons change the best frequencies to reach people vary so you have seasonal changes to note down.

Over the years I've had many receivers from older table top tube sets from the 40's & 50's right through until I became poorly(tm) some 15 or so years back a Yaesu FRG 7000 semi professional communications receiver with matching VHF convertor  and antenna tuning unit that lent itself also to listening to shipping and 'ham radio' (those funny people the British comedian Tony Hancock sent up in a timeless TV comedy episode!).

Recently a family friend who was going through some major problems gave me  scarcely used 'new' short wave radio as the nature of their condition's was such they'd just 'lose it' destroying anything they couldn't get on with a hammer. This was one a good many things at risk of destruction. It's made by Etón and it's called the E5.

Anyway it's a small unit covering both the traditional 'AM' broadcast Bands -  that's to say Medium Wave plus Long Wave - and continuous shortwave coverage right up to 30 Megahertz taking in the popular 49, 41, 31, 25 and 17 Metre shortwave broadcast bands traditionally broadcast using Amplitude Modulation (A.M).

It also covers the Ham Radio bands coming complete with the Beat Frequency Oscillator to resolve the way Hams transmit talk (using SSB) or use Morse Code (C.W.) with a fine adjuster so it doesn't sound like Mickey Mouse as well as CB Radio although at least in the UK it sounds a bit dead around here.

For good measure it has  stereo FM radio with a headphone output coupled with a output to plug into an external amplifier or recorder which is handy.

What I like about is it's very easy to tune stations in as you use a wheel while looking at the frequency display and you can store up to 700 stations in a memory in 100 pages of 7 entries which is sufficient to cover several frequencies used by one broadcaster per page.

It's less fiddly than my communications receiver to use as they've removed most of the knobs I struggled to turn although the performance isn't quite as good on the very noisiest signals but you can use as a portable for listening to local stations first thing catching up with travel information saving you from having to have a separate set just for that.

Reception with the rod antenna built in is surprisingly good.

Some have complained the buttons are a bit close most likely men with the build of a lumberjack but with my small paws they fit perfectly so I'm enjoying re-connecting to this hobby of mine on something I can now use.