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Comment by apatters | Hacker News Reader

I've always been curious about this hobby but never jumped in. The technology is an interesting curiosity to me but speaking bluntly what would probably give me the impetus to really spend time on it would be tapping into any kind of underground content or social experience that exists. For instance I read that Art Bell got started by broadcasting his show over shortwave bands, what a fascinating experience it would have been to be hanging out with those guys and listening to their conversations through amateur radio.

What is the easiest way for me to start listening in and discovering what's out there on the airwaves? Do I have to buy hardware or are there purely software/online options? Also I live in Thailand so most of the local chatter would probably be in Thai which is hard for me to follow.

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Online SDR receivers are a great way to listen using other people's equipment:

http://www.websdr.org

Reverse Beacon Network and PSKreporter are excellent tools to see how people's signals are propagating:

http://www.reversebeacon.net

ttps://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

Oh man. This is amazing. Going to require at least one full evening to figure out WTF I am looking at though :)

Check out the WSPRnet map to get a visual indicator of propagation conditions, by seeing which automated stations can hear which other automated stations.

Thailand has two "Personal Radio" services, one at VHF 78 MHz and another at VHF 245 MHz.

The 78 MHz transceivers must have a Yellow case, while the 245 MHz transceivers must have a Red case.

These radios are widely used by small businesses (taxis, guards, etc) right across Thailand. Once you start looking, you'll see them everywhere.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_radio_service#Thailan...

Thailand also has a very active Amateur Radio Community, with many expats licensed. see https://www.qsl.net/rast/

The previous King of Thailand was a Patron of Amateur radio, so access to licensing was taken very seriously by the authorities.

Search for rtl-sdr. It's a 10$ DVB dongle that can also work as generic RF front end. This plus GNU radio or gqrx and you can already receive some fm and ham radio signals

You could always use websdr to listen

http://www.websdr.org

Shortwave feels like an abandoned town unless you like religious radio.

Not so.

The HF Ham bands are as busy as ever, while the Shortwave Broadcast bands are chock full of mainly Chinese stations, who incidentally play some amazing music.

It is so.

I used to go camping in the 1970's and had a shortwave radio that I would listen to for hours. The variety of stuff I could hear was vastly greater than what I can hear today.

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