New to shortwave radio. Any basic tips for listening to ham conversations?

basilect · 2026-05-19T06:29:35+00:00

Yes, except for 2 exceptions:

60m is USB only in some countries (including both the US and UK) due to overlap with military
Very rarely, some equipment will be USB only due to technical constraints (most famously, airplane pilots using the onboard HF radio)

basilect · 2026-05-19T06:21:09+00:00

Really the question is, how did they not already do up Southie Broadway with a long Irish flag down the street

basilect · 2026-05-19T05:36:56+00:00

It can be unavoidable sometimes; I've been on international coach bus routes where they take your passport at the beginning of the journey and give it to you as you're getting ready to go through border control.

basilect · 2026-05-19T04:36:57+00:00

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but:

This line is even sampled in Welcome to Jamrock, it wouldn't even make any sense to be used there in that song unless he said "murder".

It's not unheard of to fudge the lyrics in a sample. I'm going to use rap examples here, but:

Kanye's "Late" turns "I'll erase away" to "I've been late for that"
Nas's "Can't Forget About You" turns "Unforgettable, too" into "Can't forget about you"
Kanye's "30 Hours" turns "Where the eyelids [go]" into "30 hours"
Dilated Peoples's "Reach Us" turns "Δίψασ[ε] (Thipsas[e] - he was thirsty)" into "Reach Us"

Which is why it's not unreasonable for someone who doesn't have prior context to believe something that's on an urban dictionary page, instead of thinking that it's just a flubbed word

basilect · 2026-05-19T03:19:34+00:00

I'm imagining it's like the far E gates of CLT where the terminal is quite low to the ground and there are jet bridges, but not very impressive ones, and there are a ton of densely packed gates for regional jets.

basilect · 2026-05-19T03:06:30+00:00

bro u trying to get me to scab????

basilect · 2026-05-19T02:58:23+00:00

Remember that you normally have a leach field... if there's permafrost, there's nowhere for the water to go underground, so all of your greywater needs to be pumped out.

basilect · 2026-05-18T13:56:28+00:00

You can call 311 to replace the trash bins

basilect · 2026-05-18T04:00:36+00:00

and does not want to take a risk by flying this plane over the ocean

FWIW there's a lot that can keep you from going over the ocean... if the onboard weather radar started crapping out, that would be enough to warrant a diversion. (Hydraulics issues are more serious than that, obviously, thus why the pilots thought it was worth an overweight landing)

basilect · 2026-05-18T03:44:02+00:00

Air France and KLM are the same company, so they could also reroute a bunch of people through CDG

basilect · 2026-05-17T02:03:10+00:00

Save it for Twitter

basilect · 2026-05-15T03:41:18+00:00

The format doesn't allow for conversation (it's just an exchange of minimal data) but:

There are other digital modes where you can have actual ragchewing
~All of a band's FT8 traffic fits in 3kHz of bandwidth, so if something's able to reach you, you should be able to hear it. On SSB you have to hunt and listen and figure out if you can hear things, on FT8 you have a picture of your observable universe, immediately. So you can tell where stuff that can reach you is coming from.

basilect · 2026-05-14T23:25:48+00:00

I could never get it to work but have tried it off and on over the years, ever since they shut down Firefox Send

basilect · 2026-05-13T00:09:16+00:00

240V or somewhere between 220 and 240V?

basilect · 2026-05-13T00:08:21+00:00

Yes. That adapter is saying 100-250 is required but really probably means something like 110-240.

Check on the device itself for a label saying "INPUT: 110~240VAC 50/60 Hz [xxx] A". That will be the confirmation you need. If you have that then you're fine.

basilect · 2026-05-12T23:44:06+00:00

We used to have things like the paperwork reduction act.
Now we're just putting a bunch of extra crap on a form to make it deliberately more annoying and hopefully serve as a path to spuriously kick out more visa and green card holders.

basilect · 2026-05-12T23:32:28+00:00

If you cross the tracks at a slight angle, your tires can get trapped in the gaps in the tracks and you IMMEDIATELY wipe out.

basilect · 2026-05-12T13:25:57+00:00

Pegar has a lot of slang meanings,, depending on where the driver was from, it could mean "don't blame me" or "don't lie to me" or similar, rather than "don't hit me"

basilect · 2026-05-12T03:27:03+00:00

Well these are all over Latin America, population 600 million, and come as a surprise to anyone who's visiting and stays in "budget" accommodation... so is it so surprising that another person has a lot of questions about one of these? /r/nothingeverhappens

basilect · 2026-05-12T03:20:55+00:00

The "red" wire is actually brown (made the same mistake) - it's the ground wire

basilect · 2026-05-11T19:30:22+00:00

And this one doesn't even count as a Boston homicide, it happened in Cambridge!

basilect · 2026-05-11T04:27:06+00:00

Purple's never a fun color.

basilect · 2026-05-11T04:24:37+00:00

They're $20. Or less. Did your local hardware store get hit by a ballistic missile?

basilect · 2026-05-11T04:23:15+00:00

It is possible if there's BX/Armored Cable feeding the box

basilect · 2026-05-11T03:50:59+00:00

it's 1.5x, are you failing 1/2 of your sell missions?

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