Today was one of those days when I was grateful to have a radio in my car. An appointment finished early and I was driving home past Pleasant Grove Park in Fluvanna County, Virginia, a fantastic facility for walking, hiking and listening to radio. The temperature was in the mid-40s (F) but I had a coat, and my trusty Qodosen SR-286 with me. Also rummaging around the bottom of the car’s center console I found a Tecsun AN-03L compact reel antenna that came bundled with one of my Tecsun radios.
I clipped the antenna to a tree.
It’s around 7 meters (23 feet) long.
While there are some high tension powerlines not too far away, they don’t cause a noise problem. The picnic table is convenient too.
I used the SR-286 Auto tuning feature, something I really like on this radio. Each turn of the tuning knob advances to the next station. Before I started the official scan, I tuned three LW nondirectional beacons and then continued with shortwave starting at 1171 kHz. At the end, I added the US and Canadian time stations, WWV and CHU. WWV really sounded great on 25 MHz.
The viewer might want to take a shot at identifying some of the stations. Obvious there was CRFX, Toronto (right at 400 miles away). I think I got Radio Habana and Radio Marti both and a couple from China. One feature the reader can use to their advantage is the clock that is always on with the SR-286/DX-286. It’s correct within less than a minute.