Radio Sets
What is a "Radio Set" ?
Radio receivers and transceivers are often referred to as a 'set' prefixed by the name of the radio band they operate on. A radio receiver or transceiver that operates on frequencies between 3MHz and 30MHz is often called an HF Set as this chunk of the radio spectrum is known as High Frequency or HF. The term 'VHF Set' is used to refer to various types of radio sets operating on Marine, Aircraft or Amateur Radio Service bands within the 30MHz to 300MHz frequency range, many VHF sets are for one specific use and only operate on one particular band, others will transmit on one single band but can receive on more than one, eg; A VHF set that can only transmit on the 2m Amateur band but can be used for reception on marine and aircraft bands.
Receivers that include HF and bands lower than 3MHz are often called Shortwave sets.
Frequencies and Band coverage
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There are a wide variety of radio receivers that operate on a range of different bands.
Most households in the UK that listen to broadcast radio stations are using FM and/or DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast) receivers these days. Those who enjoy listening to international broadcast stations will be using multi-band radios often simply referred to as shortwave sets or World band receivers. Most of these types of radios are will be capable of operating across a wide range of bands. Many will work on a selection of bands from LF, MF, HF and VHF bands. Some provide frequency coverage in the order of 300KHz to 300MHz often including broadcast, aircraft, marine and amateur bands.
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Whenever looking at buying a shortwave set or World band receiver You need to check what the frequency coverage of the specific set is and find out what specific bands it works on. Some sets with wide coverage do not actually receive on all frequencies within that range, there are often gaps with some bands being left out.
Amateur Radio Sets
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There is a huge range of radio transmitters and transceivers available for licensed amateur radio operators. From vintage analogue valve sets to SDR 'Software Defined Radios' that require connection to a computer running SDR software to control the radio transceiver hardware and process the received signals. The received signal you are tuned to can be heard and seen on screen live while also seeing other signals on frequencies above and below the current operating frequency on the computer monitor display. The now common waterfall is a very popular display method, there are often other display modes available in the SDR software such as a live Fast Fourier Transformation, normally referred to as FFT, that perform mathematical operations on the received signals providing more in depth time/frequency analysis.
Many HF radio transceivers for amateur radio operation cover frequencies from 3.5MHz to 30MHz providing licensed amateur stations with access to the 80m to 10m amateur bands.
Some amateur radio sets have lower frequency coverage including the 160m band, this is technically a Medium Frequency band (MF, below 3MHz) although it is often erroneously referred to as HF. 160m is generally called 'Top Band' which seems odd as it is the lowest frequency band on many HF sets. This may be due to the fact it is the uppermost amateur band in the MF spectrum.
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There are also some amateur radio transceivers that provide very wide multi-band coverage well beyond the HF allocations, including MF, HF, VHF and sometimes UHF bands in one set with some providing coverage from 160m to 70cm bands all in one box. If You are looking to get such a wide band set check the specifications and band coverage carefully as some miss out certain bands. Some will include 6m (50MHz) but not 4m (70MHz) and some cover both bands.
These are some of my own traditional analogue HF sets.
East Ayrshire Radio Society
Ayrshire, Scotland.
© 2022 MM7WAB Hairy Paul