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Been a SWL my whole life - as a kid, in the late fifties and early sixties, I can remember sitting in the attic with my dad listening to HCJV, "The Voce of the Andes" with the warm glow of the tubes and dial from his WWII-era National receiver - that probably weighed 80 pounds.
Next to my computer, here at home, I've got a Japan Radio Corporation NRD-5350 and sometimes I use it with a program to decode CW and RTTY. Less often, I use a Grundig Satellit 3400 that I bought in Germany when the Army stationed me there - the Grundig repair people in Chicago say that it's the best DX radio ever built. I've got a modern Grundig Satellit 800 Millennium, but I think it's more consumer grade and a less serious radio.
I have a fancy loop antenna from MRJ but most of the time, I just use a longwire. One of these days, I'll get around to stringing up one of those multi-band dipoles over the back yard, but the problem would the the length of the coax to bring it inside, on the other side of the house.
With that Satellit 3400, I was able to track that nonstop, round the world flight in the tiny plane during the nineties, the two pilot experimental thing which was using 25 watts HF. Tracked them from Bolivia to landing in California when they switched to Aircraft Band and I lost them.
A long time ago, a client who couldn't pay a bill gave me one of those tiny Alnico triple-conversion all-band micro-minuaturized DX2 radios, but it's not very serious, and its only real purpose is portability - it does fit in a pocket.
Finally, got the digital version of the Sony ICF-SW7600F that I take along sometimes on trips to speak at webmaster shows, especially in Europe, but mainly use as a clock radio.
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Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. . . Restraint in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.
Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964
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