Ok, in my arsenal of geek toys amoungst the Bootcamped MacBook, iTouch, Acer Netbook (on XP), partially handbuilt HiFi Valve amplifiers, DSLR camears etc,  i have just added a Wideband Communication Receiver. This unit is USB controllable via any PC and tunes r 0.010–3299.999MHz.

I used to play for hours with a radio set years ago as a kid listening to the HF Bands. I thought with the InterWeb that that sort of thing was all but over but how wrong... there is so much interesting 'stuff' going on, and not just amongst the HAM Radio crowd. Much of it is digital now too and there are plenty of free programs that as example let you decode weatherfax (directy from satellite) as a starter..

My main reason of getting back ino this path of time-wasting challeges is to experiment with decoding some of the RF signals out there, especially since a PC is so cheap these days in comparison to the Radio receiver. I'm not into Radio Amateur stuff and i'm not licened as one (yet). I just like being a ShortWave LongDistance Listener (SW-DXL).

This link shows some examples of the 'stuff' that you can pickup and decode any time of the day or night:

http://www.youtube.com/user/k2ncc#p/u/2/7ss1xWEOO6Q

Is there anyone else who gets into this hobby?