What to listen to for background noise?

[Radio Wrangler]

The 2m band around here is devoid of any activity most of the time, there are a couple of regular nets some nights in the week. If I had the space for an antenna array, I'd hear more off the moon. So amateur radio for me means HF. I sometimes just leave it in the morse segment of a band and let my ear pick out the occasional word.

I was given some recordings of The Navy Lark and enjoyed those. They are starting to become historical artefacts from an era when most people knew the standard national service jokes.

David

[Wendymott]

My "noise" source is my PC. I copied all my Vinyl plus the odd CD into MP3, I bought a "jukebox" software a few years back, called Musicmatch, was bought by another company and is no longer available. Plus it will not run on operating systems above Win 7. But when I am designing pcb's or schematics, its always there.

[M0AFJ, Tim]

Recommend the FISTS CW frequencies for background stuff, it’s amazing what you can read when having your hands in a set trying to fix something!

[Restoration73]

There is a weekday net on 144.775 which is easily heard here.

I am lucky to hear the Port of London Authority operations (Thames barrier) from
Greenwich on Channel 14, 156.700 often hourly.

[G6Tanuki]

Part of me misses the sound of SSB hams on 7Mhz fighting against the funereal trumpet notes of Radio Tirana's tuning ident and the rasp of colour telly line timebase harmonics, which I spent quite a bit of the 80s listening to in the evenings.

Somewhere out there I recall coming across a looped recording of the clatter of an old Strowger telephone exchange...
Which might appeal to someone.

[Cruisin Marine]

I have a 1979/1980 radio series on open reel tape. I tend to play it through whenever all the diodes down my left side are giving me gipp.

I hope that is not getting you down, it can be caused by spending far too long parking cars, as you well know.

But don't despair, there is respite- take a single intergalactic gargle blaster whilst listening to Disaster Area VERY loudly of course (is there any other way?).

[Cruisin Marine]

Don't fret everyone, you can always listen that lovely Irish lady doing the volmet forecast on 5505 kHz USB.

[G.Castle]

Couple of local Amateurs who are enthusiastic home brewers having a QRP rag chew about technical adventures: very entertaining and informative. BBC take note.

Neighbours who have an old AM cordless phone, sometimes I get to hear my own name on the radio, (fringes on top band), I have told them, but they still use it and like security cameras people forget, perhaps I should tune away but they're the ones using dodgy equipment, and information is power.

If I'm trying to concentrate The Sound of Silence is good: or almost any other Simon and Garfunkel.

Sometimes I'll listen to old cassettes with Mitsubishi Melsec PLC programs on! Almost as good as drinking an intergalactic gargle blaster whilst listening to Disaster Area on the same planet.

I've actually a recording of THGTTG I'll have to dig out.

Greg.

[majoconz]

Like Peter VK4COZ - South Pacific 8867kHz USB is a good propagation checker - late afternoon Tahiti and Honolulu can be heard, (Honolulu calls herself "San Francisco" just to confuse the issue!) 13261 and 5643 too. Taupo Marine sometimes have good stuff and the pacific net on 14300 +/- is interesting. A pair of scanners listen to the emergency VHF frequencies and the UHF CB band truckies if you can stand the language!