Swarl

Short Wave Amateur Radio Listening (SWARL)
Devoted to Short Wave Listeners primarily interested in monitoring the Ham Bands and participating as SWL'ers in the various Han Radio Contests This group is open to all SWL'ers and Hams alike.
SWARL runs a group at Yahoogroups for the exchange and communication of information regarding our hobby. This is our forum for exchange of ideas, notifications of exotic stations, QSL information, contests and special operating achievement awards. We welcome you to join our group by clicking on the link below.
SWARL is your invtation to a friendly high-tech hobby that's got something for everyone. You can become a SWL (Short Wave Listener) no matter what age, gender, physical ability. People from all walks of life become SWLers.
The area of SWL'ing, this group is primarily interested in, is Amateur Radio Monitoring, Thus the abbreviation SWARL. You never know who you are going to run into listening to Ham Radio.

About modes
Over the past several years, there continues to be developed different modes for Hams to communicate on the Ham Bands. Some are as old as 150 years eg in Morse code and others are somewhat newer, up to and including the newest digital modes only months old.
MODE Description
CW Morse Code
SSB Single Side Band (Urper or Lovter) Voice
RTTY Radio Teletype
FM Frewency ModUation Voice
Digital Usually Computer Generated (30+ Types)
For further information on Where to Listen on the various Operating Modes, visit your favorite search) engine, ig
google.com and enter a search for "Ham Band Allocations" or "Ham Band Modes of Operation".
About Call Signs
Every licensed Radio Amateur is given a call sign that is used to identify you and your location of license. Each country that has Amateur Radio status is allocated a range of call signs by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Call signs consist of a prefix and a suffix. The prefix is usually composed of one or two letters and a number such as VE4 in Canada for the province of Manitoba or K9 in the U.S. for the states Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Some countries have prefixes that are composed of a number and a letter such as 4X for Israel or 9K for Kuwait. If this sounds confusing tables of call sign allocations will be given later in Materials section to make things clear.
While the prefix is unique and identities a country the suffix is unique for the individual. In Canada a call sign such as VE3ABC hasVE3 (Ontario) as the prefix and ABC as the suffix. In the U.S. the call sign K6XYZ has a prefix of K6 (California) and suffix of XYZ U.S. hams may also have a two letter prefix thus AB2Z is a valid call. Suffixes may also be less than three letters so you have call signs such as VE7AB in Brifish Columbia and KH6Y in Hawaii. Some countries, e.g. Russia may have suffixes showing more exact location of the ham station, thus serving as addition to the preffix. So, RA6LO, for example, gives the following information: RA - country Russia; 6 - Northern Caucasus; L - Rostov region; O - individual part of suffix. Two letter after a call sign in Russia, mean the high category of the operator, lower categories have three characters in suffix.
SWL Call Signs
In most European and Asian countries of the world, the Amateur Radio Licensing body will issue SWL Call signs for SWL Listeners. However, in North America, parts of South America, Australia, and several other countries, the Amateur Radio Licensing Body has no interest in issuing SWL call signs. In order to uniquely identify yourself, you will require a unique call sign that is not duplicated by someone else.
If you live in a part of the world that the Amateur Radio Licensing Body does not issue call signs for SWL's, we here at SWARL can issue a unique Call Sign for you representing your country and SWL'ing interests, We maintain a database of all SWL Call Signs issued to ensure no duplication happens.
If you would like to recede your unique Call Sign, just drop an email to us and we will issue one to you. There is no cost for this service, Apply for your own SWL call via email shown on both our website and yahoo group.
Together with the call sign, you will receive the image of certificate which is suitable to printing out in a good quality. This certificate can be used for identification at such services as eQSL.cc and QRZ.com
Awards
Numerous Ham Radio organizations offet special certificates es for operating achievements by Hams and SWL'ers. These awards are numerous and are suitable for framing and displaying in your Listening Post. These awards are for such accomplishments as Hearing all Continents, Verifying 100 Countries, Verifying 100 Call Prefixes, etc. At last estimate, there were in excess of 3,000 worldwide.
SWARL offers several achievement awards that can be applied for online via email. As new awards come on stream, they will be announced on the SWARL group and on this site. Currently, there awards for Hearing all Continents, Verifying number of Grid Locations, verifying number of Call Prefixes and others. You can see our award rules in awards section of this site.
The awards certificates can be sent to you after submission of specific, verification information applicable to each award. The certificate then can be sent to you by email as a jpeg file of good quality.
Email your award application in form of extraction from your log to email address located on the front page of yahoo forum and on our website.
QSL Cards
Part of the fun of SWLing is collecting cards, called OSL cards, from amateurs that you've heard on the radio.
Another reason for collecting OSL card: is t o participate in many certificate programs available to SWLers. Whether its getting yor DXCC (DX century club) for getting cards confirming listening to 100 or mole DX countries, Hearing all states in the US., all provinces in Canada, or many other wards available you'll need the cards to support your claim for the ward. The SWARL Group sponsors several awards for listening achievements. This will be discassed further special section on this site.
If you plan to QSL your listening activities then you will need a personal OSL card. You can design your own and have a local printer produce them for you or you can order cards from one of many services you can find advertised in QST, Radio Amateurs of Canada, CQ and other magazines.
Give some thought to the content of the card and the quantity you will be ordering. Usually larger quantities are much less expensive on a per cad basis.
A recent phenomenon in the OSL scene is the ability to QSL via the Internet. To do this you need to go to eQSL.cc and register for this free service.. With your Internet browser you will be able to design your own OSL card, send cards you have made to operators and receive cards from them. The service also provides features for organizing cards receved and creating summaries of them . eQSls.cc are acceptable for all awards offered by SWARL.
Why A Log Book?
Once your station is set up and you have become familiar with operating it, you will want to start keeping track of your listening activities. This is referred to as logging your listening. This log can be as simple as a paper bound book or as elaborate as commercial computer logging software. As you already have access to a computer, I may suggest a computer logging software package. There are several available ranging from free on up. To what is available and can be downloaded from the internet, visit this site: http://www.ac6v.com/logging.htm You may also find some recommendations in our Reviews, in Software section.
In your logbook you may be able to keep track of who you have heard, their name, their location, etc. This information is all available via the Internet for most all Ham Radio Operators worldwide. You can do a search of the call sign at any one of the online callbooks such as Buckmasters or at ORZ.com . If you understand Russian, you can check QRZ.ru - sometimes you can find there more operators then in QRZ.com

Contesting
Contesting has developed into a major activity within the Ham Community. On any given weekend, there would be several Ham Radio contests running. It's affords you a special opportunity to log several new stations in a short period of time. In several of these contests, there is a SWL class for actually competing for awards and certificates. If you wish to find out more on contests are upcoming, see our Calendar page or calendar on the right side of this site.
Special events stations operate from time to time usually commemorating some special event in history, an individual or location. These stations usually offer special edition OSL cards and certificates for connecting them
Site
*The website of the SWARL is http://www.swarl.org
*The yahoo group is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SWARL/

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