Here is a piece of radio hobby wisdom that will help you regain your radio scanner mojo -- "A radio search button should never gather dust...it should have the lettering worn off!"
And this same piece of advice applies for radio hobbyists who prowl the HF radio bands. You have to turn that frequency knob and experience first hand what propagation conditions are going to let you hear. Successful HF DXers and ute listeners really understand propagation and are very, very patient.
So don't expect to hear military aircraft headed for a mission downtown or sensitive communications in the real operational world of the military. It just isn't going to happen.
The next time a major world event occurs, don't run up to the radio newsgroups five minutes after the start of the event and ask the entire list what frequencies you should listen to monitor the event. Get off your duff, turn on your radio and be a contributor -- not a user.
And the successful radio hobbyist know this truth very well. You want to hear the good stuff - "you" will have to find it.
Grote Reber tuning around with an early radio receiver. If he hadn't tuned around the radio dials he wouldn't have discovered cosmic radio noise.
