Tom DelFratte wrote in a message to All:
 TD> First off i picked up a shortwave receiver (works great) the mgz
 TD> are like 2 to 18 does this meas that a frequency 6955 is really
 TD> 6.955 mghz or a frequency 14500 is really 14.500 mghz seems logical
 TD> ! also the utc times are ah' confusing how do you convert to e.s.t
 TD> ? (i meant means that) This could prove to be an addicting hobby .
First off...  Welcome to the hobby of SWL (ShortWave Listening)  :)
Then a small thing regarding abbreviations that you would no doubt notice on 
your own in a short time, but...  The correct abbr for MegaHertz is "MHz" 
(some people capitalize the "H" - some don't).  I know -- picky, picky, 
picky... :)  By using a "G" in the abbr, it MIGHT get confused with "GHz" 
(GigaHertz) which is equal to 1000 MHz (deffinately MUCH different!).
You are correct in your placement of the decimal point in the frequency.
UTC (or as it used to be called and still is in places - GMT (Grenwich Mean 
Time)) can be a bit odd to get used to, and MANY times I have missed a 
program simply because my brain(?) wasn't working correctly :>  AFAIK, There 
is no special "formula" (other than basic subtraction and addition) for 
converting to UTC from your local time.  It's more like the process that 
converts civilian (am/pm) time to military (24 hour).  There are several 
programs out that will do the conversion for you and allow you to see 
(graphically) the zones and what is called the 'grey line' (the point at 
which the sun drops below the horizon for a specfic geographical location) 
and displays that on your computer monitor.  Probably one of the more well 
known applications is GEOCLOCK, and should be available at most BBS' that 
cater to Amateur Radio and Shortwave hobbists, or on the internet using 
either the www.yahoo.com or www.shareware.com search engine sites.  In the 
later versions of the above program (GEOCLOCK), I believe it was made 'mouse 
compatable' and you can simply point on a location on the graphical map of 
the world to have the local time there displayed.  This coupled with a good 
SWL logging program would probably be a big help in finding stations and 
recording data during your listening sessions.
Getting back to the basic manual UTC conversion, all you basically need to 
know is what your local time 'offset' is from UTC.  In my case it is UTC+8 
and UTC+7 in the Winter and Summer (respectivly), so at this time of year 
(BTW: UTC time does NOT - to my knowledge - change with the seasons - ie 
'daylight savings' and 'standard' like our local time does here in the USA) I 
know that UTC time is 7 hours ahead of my local time - therefore I subtract 
that ammount in order to find the current UTC time.  It helps a LOT if you 
begin the process by using military time (0000-2400).  So if it's 5:00pm (in 
the evening) here then I first need to think of that as 1700 hours, then - 
since it's 'Daylight Savings Time' (PDT) locally I subtract the 7 hours of 
the offset and I end up with 1000 hours  (1700 - 0700 = 1000) which is 
10:00am in the late morning UTC.
Now...  Since YOUR TZ (Time Zone) is 3 hours later than us here on the West 
coast, your Summer offset should be the 7 that is ours minus the 3 difference 
between us (East to West coast) or actually UTC+4.  So instead of subtracting 
the "0700" that I did above, you would only subtract "0400".  (ie 1700 - 0400 
= 1300 = 1:00pm).
Of course, when you are converting the other way (Local TZ to UTC), you would 
need to ADD instead of SUBTRACT.  Suppose you wanted to listen to a program 
on HCJB (Ecuador) on 9.745 MHz (same as 9,745 KHz, or 9745 on your dial) at 
1930 UTC, then you would want to ADD 4 (four) hours to that time in order to 
find out what your watch/clock should say when you turn the rcvr on, and you 
should do so at (1930 + 0400 = 2330 = 11:30pm) your local EDT time. (probably 
wouldn't hurt to turn it on a couple minutes before - at 11:28pm - just in 
case your clock/watch is a few seconds off ;)
In the Winter (during EST) your TZ compared to UTC would be UTC+5, and in 
Summer (during EDT) it would be UTC+4 (as discussed above).
MOST shortwave stations broadcast their schedules and refer to time in UTC, 
and you should do the same when logging.  That way it gives a solid frame of 
reference and only ONE conversion needs to be done by anyone using your 
reports - they don't have to convert from YOUR local time to UTC and then to 
THEIR local time.  Less chance for error - and SOME of us (incl yours truly) 
are still capable of making some rather silly mistakes... ;)
Hope this has helped, and I apologize for such a long messsage, 
but it was the way it was FINALLY explained to me that made sense... 
Enjoy your listening, and I (and I'm sure others) 
look forward to hearing from you again...
Drop me a line either here, or via netmail, or my E-Mail addy anytime.
And if you have trouble locating the program(s) I mentioned above,
let me know and I'll try to get them to you.
Sincerely,
           Bruce - kb6lwn - ck1@pacbell.net 
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