My Grundig G2, which has been my go-to SW radio since September, 2014.
I am a member of several radio DX internet forums, and periodically the subject of Shortwave Radio comes up. And it's understandable. Most people who are into long distance radio listening are into Shortwave Radio, or were into Shortwave Radio when they were younger.
It sort of goes with the territory. I'm more into MW/AM listening, but I still tune the SW bands periodically, seeing if there is anything to hear. I used to also tune the SW Ham bands, but I haven't done that in over a year. Last time I did, they were more or less MIA.
All that said, over the past week or so I've been pleasantly surprised that I've been able to hear some distant SW stations once again on my trusty Grundig G2, which is about as sensitive off its whip as my DX-398 is using a 25 ft. indoor wire (10 meters, roughly). The G2 also has great selectivity (for broadcast radio) and it sounds great through headphones.
WHAT IS 'SHORTWAVE RADIO', SOME MAY ASK?
For those who aren't aware of what Shortwave Radio is, it is a form of radio broadcasting that uses higher frequencies than the MW/AM band. Shortwave also is peculiar in that it 'reflects' off of the ionosphere, allowing broadcasts to be received -- day or night -- thousands of miles / kilometers away. Generally, the lower SW frequencies work better at night for long distance listening, and the higher SW frequencies work better during the day for long distance listening. And SW, in general, works better when the sun has a lot of sunspots, because that determines how 'reflective' the ionosphere is to radio waves.
The Passing of The World Radio-TV Handbook
And lately there has been a lot of talk on the radio DX forums about the future of Shortwave Radio, as well as the miserable propagation conditions lately, and whatever the Solar Cycle seems to be doing. Some of the talk is prompted by the recent decision by the famed DX annual book, The World Radio-TV Handbook, to stop publishing after this year.I have two copies of the WRTH -- one from the late 1980s and another from the early 2000s. As the publication was a little expensive for my needs, I only bought it when I felt I really needed it for foreign MW station listings. Still, it is a sad thing when a SW or DX publication goes dark. I still have my copies of the long gone magazines Monitoring Times and Popular Communications. We have entered a new era where everything is online. The trouble is -- the internet isn't only affecting DX publications. It's also affecting DX itself, as more people in various parts of the world use the internet for audio, instead of radio.
And online, a lot of DX'ers have used the passing of the WRTH to talk about the future of Shortwave Radio itself.
Generally, in such discussions, I have been more pessimistic than optimistic. That said, my last big blog article about SW said 'Get 'Em While You Can!' In other words, switch on your radio, see what's out there, because in 20 years SW may well be history, and by then, even MW might be disappearing.
Shortwave Is Dying, Like Radio Is Slowly Dying -- BUT IT'S NOT DEAD YET!
That said, even though I am pessimistic (realistic?) about SW right now, I still try to remain optimistic. There are times that -- even now -- things can be heard. You just have to tune into the right SW band at the right time... And get lucky.
Last year things appeared so dismal on SW that I was lucky if I heard anything more than Brother Stair and Cuba on 31 and 49 meters... There were times even WWV was barely readable, and even occasions when WWV was completely MIA -- something that never occurred even ten years ago.
A few weeks ago it was much the same -- and I would pick up WWVH instead of WWV, which was something that never happened until a year or two ago. When I was a kid, I never heard WWVH, and WWV was always local or regional strength, as dependable as the sun rising tomorrow. And it didn't seem to make a difference where the Sunspot Cycle was -- cycle up or cycle down, WWV was like Old Faithful. But that definitely has NOT been the case with WWV over the past year or two, though.
IT IS ALL ABOUT THE SUNSPOTS!
Since the Solar Cycle dipped in 2016-2017, it seems that SW conditions went downhill fast.
A NOAA graph of the last two Solar Sunspot Cycles, Cycle 23 and Cycle 24, showing the peaks of Cycle 23 at the far left side of the chart (two high spots during 2000 and 2002). Near the right hand side, you can see the 'twin' peak sunspot levels of Cycle 24 -- the most recent cycle -- during 2012 and 2014 (the years are designated at the bottom of the scale). The sunspot numbers were starting to dip late in 2016 until they hit bottom during that wonderful year, 2020. :-)
Now it seems that the sunspots are trying to improve. And over the past week, I have been hearing some unique signals coming from the opposite side of the world -- on just my Grundig G2, which is my go-to radio when it comes to SW listening, as it's very hot off the whip antenna and the sound is great on headphones.
As most SWL's know, the Shortwave bands depend on Sunspots, as does the Medium Wave band to a certain extent. Solar output varies with each Sunspot Cycle, and each Sunspot Cycle is 11 years long, going from minimum to maximum to minimum.
When the sun has a lot of sunspots, solar output is higher, and the ionosphere -- upon which SW and MW depend for long distance listening -- is more energized, which reflects (or refracts) signals back to earth, sometimes thousands of miles away. Consequently, long distance radio conditions were much improved when the sunspots were up from 2011-2015 or so.
Starting in 2016, the 11-year sunspot cycle started dipping. In other words, there were less sunspots, and at the same time, the Sun was decreasing its output. And, as it turned out, our last sunspot cycle was poor, when compared to previous sunspot cycles. Even at its peak in 2012-2014, the sun was lower in solar output than it had been the previous two sunspot cycles. In fact, some solar scholars think that the next two cycles may be even lower at their peaks -- and that we may be headed into a "Dalton Minimum", where the solar output may be low enough to reduce crops.
SUNSPOT CYCLES AND REDUCED CROP YIELDS
There is an Indian news outlet ("WION") that had a feature story on China's government urging its people to stock up on food. Although the Indian news service had no answer to the question why that would be happening, I wonder if the solar cycle issue has anything to do with it? Do the Chinese know something about sunspots and crop cycles that we don't know?
Here is a graph from Electroverse.net, showing the pattern of Sun Cycles over the past several hundred years. Some solar scientists think that the next two solar cycles may be low, even at their peaks. The last time this happened, there were longer Winters, shorter Summers, and crop failures.
I did a search on Solar Sunspot Cycles and crop failures. I did manage to find at least one study that had been done by the USDA in the late 1970's, where they compared crop yields in the US Midwest, Plains, and Texas to the sunspot cycles. They discovered that crop yields were typically lower during the dips in solar cycles. Although the actual solar output differences between sunspot peaks and lulls, when measured at the Earth's surface, are relatively small, such changes apparently do affect crops and even possibly the weather.
Here is a link to the study. It is available for download in PDF form:
Those of us in the radio hobby already know that the Solar Cycles affect MW and SW. But over the past three to four years I've noticed the greening of the trees in early Spring, which used to always occur around April 5th, has been delayed by about a week during 2018, 2019, and 2020, and it was delayed by about two weeks during our cold Spring here in 2021. Whether the reduction in solar output was related to the trees being late, I simply do not know.
Here is a NASA article explaining how, during low sunspot periods, the solar output is actually reduced, although it appears that the increments are low.:
Here is a chart from NASA showing the increases in the Earth's surface temperature, and also the decrease in Solar Irradiance over the past decade.:
NASA chart showing Temperature increasing since about 1960, and Solar Irradiance decreasing since about 1980. (Courtesy of NASA)
Either way, with the new Sunspot Cycle approaching, we're headed into a cluster of years where there will undoubtedly be a lot more sunspots than we've had the past three to four years. But will this new cycle be better than the last two, or worse? I guess that time will tell.
Another chart from Electroverse.net, which shows the predictions made by a couple Indian solar scientists, Singh and Bharwa, concerning the future trend of lower and lower sunspot peaks during the 11-year Solar Cycles that radio hobbyists pay attention to. When sunspots are low, not only is radio affected. But other things, like crop yields, might be affected also.
Here is a link to an article mentioning the study taken by the two Indian scientists, Singh and Bharwa, where they suggested we may be headed for a new Dalton Minimum.:
So, as we can see, the solar activity (or reduction of it) can affect our lives in many ways, not just for long distance radio.
IT CAN ONLY GET BETTER
Whether the new Solar Sunspot Cycle, "Cycle 25", will be better or worse than other cycles, is almost immaterial (aside from weather and crop effects, of course). This is because for us in the radio hobby, it can only get better from here, right?
Meaning, Shortwave reception will be better, and MW reception at night should get better also. I remember in 2011 and 2012, which was when the last sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, was near its peak, I could hear Mexican station XEPE 1700 Khz as late as 10 or 11 a.m. on some mornings, and I could hear 1640 KDZR Portland nearly all day. Even in 2015 I could sometimes hear 1660 KBRE, Merced, California coming in (with its Rock music) during the mid to late afternoon! The radios I used were my Yaesu FRG-7 on a low, low, 150 ft. wire. But even my Superadios could pick up these stations at the same time, with readable signals, with an external loop. When I heard KBRE as early as 4:30 p.m. during the late summer it was on my Sony XDR boombox off of a three foot (one meter) hank of wire.
Being that XEPE at the time was ESPN, and KDZR was Radio Disney (playing pop music), it was fun listening to them so late in the morning or early in the afternoon. And KBRE's rock music is always fun to listen to.
When the sunspots began to dip in late 2016 that all started to change -- and for the worse! And SW, which is more dependent on sunspots than MW, got even worse.
Now -- if what I've been hearing over the past few mornings is any indication -- it just might be changing back!
THE HEARING OF MADAGASCAR!
My Panasonic RF-B45, which I recently discovered does fairly well on SW off the whip, much better than many of my other SW portables, although the G2 beats it slightly in readability. Where the
RF-B45 really shines is MW -- it's nearly unmatched in overall MW performance. Recently, on SW, I was able to hear MWV New Life Station, broadcasting in Russian from Madagascar, on this radio, as well as my G2 -- and just off the whip. Although my RF-B45 had stronger signals, the G2 was a little more readable, probably because of the DSP chip inside.
Seattle, where I live, is at 47 degrees North and about 120 degrees W of the Prime Meridian. The opposite side of the world from Seattle is somewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean, maybe 400-500 miles from the icy, cold French island and research colony of Kerguelen (49 degrees South, 70 degrees East). The closest inhabited places to Kerguelen that have radio stations are Mauritius, Reunion, South Africa's Kwazulu-Natal coast, and Madagascar.
And of those particular countries, only Madagascar has SW transmitting facilities. South Africa used to have a big transmitter in Meyerton, south of Johannesburg. But that facility shut down. The closest SW transmitters to South Africa are in Botswana, just north of the South African border (used by VOA), and I think Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) also still has some SW transmitters.
Any time I hear a Shortwave station from that part of the world it is a fun experience, because I'm hearing something from the opposite side of the world. Back in the 1970's I used to periodically hear Radio RSA, from South Africa, hearing some of their rock music and folk music, as well as lessons in Afrikaans. And during the early 2000's, I sometimes heard Trans-World Radio (a religious station) broadcasting from South Africa also.
But I'd never heard Madagascar, until this week!
My Realistic, Radio Shack 200629, which I sometimes use to tune the SW and SW Ham bands, by either attaching an external antenna like the one shown in the picture, or I just clip my 25 ft. indoor wire to the whip, using the radio's attenuator if needed. I use this radio more on MW/AM than SW, but if I want to tune the ham bands, I'll use this radio or my DX-398, because my Grundig G2 doesn't have a BFO or SSB capability.
In fact, I heard three different stations from Southern Africa during the same week -- MWV New Life Station broadcasting in Russian to Eastern Europe from Madagascar on 9885 Khz (1843 UTC); Adventist World Radio broadcasting in French from Madagascar to Africa on 9515 Khz (2009 UTC); and the Voice of America broadcasting in Tigriyna from Botswana (9485 Khz, 1912 UTC). I also heard China Radio International broadcasting to East Africa in English from Mali on 11640 Khz (2030 UTC). From Asia, the Voice Of America was broadcasting in Korean to the Far East from the Philippines on 9800 Khz (1858 UTC).
It reminded me of some of the mornings I would SWL before the sunspots plummeted in 2016.
I may include some of these loggings in more detail in another installment of my "Shortwave Loggings" blog section I started with my last blog article.
My hearing of the stations from Madagascar and Botswana were a sort of Christmas present, I suppose, but they also were a reminder that even when atmospheric conditions seems to be questionable, you never know what you're going to hear when you switch on your radio!
EXPECT TOUCH-AND-GO CONDITIONS FOR THE NEXT 3-4 YEARS
The only conclusion I can reach, is that during these bizarre solar conditions -- as the sunspots slowly build in number over the next couple of years -- there will be days and nights with some amazing catches, and others where the SW band sounds like Nuclear Winter conditions. Some nights I have tuned across the 31 meter band (9300-10000 Khz), and heard nothing but buzzy static. Even WWV doesn't come in. Other nights or mornings I might hear Voz Missionaria on 9665 Khz or some of the stations I mentioned earlier in this blog post.
It's probably certain that for the next 2-4 years the SW spectrum will be spotty like this. Hopefully, when the sunspots kick in around 2025 or so, it will be a decent cycle where there will be something to hear on the SW bands -- because 20 years from now, I fear there won't be any stations on SW to hear.
The reception of these new stations recently has increased my interest in Shortwave, and I thought I would run down some of the extra 'tools' I use when DXing the SW bands.
SOME CHEAP, EASY-TO-USE, AND HANDY TOOLS FOR SWLing
I have found over the years that some of the old-school SWLing tools are the easiest to use, and some of them aren't ever mentioned in SWLing articles or magazines. For those readers who don't want to be surgically attached to their computer or smartphone while listening to their radio, some of these helps might be of interest.
One of them is a tablet computer, with a SW Frequency list loaded in its browser. Yes, although a small tablet computer is still a computer, it's a little less intrusive than carrying around a laptop with you wherever you listen to your radio.
I have a Kindle e-reader, which also has an internet browser. I usually keep it handy when I tune the shortwave bands -- although I keep it switched off when I'm not actually using it. The Kindle puts out a minimum of RFI when turned on, which is helpful. And I always have the latest EiBi SW Frequency list pulled up on my Kindle's browser, which shows the entire listing even if the Kindle's WiFi is switched off. The browser keeps the EiBi listing stored on an always-open tab.
My smartphone also will pull up EiBi, but the listing looks unreadable on my smartphone's screen when compared to my Kindle, so I use the Kindle for that reason.
So -- if I hear an UNID ("unidentifiable") signal on my G2 or other radio, I'll pull up the EiBi listing on the Kindle's browser, and I can scroll through the frequency listing to see if any of the languages and ID'able info matches.
Another useful 'tool' is to learn to ID languages, even if you can't speak them. You can do this by listening to them online, to learn to identify them, or perhaps listening to local radio broadcasts in other languages -- get the 'feel' for their sounds, and use online translators to learn key words, like 'noticias' (Spanish for 'news') and 'hai' (Hindustani and Punjabi for 'is').
I am pretty good at IDing languages -- even languages I do not know have some identifiable characteristics. For example, Chinese has a 'sing-song' characteristic, and there are certain vowels, consonants, and dipthongs the Chinese use that sound very distinctive. Southeast Asian languages sound a bit similar -- to the Western ear -- but they each have their own, different sounds, too. Russian (which is heard here in the PNW on the MW and SW bands a lot) has its own unique sounds.
To the American, English-speaking ear, Korean sounds a little like Chinese and a little like Japanese, but frequently the announcers will end words in "-mnida", which is the polite form of word endings, often used by Korean broadcasters. Japanese is fairly easy to ID, but even easier when you hear words ending in "-mashta," which is a polite form word ending in that language -- which I've frequently heard on the radio.
Here in the US, Spanish is easy to ID, as it's spoken by many people here. Portuguese sounds similar, except they have more 'zh' and 'sh' sounds in their language.
South Asian languages, mainly Hindustani and some other related languages like Punjabi and Urdu, have frequent use of the word "hai" ("heh") which is their word for "is" or "be".
African languages each have their own sounds, and some of them are more difficult to ID than others.
Arabic uses the syllable "-wah" a lot, which is a word or syllable the denotes possession. They also have a lot of "ah" sounds in their language. Still, it's not easy for me to ID Arabic sometimes. But little clues like these, along with getting to know the sounds of the languages, can help you ID the language, which can often help you ID a station.
But any IDing of a language can help you ID a SW broadcast or SW station, and learning to ID a language isn't all that difficult once you get the hang of it. So, next time you're listening to a SW station broadcasting in a foreign language, listen to the sounds of the words. In time, you'll be able to ID languages that way.
This is a page out of my DX Logbook, on an evening where I weakly heard the Portuguese language preaching and music of Vox Missionaria, a station on 9665 Khz located in southern Brazil, in the state of Santa Catarina. I used to use a spreadsheet to keep track of my better loggings, but that 'habit' only lasted maybe a year. The cool thing about paper logs is that spiral notebooks are cheap, don't use batteries or electricity, and all you need is a pen.
Another old-school tool is a spiral ring binder notebook, like the one I use to keep notes while DXing. This way I don't need to keep my laptop computer handy, and don't have to worry about keeping it powered up, draining its battery, or worrying about it putting out RFI. I often transfer the best catches I've logged in my notebook to an Excel DX Logs spreadsheet. But I haven't done that since the sunspots dropped in 2016, as I lost interest.
A World Atlas is also a handy, cheap-to-use tool, if only to see which countries you are hearing. If you acquaint yourself with the geography of an SW broadcast's target nation, sometimes you can pick out the names of cities, states or regions of the country where the station is located, or the country that is being targeted. If you don't have a world atlas, a good online map can also work.
Here are a couple pictures of my Realistic DX-390 -- a Sangean ATS-818 with Radio Shack's badge on it. I used to use my 390 daily and nightly to listen to either Shortwave broadcasts, or ham radio guys talking using CW (Morse Code) or SSB (sideband transmissions). The top pic is of the back of the radio, showing the rough, but useful "world time zone" map that used to be placed on the backs of SW radios in the 1990s. In 1998 Sangean then began putting them in the radio software -- you would press a button and toggle through the names of major world cities and the radio would tell you what time it was there. This could help DXers determine hours of darkness in various places to help them ID stations, or tune to target areas without needing a 'grey line map', which weren't exactly plentiful or cheap in the 1990s.
A chart with time zones is still a handy, cheap tool. No RFI inducing computer or laptop computer needed. For quite a few years, Sangean, Radio Shack, and some other manufacturers put a time zone chart on the back of their radios. Some radios, like the DX-398 / Sangean ATS-909 series of radio, have World Time Clocks included, where you dial up the name of a major city and it gives you the local hour there. This can help you determine if there is enough darkness between you and your target region to hear a station.
For example, if it is midnight where I live, and I am hearing a station in the 49 Meter Band, chances are high that I am not hearing a station that is located where it is high noon, because the 49 Meter Band doesn't work well for long distance broadcasts during the daylight hours.
If you don't have a SW radio with a time zone chart printed on the back of it, or included as a feature you can bring up on its display, most World Atlases have time zone charts included.
This is my little Replogle world globe. I got it in the late 1990s for maybe $10, at a map store in Downtown Seattle that no longer exists. Globes used to be easy to find at stationary stores (which no longer exist) and the school supply sections of box stores. Alas, they are no longer easy to find and online many of them seem expensive. Sometimes you can get one at a thrift store. They are a handy, analog tool that can provide Great Circle Routes, Time Zones, and help you determine how far away a SW station is -- all at just a glance.
Last but no least, a Small World Globe can be a useful tool for an SWL DXer. A globe can quickly and easily help you plot the great circle route between your location and that of various SW stations you either want to hear, or think you may be hearing. If you're hearing a fluttery, choppy SW station, and you're in the northern tier of the US, or in Canada, chances are high you may be hearing a station coming in over the Polar Route, where the radio Auroral Zone can affect the signal. A globe can easily show you whether the Polar Zone is in between you and your target station or not.
A small World Globe can also give you an instant, almost 'real world' view of distances and bearings between you and target stations, something you can quickly see just by a glance at the globe.
If you don't have a globe, some "Great Circle Maps" can be found online, but I've found it easier just to get a globe and use that. New globes are starting to get a little pricey, but used globes can sometimes be found at thrift stores at reasonable prices.
OLD-SCHOOL STILL WORKS QUICKLY
Most of these 'tools' have their online and computer analogues -- for example, one could use a 'grey line' map instead of a globe and time zone chart. But I like to SWL the old fashioned way, with as little RFI as possible, and I find it quicker to use a notebook, pen, globe, time zone chart, atlas, etc. than to have a computer nearby that may add RFI to my reception.
In my case, I use a computer after the fact -- to log down my best catches, and put them either in a frequency log for MW, or a station log for SW.
A WHITE BOXING DAY!
In other news, my Christmas -- which I haven't talked about here, really -- was very quiet, as was my New Year's (and yes, many of us here in the PNW region of the US call it "New Year's"). Christmas was sort of rainy and dreary, and I spent part of it typing up a blog post here, and the rest of it doing some DXing, some reading, feeding my cats, playing some slide guitar, and doing some fiction writing. My extended family decided to forego Christmas gatherings because of the pandemic (Omicron), and they had snow. The next day, Boxing Day, it began to snow in my region south of Seattle. And it didn't stop.
Often we may get a little sprinkling of snow -- maybe an inch or a couple centimeters -- and it will rain soon afterwards and the snow will disappear. But not this time! The snow stayed for several days.
Now, here in the U.S. we don't celebrate Boxing Day. Most Americans don't really know what Boxing Day is -- it's something those of us near the Canadian border sometimes hear about, as it is mentioned on Canadian radio a lot, but we still don't understand the origins of the English holiday. Supposedly, Boxing Day was the day after Christmas when rich people would leave out food and other goodies on their porches for poorer people to pick up. In some parts of Northern Europe, they call it Annandag Jul -- "second Christmas day", where people go out and party a little. But here in the US we don't really have a special day between Christmas and New Year's.
A look down a street towards the hills, after a snowy Boxing Day, 2021.
Either way, it started snowing on Boxing Day, and it got cold -- it was below freezing, and stayed there all through the week until the day after New Year's. The coldest it got at my house was 15F / -9C. Several nights it was between -3 and -6C (in the 20's F). Pretty cold for Seattle.
Surprisingly, it didn't feel as cold as the usual 40 degrees and rain we get here during the Winter, maybe because the air was dryer.
My Snowman -- the first one I'd made in years. He lasted about a day and a half.
It was nice having the snow, actually. Something different from the dreary, cold and grey skies and dripping rain. I didn't ride my bike in the snow because it was so cold there was too much ice on the streets, so I went out for some walks, talked to a couple neighbors who were also out walking, and I even made a small snowman!
He was the first snowman I have made since I was a little kid. No sooner than the rains kicked in after New Year's was over with, my snowman disappeared. Either that, or some local kids might have kicked him down.
About a week after Boxing Day, on January 2nd, it began to warm up from below freezing to 40 degrees F again, the snow on the streets turned into slush, and it began to rain. And it's been raining ever since.
:-(
And with that high note, I shall close this blog article, the fourth for 2022, a year I really do not expect to be much better than 2020 or 2021 were. If the pandemic starts actually lifting, hopefully things will look better overall. However, there is the threat of war in Eastern Europe, and that doesn't look good. Hopefully, war does not happen.
Even though this year hasn't been terrific, I intend to make the best of it. But I really don't have many awesome expectations. This decade -- the 2020's -- so far, has sucked big time.
I hope that this article finds all of you healthy and safe.
Peace.
C.C., December 31, 2021 and January 7 & 28, 2022. Some pics added February 23rd.
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