RADIO IS DYING -- It is being KILLED

I recently found a few pics of my cats I had in the 1990's and 2000's. This pic I took in 2004. I had just cleared a bunch of brush that had overgrown part of my yard. Scooter is the cat in front. She was my little pal. She is followed by Boots, who was a really personable cat. Snoopy is the cat in the back. Better days, really.

I decided against having yet another Radio company icon at the top of the article. Instead, it's buried below.

Throughout my tenure here as a blog article writer, I have tried to stay as positive as possible about the Radio hobby (MW DXing, SW, etc.) and the Radio Industry in general.

It's been difficult at times, because the Industry has been in slow decline since the mid to late 2000's. But despite my skeptical and cynical nature, I always have tried to remain positive, and have tried to reflect that here in this blog.

It's more difficult to do as each year, and each month, passes.

Recently, the largest Radio company in the United States, IHeartMedia, just laid off more programmers and airstaff. It's one of those 'end of the quarter' firings that have become all too common in Radio.

IHeart has laid off an undetermined number of people -- many of them long-term veterans of the stations where they were on the air. The stations where they worked were in large and medium sized markets. The reports say that the layoffs will be 'massive', and include 'dozens' of airstaff and programming personnel.

You can read about it here.:

Sweeping Cuts Ongoing at iHeartMedia - Radio World

Here is another article on the layoffs, mentioning 'dozens of cities' being affected.

iHeartMedia Layoffs Hit Programming Hard in Cost-Cutting Push - Radio Ink

In the Radio World article, a former air personality, 'ChloeOnTheAir', talks about being laid off. She says that the station where she worked was getting good ratings, as was her show.

But she was laid off anyway.

As someone who lost my last Radio job in late 2006, during a large layoff, I can sympathise with Chloe and all the others who lost jobs.

My guess is that most of them will never work in Radio again. It is a shrinking industry.

Now, IHeart gets a LOT of pushback in Radio circles for these sorts of layoffs. They laid off roughly 10 percent of their workforce in early 2020, and there have been other layoffs since then. Other Radio companies have also had their layoffs.

But this latest round shows that Radio is dying, and -- in my opinion, as someone who worked in the industry for a couple months shy of 20 years -- Radio is being killed off by bad corporate decisions. This round of layoffs, of popular and veteran air personalities in several cities, is one of those bad decisions. Morning drive and Afternoon drive are highly rated for a reason -- they tend to have the popular air personalities. When you sack the popular air personalities, you're bound to lose listeners.

If all people want to hear is music, they don't need radio -- they've got Spotify, they've got Pandora.

The use of super long commercial sets is another factor driving people away from Radio.  

The industry, of course, is veering away from Over-The-Air broadcasting and is aiming for digital. Awesome. Once Radio is all online, the number of 'stations' and channels will diminish. There is infinite content saturation and competition online. Certainly, the heads of the Radio companies must know this. If they don't, they're not thinking.

But the rot that seems to have set in deep inside the Radio industry looks like it's amplifying the decline. Some of the symptoms -- super long commercial breaks, sacking of air personalities, short playlists -- all of which practically guarantee that no one listen longer to a station than just 15 minutes -- they all point to an industry that has lost its way.

FM RADIO IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

I don't listen to FM radio much. I haven't listened to FM since the early 2010's, when I tuned into the pop stations, because the pop music back then was so good. After 2015 or so -- when Radio Disney went off the air -- pop music began to change, and it wasn't upbeat and fun anymore. At the same time, streaming services like Spotify and Pandora started taking over, and Radio found it increasingly difficult to compete with online streaming. I remember hearing people talk about Pandora and Spotify a lot during the late 2010's -- a lot more than they talked about Radio.

In the late 2010's, after the pop music changed for the worse, I tended to listen to FM HD2's, like KISW's Metal Militia channel -- until the best ones -- the Metal Militia channel, and a Delta Blues channel on another local FM -- had their plugs pulled in 2018 or 2019.

Once those HD2's had their plugs pulled, I stopped listening to FM for a few years.

I listened to a lot of Sports talk radio on the AM band. My favorite shows were on CBS Sports Radio. That network started its decline about the time they turned into 'Infinity Sports Network', and then last year that network was yanked off the air. They were replaced by Westwood One Sports, which most radio listeners I've interacted with online seem to think is simply not as good as CBS Sports Radio was.

CHARGING RADIO STATIONS TO PLAY YOUR NETWORK PROGRAMMING

And WW1 Sports -- and WW1 in general -- apparently is going to charge stations to play their programming. This is a rumor that has been discussed on a couple Radio forums, mainly on Reddit, by people who work in Radio. How the charging for airing WW1 plays out, if the rumor turns out to be true, is a good guess.

CBS Sports Radio never apparently charged for their programming. Instead, stations would give CBS Sports a certain number of commercial breaks in exchange for playing CBS Sports Radio. In Radio speak, that's called 'Barter'. "You play our programming, and we won't charge you, just give us X number of spots per hour." That kind of thing.

Well, apparently WW1 is not getting enough money in barter spots. So they are going to charge stations for running the programs. Or at least that is the scuttlebutt in the industry.

What does this say for Radio in general? It says that the power of the Radio commercial as a sales tool is lower than it used to be -- or, at least that is the apparent thought in the advertising industry.

Anyway, as I said, I haven't listened to FM much since around 2014-2015. But I recently got a great FM radio, the Qodosen DX-286. So I've tuned around the FM band, hoping to hear some DX, which is rare enough here in Western WA state. So far, I've heard no FM DX whatsoever, although I've logged a few weak translators from fringe areas in the region.

But one thing I've also done is listen to local FM stations -- to see how they sound, and to see what music they are playing.

And one thing I noticed is THEY RUN A LOT OF COMMERCIALS.

'COUNT THE SPOTS'

In the Radio business, commercials are called 'spots', and the commercial breaks are called 'spot sets'. Lately, while listening to several local, popular FM stations, I've been counting the commercials as they play..... counting the 'spots' in the 'spot set'.

The first time I literally counted the commercials as they played, and wrote them down in my DX logbook, I was flabbergasted. 

I was listening to the local, popular Rock station, and they had just played a song from 2001 that I liked, called 'Blurry', by Puddle Of Mudd. Then they went into the commercial break.

I counted 13 commercials and liners in a row.

More recently, I tuned into the local, highly rated Classic Hits station. There were 11 commercials in a row. Then I tuned into one of the two local Modern Country stations, and there were 9 commercials in a row. Then I tuned into the Rock station again and heard 9 commercials in a row. 

A few days later, on June 29th, I tuned into the local Classic Rocker and heard 19 commercials and liners (where there is an announcement saying 'don't go away, music will be back in a few') in a row. Earlier today I tuned into an AC / classic hits station and heard 8 commercials in a row, and then I tuned into the Classic Hits station and heard 15 commercials and liners in a row (that commercial break was 7-8 minutes long).

By any measure, this is overkill. The quality of the commercials isn't bad. They're usually well-produced. But do these Radio companies think that the average listener is going to stick around while they play 8-15 commercials in a commercial break?

They're driving away listeners.

There may be valid, business reasons that these stations and Radio companies are playing so many spots on their stations. Radio stations need money to stay on the air and pay whatever staff they still have working at their stations and networks. Electricity isn't free, and neither is the rent, the equipment, the maintenance. Perhaps running more commercials per break is the only way they can pay the bills.

But 15 commercials and liners in a row is just overkill, and I can't help but think that it's driving away listeners to Spotify and Pandora and similar streaming services. Of course, some of these services, like IHeartRadio, are associated with Radio companies. But at the same time, it's disturbing to tune into a highly rated FM station and hear so many commercials, knowing that there are people tuning out -- and possibly tuning out FM forever.

The national numbers on Radio listening, while seemingly good, really aren't encouraging. 80 to 90 percent of Americans of all age demographics listen to Radio at least once a week. A smaller percentage -- depending on age group -- listen daily.

Eighty to 90 percent listening to Radio may seem like a lot of people, and maybe it is. But 'once a week' is definitely not a great statistic, especially when the Time Spent Listening to radio used to be much, much higher.

Are the increased spot loads driving listeners away from Radio? You be the judge.

I think the commercial loads are killing Radio. Combine that with layoffs of popular Radio air personalities, and other negative trends in the industry, like short, dependable playlists (both times I heard the long commercial break on the Classic Hits station, it was followed up by "What I Like About You", by the Romantics, it was almost like clockwork), the future doesn't look very bright.

DIMINISHING SHORTWAVE STATIONS, AND ABSENT HAMS

Now let's talk about Shortwave.

With the ionosphere weakening over the past 30 years, and this latest Solar Cycle starting to fizzle, it's turned into a game of 'Count The Carriers'. In other words, when I tune the 49 Meter Band at night, many times I have to have the BFO/SSB on my radio to hear the carrier signals, where just 10 years ago -- and even 3-4 years ago -- I'd hear audio programming.

This is because at night there are only THREE Shortwave stations that I can hear regularly on any given evening on the 49 Meter Band -- WWCR 5935 kHz and WTWW on 5920 kHz, and WRMI on 5850 (it used to be located higher in the 49 Meter band). Sometimes Nikkei 1 and 2 crop up, usually with grainy signals (but cool music). Amazonia on 6180 kHz just cut their hours. Radio Educacion on 6180 is usually just a carrier. CFRX on 6070 is usually a carrier with a trace of audio. Marti on 6030 has been MIA since the plug was pulled after the Trump Administration took office. 

Sometimes I hear WRMI with good signals on 49 Meters (on 5850 kHz), but often it's already off the air by the time I tune the SW bands (if it's past 2-3 a.m. here in the Pacific time zone. If it's earlier, they do come in well, sometimes with Radio Slovakia and Polish Radio programming).

I love hearing Radio Slovakia and Polish Radio -- and some of the other programming -- on WRMI, but the 49 Meter band used to be loaded with signals. Now, many nights, there's just three of them. That's how depressing it's become.

And the SW ham bands are just as bad. No one's on the air compared to 15 years ago, or even a couple years ago. I remember when the 20 Meter Band was filled with CW and SSB, Solar Maximum or Solar Minimum, it was still a popular ham band.

Now? It's spare or empty most of the time. Now, I know that in the Southern US and Eastern Seaboard there still is a lot to hear on 20 Meters, because of more distance from the Auroral Zone and because those regions are closer to highly populated areas. But here in the PNW, 20 Meters -- the most popular SW ham band -- is dead most of the time, or partially dead. It's the same with 15 Meters, and the other bands. Even 80 Meters and 40 Meters are spare during most evenings.

Before the mid 2010's, it never used to be that spare of signals.

The hams aren't on the air, except during contests.

Recently, the ARRL had their annual event called 'Field Day', where hams operate from parks, RV's and the like. I switched on my old Realistic DX-160 to hear lots of CW signals on the 20 Meter band, and the SSB section was pretty active, too. It was unbelievable. My old DX-160 had lots of Morse Code signals and sideband, too.

It was just like the old days, when I'd switch on my DX-160 and the 20 Meter Band was packed with signals nearly any Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

Then, once Field Day was over -- nothing.

Some hams say 'well, most guys are on FT8. If you count FT8, ham radio is healthy and doing great!' FT8 is a digital radio mode that sounds like dying aliens or a sick ice cream truck. It's used by a lot of hams because your computer does all the work while you watch video or cruise the internet.

Well, I've actually counted the signals on FT8 channels. The audible ones are usually 3-7 signals at any given transmission window. They're easy enough to count -- you count the different tones, or, if you have an old-school analog receiver, tune the bandspread through the FT8 frequencies and count the zero'd signals that way.

There really aren't that many FT8 signals audible -- and even if you add in the number of FT8 signals that aren't actually audible (maybe 10 or 15 of them during a typical transmission block?) there aren't that many of them, at least compared to the vast number of CW and SSB signals that used to be clearly audible 12 years ago, or 22 years ago.

In the 1980's I'd hear nearly every other channel in the 20 Meter band loaded with signals. The 20 Meter Ham band has about 40-50 different 5 or 10 kHz 'channels' that hams can use for sideband (every 5-10 kHz between 14150 and 14350, roughly). That means I used to hear anywhere between 40 or 50 hams or more, using the SSB section of the 20 Meter Band. And these were all audible signals.

There's no way that FT8 is making up that much difference.

It's just another barometer that Radio, and the Radio hobby, is in decline.

I'm not happy about it, but there's nothing I can do about it, either. I can write about it, and try to encourage people to get on the air if they are a ham, or keep tuning their radios if they are SWL's and DXers. But I can't make the ionosphere work better, and I can't unilaterally tell SW hams to get off their asses and get on the airwaves.

If they'd rather cruise the internet instead, there's nothing I can do about that.

And I obviously can't keep the corporate nature of the Radio industry from jacking up the commercial loads, or laying off people, or programming stale, short playlists, or otherwise sabotaging their industry. 

So what can be done, if you are a Radio DXer or hobbyist?

You can appreciate what you have, because some day in the future it will be gone.

What I'm doing is maximizing my antenna. I added about 90-100 feet of wire to my antenna, running most of it outside to my hawthorn tree. I may also get a new radio later in the year, that may out-perform the SW radios I already have. Tecsun makes a PLL radio with several stages of gain and filtering, and it also has a DSP chip for filtering, and I may get one in the Fall -- it's their PL-880 model, and from what I understand it's really good, and for such a good radio, it's reasonably priced. I could use the extra tuned circuits PLUS the benefit of DSP.

I've got the territory to extend my outdoor wire to around 150 feet or so (50 Meters), so I will probably do that before Fall. 

I may build a bigger loop antenna for MW DXing at night. I've already got the best MW DX radios you can get (GE Superadio 2 and 3; Sangean PR-D4W).

And I'll keep listening until the last stations are off the air.

Hopefully that's a decade or two away.

I'll end this article with my mantra -- 'Get 'em While You Can.'

IN OTHER LIFE....

Today it is the early morning of the Fourth Of July, an American national holiday. When I am done publishing this article, I'm going to go out on a bike ride, and then I shall put out my flags. I really don't feel like celebrating this holiday, being that the killjoys in local government have decided to make it illegal for someone to even light a sparkler in their back yard or out in their driveway, and I haven't exactly been feeling patriotic for reasons I don't care to go into here. 

But it's the Fourth nonetheless, so the holiday should indeed get a mention here.

I may also put out my Australian flag, well, just because.

Until next time, friends,

Peace.

C.C., July 4th, 2026.

ADDENDUM, July 5th. I added information on WRMI in the Shortwave section. It often comes in with readable signals on 5850 kHz, something I'd forgotten when I first wrote this article. So that info has been corrected. I also added that I enjoy much of the WRMI programming. I think they need credit when credit's due. I just with there were more stations on the 49 Meter band, and the other SW bands as well. Most SWL's feel the same way. 

TRICK-OR-TREAT 2025, and SWLing without Up-to-Date SW Schedules

 

A blast from the past -- a pumpkin I carved for Halloween, 2010!

This was the first or second time I used a stencil I had bought with some pumpkin carving tools at a local box store. A moon and stars -- and if you look at the Jack O' Lantern at an angle, it's also a face.

Today, as I start this article, it is All Soul's Day, November 2nd, and it's rainy out. Not too cold, but dreary weather, which matches the month, being that November is the shittiest month of the year. 

Two nights ago it was Halloween. I had 15 Jack O' Lanterns out, so the front of my house and drive looked fairly cheery. I got about 11-12 trick-or-treaters -- three groups of them -- who braved the light rain and I gave them all extra candy, being that I had a couple bags of it.

I also played my bagpipes outside after the first group of trick-or-treaters left. The new reed I had in my pipe chanter held up really well, and I'm finally getting used to the easier air pressure needed to play the instrument. I played the closest thing I know that sounds 'spooky', a tune called The Dark Island. I don't know if anyone heard it, being that there were few trick-or-treaters out on the streets of my neighborhood, and it was drizzling.

Here is a piper who calls herself the Dark Isle Bagpiper, playing The Dark Island. She adds some Irish trills and plays the tune slightly differently from the way I learned it, but the basic tune is the same. She is playing this tune in Greenland, although she is based out of LA. The Dark Isle Bagpiper has played pipes on several TV shows. If you check out her vids on YT, she plays a lot of really good slow airs, and other tunes, too.

I also was fighting off a cold, so when the night was done I took some extra zinc and echinacea, and spent some time clearing files off my laptop computer before I went to bed. I've found that extra sleep helps kill colds. The zinc tabs help, too.

WRESTLING WITH CONSTANT UPDATES

My computer is over 8 years old, and it needs a lot of older files removed, because the hard drive is getting full -- not just full from my files over the years, but the endless plethora of mostly useless, bloatware updates all have been gradually filling my hard drive with their code.

For the life of me, with all the gigabytes of updates that slam my computer a few times a month, nothing seems to run better. All those 'improvements' never really improve anything. Some of the updates were AI-related programs I didn't ask for, and don't want on my computer because they just take up resources and I never use them.

They always say the updates are for security, but do you really need to slam someone's computer with multiple gigabytes of updates over a period of several months, just for security? How many gigabytes does it take to make a program, app, or OS 'secure'?

Oftentimes, when the updates are kicking in, my computer slows down. I'll hear my hard drive being slammed. In fact, I just heard my hard drive being slammed as I was typing this sentence, and -- looking at Task Manager -- it was another bunch of bloatware updates trying to cram into my laptop.

I'll spend several hours removing files onto a USB drive, and soon enough, the various, bloatware updates will fill it right back up. So far over the past several days, I've cleared off over 2-3 gigabytes of space, only to see it quickly filled by update bullshit.

It's maddening. And it isn't just the company that made the OS. Both browsers push their updates, and a PDF reader's updates slow my computer to a crawl when they kick in. I'm figuring out how to stop all updating, because frankly I don't think they make the computer any more secure, and they definitely don't improve anything.

So it's been an ongoing fight with the software companies, whose 'business model' seems to be to piss off as many people as possible.

NO REAL PLANS, EXCEPT GET THROUGH NOVEMBER

As for the rest of this month, I really don't plan on doing much aside from continuing to straighten out finances and get through November, which is a cold, rainy, dreary month. And, frankly, Novembers are months where people in my family, extended family, and several of my cats have died. Not good overall.

CQ Magazine's DX 'Zones', which ham radio operators use during the big radio contests.

DX HAS BEEN TOUCH AND GO...

On the radio and DX side of things, the ionosphere has been touch and go lately. The past couple days have been mediocre, and the week or two before that, there were a few good mornings and nights to switch on the radio and tune around.

A couple weekends ago, there was a ham radio contest, the biggest contest of the year, the CQWW contest, where ham radio operators all over the world try to contact as many other hams as possible, in as many ham radio 'zones' as possible. 

I tuned in during the morning after it started, and the HF ham bands were quite lively. Even 15 Meters had a considerable amount of activity, which was a pleasant surprise. 15 Meters used to be a popular ham band. I recall hearing LOTS of activity on 15 Meters during the summer afternoons in the early 1980's. That's when I heard A7XB out of Qatar. But ever since the last Solar Cycle died off in late 2017, 15 Meters has never been the same. Most afternoons I'd tune it in during the peak year last year, 15 Meters was like 12 Meters -- mostly a ghost town.

Even 20 Meters is not what it used to be. Every Saturday afternoon 20 Meters used to be wall to wall CW and SSB signals, invariably, with most of them splattering on each other. This recent CQWW contest was the first time I've heard 20 Meters so packed in ages. It reminded me of how the band used to be on a typical weekend afternoon.

It was refreshing.

WHEN SW SCHEDULES CHANGE OVER, YOU GET CREATIVE

This is also the time of the year when SW DXers have to be creative when figuring out what they are hearing. Most SW broadcasts anymore are in non-English languages, so even if you can ID the language, it doesn't necessarily follow that you can understand what's being said. So you have to listen to the TYPE of broadcasts, and tone of it. Does it sound like news? A feature? An interview? Does the programming match the BBC, or CNR-1, or NHK?

And the online SW schedules are a bit off, because it takes some time for their creators to compile the new broadcast information, because the end of October is when SW stations all change their schedules.

So, you get creative. The other morning, I heard Japanese on 7380 kHz (at 0522 UTC), that sounded like NHK. But neither EiBi or Short-wave.info had ANY Japanese programming listed that frequency and hour. I was sure it was NHK in Japanese, but had no schedule info to back up my suspicion.

So I went to Short-wave.info and used the 'Any Station' dropdown and 'Japanese language' dropdown, and I found out that NHK had a regular broadcast in Japanese to SE Asia during that hour. They had moved their frequency lower to the 41 Meter Band from the 25 and 21 Meter Bands because the 41 Meter band is more of a Winter SW band.

Remember, SW listeners -- there are ways to find out what you're hearing, even if the SW lists online are getting out of date. ID the language. LISTEN to the programming, even if you do not know the language! Does it sound like CNR-!? Does it sound like the BBC? Does it sound like NHK? 

A lot of American SWL's bitch and gripe about most SW being in non-English languages. But griping about most SW being non-English is backwards thinking. A lot of the non-English programming is pretty cool to listen to -- and even if you don't understand the language, it doesn't mean you can't ID the station or the program.

I've learned to ID non-English languages, and find it challenging. I also have learned that a lot of the non-English stations play really cool music -- music I'd never hear on US radio. Japan has some really cool soft pop-rock hits from the 70's that NHK plays. I've heard some great K-pop on KBS World Radio. CRI plays some great music, too. And a lot of SWL's poke fun at Radio North Korea, but the music they play is interesting, and very well made -- their musicians are excellent.

I've heard really cool stuff on CNR-1. They have kids' programming over the weekend mornings (evenings, China time). Imagine that: a radio company that cares enough about kids to program a radio show for them. Doesn't happen here in the US or Canada. The last radio company that catered to kids -- Radio Disney -- pulled the plug completely in 2019.

But CNR-1, China's national broadcaster, that has numerous transmitters on SW, has a radio play or storytelling episode for kids that you can hear during the mornings, US time, every weekend.

American DXers and SWLs, open your ears!

MORE MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS NEAR THE 40 METER BAND

The only other radio 'catches' of note have been mystery carriers -- dead signals that have appeared over several nights just below the 40 Meter Ham band.

I've logged a dead carrier at 7000 kHz over several nights and mornings, and others have shown up on 6988 kHz, 6938 kHz, and more recently, 6979 kHz.

What the purpose of these dead carriers -- if any -- happens to be is a good question. No one in the SWL community seems to know. The dead carriers don't get mentioned much online, but there have been some SWL's on HFU (HFUnderground) who have logged them.

I also heard a single letter beacon on 7057 kHz, a continuous 'F' being sent, and it was very weak in strength. I haven't heard it since. Most 'single letter beacons', which are continuous repetitions of the same letter in Morse Code, are associated with the Russian military, particularly the Russian Navy, and their frequencies are well known, and appear in many SW lists. But this 'F' beacon on 7057 is a mystery.

There are a lot of such strange oddities in the SW bands. You just have to tune around and listen to catch them.

MYSTERY RANCHERO MUSIC ON 1560 kHz

One other 'mystery' signal wasn't as bizarre as a Morse Code blipping away in the ether, or a dead signal, but I heard a mystery ranchero music station on 1560 kHz last night (the night of the 3rd) beaming mostly North-South.

Usually on 1560 I hear a mix of just two stations -- KNZR Bakersfield, which is a news-talk station that comes in with varying strengths, and KVAN, Tri-Cities WA, which is a Spanish language religious station. This station was neither.

The only ranchero station on 1560 is a daytimer, KIQS, Willow, California -- but when I checked their stream, it was not the same music as what I was hearing on the radio. And KVAN does NOT play ranchero, nor do they have rapidfire announcements and advertisements.

A view from Interstate 5 not too far from Montague, California. Much of the far north of California looks like this -- green and golden ranch country.

pic courtesy Dreamstime

MONTAGUE, CALIFORNIA CHECKS IN ON LONGWAVE

Last but not least, the past few evenings I've gotten really decent catches of a Longwave beacon out of Northern California -- MOG, out of Montague, a small town not too far from Yreka, which is the first city you hit on I-5 after crossing the Oregon/California border.

I recently got an XHDATA D808, and it's great on Longwave. It's possibly my best Longwave radio. That said, there isn't much on Longwave anymore -- the few aeronautical beacons are disappearing. The maritime Longwave beacons disappeared years ago.

But it's great to hear MOG, beeping away.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll close this article with another old Halloween pic. I couldn't take any on my phone or camera because their memories are also full and need to be cleared.

A pumpkin I put in my tree, on Halloween 2023.

Peace.

C.C., November 4th, 2025

Mystery CW Signal on the 40 Meter, Shortwave Ham Band

My Radio Shack 200629, which I recently re-batteried, and did some SW DXing with. The Radio Shack 200629, which is Radio Shack's badged version of the Sangean ATS505, is a good radio for MW DXing, FM, and SW listening and DXing. It has great sound through headphones, and the SSB is easy to use on it, too.

This morning while I was tuning the 40 Meter ham band, and below (where I heard some Indonesian ham pirates chanting for a short period on 6965 kHz), I came across a strong CW (Morse Code) signal.

SLOPPY HAMS SEND SLOPPY MORSE CODE

Like a lot of CW you hear, it was fast, and sloppy. It seems that a lot of hams love to send faster than their ability to send clean, often with use of paddles and the like -- running characters together, and ensuring that their dits and dahs are similar.... That sort of thing.

This signal was like that, except the characters were so convoluted it was hard to tell one from the other. For a while I thought it was Japanese code, but it was too sloppy to tell, and it was around 18 wpm or so. Long, continuous CW gibberish.... Minutes worth.

The signal was S4 out of 5, and had a polar flutter or warble to it at times, indicating that it may have been skirting the auroral radio zone, which may or may not have indicated a signal from Asia somewhere, despite how strong it was.

I first heard it on 7041 at 1431 UTC. Then I heard the same exact CW on 7048, at 1437 UTC. It was definitely NOT a QSO. There was no change, like you hear when hams are talking to each other in CW. It was a continuous blather of CW gibberish, all sent around 18 wpm in slop code.

When I checked later, it was at 7062 kHz, same strength, same characteristics.

Then it switched OFF, right at 1500 UTC. It was as if someone pulled the plug.

It started up again at 1502 UTC 1 kHz up, at 7063 kHz. Then, at 1510 UTC, it instantly flipped to 7062, as if someone bumped the tuner knob on the transmitter.

Then it stopped abruptly at 1530 UTC. Then it was back on again, on 7063 kHz.

I checked a few minutes later, and it was now on 7062 again, still S4, still with the 18 wpm, continuous CW gibberish, with the same slight flutter to the signal.

I then switched off the radio, as I had some other things to do. When I checked the 40M frequencies later around 1737 UTC, the 40M band was MIA.

I had heard this gibberish CW on four radios -- Radio Shack 200629, Tecsun PL330, and DX-394, and even my DX-398. So it wasn't overloading on my radio. Same indoor, 25-30 ft wire.

I have no idea what it was. Some ham had his keyer set to gibberish and had his rig on by accident? Cat bumped against the tuner knob, changing the frequency? Somebody's kid playing a joke on dad's ham rig? Some Japanese ham had a bit too much sake? The signal may have favored Asia but at S4 out of 5 it was a bit strong for Asia at that time in the morning. So, who knows what it was?

You never know what you're going to hear on the 40M band.

A GRAB BAG OF SW SIGNALS

The 40 Meter ham band has a tradition of having odd signals. During many early mornings one can hear Indonesian ham pirates in the lowest sections of the bands. On 7200 kHz on some evenings, you can hear a lot of yelling, swearing music being played, etc. There is the 'A' Beacon that appeared for several nights on 7259 kHz, which would be sent continuously until being shut off abruptly around 2 a.m. or so Pacific time, as if someone pulled a switch.

I've heard repeating sentences in Morse Code (CW) sent on 7260 or thereabouts, addressing a ham operator, and insulting him at the same time. This CW message would sometimes be shut off, as if someone flipped a switch.

For a few months, on and off, a mysterious carrier appeared on 6988 kHz, which another SWL monitored for a while and saw a few equally mysterious data bursts occurring.

The 40 Meter Ham band is sort of unique in that it's usually active at night, and can be worldwide in reach. It's a fun band to monitor, because you get CW, SSB, and even broadcast stations, along with mysterious signals and ham pirates -- all in the same swatch of frequencies between 7000 and 7300 kHz. If you go down towards 6900 kHz you can sometimes hear pirate radio stations at night.

It's an interesting chunk of radio spectrum to listen to.

There is an international organization of ham radio operators who monitor the bands and check for illegal intruders. I'm not sure if they've heard the CW gibberish I talked about earlier in this article, or other anomalies like the 'A' Beacon, but they do register a LOT of different anomalies and mystery signals, as well as known intruders. Here is a link to a PDF report by the IARU.

Not all the IARU 'regions' have reporting. But a perusal through this document will show that there is a LOT of strangeness that goes on in the SW Ham bands.

https://www.iaru-r1.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IARU-IWS-Newsletter-2025-07.pdf

IN OTHER LIFE...

The weather here has been moderate, and variable. This morning there was a very, very light rain. The overnights have been in the 40's F, which is between 4-5C. Daytimes are between 68-75F (15-20C or so).

I've been playing my bagpipes a lot, trying to get the ability back again. It's taken more work than I thought it would. The year of not playing, and the 8 years of playing a very easy reed before that, weakened my lip muscles, and my diaphragm and left arm as well.

It's coming back, but it's been a frustrating, slow process. When the lips start to give out, the fingers mess up. If the diaphragm isn't pushing the air enough, the fingers mess up. When you have to push more air into an instrument than you're used to, you get oxygen depletion, and the fingers mess up...

You get the idea.

I'm also getting the place ready for my favorite holiday, Halloween. I've already got a few electric Jack O' Lanterns out above my garage door. I hope to have all of my electric Jack O' Lanterns working, outside and glowing ahead of the holiday this year.

That's about it for now.

Peace.

C.C., Sept. 29th, 2025.

ADDENDUM, October 16th, 2025:

I heard this mystery CW / Morse Code signal once again, yesterday morning, the morning of the 15th here in Washington state. I was tuning my brand new XHDATA D808 to the 40 Meter ham band and heard this super-fast, Morse Code gibberish on 7044 kHz at 1527 UTC, which is 8:27 a.m. Pacific time.

At 1530 UTC, it flipped off mid-sentence, and when I tuned around, I found it right away just two kHz down, on 7042 kHz. Like last time, on Sept. 29th, it was as if someone just flipped a switch from 7044 to 7042 kHz. Both times -- Sept. 29th and Oct. 15th -- it had flipped 2 kHz away right at 1530 UTC.

In the background was a lot of continuous, propagating OTHR (Over The Horizon Radar, which sounds like digital pulses).

Then, at 1550 UTC, the gibberish CW signal FLIPPED BACK UP TO 7044 kHz. This is the same time in UTC that the CW signal flipped back up in frequency last time.

Last night, an SWL who frequents one of the Shortwave subreddits logged a similar signal in the 19 Meter SW band. There was speculation that it was Russian Military, or Russian Navy CW, which often is sent ultra fast and sometimes appears anywhere on the SW spectrum.

But that was just speculation.

I know that there is a Cyrillic version of the Morse Code, but this CW I heard was so fast and continuous that I couldn't decipher any characters, much less read any of it.

Obviously, it's a definite Shortwave mystery.

C.C.

ADDENDUM, April 22nd, 2026.:

I have since learned that these mystery CW signals are actually a Russian version of FSK -- Radioteletype -- with each component about 7 kHz apart, hence the two frequencies coming in with the same or similar CW sounds, simultaneously (for example, 7041 and 7048 kHz are 7 kHz apart). The characters are not CW / Morse Code. They sound like a strange version of it, but it's a strange form of RTTY. So, I suppose this mystery is mostly solved. Online sources, and other SWL's on social media, say this Russian FSK comes from a military station in the Crimea. However, there have been some nights, or mornings, over the past several months where I've heard two of these transmissions (on 4 different frequencies) with different signal strengths, and one of the signals is always very strong -- telling me it may be from the Russian Far East somewhere, perhaps Vladivostok or Petropavlovsk.

The Hearing and Un-Hearing of HEARD ISLAND

A vid clip of my Radio Shack 200629 receiving Australian ham VK1A, working US stations from his location just outside Brisbane, Queensland, during the CQ World Wide contest, the night of Oct. 26th, 2024 (Oct. 27th UTC). The ID of VK1A is right near the end of the clip.

Over this past weekend, there has been a 'contest' on the Shortwave Ham bands. These contests have been around for ages -- the bigger ones usually happen two or three times a year, where you'll tune the ham bands and they will actually be crowded with signals, with hams eagerly trying to contact as many other hams as possible

When I was younger, I would buy CQ Magazine periodically. It's a magazine dedicated to the ham hobby. There are articles on how to improve your antennas, and there would be schematic diagrams of projects hams and other radio hobbyists could build. And there would be articles on DXpeditions (where a team of hams will transmit from some rare island out in the ocean somewhere), and also the results of contests.

A QSL Card for Qatar ham station A7XB, a station I heard on 15 Meters long ago, on my Yaesu FRG-7 and 80-100 ft. outdoor wire antenna. It was my most memorable DX catch. I had tuned into a couple guys -- with American accents -- talking. The signals were weak. The one guy seemed to be in Qatar and the other guy had an unusual DX call -- maybe Indonesia or Afghanistan? I don't remember, and I never got his call right. He might have been part of the US diplomatic mission in one of those countries. When A7XB mentioned his callsign, and spelled out his location ("Q-A-T-A-R"), suddenly there was a churning barrelhouse of signals -- all these 10's or hundreds of hams trying to contact him to get Qatar in their logs. I never did find out who the ham actually was, and never heard him again. Even DX Callbooks didn't show up anything. This QSL Card I found on E-Bay, by chance last year, is the only verification I've got for a very rare reception.

 

One year there was a big article on a guy in Belgium who won the CQ Worldwide DX contest -- I don't remember which year, it was probably in the 1980s. There was a pic of him, sitting proud in front of his several, large and expensive ham radio rigs, and also some pics of his antennas, which -- if I remember correctly -- were very impressive.

Now, this weekend a similar contest is taking place, on sideband. So, for the first time in recent memory, the ham bands are fairly close to packed with all sorts of SSB signals -- it's just like it would be on a typical Saturday afternoon on 20 Meters back in the 80s-00's when the bands were always packed. Not so much anymore -- crap propagation and inactive hams, as well as those running the clown car noises on FT8 have made the bands more spare.

But, this weekend, the bands are very busy.

A map of CQ Magazine's 'DX Zones', with the 'Zones' being designated by the people at CQ Magazine, which sponsors the Contest. During the Contest, individual hams (or teams, in a club) try to get as many contacts as possible, from as many of these 'DX Zones' as possible.

Last night I decided to tune around. 20 Meters, of course, was dead except for one guy calling CQ Contest from the Netherlands -- PJ2T, on 14318. He was alone on the SSB section of the 20 Meter band. And although I could hear him readably on my 24 ft. indoor wire and DX-394, he had no takers, except one American ham, K3DXX.

So I tuned down to the 40 Meter ham band. I had a lot more luck. The band was packed. I logged Brazil, Japan, Barbados, Mali, a bunch of hams from all over the US, and -- at least for a while -- I thought I logged Heard Island!

HEARD ISLAND? NO.... NOT REALLY

Heard Island is a remote island that is south of Kerguelen (the Antipodes of WA state, the exact opposite side of the world), which means it's out in the middle of frozen nowhere in the Southern Indian Ocean. So, why did I think I heard Heard Island? Because the guy in Australia, VK1A, had a web page that indicated that he was transmitting from Heard Island [please see screenshot of the page below].

Here you can see what threw me off: the unusual VK1 ham prefix (Australian prefixes are generally VK2-VK7 for each State, with VK1 being ACT, the Australian Capital Territory -- I've never heard ACT), and this page, which clearly denotes this station as being on Heard Island. Obviously -- it's a joke, or somebody, either at the site or elsewhere, typed in the absolutely wrong geographical coordinates.

This is a Ham Radio Station Prefix map. Maps -- and lists -- help you identify the country of the station you just heard. This map may be hard to read, but it -- and others like it -- are available online. I used to have a small book that had a map just like this inside it.

VK1A's QRZ page (QRZ.com is sort of a clearinghouse of info on ham radio stations) didn't have a location (the location only is available if you are logged in, and if you are not a ham, even if you are logged in the information available is a bit restricted). His QRZCQ page of course, was another matter. QRZCQ.com often has a lot more location info available, and QRZCQ said this VK1A guy was on Heard Island. 

The latitude and longitude coordinates -- which somebody had to take the time to type in -- gave the latitude and longitude for Heard Island as well.

I made a recording of my catch, still thinking there was something awry about the location. The operator didn't speak with an Aussie accent, but he's Dutch originally, so that would figure. I even heard him on my Radio Shack 200629, which is an able receiver on SSB but not as good as my DX-394, DX-398 (out of batteries right now) or Panasonic RF-B45.

Anyway, I moved on and listened some more and then went on with my household chores -- feeding my three cats, making some celery soup for myself, etc.

So then I looked up the station again. VK1A -- very little info on his QRZ page, or his main QRZ page (he has several callsigns, apparently quite active). No info whatsoever on ANY ham operating out of Heard Island, even during a contest. No real bio. Just a bunch of callsigns he's used over the years.

I finally logged into QRZ (after signing up), and being logged in more location info appeared. 

It turns out that the guy's up in the hills just north of Brisbane, and the weird VK1 prefix (not a standard Australian ham call prefix) is for contesters and clubs. Why the misleading info on QRZCQ.com? Maybe someone was having a joke? Maybe they typed in the latitude and longitude coordinates too hastily? I've seen misplaced locations on QRZCQ before, but not 7000 miles off.

So, there ya go. I had thought I'd heard Heard Island, but I had NOT heard Heard Island.

But I did get a clear copy of a guy from Brisbane on my Radio Shack 200629, which actually is a decent catch for that radio and an indoor wire. In fact, VK1A came in as well on my 200629 as he did on my DX-394, which is one of my best two radios for SSB and CW. It may have been that the conditions were up. Either way, I'm still happy with the DX catch -- even if it wasn't in the Indian Ocean. :-)

And, in the process, I found out that Heard Island has numerous glaciers, and its mountain, 'Big Ben', is the tallest mountain on Australian territory (although most Aussies think of Kosciusko as the country's tallest one). And -- no one, meaning absolutely no one -- lives there.

Here's a pic. And remember, if it looks cold, it IS cold. Nothing lives there but elephant seals and some penguins.

A picture of Heard Island, located south of Kerguelen, in the Southern Indian Ocean. The mountain is Mawson Peak, part of the mountain complex called "Big Ben". Big Ben is still volcanically active. No one lives on Heard Island, aside from elephant seals, penguins, and some other birds.

Here is an article on Heard Island's volcanic activity, courtesy the Australian CSIRO.

Blowing the lid off the volcanic story of Heard Island - CSIRO

I will post a couple more short articles within the week.

I hope my readers are all doing well. It's almost Winter here in Seattle, although the temperatures have been more or less moderate for it being this late in the year. I hope that holds.

Racofrats, when a kitten, Oct. 23, 2011. Such a long time ago.

I'll close this article with a pic of my cat Racofrats, when he was very young -- still a kitten. He's on my lap, looking to attack the other cats when they go by. He's the survivor of that litter. I call him Rac-a-doodle. He's turning into an indoor cat now. The plush, antique chair on the upstairs landing is all his, as is the cat furniture there.

Peace,

C.C. October 27th, 2024