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. 

CBS Radio News, 99 years old, to be shut down in May -- & Na Na Hey Hey, the hit that wasn't supposed to happen

CBS News Radio, RIP. They're 99 years old and having their plug pulled.

America's CBS Radio News, a top-of-the-hour news program on hundreds of radio stations across the US, is shutting down in May of this year, according to several reports and a memo from the head of CBS.

The reason for pulling the plug on the 99 year-old news service is apparently economic. The heads of CBS, in a memo to CBS Radio News employees, said that "a shift in radio programming strategies" (whatever that means) and "challenging economic realities" (lessening revenues) have "made it impossible to continue the service."

The complete notice sent from the CBS heads to their employees can be read here.:

CBS News Radio To Shutter Amid News Division Cuts

CBS Radio News presently is broadcast on the top of each hour on approximately 700 radio stations in the Unites States. It's long been considered one of the premiere news services in the country. There aren't that many radio news networks in the United States -- aside from CBS Radio News, there is ABC Radio News, Fox Radio News, Townhall, and a few smaller services, some of them regional.

And, of course, on the Public Radio side of things, there is NPR.

So why, really, did CBS pull the plug on its vaunted CBS Radio News broadcasts?

Money, that's why -- at least according to a few Radio experts and observers. There really isn't enough money in Radio news anymore to keep the lights on at the news department. CBS Radio News was a commercial service, and with Radio revenues down across the industry, having a large Radio news department doesn't pencil out the way it did in 2006 or 1996. 

Radio revenues nationwide are down around 50-60% or more since 2005. Radio took a big hit during the Great Recession after 2008, and the Pandemic economy during Corona didn't help, either. Internet competition has hurt Radio, which doesn't help radio news. Many stations went under after the Pandemic faded, and this economic malaise affecting Radio in general hurts the news services, too.

Competition from the internet has affected all 'legacy' media -- Radio, TV, Cable networks, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. The large advertising agencies have more media choices than ever -- they not only have what's left of Broadcast and Print media, but they have an infinite number of websites and apps to use for their advertising purposes. All those ads you see on YT vids, and the large number of ads popping up on news websites are replacing commercials that used to run on Radio and TV.

When the news of CBS Radio News impending closure hit the Radio side of social media, most reaction seemed to be mixed -- there is a lot of sadness over the coming demise of the network of news greats like Edward R. Murrow, which also had the longest running Radio news program in US history (CBS Radio's World News Roundup). 

Also, there are those who say it's just another day in Radio -- another network shut down, another heritage broadcaster pulls the plug. "The money just isn't in it anymore."

And it may very well be true. Some observers who still work in the industry say that Top Of The Hour Radio Newscasts just don't make money. You can't sell those commercials to the big advertisers anymore -- not like in the past. It's one reason that virtually no music radio stations in the US have news anymore. They can't monetize newscasts.

When I was a child, even the Top 40 music stations had newscasts, usually starting at five minutes before the hour. During the 1980's that all disappeared. To hear Radio news, you had to tune to the actual News stations, and those were all on the AM/MW band. Today, most News stations are still on the AM band, and are part of what is keeping AM alive (along with ethnic programming, Sports talk, conservative talk, and religion).

But every few years or so, another News station bites the dust. In Canada, some News radio stations have combined some operations with other stations, in other metros, even 500 miles away. CFFR 660, one of Calgary's news radio stations, runs some traffic and news reports for Vancouver, as it has combined night-time operations with CKWX, 1130. Consequently, you can hear Calgary news and traffic on CKWX at night, too.

WCBS 880, once a great all-News radio station in New York City, had the plug pulled, and it's now syndicated sports shows. KGO San Francisco, a well known News-talk station during the 1960's-2010's, went to Sports-Betting talk, and then the station was shut down, its transmitter now being used by conservative talker KSFO (which moved to KGO's 810 transmitter from their old frequency at 560 kHz).

WCBS, interestingly enough, made a LOT of money. They were the #10 station in the US (AM or FM) in revenues up until their owners pulled the plug on the News programming in 2024. Observers in the industry kept saying "the News format cost too much money to run."

But they were NUMBER TEN in the country. 

"But the News format still costs a lot of money to run, so the owners are saving money by running sports." Or so they said.

It still looks a bit odd, that any Radio company would ditch a #10 billing station to run Sports on the cheap, but hey -- when I worked in radio, I was first a newscaster, then a news director for 3 years (at a small public radio station), and then I was a sound engineer for around 16 years -- I wasn't working on the business side of things. So what do I know?

Either way, the movers and shakers at CBS believe that CBS Radio News is costing them too much to produce to keep the shows going out to the 700 affiliates.

I'll end this article with my own feelings. I am really saddened by the death of CBS Radio News. I used to listen to the local CBS news station a lot. During the early Sunday mornings I'd hear The Takeout, with Major Garrett, which was a really good interview show (it's now on YT as a podcast, with 6.9 Million subscribers, but the recent episodes have 6-10K views). I'd also hear the World News Roundup, and sometimes the Weekend version.

Like most Radio aficionados, I remember when network radio was vital. In the 2010's, when I rediscovered the night-time Radio DX hobby, I heard a LOT of network radio -- CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox Radio newscasts, NPR (from Oregon's AM outlet KOAC), and there were several interesting Sports talk networks, with three of them (CBS Sports Radio, NBC Sports Radio, and Fox Sports Radio) associated with their news radio counterparts.

Just over the past several years, Radio networks in general have been dying off. CBS Sports Radio is no more. NBC Sports Radio is no more. Radio Disney is no more. SB Nation Sports Radio is no more. ESPN Deportes is no more. Air America left us in the early 2010's, but the few straggling progressive talkers that still carried a few of their hosts are all gone.

And you can add to that the stations that have left the air -- most of them AM, but a lot of FM stations are gone, too, including at least one college FM station in my area.

I know it's just progress, and change is always with us. But sometimes those changes just don't feel good.

I'll miss hearing CBS Radio News, just as I miss hearing CBS Sports Radio. And just as I miss hearing Radio Disney, a well-operated Hit Radio network that was aimed at kids, but also had a good pop music playlist. When they went off the air it felt like a sock in the gut, being that they livened up the night-time radio airwaves with the really good pop music that was big in the early 2010's.

I suspect that in the future we'll be seeing more Radio networks bite the dust. It's probably a good practice to appreciate the ones that remain. Maybe they have 10-15 years left? We'll see. Because the revenue issues hitting Radio won't go away. 

IN OTHER LIFE....

In other life, the weather here has warmed up slightly, and I can hear the frogs croaking and chirruping at night, which usually happens in March during normal years. The past several years this hasn't happened until April or May. My birch tree's climbing rose bush is already starting to bud green.

My cat Bear is doing well. She still is too scared to come out of her room. She's a very skittish cat, but she meows and wants me to pet her, so it's going well.

I'm still having some internet issues, especially when it's cold and rainy. I am looking into alternatives for internet service because of it.

The Ionosphere is Weaker than watered-down Tea

In the DX hobby, the ionosphere is not performing well lately. Some wags in the ham radio hobby and SWL hobby blame Solar flares, but really it's the ionosphere is weakening. I think we are already in the Solar minimum, and it's diving fast, just like in 2018 or so, when SW conditions went from good to fair to abysmal in just a few months.

It's eUV, that supreme factor that makes the ionosphere work. It's been in decline since the mid to late 1990's, and it's also that one factor that you won't find much information about online. There are scientific articles stating that eUV from the Sun makes the ionosphere ionized, but the decline in eUV is only mentioned in one NASA article that hasn't been updated in over 5 years.

Two New MW Stations Heard -- KGOW 1560 and KIRV 1510

So there hasn't been that much to hear, or listen to, on the Shortwaves. Medium Wave, my first DX love, is OK but I haven't heard any new stations aside from a couple surprises, usually due to human or computer error, not ionospheric conditions.

I heard KGOW, Houston Texas on 1560 kHz one a.m. when they had just switched up to day power, and KVAN, a Spanish language religious station in Pasco, WA had a period of silence (probably a computer glitch or other issue at that station). KGOW is a Vietnamese and Asian language station out of Houston, and the way I was able to ID it was hearing a woman speaking Viet, and the music was Asian pop standards. As soon as KVAN's audio came back on, KGOW was gone.

Another new station, KIRV Fresno, on 1510 kHz, was a surprise appearance. They are a daytime only station out of Fresno, with Spanish language religion. The talk on this station matched the KIRV stream, and that's how I was able to ID that station. Otherwise, 1510 had Ben Maller (KGA Spokane) and KSFN Piedmont, California's Mexican ranchero music.

Travelling the Airwaves with the Sangean PR-D4W

Both of these stations I heard on my trusty Sangean PR-D4W, with help from my Eton AN-200 loop antenna. The PR-D4W is my best MW DX radio, bar none. Not only does it pull in stations terrifically, it sounds as good, or better, than a GE Superadio, especially if you use headphones.

It has 'smart tuning', where the DSP chip will take 2-3 seconds to maximise the signal once you tune to a MW channel. Sometimes you have to re-up the tuner -- flip down to the next frequency and back up again, for the DSP to maximise the best. This is probably because radio signals fade, and the DSP might 'lock in' at the wrong time during a fade-up. But it often only takes one 're-up' to get the signal as loud as it's going to get. Then I peak it with my AN-200 and I'm listening to MW DX on a channel in high fidelity.

I have to admit that during the nights that Shortwave is dead -- to where even the noise maker on 6838 kHz is inaudible -- it's nice to plug the headphones into the PR-D4W and hear talk, news, and music on the AM band in hi-fi. I often hear KEJB Eureka, California, an oldies station on 1480 kHz. They play a wide mix of oldies. 

One night they played a track I hadn't heard in ages, Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye -- a track which was never intended to be released as a single. In fact, its makers were just trying to fill tape to make a B-side to back Garrett Scott's next single (Garrett Scott was the singer on the Steam record).

Garrett Scott's own single never was released, and Na Na Hey Hey was released as an A-side at the insistence of Mercury Records. It's the only prominent single that Garrett Scott sang on, that got extensive airplay, and it became a hit -- knocking the Beatles off the number one spot in December, 1969.

Here it is. Listen to the drums. It also has congas and Garrett Scott hitting a piece of wood with a drumstick. The instruments are all keyboards -- a piano or two, several organs, and some vibrophones (all played by Paul Leka, who wrote and produced Green Tambourine, a hit track by the Lemon Pipers in 1968). The drums were mostly an 8 bar tape loop, taken from a drum track to another, non-released Garrett Scott single. I think there is a primitive rhythm-box in there, too. Being that it was made to be a throw-away B-side, it's a remarkable recording. And what a catchy chorus!:

A TV promo video for Na Na Hey Hey, by the Steam touring band. The singer here, Bill Steer, didn't sing on the Na Na Hey Hey single, but I think he sang on the album that came out after the single hit.

This is the LONG version. The one that was a hit on radio was a shorter edit. This video shows the Steam touring band miming to the hit. None of the guys in this video were on the record. They were a put together band to capitalize on the hit. The music, of course, is off the CD.

And with that, my friends, until next time,

Peace.

C.C., March 23rd, 2026.

AUSTRALIAN AM STATION 6WF to Leave the AM band for FM

The transmitting tower for sunny Perth, Australia's ABC radio station 6WF, which is moving from the AM band to the FM band after decades of serving Perth and a large part of SW Western Australia.

If you look closely, you can see the Perth skyline in the far background. The tower is in the Perth suburb of Hamerslsy, in the northern part of the city. 

photo from ABC.net.au

A radio station I used to listen to -- at least when they had a shortwave relay -- is leaving the AM band for FM in late February this year, after 94 years on the AM band.

6WF, Perth, Australia's main ABC Radio outlet, is being moved to FM as the ABC determines that with more and more cars being FM only, taking 6WF off the AM band is the best way to serve listeners. The switchover from AM to FM will occur on February 23rd.

6WF-AM has been on the air in the Perth region for 94 years, as the transmitter installation and tower date from 1934.

For those who don't know it, Perth is a large city of two million people on the Indian Ocean, and it's the capital of Western Australia, Australia's largest state by area. Perth is also known as the 'most isolated capital city in the world', being that it is farther from other metros than nearly every other national or state capital on the planet.

A CITY WITH AN EXTENSIVE MUSICAL HISTORY

Perth is the city where late AC/DC singer Bon Scott lived as a kid, after his family moved there from Kirriemuir in Scotland. He got his musical start there as a singer for the Valentines. The Australian rock band INXS also got their careers kickstarted in Perth (they were in Perth for 10 months, as the 'Vegetables'). The lead guitarist for the Divinyls, Mark McEntee, was from Perth, and the excellent Aussie glam rock band Supernaut were also from Perth.

I used to listen to 6WF back when I got my first good Shortwave radio, my Realistic DX-160, which was a Christmas gift. With that radio I listened to a lot of different stations, including Radio Australia, various Indonesian stations at night, 'tropical band' radio stations out of Venezuela and Columbia, and 6WF.

SHORTWAVE RELAY STATIONS FOR THE OUTBACK

How could I receive 6WF? Well, back in the day the ABC had several Shortwave outlets to serve the Outback and desert regions of the Australian interior, and being that more than half of Western Australia is desert, with a lot of isolated mining towns, other small towns and farming and other 'stations' in the interior, SW was the best way to reach those people. 

Queensland also had a Shortwave relay station, VLW4, which I think I heard once. It was used to beam ABC radio to the Outback from Brisbane. The Western Australian shortwave relay came in better here, I think because they beamed their signal more in my direction.

The 6WF shortwave relay was officially called VLW6, and their frequency was in the 31 Meter Band. One night (early a.m., actually), I heard a DJ on 6WF play a bunch of music by the La De Da's (including their cool song 'The Place'), and another night he played almost half an album by the band called Flowers, which changed their name to Icehouse.

The transmitter cable for 50KW AM station 6WF in Perth.

photo from ABC.net.au

The shortwave relay station always identified as '6WF/6WN'. The relationship between the two ABC stations I never clearly understood, but 6WF was the main one.

During the early 2000's when I discovered online radio I 'tuned in' to 6WF a few times, as by then they'd switched off the Shortwave relay.

Of course, today Australia has no Shortwave presence at all, aside from the Reach Out Australia religious station in Kununurra, in the Kimberley district of NW Australia. They broadcast religious programs to ethnic minorities in Southern and SE Asia. I posted a short article on Reach Out Australia and my hearing them a couple years ago, which you can read here.:

https://interrocknation.blogspot.com/2024/05/dxing-reach-beyond-australia-hearing.html

The ABC, thanks to the Australian government, pulled the plug on Radio Australia about 6 or 7 years ago, in a move that not only saddened SWL's all over the world, but maddened rural people in the Australian Outback who depended on Radio Australia for news and information.

It's another case of governments not caring about serving people in rural areas. The US took a similar move with pulling the plug on VOA, which took America's message to rural people in Africa and Asia.

You can read the ABC.net.au article on 6WF here.:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-15/perth-am-to-fm-switch-goes-ahead/106343336

IN OTHER LIFE....

The weather here has taken a turn for the cold again, after a two week respite. The barometer has fallen below 30 inches of mercury, which usually means a low pressure system, which usually means more rain, which usually means higher temperatures in Winter. But that's clearly not the case.

I recently rediscovered my Dad's old barometer -- it's a Stellar brand barometer made in what was then called Western Germany. It seems to be reasonably accurate, despite its age. It's been through a bit over the years. An uncle who was staying with us in the 1980's put it in the trash in a drunken rage, and my former GF shoved it in a box of junk because she didn't know that a) it had been in my family for years, and b) I don't think she really knew what a barometer was.

I'm still not sure if you can forecast the weather by reading the changes in a barometer, but it's still cool to track it.

ON SHORTWAVE, THERE IS NOTHING ON BUT HF STOCK TRADERS

OK, I may be exaggerating here a bit, but not really. High Frequency Stock traders -- a.k.a. 'HFT' stations -- get a lot of criticism from hams and SWL's, but they really aren't taking over the SW spectrum. How can they, especially when the SW spectrum is increasingly nothing but static?

And if you look at the actual number of these HFT stations, there really aren't that many of them. Those stations do put out a pretty solid signal, though, and even when the ionosphere is DOWN, their signals still seem to be UP. At least one of them I've heard recently blasts out a massive signal.

HFT aside, radio here has been a bit dull lately. The Shortwave radio conditions have been absolutely abysmal. Last night I tuned around and there was nothing but static, a couple weak ham radio operators out of Oregon, Nevada and California that I couldn't read through the static, and a digital HFT transmission on 6838 kHz, which was around S3 out of 5, signal-wise. I have no idea where this HFT station is located. Most of the known HFT transmitters are in Illinois, but this signal is too strong for Illinois. I only know it as an HFT (High Frequency Trading) station because signals experts on HFU and elsewhere have said the 6838 Digital hash is HFT. 

One of them said that the HFT Digital signal I'm hearing on 6838 kHz, which slams all my radios with S3-S5 signals (even my little XHDATA D-221 picks that signal up -- just off the whip!), may be located in Ritzville, WA -- a small town in Eastern Washington, about 250 miles east of me, in the middle of desert and wheat country.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EDIT to ADD: About a week after posting this article, I did some research, and I do not think the Digital hash station I'm hearing on 6838 kHz is in Ritzville, as I've looked at the maps online and the FCC address for the Ritzville experimental station shows nothing but sagebrush, and a few curious looking spots that look like boreholes. No towers, no shadows that would indicate towers -- no powerlines, no access roads, really. 

So I don't know what it is I'm hearing on 6838 kHz. It is, so far, a mystery. It also might not even be HFT.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This begs the question: if that station is indeed in Ritzville, why is a High Frequency Trading station located in WA state, and slamming the airwaves with a signal that is estimated to be 400 KW PEP? Are they sending trading data to Japan? South Korea? Taiwan?

Who knows.

When the station on 6838 is not transmitting Digital hash, it often just puts out a carrier. There is another carrier, on 6938, that I often hear. I've not yet heard a digital signal on that frequency.

Down below the 40 Meter ham band is a lot of interesting stuff -- pirates, Indonesian chanters, Latin American fishermen, mystery carriers and military signals, Chinese OTHR, and now, apparently, High Frequency Trading stations. Of course, you'll only hear most of this when the ionosphere is UP. When the ionosphere is DOWN, you don't hear anything except the strongest signals.

And most of Shortwave is basically dead right now. And we're supposedly still in a peak solar cycle period. I'm not buying it, of course. I've said before that this Solar cycle sucks, and I think the relatively dead SW conditions back that assertion up.

EUV is down, and eUV is what makes the ionosphere ionized, and according to NASA, the ionosphere is less ionized than it was in 1995 -- eUV ionization has been consequently dropping since then, and who knows when it will come back?

I've got no idea about that.... Solutions to that problem are far above my pay grade. :-)

BACK TO MEDIUM WAVE

Consequently, I'm getting back into my first radio 'love', MW DXing. Now, the ionosphere sucking also affects the AM band, but there still is plenty to hear on the AM band, especially if you have a good radio and a loop antenna. After a night of hearing nothing but static and unreadable signals (and HFT digital hash) on Shortwave, I grabbed my trusty Sangean PR-D4W and tuned the AM band. It was like night and day. 

I didn't hear any super DX, but I listened to KOAC out of Corvallis, Oregon (550 kHz), with a BBC special on the Indian economy, and then heard some music on KSWB, Seaside OR (840 kHz) and some cool classic hits on CKOR Penticton BC (800 kHz). And it was all in high fidelity, as the PR-D4W has the best sound and performance of any MW radio I own.

You don't even really need an external loop with the PR-D4W, but a loop like the AN-200 will add a db or so, which helps with the weaker stations.

DSP SSB Radios -- they work really well

I'm working on an article about 3 DSP/SSB radios I bought last year -- the Tecsun PL-330, XHDATA D808 and Raddy RF760. My PL-330 has gotten heavy use over the past year, but I've noticed that it does overload, especially on the CB band, and when there is strong, pulse-type RFI. 

A 150 ohm resister clipped between the wire antenna and the Tecsun's whip antenna seems to have cured most of that. I'm hoping the issue (bleedover, blocking, AGC over-reacting to changes in signals, unexpected whistles here and there) is just overloading. We'll see.

I'm also working on an article about a music scene that rose and sort of fell -- the Norway pop music scene, which seemed to really put out a lot of great music ni 2014. That article will come along in 3-4 weeks.

I'll close this article with a great track by the NZ/Oz band The La De Da's, who -- when they made this track -- were headed by guitarist Kevin Borich, who then went on to have a lengthy solo career in Australia.

This is the track I heard on 6WF one warm summer night. "The Place".:

And this track by FLOWERS, the band that became ICEHOUSE, was played a few years later on, some time before 6WF's Shortwave relay went off the air. The song is 'Skin".:

This track, one of my favorites by ICEHOUSE, was not played on 6WF, but it's one of Icehouse's better tracks, from 1984, 'Sidewalk". It's got a kickass bass line and guitar chords, and really cool use of the Fairlight Computer.:

Until next time, stay warm, friends (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere). 

Peace.

C.C., Feb. 19th, 2026.

ADDENDUM, February 25th, 2026:

As I added -- in blue -- in this article, I am not sure the Digital hash station I'm hearing on 6838 kHz is High Frequency Trading, and I'm certain it's NOT in Ritzville, WA, because I looked at the online maps -- both Google and Bing maps -- and see nothing but a flat plot of land with sagebrush at the location where the FCC license address says the Ritzville experimental station is. So I do not know what I'm hearing. But it's digital, and it's noisy, and it runs at various hours during the day, for hours at a time. The typical transmission is around 20-30 seconds of digital hash, with the beginning of it having quick 'pulses', and the ending of it having even quicker 'pulses', and there are one second stops, roughly, between the transmissions.

There are no CW / Morse Code ID's whatsoever -- something that apparently is required by the FCC for HFT stations. So this station may not be HFT at all, because in over an hour of listening to this digital racket on my DX-440 this evening, I have not heard one Morse Code ID.

So where, and what, is this station? Who does it transmit to? Japan? Asia? The Pacific in general, if it happens to be military? Who knows?

INFINITY SPORTS NETWORK ends; replaced by Westwood One / BetMGM sports network

 

Infinity Sports Network is going through some major changes, starting on December 29th, 2025, when they will merge with a Sports Betting talk network, and become the Westwood One Sports network. It will be the second major change and second name change since the network started as CBS Sports Radio in 2013. In fact, in most respects, the entire CBS Sports Network / Infinity Sports Network is coming to an end. 

That's the take on it from many who were involved in the network from the beginning.

CBS Sports Radio started not too long after I got back into the MW DXing and listening hobby in early Winter of 2011. At the time, I rediscovered the fun of listening to long distance AM radio at night, and the night time airwaves were alive with Radio Disney, ESPN, ESPN Deportes, Fox Sports Radio, SB Nation sports, and other lively programming. 

Soon enough, ESPN, Fox, and SB Nation were joined by NBC Sports Radio, and then CBS Sports Radio, which, when it was launched, took over 1090 kHz here in Seattle, flipping the station from KPTK Progressive Talk to KFNQ 'The Fan'.

Now, although I enjoy listening to NFL football on the radio, I have never been a sports nut. That said, when I started listening to the Sports Talk networks, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike conservative talk shows, the Sports Talkers usually had callers, and the callers were almost as entertaining as the hosts. And CBS Sports Radio had a great lineup of hosts.

During this time period -- 2011-2015 or so -- Sports Talk Radio in general seemed to be a growing trend on the AM band, being that many who were tired of political talk would now have an alternative, and here in the US, most people follow at least one sport. Some radio companies, seeing the success that ESPN Sports Radio already had nationwide, decided that Sports talk, national networks could be a money maker. CBS and NBC decided to join the fray. For a few years, Yahoo also had a sports network, too, as did SB Nation.

ESPN had ESPN Deportes, which had rapidfire, interesting sounding, Spanish language talk hosts, who'd talk a lot about soccer as well as basketball and NFL. The ESPN Deportes jingle had a wild guitar line, too. I remember hearing it one night on my GE Superadio 3, when I heard KSVE El Paso on 1650 kHz -- the only time I heard that station, in 2013 or 2014.

The period from 2011 to the Pandemic was a lively time for talk radio in general, as there were also new conservative talkers like Andy Dean and Steve Deace trying to build audiences in the early 2010's -- all trying to invigorate the talk radio airwaves.

I actually enjoyed CBS Sports Radio. I was listening when it first launched in Seattle, on January 2nd, 2013. Their theme music was rousing and lively, and really fit the Sports Radio image, and the first CBS Sports Radio talk host I heard was Scott Ferrall, a gritty sounding guy who reminded the listener of a the guy in the back of some New York City pub with the scrunchy hat, reading the sports pages religiously. Ferrall had a gruff voice, and a quick wit. He left CBS Sports late in the 2010's for an online Sports Bet website or podcast.

Others on CBS Sports Radio were DA (Damon Amendolara), who always was willing to beam you up on the 'mothership' while his hip-hop music theme played; and Jim Rome, who was already a big name in sports talk. I didn't listen to Jim Rome much, but like the rest of the CBS Sports Radio hosts, he was knowledgeable, and fun to listen to.

And Amy Lawrence was the overnight host, who always had a friendly attitude and extensive knowledge of football, basketball, and baseball. 

Mike & Mike were a popular duo on ESPN Radio, and I sometimes heard their early morning show after 3 a.m. on some ESPN stations in the 2010's. They were sort of an 'odd couple', a theme which is somewhat popular on Sports Talk networks.

Several years ago, after CBS sold its radio properties, the name of the CBS Sports Radio network changed to Infinity Sports Radio -- by this time, Infinity was already producing the shows, so the change was really in name only. By the time of the name change, many of the hosts I enjoyed hearing in 2013 were gone. Scott Ferrall was gone. I think Jim Rome moved to another network. 

Amy Lawrence left CBS Sports Radio not too long after it became the Infinity Sports Network, and although she didn't say a ton about it, there were behind the scenes issues -- related to cost cutting -- that apparently prompted her to leave.

DA, who left Infinity Sports Radio in 2023, also talks about the decline on this video clip here. He refers to the end of CBS Sports Radio / Infinity Sports Radio as the end of an era.:

Part of the 'decline' in CBS Sports Radio may have been the loss of affiliates. If one looks at the number of Infinity Sports Radio affiliates today, and compares it with Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports has twice the affiliates nationwide.

A couple of the other Sports networks also had major changes about 5-6 years ago, which -- to me, anyway -- took away from some of the fun listening. Mike and Mike were gone from the ESPN. Colin Cowherd is still on the radio (on Fox Sports since 2015), but his show was moved to a different time slot. There were two other hosts (an 'odd couple' of sports guys whose names I can't recall) who shared an early morning show that I often heard early mornings on Fox Sports that saw their show axed.

There are a few holdouts, however.

Ben Maller, who's been the overnight guy on Fox Sports Radio, is still very entertaining, and he has managed to stay on the air. Dan Patrick and Doug Gottlieb are still on Fox Sports Radio, too. They are long time, popular hosts. But a lot of the others are off the air, either doing satellite radio, or podcasts.

Before the Pandemic hit, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, ESPN Deportes, and NBC Sports Radio all saw their plugs pulled, and new, Sports Betting Talk shows and networks began to grow on the radio airwaves. For example, there's a station in Southern Oregon, KDSO 1300, out of Ashland -- that is sports bet talk only. KGO San Francisco tried a version of Sports Bet talk that kept the station afloat before it was taken over by conservative talker KSFO. If KGO and KSFO's owners didn't think that KGO had a better signal, KGO would probably still be Sports Bet talk.

The radio scene at night on the AM band sounds very much different from how it sounded in 2013, and this latest change to what was CBS Sports Radio is yet another indicator that not only is Radio changing as it adapts to lower revenues and other changes in the industry, but even formats like Sports Talk are changing, as Westwood One Sports will have at least two shows brought over from BetMGM, one in the morning (morning drive, East Coast Time) and one in the early evening.

The tentative Westwood One Sports schedule is included in this Barrett Media article on the network change.:

https://barrettmedia.com/2025/12/17/executive-producer-michael-samtur-announces-exit-from-audacy-infinity-sports-network/

The two Sports Bet Talk shows are from BetMGM. Think about that for a moment. Even the name 'BetMGM' speaks loads. BetMGM is an online betting website. You can read about BetMGM's development here, on the Wiki.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Resorts_International#BetMGM

In the 1950s and 60s, MGM was known as a movie company, more or less family friendly. Then they opened up a resort hotel in Las Vegas -- which, naturally, has a casino. Now they have a Sports Bet talk network. And betting itself has become more accepted in Sports. One could say that Betting has become vital to Sports in the US. For years, Las Vegas wanted an NFL team, but the league balked, because of the potential association with gambling.

Obviously, that concern changed. Las Vegas now has an NFL team, the Raiders.

Now, I'm not trying to cast any aspersions on betting, or the sports bet industry.

But it's obviously a fact that Gambling, and Sports Betting in particular, are very big deals in both Sports and Radio. During the NFL downturn in the mid 2010's, at least one observer said the NFL's TV ratings were still as high as they were because of sports betting and fantasy football, which is sports betting related. Sports bettors would still tune into the games to double check on their bets, or make new bets.

Even now, a lot of commercials on the Sports networks are for sports betting websites like FanDuel and DraftKings. A couple months ago I heard a journalist interviewed on the Catholic radio network Relevant Radio talking about how pervasive Sports Betting actually is. It's a multimillion dollar industry. And its effect is being felt on Radio.

So, what does this all say for the state of Radio in general? I think it says a lot. Radio is hurting for revenues, as everything media shifts more and more online. DA and Amy Lawrence both stated they saw evidence of cost cutting at CBS Sports Radio -- and CBS Sports Radio was an excellent product, and -- as far as I know -- it got decent ratings for sports radio.

But the entire Radio industry is feeling the pinch. For those of us who love Radio and worked in Radio (as I did for 20 years, total), it really hurts to see some of these changes happening.

So, starting December 29th, Infinity Sports Network is disappearing, being replaced by Westwood One Sports. In some ways, the change may be in name only, as some shows will remain -- but even now the Infinity Sports Network just doesn't have the same kick and pizazz that CBS Sports Radio did during the glory days in the early 2010's when Scott Ferrall would decry boring, pitcher oriented baseball. 

"I don't want to see eight innings of boring pitching and strikeouts!" he'd say. "I want to see base hits! I want to see doubles! I want to see home runs!" 

And he was right.

Now I'm going to go back to listening to Sports Talk on my GE Superadio, and try to get back to writing some fiction. 

Peace,

C.C. December 21st, 2025.

Another CANADIAN AM Radio Station Bites the Dust: RIP CJVB 1470; & Hello Qodosen DX-286

CJVB 1470, a long time Chinese language broadcaster out of Vancouver, BC Canada, is going off the air. Its owner, Fairchild Radio (Vancouver FM) Ltd, which also runs an FM station out of Vancouver (CHKG-FM), is pulling the plug on CJVB and they're going to be FM only. The switching off of CJVB appears slated for March.

The CRTC (Canada's communications arm, which regulates Radio there) has approved the shutting down of CJVB.

The reasons for the shut down are decreased revenue, and increased costs -- an issue that is hitting most Radio stations in the US and Canada -- whether FM or AM.

Fairchild, in a request sent to the CRTC in June, stated that "both the stations have experienced decreased advertising and airtime brokerage sales," and that "the operating costs for the two stations [CJVB and CHKG-FM] continue to increase and that the stations have sustained significant losses for several years."

Furthermore, Fairchild said that the two stations, AM and FM, had "incurred significant economic losses for the past five years, and that it expects this trend to continue in the foreseeable future."

It looks like the Pandemic economy hurt CJVB and it's FM sister station, just as it's slammed a lot of radio stations since 2020.

Fairchild said they would transfer a block of Chinese programming to CHKG after CJVB is pulled off the air, and that the block of Chinese language programming would be from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

It's a sad case but increasingly common in Radio, and not just AM. As I've posted in several articles over the past two to three years, it's not just AM stations going off the air, but also some FM's are seeing their plugs pulled also. It's because of the reasons that Fairchild told the CRTC -- decreased revenues, and increasing costs.

Even highly rated, local NPR station KUOW-FM had to cut some staff last year because of increased costs. They had record donations, and increased revenues, but the increasing costs outweighed the increase in revenues.

CJVB has always been a barn burner signal here in Seattle. Vancouver is just 130 or so air miles north of us, and CJVB has had a really good signal, with their transmitters not too far from the water in Richmond, BC.

Now it appears that KELA, Centralia, WA -- just 100 miles south of me -- will dominate the 1470 frequency in the NW US and SW Canada, once CJVB is switched off. CJVB is due to have its license revoked on March 6th, 2026.

The first time I noticed CJVB was when I got my Sanyo Boombox for Christmas, in 1982.It was my first FM Stereo radio, and the AM side was a good performer. Not only did I discover New Wave music (on the former 'The Wave' KYYX 96 FM) I rediscovered AM Band DXing, and CJVB was hard to 'null' to hear other stations on 1470. They were easy to ID because of the Chinese language programming, and Chinese (or any other Asian language) programming was rare to hear on the radio -- AM or FM -- in the 1980's.

So CJVB really stuck out on the AM band at night.

Now, obviously, after CJVB goes off the air early next year, nulling that signal won't be an issue. 

It's too bad, because recently they've been playing a lot of cool Asian rock and pop music at night. I recently heard a song sung by a guy in Chinese, which sounded like a pop-rock song from 2000 or 2001, complete with a lead guitar that sounded like it was right from that era (an Alice In Chains style wah-wah). 

Looks like there's just 2-3 more months to hear it before it's off the airwaves.

And so it goes. So long, CJVB. You had a good run.

That's about it for now. Life has gone normally. I've been having some internet issues, and the repair people never seem to really fix them 100%. It's frustrating. The internet cuts out, even though the connection is good. I think it might be my router, but the repair people said they think it's still good. I'm beginning to doubt their expertise or credibility anymore.

Other than that, my new cat, now named 'Bear', is finally getting used to me. She waits by the door to her room for me to go in and feed her and pet her. I'm still leaving her in my upstairs bathroom so she has her own space. With cats, change = bad. So I give her her own space, and in a month or so I'll see if she comes out and checks out the rest of the house.

GETTING A QODOSEN DX-286

I also got a new radio, a Qodosen DX-286, which a lot of people rave about. I got it on my late father's 100th birthday, December 10th. Dad was the one who got me into radio, and into listening to SW radio and long distance MW radio. He taught me that the key to hearing distant stations was to 'tune slowly, and listen carefully', something I'm sure he learned from his father, my grandfather, who built radios, including a tube shortwave radio.

The DX-286 has an NXP, TEF chip in it, that is the same type of chip used in the Sony XDR's that were popular with FM DXers in the 2000's and 2010's. The TEF chips are also used in car dash radio systems, and the chips are known for excellent reception, both on FM, AM, and SW.

My first impression with the DX-286 is that it's very good on MW and SW. It picks up MW as good as my Sony XDR does -- very clear reception, and the AGC is tight, without pumping. I'm still putting the DX-286 through its paces. So far, I think it's a good radio, well worth the money.

ONE WATT AUDIO CHIP, GOOD RECEPTION OVERALL

It has a rep for eating batteries -- but the audio chip puts out ONE WATT. That's a lot of audio power, and it takes a lot of juice to drive a ONE WATT AF chip. So if you want to increase time between charges when using a DX-286, use headphones, or keep that volume down. :-)

Good clear audio on this radio, though. I'm impressed.

SOME 'TIC' NOISES, that disappear when you use a LOOP

There is only one minor glitch I've found with the DX-286. The radio puts out two 'ticks' per second, which are audible on 810, 820 and some lower channels on the AM band. I think it has something to do with the clock function for the microprocessor. My Grundig G2 has the same issue, except it receives the 'ticks' on a lot more channels.

The DX-286 only get these 'tick' noises on headphones. Not on the speaker. Which leads me to believe that the radio's headphone amp is near a clock function of some sort (the DX-286 has two audio amp chips -- the one watt chip for the speaker and a lower wattage chip that drives the headphones).

The happy part of this is that when I use an external loop on MW, the tick noises disappear from 810, 820, etc. So the issue really doesn't bother me.

....IN OTHER LIFE

Aside from all that -- all is about as well as it can be. If I don't post another article before then, Merry Christmas to all my readers, wherever you are.

My family won't be having a get-together for this Christmas, so I will celebrate alone, just me and my cat. I'll probably play Silent Night and The First Noel on my bagpipes, outside, for the neighbors, and maybe write a Christmas-themed fiction tale.

Talk to you soon, internet connection willing....

Peace.

C.C. Friday, December 19th, 2025