A Shortwave Radio, sold by Radio Shack in the 1990s -- the DX-398, made by Sangean. With a radio like this, one could hear the world -- before internet streaming replaced it. Sangean still makes an updated version of this radio (the Sangean ATS-909X2), and there still are interesting stations to hear via the Shortwaves.
Imagine a world with no internet, where there is no meaningful access to international news, or meaningful contact with people from other countries -- especially countries on other continents. Your local newspaper maybe has a tiny bit of news from the other side of the planet, and because local radio is so homogenised you never hear anything but the top 100 songs of the most popular, domestic formats, and nothing in a language that is not the local language.
During the evening, you go over to the corner of your room, and grab the end of an antenna you have strung out your window. You plug it into the back of your radio -- a radio with not just AM and FM, but also several other radio bands on it: Shortwave (SW) bands. Switching on your radio, you tune to the SW section of the dial, and suddenly, you hear Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French (both European French and African accented French), Swahili, Dutch, Arabic, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, Indonesian and Malay, and various Western African languages and various dialects of Spanish -- all within a couple of hours.
You hear folk and other musics that your neighbors and workmates haven't heard because they just listen to the latest hits on local FM radio. You hear Pidgin English and Australian accented English with pop and rock music that you never have heard before. You tune to the CBC's Northern Service and hear various native languages from the Far North. You tune to talk shows in Mongolian, from the Chinese radio service to Nei Menggu (Inner Mongolia).
You look over your world atlas and see all the countries, cities, regions, islands, and various places where these stations you've just heard are located.
In just an evening or morning, you've heard the world. You didn't leave your chair, but travelled thousands of miles -- as if by magic -- just by turning a dial.
I know that in other countries, and other parts of the world, there has always been a lot of immigration and contact between cultures and exposure to different languages, but here in the United States it wasn't always the case.
There was a time before the mid 1990's -- before the internet started to become commonplace -- that Shortwave Radio was the ONLY way for an average American to get exposed to numerous non-American musics, languages, and cultures. In most major US metros there were a few enclaves of immigrants, and in parts of the US there were many regions with large numbers of Spanish speaking people, but mass immigration didn't occur until after 1990, and it wasn't until after 2000 that immigrants' broadcasting needs were truly met by local media, including domestic radio stations.
Today I can walk down my main street and hear and see people from El Salvador, Mexico, Ethiopia, Brazil, Somalia, India, Pakistan, China, Ukraine and Russia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, and various other countries of the world.
But it wasn't always this way.
What I'm describing may seem like another world to many of my readers, but it did exist, and the only window on the outside world for many of us was the magic of Shortwave Radio.
We're just starting to enter a period where the solar activity and solar radiation that Shortwave Radio depends upon may start kicking in again, bringing that medium some new life. Yet, at the same time, Shortwave Radio is declining in popularity and importance, and the number of shortwave stations worldwide is also declining. It prompted me to write this article, not only about my own adventure with Shortwave radio, but also to encourage other SW enthusiasts to remember to tune the bands and log stations, because within a decade they simply might not be there to log and listen to.
MY OWN SHORTWAVE JOURNEY : IT STARTED WITH AN OLD TUBE RADIO
As I've said here on this blog numerous times, I'm a radio hobbyist, and I have been one for many years. Throughout much of my life, a lot of my radio interest has involved Shortwave radio. It started when my father got me my first radio, when I was about three years old. The radio was a big old Silvertone radio (a large radio with vacuum tubes in it), and it received MW, which at night brought in stations from all over the Pacific Northwest, and parts of California. Instantly, my world was changed. It was like travelling far away without leaving your room.
And that Silvertone radio also received Shortwave. Now, for those who don't know what Shortwave radio is -- it's a range of frequencies that start just above the Medium Wave radio band (MW is called AM Radio here in the US and Canada), and they end somewhere down below the FM Radio Band. Shortwave radio is like Medium Wave, in that the signals will 'bounce' off the ionosphere and travel long distances. What you hear at night on Medium Wave, when tuning around the band, is similar to what you can hear on Shortwave (SW) -- distant stations, their signals phasing and fading in and out -- you can hear the distance.
Unlike MW signals, Shortwave radio also will 'bounce' off the ionosphere during the daylight hours, depending on the frequency. In other words, the radio waves hit the ionosphere and bounce back to earth maybe 1000 - 2000 miles away or more, even during the daytime. And sometimes the signals will bounce their way to the opposite side of the Earth. The higher parts of the Shortwave band work better during the daytime, and the lower parts of the Shortwave band work better at night (like MW does).
Two Radio Shack, Realistic brand radios that were fairly inexpensive and could bring in the world. In this pic, both radios are tuned to Radio Rebelde, a music station from Cuba, that is still on the air and easy to hear in most of the US. With the bottom radio, I was able to hear Tunisia and Turkey regularly in the 1990s.For years, Shortwave radio was one of the only ways Americans could hear new, music, and foreign language broadcasts from other parts of the world. In fact, you could say that until streaming became popular on the internet, Shortwave radio was indeed the ONLY way someone in the US could hear anything Russian, European, Asian, South American or African -- and Shortwave radio was the only way an Eastern European person, Asian person, African person, Middle Eastern person, Australasian or South American person could hear a broadcast from the US and Canada.
For many GenX'ers and Boomers here in the US, Shortwave was their introduction to hearing foreign languages spoken, and musics from distant cultures.
THE COLD WAR: SHORTWAVE'S HEYDAY
Now, when my father gave me that first, big old tube AM-SW radio, it was when the Cold War was still raging, and the Shortwave Radio band was hopping with signals. There were numerous stations on the Shortwave band nearly any time of the day. Many of those stations were International broadcasters, sending out news, information, and even propaganda to the rest of the world, thanks to Cold War politics.
And just with the two to three meters of wire which were stapled to the inside of the back of the cabinet of that big, tube Silvertone radio I could hear Radio Moscow, the Voice of Vietnam (relayed through Cuba), Radio Havana, the Voice of America, the BBC, AFRTS (the radio service for the overseas US Forces), HCJB (a Christian broadcaster in Ecuador), Radio RSA (apartheid-era South Africa's external service broadcasting from Johannesburg), Radio Nederland (from Bonaire in the Caribbean), Deutsche Welle, Radio Canada International, and numerous other stations broadcasting in Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, and other languages.
And don't forget WWV: the US time-stamp station, its tik-tik-tik-tik sound always broadcasting day and night on different frequencies.
For a child it was a wonderworld of sounds. Not only did I hear foreign languages and foreign music, I also could hear strange bubbly noises (RTTY), the dots and dashes of Morse Code, and weird sounds of LORAN and other utility services, which an amplitude modulated radio couldn't decode, but could still pick up.
A Penncrest brand AM-FM-SW Multiband transistor radio, Model 1993. In the 1960s and 1970s, analog tuned radios like this one were popular to take camping, out in the yard, or just to listen in the house. On a radio like this, stronger SW stations could be heard with the whip antenna, but with an outdoor wire antenna, one could hear the world. With this radio, I heard Australia, Japan, South America and South Africa, just with 60 feet (20 meters) of wire strung between my windowsill and a tree in our back yard. The bit of thin, black wire plugged into the left side of the radio is the antenna that came with the radio, which I attached to the outdoor antenna with a long piece of speaker wire.
SIXTY FEET OF WIRE BROUGHT IN THE WORLD
After using the big old tube radio, I got a Penncrest transistor AM-FM-SW radio for Christmas one year. It had similar reception to that of the older tube radio. And after reading about antennas in a radio and electronics magazine, I bought some antenna wire and insulators from the local Radio Shack store and put up a 60 foot (20 meter) antenna, stringing it between our house and a nearby locust tree, and I began to hear more countries. This is when I first heard Radio Australia (5995 khz), Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Singapore (both the BBC and SBS) and Japan (FEN Radio 810, relayed on 6005 khz. I think -- as well as NHK and Radio Tanpa).
I also heard Russian stations all over the lower part of the SW band -- Radio Mayak and Radiostansiya Rodina -- which were SW broadcasts aimed at Russian mariners and shipmen in the Pacific. These stations were located in Kamchatka, in Petropavlovsk and Magadan. I can still remember hearing their signals, with the (mostly female) announcers announcing the time (Moscow time), and I remember the dramatic sounding music they played. At the time I did not know who these stations were. Later on, in the 1990s and 2000s, I listened to them a lot because they were slowly shutting down -- the last one to shut down was the Magadan station in the 41 meter band.
With that Penncrest radio I also heard some Christian religious broadcast stations that aimed their transmissions into Asia. One station in particular, KNLS, Anchor Point, Alaska, broadcasted in Russian most evenings and mornings. I recorded some of it and put some of it into a song I also recorded several years later (Highway To The Sun).
Highway To The Sun can be heard here:
ChrisCampbellRock | Chris Campbell Rock | Free Listening on SoundCloud
A couple Christmases after getting my Penncrest radio I got my first communications receiver (a high performance SW radio with sideband receiving capability), and heard 'tropical' SW stations from Venezuela, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Brazil. A few years after that I saved up my money and got a Yaesu FRG-7 (my uncle, a ship's radioman, suggested I get one), and I heard more stations, including Radiobras from Brazil, RTM Malaysia broadcasting from Kuala Lumpur, and also another RTM Malaysia station broadcasting from Kuching, in Sarawak (on the island of Borneo -- that station played pop music during the early mornings here). I also heard Africa Number 1, a station out of Gabon that played Highlife and other music.
A pic of my Yaesu FRG-7, which still works. This pic was taken when I was cleaning the insides of dust, as it had been in storage for 10 years. In the early 2010's, I listened to MW on this radio, but in earlier years I tuned the SW Broadcast bands and SW ham bands with it frequently.
In the 1990s after getting a couple Radio Shack SW radios I listened to Radio Turkey for several hours every evening, broadcasting in Turkish, with lots of great Turkish music. Through hearing Radio Turkey, I learned about instruments like the saz and cumbus saz.
During the afternoons Greece would broadcast in Greek to the US, as there were many Greek immigrants in the NE US. It was my introduction to hearing the Greek language. During afternoons and evenings Radio France International broadcast in French to Africa for hours at a time. I can still recall their bumper music, which was a dramatic sounding piece that was all synthesizer.
At this time I also discovered amateur radio -- a hobby I've never joined, but I've always listened to 'ham radio' guys on my radios. I've heard hams from Qatar, Franz Josef Land, the South Pole, Borneo and Sarawak, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Spain, and even "Santa Claus" talking on his ham radio from Northern Finland!
A Realistic DX-440 AM-FM-SW digitally tuned radio that I bought in 1989. Radios like this became popular with those who wanted to hear the world when there was no internet, just computer BBS's. With this radio I could hear Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia (including Malaysia and Singapore), India, the Middle East, Southern and Western Africa, and South America (including Brazil and Venezuela). Using headphones, even Shortwave radio stations had a full, rich sound.
A 100 FOOT ANTENNA and a REALISTIC DX-440Over the years I added to my collection of SW and MW radios: a Realistic DX-440 I got in August of 1989, a Realistic DX-390 I got in 1995, a Realistic DX-398 I got in 1998, and a Panasonic RF-B45 I got in 1996 (I heard the BBC broadcasting Princess Diana's funeral live in September 1997, including Elton John's first performance of the new version of Candle In The Wind), and several other smaller radios.
In the Winter of 2002-2003 I got back into SW listening after a several year break, and this time, I had a 100 foot wire (30 meter antenna). Using my DX-440 mostly, because it had such a great sound through the headphones, I heard Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Singapore, Korea, and even heard a regional AIR India station broadcasting tribal chants from their station in Chennai -- which is on the other side of the world from us here in Seattle. I heard Bayern Rundfunk (from Germany) playing 1980s pop music -- this was a few months before they went off the SW band. I heard strange chanting just below the 40 meter ham band (Borneo 'village radio').
I began to log my SW catches online, on a "Short Wave Logbook" that still exists, here:
Daily LogBook 2014 (dxworld.com)
Here are links to the pages of the Shortwave Logbook that will show what we all were hearing in the Winter of 2002-2003, including many of my own SW catches:
December 2002 LogBook (tripod.com)
2003 LogBook (dxworld.com)
IT'S THE END OF AN ERA; and AN END OF A VALUABLE MEDIUM
Shortwave radio has always been a part of my life. Now, it hasn't been as much of a hobby as Medium Wave DXing or Medium Wave listening, but Shortwave listening has always been there -- for years it has been the hobby that never completely goes away.
Sadly enough, I can't say that anymore.
Shortwave radio -- a viable broadcast medium that has been used by hobbyists and governments for 80 years -- is dying. And it may be gone by the end of this decade.
Think about it: the broadcast medium used by all of the major powers during World War Two and the Cold War, and used to reach Third World nations with news and information, and used by Third World nations to educate and entertain Americans and Europeans about their countries and cultures, is about to die out completely.
Millions of people around the world won't know, or even care. It's unfortunate, because Shortwave radio had a definite cultural impact and importance, especially during World War Two and the Cold War years. This cultural impact was felt in Third World countries and Iron Curtain countries much more than it was felt here in the U.S. and Canada. While people in the US, USSR, and Europe had MW and FM radio to rely on for information, many people in parts of Asia, Africa and rural Central and South America relied on Shortwave radios to get reliable news from international broadcasters like the BBC and Deutsche Welle -- either because they didn't have reliable local radio, or they didn't trust their local news agencies.
The Voice of America's Jazz program was extremely popular in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold War years. It was one non-political thing that broadcast to our adversaries at that time that we all have something in common: a love for music. Cultural impacts like that are priceless.
Even though Radio Moscow was considered a propaganda medium by many Americans, Vladimir Pozner and Joe Adamov (big name Radio Moscow commentators) often got away from politics when giving their commentaries. They often told stories, anecdotes, and talked about the culture and character of the Russian, Ukrainian, and other former Soviet Union peoples. Although no one knows how many Americans were listening, I think it gave me a better understanding of the people in the Soviet Union at that time, and I think that the programming I heard was valuable for the cultural benefit alone.
I couldn't have gotten that insight any other way.
IT'S THE INTERNET
Radio in general is starting to fade in importance as a broadcast medium, and for that we can all 'thank' the internet. The internet has a lot of pluses -- one of them being that I can write this blog, and it will be read by readers from all over the world. Roughly half my readers are overseas.
The negatives? The older media -- newspapers, magazines, and radio -- begin to die off and fade away. And that is what we radio hobbyists are now seeing with the demise of Shortwave broadcasting: an old friend is fading into the static.
During the 1990's and 2000's, when SW was still going strong, there was talk in the SWL community of the end of Shortwave. At the time, people were blindsided when the BBC decided, in 2008, to shut down its SW broadcasts to North America (from Antigua) and to Australia. Radio Nederland took over the BBC's frequencies and promised to continue in the BBC's place, but a few years later Radio Nederland also went off the air -- and completely. Then Radio Canada Int'l went off the air, and tore out their antenna system.
By the early and mid 2000's, the international broadcasters that blanketed the world during the Cold War were mostly gone -- the few remaining broadcasts were aimed at Africa and parts of Asia that the big guns -- BBC, VOA, Deutsche Welle, and China -- still wanted to reach with their message.
My own interest in the Shortwave hobby took a dive in the mid 2000's -- my 100 foot antenna (and a CB antenna I used to talk to the southern US, California, and Mexico) blew down in a windstorm. For a while I just lost interest.
Then, in 2011, I put up a decent indoor antenna, and I cleaned up my radios and fired them up. Soon, every afternoon, morning, and evening I'd turn on my DX-398 and tune around. It was during this time that I began to see that SW was losing its importance as a medium -- it was losing out in many parts of the world because of FM stations being more commonplace -- even in Third World countries FM was replacing SW for foreign news and information, and they naturally listened to their home broadcasts on FM networks.
The Radio Shack / Realistic 200629, Radio Shack's version of the Sangean ATS-505 AM-FM-SW radio, which is still available online. The radio has a portable antenna plugged into the left side, where the external antenna jack is. I've heard parts of Asia and South America with this radio, just with a 10 meter indoor wire antenna (about 25-30 feet long). I bought this at Radio Shack in 2013, just before Radio Shack stores began closing.Even so, there was still plenty to hear on SW during the early 2010's: I heard Radio Amazonia every evening. I heard CVC Voz Cristiana de Chile (a religious broadcaster) many afternoons. On Saturdays they would play the Spanish Christian top hits, and they had comedy shows. Although I couldn't understand most of it (I do not know a lot of Spanish), it was still fun to hear. Radio Espana del Exterior was on every afternoon on 15110 khz with great music and announcers speaking Castilian Spanish. I was also hearing ham radio signals from everywhere.
Early mornings, when it was still dark out, I heard SW broadcasters from Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Korea and China; I heard mysterious single letter, Morse Code beacons from Russia in the 40 meter ham band; I also heard the famous Borneo, 'village radio' chanters on 6999 khz and even higher up in the 40 meter ham band -- numerous radio operators all chanting into their microphones while another operator recorded them, and then played it back over the air so the rest could hear who had the loudest signal. Some hams claim that these chanters are using unlicensed ham radios. Many of them seem to be in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo.
I also heard Malaysian and Indonesian ham operators talking to each other on the 40 meter ham band. Although they often spoke in Indonesian and Malay, it was interesting to hear the language. During the evenings I listened to the Voice of Greece on 9420 khz -- they'd play some of the saddest sounding love ballads sung by sweet and sultry voiced female singers. There were slow CW (Morse Code) nets on various ham bands I listened to. On 'sideband' CB I could hear hundreds of operators talking in Spanish, chatting with each other in places like Costa Rica, southern and northern Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama, Peru, Venezuela, and even Brazil. "Hola Once! Hola Once! Hola Once!" they would often say into their mics in Spanish, looking for others to talk to ('Hola Once' is 'Hello Eleven' in Spanish -- 'Eleven' meaning 11 meters, the CB band).
One afternoon I heard a woman from Colombia or Venezuela talking to a guy from Brazil in broken Spanish, on sideband CB -- on the channels above the 'official' CB band, where a lot of CBers go when they want to 'DX' and talk to the rest of the world.
There was a lot going on.
The Grundig G2, a discontinued AM-FM-SW radio mini-boombox with recording ability and built-in memory, and a mini-SD card slot. A DSP-chip radio, the G2 is excellent on Shortwave off the whip, and also excellent on FM. On the MW/AM band it is very good -- about the same as your average Walkman-style headset radio -- but if you want to DX with a G2 you'll probably need an external loop antenna to get better results. On SW, you can attach a short wire (10-20 ft. / 3-6 meters) to the whip antenna and bring in more signals if needed. The G2 has a rechargeable battery, which is charged via USB cable. You can get a couple weeks or so off the battery between charges, if you're using the G2 an hour or so a night.
The 2010s -- THE LAST BIG GASP FOR FULL SHORTWAVE BROADCAST BANDS
Even later in the 2010's there was still plenty to hear.
In 2014 I got a Grundig G2 digital AM-FM-SW radio, which has 50 memories for SW. When I first switched it on, I was hearing all sorts of SW stations. The radio itself was awesome on SW. There was virtually no interference from nearby stations -- if you tuned to a weak station next to a strong one, you could hear the weak station easily. It sounded good through headphones. I began listening to it every night and early morning.
I soon had all 50 SW memories filled with various stations within a couple weeks. I was hearing Brazil, Greece, the BBC (from Ascension Island and Singapore) and Radio New Zealand. I heard Radio Australia on 9580 every night and morning. I heard China broadcasting to Europe from Kashgar, a somewhat remote area in Xinjiang Province. I heard AIR India, broadcasting to Afghanistan in Dari and Pushto. I heard Vatican Radio. The G2 was a Godsend -- I didn't need an antenna, it was picking up tons of stations just off its whip antenna. Early mornings the 49 meter SW band and 41 meter SW band were both packed with Asian stations. I maxed out all my memories.
Then, some time in late 2016, the sunspots began to dive. Slowly, over the next five years, there were many, many nights I would turn on my G2, scroll through all 50 memories, and hear nothing but static.
No more India, no more Kashgar, no more Amazonia, no more BBC from Singapore, and no more Vatican radio, and no more Australia -- as Radio Australia was shut down. No more Spanish speaking CBers on the 'sideband' CB frequencies. No more chanters from Borneo on the lower fringes of the 40 meter ham band.
During this same time, some other stations were reportedly having monetary troubles, and some left the air. The Canadian broadcaster the CBC used to have SW relays on 6160 khz, including one in British Columbia I used to hear daily. The transmitter had a fire and they just shut the station down.
From 2016 until recently, there were nights I'd turn on my SW radio and hear absolutely nothing but one or two stations at best, usually Cuba and US religious stations, and sometimes they sounded weak and grainy. On top of that, the ham bands were mostly dead. Some Shortwave Listeners (also known as SWL's) south of me in California and the Southern US were still hearing stuff, but I was hearing mostly static.
Now the sunspots are coming back. But even though the sunspots may be coming back, the SW bands still seem dead, especially when compared to the early 2010's, and 2000's.
What do sunspots have to do with anything, you might ask. Good question.
A NOAA chart of the last two Sunspot 'cycles', with the years on the bottom of the graph. To the left side of the graph, you can see the peak of the Solar cycle that happened 2000-2002, where there were the most sunspots. At that time, I was able to hear Germany, Russia, and then later on I would hear some Chinese regional SW stations, with Indian SW stations behind them, during early mornings. The sunspots then dipped -- and solar activity dropped -- between 2006-2010. Solar activity began to climb again after 2011, when I began to get back into my radio hobby. As you can see from the chart, the solar activity peaked roughly between 2012-2015, when I was still able to hear a lot of SW stations, and MW long distance listening was excellent. Then the solar activity dived after 2016. We are about to see more solar activity soon, which should peak again in 4-5 years. (Graph courtesy of NOAA)
THE ALMIGHTY SUNSPOTS, AND THE INTERNET
Shortwave broadcasting, and to a certain extent, long distance Medium Wave broadcasting, depends on sunspots to work well. When the sun has a lot of sunspots, solar radiation affects the ionosphere a lot more than when there are few sunspots. Consequently, when there are no sunspots -- like we saw for about three or four years recently -- the Shortwave band doesn't work so well, especially if you are in far Northern and far Southern latitudes. The sunspot cycle is consequently pretty important to SWLs and ham radio guys. When there are no sunspots, many nights you just as well may turn your radio off.
During this low sunspot period since 2016, radio itself has been feeling the pinch. AM and FM station revenues went down almost 50% from 2005. At the same time, MW and FM radio in the US began to lose audience to internet streaming.
However, internet streaming has affected SW listening, too. In parts of the world (Asia and Africa) that used to have high concentrations of SW listeners, internet radio and FM has taken SW's place. Consequently, the operators of big SW stations are slowly cutting back on broadcasts even to those areas.
Now we are seeing more sunspots. But the big question is this: will that really make a difference?
SO, GET 'EM WHILE YOU CAN
NOAA, the US governmental agency that reports on weather and solar activity, says we have enough new sunspots that we are now officially in a new sunspot cycle. This should be good news for SW and MW radio enthusiasts, as it means that the conditions necessary for good long distance reception are improving.
This is a NOAA / NASA graph predicting the next Solar 'cycle'. The red lines on the right side of the chart are predictions of how much solar activity there may be, and what years it will be the highest, which appear to be late 2023-2026 or so -- two to five years away. Hopefully, there will still be a lot to hear on the SW bands when that Solar activity peaks.However, at the same time SW stations are leaving the air. They are seeing less listeners, as people use the internet and FM radio in most of the world to listen to news and music. So, if a SW station's equipment breaks down, or their antenna system breaks, it's expensive to fix or replace, and with less and less listeners a lot of stations don't bother getting the facilities fixed: they just shut down the station.
It's a sad fact for many of us who like to tune around and see what we can hear coming into our radios from the other side of the World.
This is why I say to my fellow SWL's: Get Them While You Can.
We don't know how good this next sunspot cycle will be, but we do know that the trend for SW broadcasting isn't looking good. The sunspots will give us a better ionosphere. But stations may start leaving the air, even though the ionosphere is more cooperative.
It's obvious that there are still millions who listen to Shortwave in various parts of the world, if only to receive news and information from outside their country. Some listen to SW because it's the only way they can get religious or other programming they can't get otherwise. But Shortwave's days are drawing to a close, and I have sincere doubts there will be much to hear on the SW Broadcast bands when 2031 hits. But before then, there will probably still be a lot remaining to hear.
To understand just how few stations there are on the Shortwave bands, compared to the 1990s and 2000s, think of this: The DX-398 radio (pictured above), which I bought in 1998, has over 200 SW memory locations (where you could store frequencies), including many "pages" where you could store the stations' frequencies by category -- I had pages devoted to Asia, Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, India, etc. Using a couple buttons, I could label each 'page', and then when listening to the radio, I'd scroll to that 'page' and go through the memories, to see if any stations from that part of the World were on the air.
Today all of those memories I programmed into the DX-398 over the years are TOTALLY USELESS.
There's nothing there.
I can't emphasize enough: If you are a SW aficionado, and maybe your antenna blew down (like my 100 foot antenna did), or you had a radio and shoved it away somewhere during the low sunspots, get your antenna back up, and clean up the radios and turn them on!
Because soon enough -- maybe in just five years -- there may not be anything to hear with them but static.
We don't know how good the ionosphere will be, or how many stations will stay on the air, or how long they will keep operating. I recently downloaded a frequency list from EiBi, an SW website based in Germany. According to EiBi, there are still hundreds of frequencies with stations on them, and something to listen to -- if the ionosphere cooperates. That list may diminish, but it probably won't diminish quickly. If the ionosphere cooperates, we may still have a lot to hear over the next 5-10 years, depending on world events, and the world economy.
By the way, here is EiBi's web link. The lists are text files. You can even scroll over them using a tablet computer or phone, using a web browser. I use the frequency list. It's a long list.
www.eibispace.de
Another useful site is Short-wave.info. Here is their link.:
Short-Wave Radio Frequency Schedule for BBC in ENGLISH
Short-wave.info is a user friendly site, complete with an active world map, and pull down menus to help you find stations to hear on the SW bands. It not only shows the locations of the SW stations' transmitter sites on the world map, it also lists their beam azimuths -- which direction they are broadcasting, which can help ID an unknown station.
THE OLD TECH IS STARTING TO DISAPPEAR -- IS THAT A GOOD THING?
Some people, including many people who work in the radio business, think that Shortwave is a useless medium. They always bring up the horse and buggy. "We no longer need horse wagons," they say. "It's the same with Shortwave radio."
They have a point. But then, you could say the same about a lot of things.
Some day, there will be no brick and mortar stores -- everything will be purchased online and delivered by drone. That may be a more efficient way to shop, and perhaps it will save energy. But is it really a great idea to never interact with another person directly like you do now when you shop at a store?
Some day, there will be no more need for automobiles in the US. Everyone will share them, and they will all be electric, and you'll just order one on your smartphone and it will show up and it will be self-driving, and it will automatically dock your bank account for the rental time. This may be great for the environment, but is it really a great thing to lose that much independence, that one has if they have their own car available?
Some day, there will be no cash. Many say that's fine, we don't need it anymore. But cash purchases can't be tracked, hacked, or switched off at the bank -- so that form of independence may be lost. It's a trade-off, obviously, but it's something that many should be thinking about when discarding the older ways of doing things for the new.
Some day, there will be no AM and FM radio, or any cable TV -- it will all be various streams of information and entertainment on your smartphone or tablet. On the outset, this may be a great idea. But on the other hand, having mass media networks and radio stations brings people together. When I was a kid, everyone knew what was on TV last night. Everyone talked about it. Now, everyone is watching something completely different, and there is less in common to talk about. People have less and less in common anymore, and the splitting of mass media into little clusters is part of the problem.
Is that a good thing? Maybe it is, but there is still something lost.
Of course, you can't stop progress, and maybe no one should. But there is still value in the older technology, it has served humanity for millenia in some cases (riding horses) and a hundred years in other cases (radio, for example).
Either way, when the last Shortwave station goes off the airwaves, I won't be celebrating. It will be a sad time. Even if its inevitable, it will be the closing of an era.
The past four years have been a taste of a SW band with no stations. Since the Fall of 2016, SW conditions have been abysmal. There have been times I have tuned across the most popular SW bands and heard nothing but static. At the time, it was just because atmospheric conditions were bad -- low sunspots. According to EiBi and other SW frequency sites, there were still SW broadcasts taking place -- it's just that conditions were so bad, the signals weren't strong enough to reach my part of the world.
Some day, that absence of SW signals will be permanent. There will be indeed nothing but static to hear on the SW bands, and it will stay that way.
For those of you who grew up with the internet, think about it: some websites you used to enjoy are now gone forever. I know of some websites I used to go to that no longer exist. Excite.com had personals I used from time to time. Yahoo EGroups was a place I used to hang out. Napster and MP3.com had indie music. There were two rock band forums I used to hang out at around 2001. Those websites and forums are now gone forever. Maybe you're lucky and you can find what's left of them on the Wayback Machine. But as we all know, many sites on the Wayback Machine only give you bits and pieces, with lots of missing chunks.
And a lot of those lost websites were a big thing just 15 or 20 years ago.
That's what SW radio will soon be like -- except there is no Wayback Machine for SW, except maybe a few sound files on the internet.
So, if you are a radio aficionado like me, and you grew up on Shortwave -- GET 'EM WHILE YOU CAN.
IN OTHER THINGS...
Lately our weather here has been more Spring-like. Night time temperatures are around 50F (8-10C) and during the day we have been seeing more sunshine. At night the frogs have started croaking -- they're about a month late. They usually start croaking and chirruping by the end of March, and this year it was the last week of April that when I took my night-time bike ride I heard all the frogs in the ponds.
My work has slowed, and fiction writing time has picked up. Life has carried on as per usual. I still listen to the AM band nightly while writing or doing tasks around the house, and I also tune the Shortwave band about once every other night or morning, and the results vary from grainy static and a few stations here or there. It's one of the reasons I decided to post this article about Shortwave, and my long history with it. I really think the next few years will be the last blast for the shortwave communications medium.
There are radio companies like Sangean and Tecsun coming out with new radios -- receivers that do stuff that guys in the 1970s and 80s would dream about -- but there is unfortunately less to hear. For those of you that are fortunate to get those new radios -- make sure you use them. After 2030 there may be nothing to hear on them.
The Panasonic RF-B45, the last Japanese-made Panasonic SW radio. This radio is probably the best MW/AM radio I've got, and with an external loop it's virtually matchless. On SW it does well off the whip antenna, but is much better when using an external wire -- even the 15 footer that comes with the radio is a great help. FM is in mono, as is the headphone socket. If you're using stereo headphones (and who isn't?), you need a stereo-to-mono adapter.
I will close this article with a pic of my Panasonic RF-B45 AM-FM-SW radio. This is one of my favorite radios to use. I bought this one when the Electronics Universe store in Auburn, WA, was closing down. The radio was missing its battery door, so I used duct tape instead.
It's excellent on MW / AM -- in fact, it's probably the best AM radio I have. I still remember hearing Princess Diana's funeral on this radio in 1997, when the BBC broadcast it from Antigua during the late morning. At the time I was at my mother's place, recuperating from nasal surgery. I was lying in bed, listening to the radio on headphones, the 15 foot wire antenna plugged in to the radio and strewn out across the bed. It was a sunny day outside the window, but the funeral was a sad occurrence. And I was hearing it live from England.
I still use this radio most evenings, as it's the best radio I have for MW nighttime distance listening. It has very good sensitivity and is selective enough to separate weak stations from a stronger station nearby. It's also the last Panasonic SW radio that was made in Japan. Panasonic's next model was made in China.
So, until next time, dear readers, I hope you all are doing well, staying safe, and let's hope that before the year is through this pandemic will be consigned to history. The World needs to be able to move on to newer and better things.
And, of course, everyone needs a cat picture. :-) This is an old pic of my cat Scooter, who was a great companion. A mischief-maker, she was lost to kidney disease about a year after the pic was taken. She used to wait for me to get home from work, always looking for me.
Peace to everyone.
C.C. May 17th, 2021
