Wa8pyr

Now this happens to be an area in which I have a fair amount ofexperience. I’ve been listening to shortwave for almost 30 years. Ihelp produce a monthly magazine on the topic, serve as a member of theboard of directors of the largest shortwave radio club in the Americas,and am webmaster of a popular and well-regarded site for that club.I think that in an earlier entry in the series, the Professor brieflymentioned how some people have elaborate setups with long antennas andexpensive radios and such.

I am one of those people.

So I figured that maybe the audience that eats this stuff up atBeware the Blog might be interested in what you can hear with anoutdoor antenna specifically constructed to be good at receivingshortwave and a top-notch radio. On June 28, between 1855 and 2013 UTC(2:55 and 4:13 pm), I tuned through the 25 meter band, extending from11500 to 12200 kHz, recording as I tuned. My shack is down the shore inMonmouth county, about 30 miles south of WFMU’s Jersey City location.I’m about 5 miles from the ocean and maybe 2 or 3 miles from the bay. Ihave a couple of external antennas, one long piece of wire about 300feet long, and another about 100 feet long in a configuration called a T2FD. My main receiver is an AOR AR-7030 Plus,a tabletop communications receiver designed by the genius Englishengineer John Thorpe. AOR offers an optional noise blanker and notchfilter, and I had those installed when I bought the radio. When I sentthe radio back to the U.K. for servicing a couple of years ago, I alsohad AOR retrofit the radio with the ability to receive digitalshortwave broadcasts. the radio is basically all tricked out.

One thing you’ll notice as you listen is that most of these stationsare the same international broadcasters you can hear with a portablereceiver. There’s often a conception out there that one of theseexpensive tabletop receivers are required to hear oddball weakstations. but the truth is that what these radios and the antennasassociated with them really get you is better reception of the stationsyou can already hear for the most part, and the ability to "clean up" amessy signal to some degree. You can hear almost anything on a portablethat I can hear on my radio. You probably won’t hear it as well, andnot as often. but when the conditions are right, you can do amazingthings with a portable receiver. the reason to get a tabletopcommunications receiver is to do those amazing things even when theconditions are just shy of right.

If you’ve listened to any of the Professor’s recordings, you’llnotice one thing different about these recordings: as I approach astation, you will hear a descending tone. the reason for this is thatwhen I scan a band, I typically do so in sideband mode rather than AMmode. An AM signal consists of a carrier and two sidebands. Thesidebands carry the audio information, and they are mirror images ofeach other. Someone realized many years ago that this meant that one ofthe sidebands was redundant, and that it was possible to transmitrecoverable audio by transmitting only one sideband and no carrier.Radios that can tune sideband transmissions have the capability ofgenerating their own carrier to replace the missing one on the signal.so how does this explain the descending tone? When I tune across an AMsignal in sideband mode, the carrier of the AM signal and the carriergenerated by the radio generate what’s called a heterodyne; basically,the tone that you hear is defined by how far apart the two carriersare. a radio-generated carrier that’s 800 hertz away from the carrierof the AM signal the radio is receiving generates an 800 hertz tone. Asthe tuner approaches the carrier, this tone drops in frequency.Ideally, with a radio with sufficient resolution, you can place theradio-generated carrier right on top of the signal’s carrier. This isuseful for a couple of reasons: first, on a weak, fading signal, theradio-generated carrier is likely to be far more stable, allowing thereceiver to decode the sidebands without the fading one associates withshortwave. Second, when you’ve placed the radio-generated carrier righton top of the signal’s carrier, whatever frequency the radio shows isthe station’s frequency. It’s surprising how often they’re a little bitoff the frequency they’re supposed to be on. in some cases, withstations that are known to be off frequency all the time, this can evenhelp you identify the station. the tone that’s generated by thecarriers when they’re separated is called a "beat", so when you’vesuccessfully placed the two carriers together, that’s called "zero beat".Not all stations that generate a heterodyne have recoverable audio. Sotuning in this manner is a good way to find even weak stations(although I wouldn’t log a station simply based on hearing itsheterodyne; that’s considered bad form).

There are radios out there that do this heterodyne hunting automatically. This feature is called "synchronous detection",and what happens is that the radio finds the carrier, locks on to it,and substitutes its own carrier automatically. You would think thiswould be something you would find only on expensive tabletop radios,but the two best synchronous detectors produced in a non-military radioare on portable receivers, the classic Sony ICF-2010 (now discontinued, but produced for 20 years, a testament to its high quality) and the brand new etón E1XM.  the synchronous detector on my 2010 is far better than the one on my early Drake R8,and probably even a little better than on my AOR AR-7030 Plus. Theseradios are definitely at the high end of the spectrum of portables, butyou can get a radio with an excellent synchronous detector for muchless; the Sony ICF-7600GRtypically costs less than $150 and has pretty much the same circuitthat much more expensive ICF-2010 had. with synchronous detection, youcan reduce the fading that can make shortwave difficult to listen to,and in most implementations, you can select one or the other sidebandto listen to. That’s very useful; if there’s a strong station 5 or 10kilohertz above a station you’re trying to hear, tuning to the oppositesideband can make a signal that’s being interfered with perfectlylistenable. That’s one reason I tune in sideband mode, but theseportable receivers make it easy to do that at a fraction of the cost.

The 25 meter band presented here is a transitional band; at times oflow sunspot numbers, like now, it is mostly a daytime band; at times ofhigh sunspot numbers, as we’ll probably see in about four or fiveyears, it’s useful at night as well. At this hour of the day, the bandis open to quite a bit of the world, including Europe, Africa, andparts of Asia. a few hours later, shortly before sunset at yourlocation, European stations would likely be inaudible, but more Asianstations would be available. This is prime listening hours in Europeand Africa, so many of the broadcasts recorded here are directed there,and merely overheard here in North America. That’s one of the neatestthings about listening to shortwave is this ability to eavesdrop on theworld. One other nice thing about this reception is a relative lack ofU.S. religious and fringe political broadcasts. Personally, I’m not afan of those broadcasts, and tend to tune right by. There are a coupleof instances of them in these recordings, but they’re far outweighed bynational and even local broadcasters.

Segment 1 – 25 meter band 06-28-2006 (download MP3)

11605 – Deutsche Welle

This sounds like it might be Arabic via their transmitters inWertachtel. One thing that’s interesting about listening to broadcastsin languages you don’t understand is that, once you’ve listened to anumber of broadcasts, you can often figure out what kind of program isbeing aired. This is toward the end of the hour, and there areaddresses in a number of countries being given. the largestinternational broadcasters often open postal addresses in othercountries so that their listeners in that country can write themwithout having to pay for anything more than domestic postage. There’sa brief stinger after the addresses that gives the identity of thisstation away; this brief piece of music is used in all their languageservices.

11620 – All India Radio

News from India in English via transmitters in Aligarh. and tuned injust in time to get the ID at the top of the hour! Shortwave is full ofbroadcasts like this, offering a different perspective on the news thanwe usually get in the U.S.

11630 – Golos Rossii

Russia’s external service in Russian via Moscow. the news ends, thenthere’s an ID for "Radio Compania Golos Rossii", just like what weheard a few seconds earlier from All India Radio. Radio is radio. Oneof the nice things about my tabletop receiver is that I can play withthe sound, trying to get better reception by switching which sideband Ilisten to or engaging different filters. You can hear some of that here.

11650 – China Radio International (maybe)

Too weak to really tell.

11655 – Radio Netherlands

English via transmitters at Flevoland. Radio Netherlands is astation that definitely punches above its weight in internationalbroadcasting. the people who make the programs there have a visceralunderstanding of what it means to make interesting radio of a certainsort. As a result, their programs often win awards at festivals likethe International Radio Festivalin New York each year. One other interesting aspect of their broadcastsis that they don’t flinch from covering the darker side of life. so,for example, you get this program about alcoholism, something youwouldn’t expect to hear from most international broadcasters.

Radio Netherlands’ programs compare favorably to those of the BBC,from a station in a country that doesn’t speak English as their firstlanguage and made with a tiny fraction of the budget. they do it bydeploying their limited resources carefully, by hiring excellentpeople, and by being clever. for example, when the BBC World Service shut down its shortwave broadcasts to North Americaa few years ago, Radio Netherlands seized the opportunity and bought upmany of the now-silent transmitter hours for a few weeks so that whenpeople tuned in expecting to hear the BBC, they would hear someexcellent programming in English, but from Radio Netherlands. Theycouldn’t afford to buy most of the time permanently (although NorthAmerica did gain a morning broadcast from them that wasn’t there beforeas a result), but they gained some listeners and some goodwill from theBBC’s now abandoned listeners.

11655 – Voice of the Arabs (Egypt)

Arabic music via Abu Za’bal. This is pretty faint, but you can hearthe music, slightly distorted because I was tuning in SSB and didn’thave a perfect zero beat here. There are a number of stations thatbroadcast hours and hours of Arabic music, many of which come in muchmore strongly than this.

11680 – BBC World Service

Arabic broadcast from the BBC via their transmitters in Rampisham.whatever they’re talking about, it has something to do with Israel.

11690 – Deutsche Welle

Arabic from DW via Wertachtel, Germany.

11695 – China Radio International

French transmission via a relay in Cerrik, Albania. CRI is really anup-and-comer in international shortwave broadcasting. At a time whenthe BBC and Deutsche Welle are abandoning large patches of the globeand the VOA is cutting its English broadcasts in favor of focusing onsurrogate home services in Arabic, Farsi, and other language, CRI isexpanding its broadcasts. It’s investing in relay stations to ensurethat they’re widely heard everywhere. and it has seriously upgraded thequality of its programming. This is not your father’s Radio Beijing.

11705 – Radio France International

If Radio Netherlands punches above its weight, RFI has long punchedbelow its weight. Much like its insistence that French is the languageof diplomacy long after English has usurped its former position there,so French is the language of international broadcasting. they focuslargely on former colonies, so perhaps there’s a justification fortheir approach. they have an hour or two per day to Asia and maybe abit more to Africa in English, and most of the rest of their broadcastsare in French. They’re well respected, particularly for their reportingin Africa, but within Anglophone communities perhaps not as visible asthey could be.

Segment 2 – 25 meter band 06-28-2006 (download MP3)

11735 – Radio Tanzania Zanzibar

This station is a great example of a station that’s worth listeningto despite having no clue what the presenters are saying. mostly, theybroadcast music, and it’s beguiling. Typically, there’s a fairsprinkling of the local taarab music, mixed with Arabic pop, Indianfilmi music, and African music, largely South African and Congolesestyle. I like the use this station as an example of how I switchbetween being a DXer and being a program listener. the first time Iheard this station, I was thrilled to add a new station and a newcountry to my log. the next 70 or 80 times I listened, it was because Iloved the music. I actually took to listening to this station mostafternoons while I worked for a while.

This particular reception is not the best representation of theirprogramming. the reception is a little weaker than usual, and this kindof unaccompanied Arabic singing is not what I usually hear. That said,I still enjoy listening to it. RTZ typically starts fading in aroundmid-afternoon; given that it’s summer and that this recording was madenot long after the longest day of the year, that fade in is fairlylate. in the winter, it’s much earlier. There’s a five minute newsbroadcast in English every weekday at 1800 UTC, relayed from theirlocal FM station aimed at tourists, Spice FM. That’s not so easy tohear at this time of year, but in the autumn and winter, it comes inquite clearly.

Given that, this station comes in much better an hour or so later.Check out this bonus reception of Radio Tanzania Zanzibar from 2017 totheir closing at 2100 UTC. RTZ is without question one of my favoritestations in the world.

11740 – Holy Koran (Saudi Arabia) mixing with Radio Farda

Many Arabic countries broadcast readings of the Koran. Saudi Arabiahas a station entirely devoted to it. While the readings sound quitemusical, it’s considered offensive to describe it as "music" or"singing". the Saudi station is mixing with Radio Farda, a U.S. stationaimed at Iran, broadcasting in Farsi and serving as a surrogatedomestic service in much the same way that Radio Free Europe and RadioLiberty did for Warsaw Pact countries and the Soviet Union during theCold War. Sadly, this is usually being done at the expense of the Voiceof America, which has a reputation for impartial news reporting andprobably does more good for America’s image abroad than all of thesesurrogate stations combined.

11755 – YLE Radio Finland

Finnish via Pori. This station recently decided to stop transmittingon shortwave, and in fact are already off the air. in lieu of this,they’re saying they can better reach their audience of expatriate Finnsvia satellite and the Internet. they used to broadcast in English aswell. several years ago, they had a wonderful English service thatbroadcast a half hour a day, with a number of releases throughout themorning that were easy to hear here in North America. Then they movedtheir broadcasts to the North American evenings and largely lost theiraudience. I had a conversation with the head of Radio Finland at the Winter SWL Festin Kulpsville, Pennsylvania, several years ago shortly after they madethis move, and told her why I thought this was a bad move. in theevenings, they were competing against the dozens of other broadcasterswho were trying to reach North America at the same time, and they kindof got lost in the noise. but their morning broadcasts, which coincidednicely with breakfast time across the continent, had littlecompetition. I don’t want to take credit for the move, but the nextseason they reinstated their morning broadcasts. Unfortunately, by thentheir audience had moved on, and it wasn’t much after that when theydiscontinued broadcasting in English. That was a shame; they hadexcellent programming that I enjoyed listening to.

11775 – Caribbean Beacon

The late Dr. Gene Scott® has been covered pretty extensively in TheProfessor’s musings, but I have to say that I particularly like thisclip where he talks about getting laid. This is a nice example of theGood Doctor’s more eccentric approach to evangelism.

11780 – Radio Nacional da Amazonia

Portuguese language domestic broadcast from the capital, Brasilia.This is a national service, aimed at areas in the Amazon and theinterior of Brazil that are not well served by AM and FM stations. Theyplay some interesting music, and, unlike international broadcasters,they include commercials. Latin America has a tradition much like NorthAmerica’s with small local commercial broadcasters dominating the sceneas opposed to monolithic national broadcasters like in the rest of theworld. Even a large national broadcaster like this one can sound like acommercial broadcaster. There are dozens of shortwave stations inBrazil, and this is one of the strongest and easiest to hear.

Segment 3 – 25 meter band 06-28-2006 (download MP3) 

11785 – Possibly Radio Free Asia via Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, or Chinese Jammer

The music here is clearly Chinese. Radio Free Asia, the U.S.’surrogate home service for China and a few other countries, is jammedby the Chinese using transmissions of traditional Chinese music. It’snot uncommon in this circumstance for propagation to favor the jammingstation and not the jammed station. so it’s probably the case here thatwe’re hearing the jammer, but not the jammed. That said, the fact thatI can hear the jammer more clearly here in the eastern U.S. is noindication that the same is true in China itself; often times whenpropagation is different at the transmitter site and the jammer site,the jammer will have little effect on the transmission it is attemptingto jam.

Most jamming is unpleasant to listen to, such as the dieselengine-like sounds used by the Cubans against Radio Marti. the Chinesejammers, on the other hand, aren’t half bad, and can be listened to fortheir program content. I wonder if the jammers QSL….

11795 – Deutsche Welle

German via Kigali, Rwanda. the largest shortwave stations, like theBBC, VOA, and Deutsche Welle, maintain numerous relay stations aroundthe world. This way, the signal doesn’t have to travel too far to reachits intended audience. This transmission is from Rwanda, and is one ofthe easiest ways to hear that country. It’s perhaps not as interestingas hearing Radio Rwanda though. Radio Rwanda is not an easy catch; itsbroadcast on 6055 kHz is usually covered by one European broadcaster oranother. There is a five minute window from 2055 to 2100 UTC afterRadio Slovakia signs off but before Rwanda signs off when Rwanda canoccasionally be heard. interestingly, that last five minutes of theirbroadcast every day is usually filled up with IDs in a number oflanguages, including French and English.

Arabic via Qasr al Kharana. At this hour, there will be a lot ofthis sort of unadorned vocalization, which is often broadcasts of theHoly Koran.

11820 – Holy Koran (Saudi Arabia)

This is the same station as on 11740, but this time not mixing withRadio Farda. This transmission is aimed at Arabs in Europe. America isin the same direction from Saudi Arabia (just a little further away),so this broadcast typically pounds in here.

Not sure who this is, but they’re in Arabic.

11850 – Voice of Turkey

French via Emirler. There’s an ID in French, "La Voix du Turkey",toward the end. the best source for IDs in languages you don’tunderstand is the World Radio TV Handbook.they typically print IDs in many or most of the languages anybroadcaster transmits in. so you don’t need to speak the language inorder to ID the station.

Hausa, the language of northern Nigeria, via Ascension Island in themiddle of the south Atlantic Ocean. Probably. I don’t hear an ID, sothis goes down as tentative in the logbook.

11895 – possibly China Radio International

Sounds like Chinese, but pretty weak.

11915 – Holy Koran (Saudi Arabia)

More of the same station as on 11820. the clicks you hear in hereare the sound of me flipping between the two frequencies to confirmthat they’re the same broadcast. Finding parallel frequencies like thiscan be used as a way to identify stations in a language you don’tunderstand. It’s not as good as hearing an identification or aninterval signal, but it will do in a pinch.

America’s anti-Castro surrogate domestic service to Cuba. Totallywiped out by those diesel noises. Not nearly as listenable as theChinese jamming, is it?

11940 – China Radio International

English via Kashi. Their English language program is closing. Thisis a good time to get an ID, as is the beginning of a broadcast.

Segment 4 – 25 meter band 06-28-2006 (download MP3) 

11945 – Radiodiffusão Portuguesa

Portuguese to Africa via Lisbon. This station used to broadcast inEnglish, but stopped about five years ago, along with all other foreignlanguages. now they only broadcast in Portuguese, aimed primarily atexpatriates and former colonies. On weekends, you can hear soccerbroadcasts on this station, which are almost as animated as theSpanish-language broadcasts on Univision during the World Cup.

11975 – Voice of America

English to Africa via São Tome, a small island off the west coast ofAfrica. This station is very weak. VOA is often much stronger andeasier to hear, but not on this frequency at this hour.

11995 – Radio France International

French to Africa via Moyabi, Gabon. This is relayed via the transmitters of Africa Numero Un,a commercial shortwave station broadcasting to Africa that plays someexcellent African music. RFI also often plays some great African musicand can be worth listening to in French for that. This is just a newsbroadcast, however.

12015 – Radio Exterior de España

Arabic from the home of the Moors.  Lots of talk about American-Arab relations.

Not sure who this is, but they’re broadcasting in Arabic too.

Relay of their domestic service in Arabic via Abu Za’bal. Egypt isthe home of much of the Arabic language music industry, so Radio Cairocan be worth listening to for the music. Unfortunately, they’relegendary for their poor audio quality.

12070 – Voice of Russia

English service via Moscow with the latest news. This is followed upwith a program promo in the dulcet tones of Estelle Winters, an expatBrit who has worked for VoR for several years. That high pitched voicereally cuts through the static. She came to the Winter SWL Fest inPennsylvania several years ago, and served as the keynote speaker. Shealso brought a prize for the Fest raffle, a no-expense paid trip to agolf resort just outside Moscow (she was appropriately sheepish aboutit, but it was all she could get someone to donate). I was sitting inthe back of the room next to two of my best friends when this excitingprize was drawn in the raffle. the one friend muttered to himself"please, Dear God, not me" as the winning ticket was drawn; two secondslater, his name was called out, and I and our other friend burst outlaughing.

12085 – Radio Damascus

Syria’s English service via Adhra is not an easy catch here in NorthAmerica. I think this is English, but it’s awfully muddled. You canhear me trying to adjust the radio to get a better sound, but nothingreally worked.

12095 — BBC World Service

English to Africa via Ascension Island. This frequency used to be onthe air pretty much 24 hours a day from a variety of transmittersaround the world, and could therefore be heard at almost any time ofday. with the BBC de-emphasizing shortwave, that’s not so much the caseany more.

World Wide Crackpot Radio, from Nashville. I couldn’t leave youwithout at least one example of the fringe politics and questionableclaims that emanate from the modern day equivalent of Doc Brinkley andthe border broadcasters. the odd sound here is a result of my not quiteaccurately zero beating this signal.

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That’s it. Again, much appreciation to Ralph Brandi for his work and insight in providing the meat and audio for this post. (And you can check out his personal blog here.) I hope you can do this again sometime Ralph.

But, it sure would be swell to hear some reception in this series from other reader/listeners as well. I like the bandscanning format a lot, but I’m open to historic or rare recordings of shortwave as well. and as far as bandscanning, I’d really like to hear some reception from around the country and the world, on AM as well as shortwave. If you’re interested in making recordings of scans, or have some radio recordings sitting around that might provide compelling content for this series please send me an email. and if you’d like any tips or suggestions I might have as far as recording or encoding radio for the web, drop me an email as well. While it would be great to get more audio contributions from experienced DXers like Ralph, if you have an interest in shortwave or venturing through far off late night AM signals AND have a tape recorder, you could do this too.

If you’d like to write about shortwave or the reception you’ve recorded (as Ralph has here), that’s great, but not compulsory. however, providing a log or notes offering the frequencies (and local or UTC time they were received) would be extremely helpful. I’d really like to hear what it’s like to tune across the AM or shortwave dial in Alaska, California, Luxembourg, Guam, New Zealand, just about anywhere (especially not in the NE U.S. and the Midwest, the only locations I’ve offered bandscan recordings from thus far in this series). My preferences are that there’s some English language broadcasting in the mix, and that at least some of the reception has enough clarity to be understood.

Always interested in comments, corrections, questions, and other relevant interaction. please leave them in the comment box below or you can send me an email here. in the next post in this series I think ‘ll get back into the medium wave realm– AM radio. Other posts on such topics can be found here.

Thanks for listening.