What shortwave stations still broadcast out there?

Factual Questions
1

As recently as 15 years ago, I used to have a Sony portable radio that included three SW bands (SW1, SW2 and SW3) and I had fun at night listening to broadcasts in other languages and/or from other countries. BBC, Radio Free Europe, Radio France Internationale, the VOA (Voice of America) broadcasts for foreign listeners, and so on… And sometimes random weird stuff.

So two weekends ago, after getting tired of draining my cellphone battery trying to livestream baseball game audio feeds and dropping signal in poor reception areas (especially at the beach), I remembered hey, this stuff is broadcast for FREE on the AIR with something called a RADIO. So I went out to buy a good AM receiver, and figured why not, I’ll focus on a model that includes SW bands too, and show it to my kids.

I got the C. Crane CCRadio-SW and it totally brings me back to playing with radios like this as a kid 35 years ago. It sounds great for AM and even FM (albeit in mono)… But there’s almost nothing on SW!

Right now, at 9pm in NYC, using the “scan” feature to stop at the first strong signal it finds -

My SW1 scan hits:

5920 kHz which is “World Harvest International”, some kind of Christian station.
6115 kHz - something faint that sounds vaguely Bollywoodish

SW2 finds nothing. Nada. Zilch.

SW3 … also nothing. :frowning:

That’s it. At a time when I remember easily finding several strong international broadcasts in different languages or from different countries, I now get one (1) Christian station.

I found quite a few websites online listing Shortwave stations and their broadcasting times by UTC and region, but I suspect they’re all old and out of date, judging by their look.

Is SW completely dead? Why are they still selling these radios then?

2

OK I found this website -

http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/america.txt
And managed to dial in to 9730 kHz which is in French though it’s from Romania (“Roumanie”)

and 6020 kHz is broadcasting something about “Chinese people” in English

Neither strong enough to get the auto-tuner to find it… Maybe this guide is up to date…

3

As way of an analogy - when I was working in TV/VCR repair in the 90s - I had the opportunity to see the reception of hundreds of people - and noticed that sometimes (usually) - people with older TV sets got better reception than newer ones.

When I asked around the shop about this to the actual technicians - the prevailing theory was in a time when most people used antennas - company’s competed partially on that. Often nowadays (well the 90s) - most people used cable - and the receivers didn’t have to be as powerful for that - nor did they magazines that rate TV sets usually even take this into account.

Antennas made a HUGE difference. I suspect the same would be for shortwave - maybe even more so. I also suspect that there might be even easier & cheaper ways now a days to incorporate shortwave radio into a radio as a “feature” without it really being that useful for shortwave radio.

Anyway - if I were you - I’d either figure out how to get a better antenna working, check different parts of your house, or get a better receiver.

I mean what are the odds that you just lucked into the best possible situation for reception where you are?

Just my 2 cents

ETA:

Also - you should be able to find maps online for the shortwave time signal stations. This should allow you to figure out approximately how good your setup is. If it’s showing coverage x miles away - and you live only x/4 as far - then I think the math is your signal is 16 times worse than (possible/plausible).

4

WBCQ - The Planet

Used to be pretty strange and entertaining but now sells a lot of time to religious broadcasters. Still has some good moments.

5

Also a random length long wire antenna helps a lot. I have a small insulated wire strung along the ridge of my attic and running down to the basement to my workshop. I clip it onto the antenna terminal or the actual antenna of radios. For general listening a highly engineered antenna is not required for shortwave. Some people use metal gutters, a metal roof, or the frame of a suspended ceiling for antennas. Read here: Antique Radio Forums • Index page

6

The BBC and Radio Netherlands used to be very popular. Don’t they still broadcast?

7

I’ve never been able to get much more than BBC, the religious stuff, the occasional thing in other languages. and I once a long time ago, VOA. I haven’t tried for a while, but I’ve always suspected what DataX mentioned above: my radios have been cheap, and I’ve never really had the inclination to string up an external antenna. The dials on the radios I’ve had never seemed very precise.

I always had hopes of coming across exotic broadcast from the other side of the plant. Or when I first lived in Colombia, I hoped to hear local broadcasts from the States. But in the end, all I could get was BBC and religion.

robardin, you can’t even get VOA now?

8

The BBC still does, but not to North America. You might still pick up something aimed at someone else, but they don’t try to hit the American market any more.

Radio Netherlands shut down its shortwave operations in 2012.

Shortwave isn’t really a reasonable way to reach people in countries with widespread uncensored Internet access.

9

Right, I used to get these channels like BBC and RFI on my smaller Sony radio, without an external antenna (just the built in one), and this CCRadio-SW is supposed to be one of the best in its class in stock reception (it certainly cost like it).

I could pick up MW/AM signals from Baltimore and Cleveland last night, so I don’t think it’s lack of sensitivity, but lack of broadcast. As mentioned, uncensored internet access renders SW transmission kind of moot.

I wanted to find one of the creepy “numbers” broadcasts for my kids - it came up in conversation recently and was another reason I recalled my days listening to SW - but no dice.

10

Google is your friend. Type in “Shortwave directory” and there seems to be plenty of activity. One example site

http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/

It’s worth bearing in mind that the shortwave bands on the average radio are something of an afterthought and usually have poor sensitivity.

If you are serious, get a communications receiver (not cheap) and a proper aerial.

11

I found that site (see post #2, my own follow-up to the original one). Unfortunately very little is there relative to what used to be - for example, specifically, RFI (Radio France Internationale) does not seem to be receivable in NYC any more. Many of the listed channels there have very short windows of air time, too - like I’d have to stay up or past 11pm in NY to even try to receive them.

I don’t care to “get serious” with an aerial and dedicated receiver, at least not without a good payoff, which there doesn’t seem to be. I was above all speaking to the change in experience from even just 15 years ago - what was then a fairly rich set of stations discoverable without a channel guide (just tuner surfing) with a consumer grade, USD $50-70 radio at 9-11pm at night in my own home is now a wasteland, with what is by all accounts one of the high-end consumer grade products (it cost me about $140).

And also wondering how/why these manufacturers keep making consumer SW radios if there is nothing to pick up any more. Sort of like how my 20 year old handheld portable TV can’t get anything any more since just about everything has gone to digital OTA transmission, except this was a brand new radio boasting of access to an exciting global listening experience with Shortwave Radio that exists only in the past for practical purposes (at least in North America).

12

A portable shortwave radio is next to useless in today’s world, because you need a decent antenna to pick up anything. Everyone is broadcasting on the internet.

13

Wish I’d realized that before dropping all that money on something for the purpose of reliving radio from 15+ years ago. Drat.

Hmm, maybe if I kept all the packaging, I can still return it…

14

Blame it on sunspots.

15

No-even if the problem with sunspots totally disappeared forever, shortwave would still be dying out at about the same rate. There is no reason to pay for a shortwave station when you can have an internet station reach a far greater number of people at a fraction of the cost.

16

Do european car radios still have the shortwave band on them?

17

I’m just pointing out that, even though there are still some shortwave station still on the air, it doesn’t mean you can reliably pick them up.

18

Well, if “Moscow Mailbag” is off the air, I don’t see any point in listening to SW anymore.

19

Some 25 years ago in my military days we were mobilized for the first Gulf War (1990-1991, Desert Shield / Desert Storm) so I bought a portable SW radio to get war updates. Sure my chain of command was giving me updates but I wanted another info source. I bought and still have a Sony ICF-7601 (sony icf-7601 - Google Search). I still have the variable length wire antenna, it’s around here somewhere. I haven’t tried listening to SW in a while. I hope there is still a good selection of news stations available - English language, for me.

20

I managed to pick up Radio Havana and Radio China Int’l again last night, plus one or two other fainter ones, at around 9:30pm in NY (UTC 0130).