For your listening pleasure: ninety minutes of music, and a little Greek commentary, from the Voice of Greece. Recorded on Friday, January 4th--around 22:00 UTC--on 9.42 MHz. Click here to download the MP3 of the recording, or listen below:
For a broadcaster that was rumored to be extinguished last year, REE sure knows how to ring in the new year. I managed to record hours of their live broadcast over the 31 and 49 meter bands. The first recording starts at 00:00 UTC (Jan, 1st 2013) on 9.535 MHz following a few seconds of the REE interval signal. I then moved my spectrum recording lower in the band and was able to hear them on 6.125 MHz despite very strong adjacent signals. I recorded over three hours on 6.123 MHz before starting a new recording for the remaining 2 hours of their broadcast.
You can also listen to the recordings in the embedded player below (though they are listen in reverse order, chronologically):
Being a fan of Morse code (or CW), I have a special affinity for pirates that use "the sacred language" in their broadcasts.
Last night, around 00:30 UTC (only a few minutes after WKND began broadcasting) I heard Morse Code on 6.935 MHz USB.
If you, too, love Morse code, you'll love "Dit Dah Radio;" after their preamble in Morse code, they follow with The Capris' 1960's hit, Morse Code of Love.
You can download the full recording as an MP3 file by clicking here, or listen via the embedded player below:
The holidays are a great time to listen for pirates on the shortwave spectrum. Since many pirates are on holiday leave from their day jobs, they have a little more time to broadcast.
Last night, the first pirate I heard was WKND on 9,625 kHz AM.
His station was quite clear, but modulation, perhaps, a tad low. Other noises, including Spanish SSB, can be heard in the background.
Click here to download the full MP3 recording of WKND, or simply listen via the embedded player below:
If you've been reading the SWLing Post for long, you'll know how much I love ABC's Saturday Night Country, which I tune to every Saturday morning starting on 9,580 kHz.
Yesterday, host Felicity Urquhart produced another great mix of interviews and music, including some uniquely Australian Country Christmas songs.
You can download the recordings of the show as MP3s by clicking here for the first hour of Saturday Night Country on 9,580 kHz and here for the rest of the show on 11,945 kHz, or by simply listening via the embedded player below:
Last weekend, I also managed to record the shortwave radio pirate known as Liquid Radio--perhaps best known for their activity on the FM spectrum and on the web. Liquid Radio's format couldn't be more different than our last pirate recording from Radio Casablanca; Liquid Radio plays a trance/techno/dance mix. Their last broadcast was nearly three hours long, and you'll hear how fickle the propagation was as the signal waxes and wanes. I started recording their AM signal on 6.94 MHz around 4:00 UTC on Dec 16th.
You can click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen in the embedded player below:
On Sunday, December 17th, around 22:00 UTC, I happened to pick up the last thirty minutes of Radio Casablanca; a pirate that plays a nostalgic mix of music from the 1930's and 1940's. They were broadcasting on 6939 kHz in AM. Close your eyes, and you can imagine what it must have sounded like back in the day Phyllis Jeanne Creore Westerman graced the shortwaves.
You'll hear me tweaking the receiver in the first three minutes while, in the background, I was entertaining my children. I though about cutting it out but, on second thought, simply uploaded it as-is. I switched from a very wide AM bandwidth to AM sync and then AM sync with only the lower sideband (to kill some noise in the upper side band) after adjusting the center slightly below 6940 kHz.
I love how the recording starts on a tone and then morphs into Close as Pages in a Book by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra.
You can download the MP3 by clicking here, or simply listen in the embedded player below:
Wolverine Radio's upper side band signal came in loud and clear last Sunday (December 9, 2012) sometime around 2:25 UTC on 6940 kHz. Another great mix of music, complete with their interval signal. It seems that their broadcast ended abruptly--no eQSL to decode at the end. Still, signal strength was quite good, as I've come to expect from this HF pirate.
Click here to download an MP3 of the entire show, or simply listen in the embedded Archive.org player below:
Yesterday, like most Saturday mornings, I sipped my coffee while listening to ABC's Saturday Night Country from Radio Australia's Shepparton shortwave transmission site on 9.58 MHz. In this program, SNC's host, Felicity Urquhart, shuffled in some holiday tunes with her normal mix of country music, news and interviews. Fortunately, I captured the whole show in two recordings (starting on 9.58 MHz for the first hour, then moving to 11.945 MHz for the rest of the show).
Enjoy:
For your listening pleasure: over three hours of music, and a little Greek commentary, from the Voice of Greece. Recorded on November 26th, on 9.42 MHz. In the last half of the recording, after an adjacent station went off the air, the audio fidelity is simply amazing--especially for a station over 5000 miles from my receiver.
Click here to download the MP3 of the recording, or listen below:
Need more Voice of Greece music in your day? Click here for more.
This past Friday and Saturday evenings I had an opportunity to record several hours of music from the Voice of Greece. I am continually amazed with the audio fidelity from a station that is well over 5,000 miles away. You can listen to the recordings below or download the mp3 files on Archive.org (who graciously hosts and archives all of our radio recordings).
Once again, The Mighty KBC broadcast a two hour mix of music to the world on 9,500 kHz. Fortunately, I was able to record the entire broadcast--you can listen below. The KBC signal and audio out of their transmitter in Bulgaria were both excellent. There was very noticeable interference from the clandestine station, Radio Republica, who broadcasts at the same time (00:00-01:57 UTC) on 9,490 kHz. According to my spectrum display, Republica's signal had a bandwidth of 20 kHz! At times, I had to narrow my receiver filter to about 6.6 kHz and use a USB sync mode to keep KBC's broadcast clear. Still, you can certainly hear some of the noise from Radio Republica in the recording.
Since Radio Republica is broadcast from the US, I'm curious if listeners in other parts of the world (or other parts of North America) had the same problem. If so, please comment! I'll pass this along to KBC.
You can download the entire broadcast as an mp3 by clicking here, or simply listen in the embedded player below:
For your listening pleasure: five full hours of music, and a little Greek commentary, from the Voice of Greece. Recorded on Saturday, October 6th, on 9.42 MHz. Click here to download the MP3 of the recording, or listen below:
Last night, I listened to and recorded The Mighty KBC's test transmission on 9.4 MHz. The broadcast lasted 2 hours and was quite successful. They had a little distortion in the signal for the first half-hour or so, but once that issue was resolved, audio was excellent. This was, after all, a test transmission.
Mind you, I was using the WinRadio Excalibur receiver and a rather large horizontal sky loop antenna--not a portable radio. But based on their signal level as compared with the adjacent Voice of Greece transmission (9.42 MHz), I expect they could have been easily heard on a portable radio here in eastern North America.
If you missed the broadcast, click here to download a full recording or listen below.
Next week: another test broadcast scheduled
Update: Note that The Might KBC will broadcast another test transmission on Sunday 21 September from 00.00 - 02.00 UTC on 9,500 kHz.
Saturday night was one of the most active nights for pirate radio I've heard in some time. No doubt, pirates were taking advantage of the quiet atmospheric conditions.
Radio Ronin was the first station I heard Saturday evening. His AM signal was very strong with only slight fading on 6,955 kHz. The mix includes mostly classic rock, starting things off with groups like Steppenwolf, the Steve Miller Band, and Pink Floyd, then moving into rock music of the 80s and beyond. I also included a few minutes of his interval signal (yep, even pirates have interval signals).
Enjoy below, or download the MP3 here:
For your listening enjoyment: Voice of Greece (9,420 kHz), Radio Croatia (9,925 kHz) and Voice of Turkey (9,830 kHz). The Voice of Greece, in particular, broadcasts an extensive mix of music. These stations were recorded simultaneously, Saturday August 25th, 2012. In total, there are more than 8 hours of shortwave radio recordings in this set--enough to make it through your work day:
For your listening enjoyment: Voice of Greece (9,420 kHz), Radio Croatia (9,925 kHz) and Radio Romania International (9,700 kHz). The Voice of Greece and Radio Croatia broadcast an extensive mix of music; while Radio Romania International offers their English and French hours.
I recorded these broadcasts simultaneously via my WinRadio Excalibur, yesterday at 00:00 UTC.
Any of you who've been following the SWLing Post for a while know how much I love recording music over the shortwaves. Lately, Radio Kuwait has been booming into my part of eastern North America with great vivacity.
Yesterday, I recorded several hours of their broadcast on my WinRadio Excalibur. I couldn't help but notice, the last time I posted a recording, that their music had a great deal of variety. Their mix yesterday afternoon encompassed hip hop, country, pop, rock, R&B, and even a little Billy Joel and Donovan.
Though the hip-hop and boy bands don't particularly hold my personal interest, hearing "Mellow Yellow" over 7,000 miles of ether certainly has appeal.
If you're looking for music variety (well, a lot of variety), with some items of cultural interest thrown in, check out Radio Kuwait:
I am asked this question, or a variation of it, almost every week:
"I've been thinking about buying a shortwave radio, but have heard that shortwave is dying out. Is there actually anything to listen to on shortwave? Should I even bother?"
It's no wonder I get asked this question so much. First of all, the root website for the SWLing Post is SWLing.com, which is dedicated to teaching people the basics of using a shortwave radio. Indeed, if you search the internet for shortwave radio reviews or how to use a shortwave radio, you'll most likely see this site somewhere near the top of the search results. So it makes sense that many of our readers are just starting out in shortwave.
But the primary reason people wonder about shortwave's vitality and want to check its pulse, is due to recent news about shortwave broadcasters leaving the spectrum. Most recently, Radio Canada International, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Radio Bulgaria have all closed up shop, and broadcasters like the BBC World Service and Vatican Radio have trimmed down their shortwave offerings. It's unfortunate, and does make the continuation of shortwave seem doubtful to those who know less about it.
Question: So is there anything to listen to? Answer: Absolutely!
Regular shortwave radio listeners already know the answer to this question. Sure, the landscape of the shortwaves is changing, but it's such a vast landscape that, even with a few major players dropping out, there is still so much to hear and appreciate. In fact, we've only been talking about governmental international broadcasters, in the main--which doesn't even include pirate radio, clandestine stations, utility stations, religious networks, spy numbers stations, digital modes, and ham radio communications. Among others.
Doubt me? Well, then--check this out:
Last Friday, I spent a pleasant afternoon reviewing the WinRadio Excalibur software defined receiver (SDR). Perhaps my favorite feature of many modern software defined receivers is their ability to record not only individual shortwave radio broadcasts, but also record radio spectrum. In other words, instead of recording a single station on 9,555 kHz, the WinRadio Excalibur (and similar SDRs) could easily record everything between, say, 9,410 and 9,635 kHz. Later, you can play back the spectrum to listen to and record individual broadcasts as if they were live. At least, this is exactly what I did last Friday at 20:00 UTC.
Fast forward to yesterday: While listening and tuning through the Friday spectrum, I once again realized how many stations are crammed into this relatively small chunk of the shortwave spectrum. Yet I only captured about 250 kHz, or .25 MHz of shortwave spectrum. To put this in perspective, this is a chunk of spectrum so small, you could fit four of them between 95 and 96 MHz on your car's FM dial.
And what did I find? A lot of stations--and a lot of variety! In fact, I then went through and recorded 8 samples of the stronger broadcasts.
Here is some of what I heard just in that wee swatch of spectrum:
Voice of Greece - 9,240 kHz
Voice of Iran - 9,460 kHz
WWTW - 9,478 kHz
Deutsche Welle - 9,490 kHz
Radio Riyadh - 9,555 kHz
Radio Marti - 9,565 kHz
North Quebec Service - 9,625 kHz
Voice of Turkey - 9,635 kHz
Here is how the actual spectrum chunk appeared on the Excalibur's display:
Note from the DDC spectrum window (the one immediately below the tuning knob and S Meter) that there are many, many other stations--indicated as spikes in the spectrum, above--that I did not bother to record.
I didn't set out to find the most active piece of shortwave spectrum--I chose this one pretty much by chance.
Perhaps the real fascination I find in listening to recorded spectrum, as I did above, is that each time I go back through a recording, listening carefully, I find so many other items that I would have otherwise missed. In other words, the better your ears, the more you will hear. And there's lots to hear.
So, what are you waiting for?
Prove it to yourself. Pull out your portable radio, your tabletop, your SDR or your general coverage ham radio transceiver, and just listen. There's still a vast, informative, oftentimes mysterious world out there on the shortwaves, simply waiting for your ears.
Join me in the Shortwave Radio Archive Project: post coming soon!
I've mentioned before how much I love this show--you don't even need to be a fan of country music to have a true appreciation for it.
Saturday Night Country should be on your shortwave listening schedule. If you live in North America, you'll find the signal out of Shepparton, Australia is so strong that even a mediocre portable radio can receive it with ease.
Here's a two hour and 50 minute taste of Saturday Night Country for your Monday morning:
The Shortwave Radio Audio Archive (SRAA) is a collection of shortwave radio recordings that you can download or listen to as a podcast. The collection grows every day and includes both historic recordings and current recordings from the shortwave radio spectrum.
The goal of this site is for shortwave radio enthusiast to have a place to store, archive and share their radio recordings with the world.
Click here to learn how to contribute and archive recordings.
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