New Shortwave Broadcaster

[crainbebo]

4VEH used to be on shortwave and a lot of SWLs on the East Coast caught them.

-crainbebo

 

[CTListener]

4VEH used to be on shortwave and a lot of SWLs on the East Coast caught them.

-crainbebo

Yep, they were on 25 meters, IIRC, as was the Windward Islands Broadcasting Service, which I also heard up here in New England quite well. They left SW long before 4VEH did.

 

[KeithE4]

I don't suppose that anyone at the FCC even cares any more that it is not permitted to use shortwave to cover the domestic market in the US. If the Okeechobee facility of WRMI does broadcast with the intent of being listened to in the US, it is violating FCC rules.

They care about as much as they do about not allowing American broadcasters in the tropical bands, and well not caring if they assign them to frequencies outside the official broadcast bands.

Of course, finding anyone with a shortwave radio may be harder than finding an FCC employee who cares.

Outside of a half-million hams and a few thousand remaining SWL hobbyists, there probably aren't many folks with shortwave broadcast receivers anymore.

 

[CTListener]

They care about as much as they do about not allowing American broadcasters in the tropical bands, and well not caring if they assign them to frequencies outside the official broadcast bands.



Outside of a half-million hams and a few thousand remaining SWL hobbyists, there probably aren't many folks with shortwave broadcast receivers anymore.

And a lot of hams are only on VHF/UHF FM and digital modes these days, so that number is probably well short of a half-million.

 

[spiritof67]

The Windward Islands Broadcasting Service was long gone by the time I was listening to short wave. By then, the station became Radio Free Grenada on 15045. Aside from the propaganda, I liked the music, as well as the local flavor of the station.

 

[davideduardo]

When I began listening to shortwave, HCJB was using 30KW transmitters

When I got to Ecuador in 1964, HCJB was just installing several RCA 100 kw transmitters. RCA, it seems, could not get them to switch frequencies (a requirement for HF gear) so they offered two prototypes to HCJB with the condition that if they made them work, the design changes would go to RCA. The HCJB engineers did the changes and made them work marvelously.

One of the 30 kw transmitters was on 700, and that power was needed to get from the Pifo transmitter site back to the city.

...and we used to listen to their Monday DX Party Line.

For several months I sat in on DX Party Line and read the change notices! When I got involved in building my own station, I had to "resign" but it was fun to be on shortwave.

In fact, I first became interested in shortwave after seeing the HCJB call letters ("Heralding Christ Jesus Blessing") and frequency listings on the side of a church in Indianapolis. I suppose that church either supported, or purchased time on the station.

The support organization was in Indiana IIRC. The book "Seeds in the Wind" gives more details of the development of HCJB. http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Station-Albums/HCJB-Seeds-in-the-Wind.pdf

One of my Ecuadorian in-laws knew the founders of HCJB and was at the original launch in the 30's!

Edit: I just looked at the 1966 WRTH and see 595, "The Voice of Ruminahai", was a mighty 200 watter!

The 595 I bought in 1966 was not Rumiñahui, a name it dropped in about 1964, but rather Radio San Pedro de Amaguaña, which had a 300 watt transmitter on a dirt-floored one-room studio-office-transmitter room. The antenna was about 60 meters of horizontal wire hung between two "phone poles" (actually stripped Eucalyptus trees) and fed right out of the final tank of the transmitter with no ATU.

At the time, very few stations in Ecuador had towers. In Quito, when I put HCRM1 on the air, my station and only four others had them... Radio Quito 1360, Radiodifusora Nacional 640 Radio Ecuatoriana 855 and HCJB 700. The other 29 or 30 stations in the city had longwires between poles.

 

[gr8oldies]

What memories! One of my favorites was Ecos del Torbes, and "Lo Que Esta Noche Recuerda". They had a DJ who spoke reasonably slowly and clearly, and that helped with my high school Spanish (we didn't have Univision on TV to listen to Spanish). They'd run an English language ID occasionally, and the announcer would sometimes read a letter and dedication "por Venezolanos en el exterior" listening on 4980. Last I pulled up their stream, "Lo Que Esta Noche Recuerdo" was still there in automated form.

Radio Barquisimeto and it's sister stations including Radio Yaracuy (sp?), and Radio Juventud. I don't have the QSL for the cluster I received anymore. Radio Sutatenza was a Catholic broadcaster (5025 or so). I remember an Ecuadorian domestic which would play the instrument used on Simon and Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa" (and Simon's "Duncan")

Winter afternoons would bring in the Africans, which would re-appear later. Anyone remember Swazi Music Radio?

 

[davideduardo]

They care about as much as they do about not allowing American broadcasters in the tropical bands, and well not caring if they assign them to frequencies outside the official broadcast bands.

The FCC assigned out of band channels to a great extent because of the Cold War practices of the "communist" nations which blocked or jammed most in-band channels. By going out of band, at least the blocking stopped.

 

[KeithE4]

And a lot of hams are only on VHF/UHF FM and digital modes these days, so that number is probably well short of a half-million.

The total ham population is just over 700,000. About half of those are Techs, and at least some use their HF privileges. So maybe not quite half a million have HF radios -- and most of those have general coverage receivers if they own rigs made in the last 30 years -- but the number is far and away more than the rest of the American public. Shortwave radio is all but a nonentity to the general public now.

 

[gar hi]

Note that SW is still prohibited from broadcasting only to domestic audiences.

So what about all these hard core Bible thumping broadcasts that are now on shortwave?

I don't recall hearing so many stations like that in the past.

 

[CTListener]

So what about all these hard core Bible thumping broadcasts that are now on shortwave?

I don't recall hearing so many stations like that in the past.

Those stations will tell you there's souls to save everywhere. What do you want them to do? Find a way to null out the whole country so only people not in it can listen? Good luck with that. And they're there because governments have gotten out of the shortwave business and for commercial operators, evangelism is the only programming guaranteed to bring in money -- from the preachers to the station owners and from the listeners to the preachers.

 

[ContinuousWave]

Their signal can be made to not fall across the US and direct toward other countries....but the bible thumpers will always try to bring in money one way or another...I know the Dallas AM of Gene Scott shut down (I would do his widow...she was in a soft porn and is a hottie...but I see her redoing a lot of his former broadcast...NO WAY she has learned the theology like he did...she is merely repeating his old shows like a parrot and wearing a priests shmock is a crock anyway..she hasnt been to any divinity school!)...

 

[CTListener]

Their signal can be made to not fall across the US and direct toward other countries....but the bible thumpers will always try to bring in money one way or another...I know the Dallas AM of Gene Scott shut down (I would do his widow...she was in a soft porn and is a hottie...but I see her redoing a lot of his former broadcast...NO WAY she has learned the theology like he did...she is merely repeating his old shows like a parrot and wearing a priests shmock is a crock anyway..she hasnt been to any divinity school!)...

I used to watch Gene Scott on the TV station he owned here in Connecticut, WHCT. Doc was an entertaining old huckster, actually a very smart man in both academics and knowledge of marketing and human nature. He knew his Bible and he knew his world history. He also knew exactly what buttons to push to turn people who'd never dream of giving to a televangelist into major supporters. Melissa may be hot, but she hasn't got 1/1,000th of Doc's charisma. I'm surprised the "King's Houses" are still donating enough to keep the operation going.

 

[Icangelp]

I used to watch Gene Scott on the TV station he owned here in Connecticut, WHCT. Doc was an entertaining old huckster, actually a very smart man in both academics and knowledge of marketing and human nature. He knew his Bible and he knew his world history. He also knew exactly what buttons to push to turn people who'd never dream of giving to a televangelist into major supporters. Melissa may be hot, but she hasn't got 1/1,000th of Doc's charisma. I'm surprised the "King's Houses" are still donating enough to keep the operation going.

If I am to believe what I've read on the internet, and I do 100%, Melissa or a benefactor invested heavily in the silicone market, but found marrying a televangelist to be more profitable. Or should I use her actress name, Barbi?

 

[KeithE4]

So what about all these hard core Bible thumping broadcasts that are now on shortwave?

I don't recall hearing so many stations like that in the past.

They've pretty much always been there, but 30 years ago, there were only a handful of them (WYFR, KGEI, KTBN, WINB). There were also others outside the US: Trans World Radio, HCJB, Vatican Radio (which is now rumored to be shutting down), FEBC, and a few others.

 

[KeithE4]

Nope...FCC rules still prohibit US SW stations from broadcasting to a US audience....it has not been changed.

I don't think that was ever enforced, as long as the "official" beaming of the signal was away from the US (Europe, Latin America, etc.). No American shortwave station ever got in trouble for verifying reception reports from US listeners, including the VOA. I have several QSL cards from them from the late '60s and early '70s.

 

[CTListener]

They've pretty much always been there, but 30 years ago, there were only a handful of them (WYFR, KGEI, KTBN, WINB). There were also others outside the US: Trans World Radio, HCJB, Vatican Radio (which is now rumored to be shutting down), FEBC, and a few others.

Vatican Radio has never been "hard core Bible thumping," though, more like a daily journal of what the Pope's been up to and who he's seen along with general world news.

 

[crainbebo]

They also air the masses as well I think. I've heard Latin masses on Sundays when Vatican Radio is operating around 15.575.

-crainbebo

 

[gr8oldies]

WWCR, et al is more of a throwback to the Mexican border blasters; theology don't matter as long as the check clears. HCJB, TWR etc wouldn't let someone on who was diametrically opposed to their doctrine (no Garner Ted, Brother Stair, etc).

 

[Ai4i]

They also air the masses as well I think. I've heard Latin masses on Sundays when Vatican Radio is operating around 15.575.
-crainbebo

This Higgs Boson flies into the Vatican and the Pope tells it to leave at once because Higgs Bosons are not welcome in the Papal Sea.
The Higgs Boson looks at him in a perplexed but confident way and replies, "but without me, you can't have mass".