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shortwave
- Thread starter BigJimmy
- Start date
Shortwave, particularly in and around the 60, 49, 41, and 31 cm bands (4760-9900 kHz range) is loaded with a variety of music and spoken word programming. Station operators cater to the doomsday/prepper crowd with lots of fire-and-brimstone preaching and by still maintaining a good presence on the old, antiquated, but not nearly dead medium. Talking exclusively about the USA, spoken word programming ranges from fire-and-brimstone preaching, conspiracy theory pushers the likes of Alex Jones to very positive and uplifting religious and talk programming. There's even a station that comes in at night where I am down in the lower end of the 60 cm band or possibly in the 71 cm band that features a business and financial talk program. Examples of notable shortwave stations include WBCQ in Monticello, Maine, WEWN in Vandiver, Alabama, and WRNO in New Orleans, although frequencies change by time of day due to propagation characteristics. And yes, licenses are still being granted for new shortwave stations as fulfillable applications come in.
Those are not broadcast frequencies in the US. Some preacher stations are showing up on 90 meters as well. But since the FCC is no longer licensing International Fixed Service stations, I guess broadcasters can go there so long as Fixed Service stations in other countries aren't interfered with. After all, Soviet Bloc stations had used those frequencies for decades during the Cold War.
Are there any shortwave stations still broadcasting primarily music? I know Calgary's CKMX broadcast its classic country format on 6030 kilohertz, but it switched to comedy last month.
If you can understand Portuguese, there is a good station in Brazil, Radio Nacional de Amazonia, on 11780 that blasts into North America. They're also heard on 6180 at night.
The remaining SW stations that program large amounts of music are generally the surviving commercial stations in tropical and sub-tropical nations of Asia, Latin America and Africa. Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela have some left, but they tend to play localized music and be in Spanish, Quechua (Kichwa), Portuguese, etc. And they are relatively low power and considered DX rather than pleasant listening.
The numbers are declining rapidly.
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Who is the largest single user of Shortwave? I heard it was Dr. Gene Scott (dead or alive), or Radio Marti. Any truth to either?
Collectively, all the American religious broadcasters. Individually, my guess is China Radio International.
Radio Marti has a rather small presence in the shortwave bands - 8 frequencies between 49 and 22 meters, transmitting between 2 and 10 hours each.
As Kieth mentions, Martí is a single service while some of the remaining international broadcasters have multiple programs in multiple languages running simultaneously. And Martí only targets a very small area, the Island of Cuba, while others broadcast to broad areas of the world.
I'd say Brother Stair, he seems to infect (aka pay) many U.S. broadcasters and quite a few overseas relays. It's fun tuning across the dial and hearing him on numerous frequencies at once.
I would say that Pete Peters (aka Peter J. Peters) is gaining on Ralph Gordon Stair (yes, that is his real name). Is Stair still alive? He would be about 80 years old now.
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That is why I asked single user, not an entire Government. I'm sure the BBC or even the US might have the largest footprint on Shortwave? I know nothing about shortwave?
Stair is still with it, at least physically. Peters passed away a few years ago, I think he's only on 2 stations (WWCR and WTWW).
Marti is actually called "The Radio Martí Program" and is part of the overall Voice of America operation and is a US government program.
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Yes, forget about Marti, please! I saw a Documentary on 'Doc' Scott and it had a claim at one point he had the largest presence on shortwave of any preacher. I'm sure Doc's Doc is now on YouTube. It was very enlightening!
Check out the following links. They'll tell you what's on nowadays. Note that English-language broadcasts to North America are almost, but not completely gone now, save for the US religious broadcasters that "officially" beam their signals elsewhere.
http://www.short-wave.info/index.php
http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/
http://www.eibispace.de/dx/freq-a13.txt (text file, also covers LW and MW)
There was a guy by the name of E. C. Fulcher who tried to pass himself off as being as "big" as "Brother" Stair or "Doc" Scott or Pete Peters, but I don't believe that he had nearly the financial resources that those others had or still have.
Wasn't aware that Stair was still on anywhere anymore.
As for Dr. Scott, supposedly the University Network supposedly has enough archived material of his that they could play back tapes for seven years without repeating anything!
Wasn't aware that Stair was still on anywhere anymore.
As for Dr. Scott, supposedly the University Network supposedly has enough archived material of his that they could play back tapes for seven years without repeating anything!
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Thanks for the additional info! I learned how to use the Shortwave receiver at work but VOA took care of everything else. Occasionally we would get a call from a listener that we weren't on a particular frequency and I would check. About Doc Scott, they would play his shows over and over. I found this Documentary that is worth watching!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45cAaIHdozI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45cAaIHdozI
University Network is still around, playing Dr. Gene Scott on 6.090 kHz late at night (as well as via WWCR on 5.935 kHz) - plus 1610 AM in Anguila which has been caught around the United States - I've even caught them a couple of times, faintly, at 3800 miles over the TIS crud.
-crainbebo
-crainbebo
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