Shortwave Radio Recordings: Detecting Radio Guyana/Voice of Guyana

GuyanaMap-SAMYesterday I learned that Voice of Guyana (a.k.a. Radio Guyana) is back on the shortwaves after being off-air for many years. Evidently, the station repaired some of its transmitters and antennas with the assistance of station supporter and technician Jamie Labadia. At this point the station is only capable of a 1,000 watt AM signal.

To be clear, 1 kW AM is not an easy catch for most of us in North America unless propagation is in our favor.

Last night while testing a new military-grade SDR (the Enablia TitanSDR) that I’m reviewing, I decided that Voice of Guyana might make for a good weak-signal test.

And so, last night at 21:00 EST (02:00 UTC) I tuned the TitanSDR to 3,290 kHz; I could see a faint carrier on frequency, but the audio was lost in the noise. I could detect talking and music, but I couldn’t base an ID from it. I set the TitanSDR to record a wideband chunk of spectrum throughout the night.  This morning, I played the spectrum recording and found that the signal was at its best around 0945 UTC.

TitanSDR-RadioGuyana-3290kHz

Above you can see Radio Guyana’s AM signal on the TitanSDR narrowband spectrum display (click to enlarge). While still quite weak, I could make out station IDs and music quite easily. It was wonderful to hear Voice of Guyana on the air again!

Note: the TitanSDR was exceptional at pulling the audio out of the static. More about this SDR to come…

Here’s a 27 minute recording I made with the TitanSDR, using its eUSB mode (ECSS), beginning around 0945 UTC:

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6 thoughts on “Shortwave Radio Recordings: Detecting Radio Guyana/Voice of Guyana

        1. Thomas Post author

          Good question, Bill. When I put it up, I neglected to actually measure it. I would say it has about 360 feet of wire in it and its lowest point is about 50′ off the ground. Keep in mind, though, I’m terrible about judging distance. I can say that it will tune on the 160M band. -Thomas

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