This is the first and only “WorldSpace” satellite receiver I’ve seen on Ebay, currently offered at a $175 Buy-It-Now price from a seller in Australia:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HITACHI-KW-WSI-DIGITAL-RECEIVER-WS-FM-MW-SW1-SW2-/282192383263
The radio is listed as in excellent condition with the original box and literature. Besides the long-gone WorldSpace satellite frequencies, the radio covers medium wave, FM, and most of the shortwave range. A brief PDF data sheet for the radio gives a description of features and operations.
Wikipedia describes this radio’s satellite service as 1worldspace, formerly known as ‘WorldSpace’, is a defunct satellite radio network that in its heyday provided service to over 170,000 subscribers in eastern and southern Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia with 96% coming from India. It was profitable in India, with 450,000 subscribers.
I wonder if the Hitachi KW-WSI is a reasonable performer for shortwave listening? Does anyone know any technical details of this receiver?
Guy Atkins is a Sr. Graphic Designer for T-Mobile and lives near Seattle, Washington. He’s a regular contributor to the SWLing Post.
There’s a Hitachi worldstar sat / mw / fm / sw radio for sale on German eBay now:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/304559126922?hash=item46e923798a:g:JfYAAOSwkSlingY4
Seller is Bayern.2002
73
Julian S.
… that should be ‘WorldSpace”…
This radio can recieve also FM, MW and SW. I have this radio, and still on except worldspace
Hey fantastic! I have done a fair bit of experimenting with Worldspace receivers over the years and you can read about it here:
http://www.satdirectory.com/–worldspace.html
The Worldspace system is now shutdown except for a few strange transmissions on AfriStar which some people link their purpose to the CIA, others say they are linked to terrorist groups (so ha – take your pick and believe what you wish!) and others believe their purpose in remote education.
I have LOTS & LOTS of broadcast quality recordings of the Worldspace channels received on my receiver in India, Malaysia, Indonesia and at home in Australia using the method in the article above. I should really upload them somewhere!
Thomas – a suggestion, is it possible to designate a little corner of “sister” cyberspace in the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive where people can post non shortwave recordings. I have heaps & heaps & heaps of rare and exotic medium wave, FM band and Worldspace recordings that DXer’s would I’m sure enjoy and they just sit as MP3s here lonely in my personal archive.
Guy, this receiver is quite poor on shortwave, but it was most fascinating to decode with it digital World-Space-Signals here in Central Germany. A pity it´s all gone though I think the satellites are used for other transmissions these days, which however cannot be decoded with this Hitachi.
If you google for “hitachi world space” you may find my report published 2001 in Funkamateur magazine for free download (funkamateur.de). It´s in German, however.
Thanks for the insights, Harald. Yes, the Wikipedia article about WorldSpace mentioned that the satellites are still used for other purposes.
The translation link (to English) from the Funkamateur article is here: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.funkamateur.de/testberichte.html%3Ffile%3Dtl_files/downloads/testberichte/frei/KH-WS1_test.pdf&prev=search