Monthly Archives: February 2025

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Guatemala (Part Two) – Guatemala City

by Don Moore

More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

Guatemala City, the country’s capital, is the political, economic, and social hub of the country. The next largest city, Quetzaltenango, is less than a fifth as big. Guatemala City also forms a pivot point dividing the country. The departments to the west and the Verapaz region to the north are heavily indigenous. Quiché department is named after the country’s largest Mayan group. The Pacific departments to the south and those to the east are mostly populated by Spanish-speaking ladinos, which is what mestizos of mixed Spanish and indigenous heritage are called in Guatemala. It’s the ladinos and Guatemala’s small European-descended upper class who rule the country. Although the Mayans and a few smaller groups represent half of Guatemala’s population, the country has never had an indigenous president. That’s not where the power lies.

While I was working in Honduras, all of my visits to Guatemala included a few days in Guatemala City. It wouldn’t make anyone’s lists of Latin America’s best capitals but I always enjoyed returning. It felt like a city. Honduras’ capital of Tegucigalpa felt like an overgrown small town.

Guatemala City had a very diverse radio scene with stations programming for all the segments of the population. You could tune in everything from Guatemalan marimba music to English-language rock to Spanish-language romantic pop to Mexican ranchera to Argentine tango. There was even a commercial classical music station on medium wave. Several of the stations – Radio Nuevo Mundo comes to mind – had very professional news departments. And three of Guatemala City’s radio stations broadcast on shortwave.

But for me the best part of visiting Guatemala City wasn’t the shopping or the museums or even visiting the radio stations. It was getting to see my friends in the Guatemala DX Club.

Guatemala DX Club

In early 1983 I connected with the Guatemala DX Club through Radio Netherlands’ Spanish language DX program, Radio Enlace. I first got together with them on my second visit to Guatemala in June 1983 and then made a point of visiting them every time I came to the city. The GDXC had several dozen members, mostly in Guatemala City. Only about eight or ten regularly participated in club events and those are the ones I met. The club had occasional meetings, sometimes organized visits to radio stations, and published an annual newsletter. They also produced a weekly fifteen-minute DX program on La Voz de Guatemala.

This photo was taken during my last visit in December 1987. In the back row are Carlos Zipfel Valencia, Jorge Luis Álvarez, and Edgar Oliva. Me and Ralf Gruner are seated in front.

Edgar was an official monitor for Deutsche Welle and had a beautiful huge Grundig receiver that the station had gifted to him. It had been sent by diplomatic pouch to the West German embassy where he had picked it up in person.

Carlos’ father, Carlos Zipfel y García, was a well-known Guatemalan writer but Carlos was more interested in the spoken word of radio. After getting a communications degree he received professional training through programs run by Radio Netherlands and Deutsche Welle and pursued a career in broadcast journalism and management. At different times he’s served as a producer for La Voz de Guatemala, director of Radio Universidad de San Carlos, and in various roles for several public and non-government organizations such as the Federation of Guatemalan Radio Schools.

I’ve always liked the GDXC pennant. It was intentionally designed to point left so that it would easily fit on the wall between the usual right-pointing radio station pennants. Only a DXer would think of doing that! The design features Guatemala’s national bird, the quetzal, which is known for its long tail feathers.

La Voz de Guatemala

During my first visit with the club, Carlos used his day off to take me to visit the radio station he was working at plus several more medium wave and FM stations. He already had many professional contacts so I had some very memorable station tours. Carlos also used his press credentials to get me a private tour of part of the Palacio Verde, or presidential palace.

The station I was most interested in seeing was the official government radio station, TGW La Voz de Guatemala, also sometimes called Radio Nacional de Guatemala. I had a very long visit there as Carlos, of course, had connections. It was he who produced the club’s weekly DX program on TGW.

The Estudio Maya was a spacious room where live marimba music concerts were broadcast each week. The station even had its own handmade marimba. The use of the name Estudio Maya is interesting. Guatemala embraces the historical image and importance of the Mayans while at the same time ignoring the present-day Mayan population. Half of Guatemala’s population speak Mayan languages but the national radio station only broadcast in Spanish.

Visiting radio stations usually includes collecting souvenirs and TGW didn’t disappoint. Here are several items from the station’s 50th anniversary in 1980. I also picked up several QSLs signed and sealed not just by the head station producer but also by Carlos on behalf of the Guatemala DX Club.

TGW La Voz de Guatemala, 640 kHz, as recorded in Guatemala City in June 1983:

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A Musical Interlude

The marimba is Guatemala’s national musical instrument and if you ever heard one of Guatemala’s shortwave stations you surely heard the music. Like the banjo, the marimba is an instrument that always sounds happy. It’s impossible to play a sad song on one. The instrument is like a xylophone but is made of wood. Although smaller ones do exist, a true marimba requires seven musicians playing in unison. A live concert is an amazing sight. Continue reading →

PDF Copy of Utility DXer’s Handbook from 1971

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who writes:

Hi Thomas

Back in December, I reported on the SWLing Post that I had made the Utility DXer’s Handbook from 1971 available online via the Internet Archive.

I am now pleased to report that I have added a PDF file for this out of print publication, in addition to the existing JPEG format.

It can be found via the same link to my archive.org page at:

https://archive.org/details/udxh-page-66-and-67_202408

Dan Greenall

Thank you for archiving and sharing this guide with us, Dan!

RFI, FM Habits, and Jeff’s Tabletop Radio Temptation

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Jeff McMahon for sharing a recent Herculodge post, where he battles radio frequency interference (RFI) while trying to enjoy his Tecsun PL-990—only to find his PL-880 unaffected. This led to a deeper reflection on FM listening habits and the temptation of tabletop radios like the Sangean HDR-18 and HDR-19. But with RFI always a threat, is a new radio the solution or just another problem in disguise?

Read Jeff’s full post here.

“Might it be time to bring shortwave out of retirement?”

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Woofferton Transmitting Station (Photo by Shirokazan via Wikimedia Commons.)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor David Iurescia for sharing this fascinating piece from The Spectator. In a world increasingly reliant on fragile digital communication networks, what happens when cyber warfare, physical attacks, or global conflict disrupt the systems we depend on? Clifford Beal explores how shortwave radio—once the backbone of wartime communications—could again play a vital role in ensuring information access when all else fails. “True, it’s retro-analogue, but shortwave gets through to people where more sophisticated digital communications fail,” Beal writes, making the case for renewed investment in resilient radio infrastructure.

Read the full article here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/bring-back-shortwave/

“DOGE Targeting VOA And Radio Free Europe”

DOGE Targeting VOA And Radio Free Europe. (Inside Radio)

Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) are in the sights of Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur appointed by President Donald Trump to oversee the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk commented on a social media post by Richard Grenell, the U.S. Special Envoy for Special Missions, who said the radio networks are “state-owned media” and “are a relic of the past.”

“Yes, shut them down,” Musk wrote in his reply to the post. “Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy). Nobody listens to them anymore. It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.” [Continue reading…]

Update: SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott notes that he wrote the following message and sent it via the Whitehouse contact page:

Mr. President;

First, I am not, and never have been, employed by Voice of America or Radio Free Europe.

But you might want to think twice before you shut them down.

If the electronic networks such as internet and mobile phones are ever shut down, you might want a means of communicating with the populations overseas; you might want to factor that into your decision-making process.

Radio can be an essential resource when the crunch comes, as was demonstrated recently in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee: https://swling.com/blog/2024/11/a-shining-moment-for-ham-radio/

You might want to keep international broadcasting — with appropriate messaging — as “another club in your bag.”

Sincerely, Jock Elliott

World Radio Day 2025: Celebrating Nuxalk Radio’s Mission to Revive Language and Culture

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This World Radio Day, we celebrate the power of community radio with World Wide Waves ’25: Whispers in the Air, a moving documentary presented by Maria Margaronis and produced by our friend David Goren.

This BBC World Service feature highlights Nuxalk Radio, a small yet powerful station broadcasting from a trailer in Bella Coola, British Columbia. For the past decade, this station has been a beacon of cultural revival, helping the Nuxalk people reclaim their language and identity after decades of suppression. Through bilingual weather forecasts, recordings of elders, and new music blending ancient and modern sounds, Nuxalk Radio is not just preserving the past—it’s building a bridge to the future. Don’t miss this inspiring story of resilience and the enduring power of radio.