Category Archives: International Broadcasting

Radio Waves: DLARC, Solar Cycle 25 Explained, and VOA Delano property to be sold

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dennis Dura for the following tips:

DLARC: The Radio Geek’s Doomscrolling Antidote (Radio World)

The internet has aged to the point where it is easy to fall into a rabbit hole, reminiscing about websites from decades past.

The site that fuels those scrolling endeavors is the Internet Archive — a nonprofit that hosts a digital library of internet sites and other artifacts in digital form. The project began in 1996 to archive the web.

Today, it contains one trillion web pages through its “Wayback Machine,” as well as 56 million books and texts. It also works with approximately 1,400 libraries through its Archive-It program to identify and preserve important digital history.

Kay Savetz (K6KJN) freely admits to having been an Internet Archive power user. Savetz used not just the archive.org website, but also its command line interface to upload many documents. [Continue reading…][Continue reading…]

Solar Cycle 25 Gives Amateurs and Shortwave a Boost (Radio World)

Beyond their love of radio, amateur radio operators and shortwave radio broadcasters have one thing in common: They rely on the ionosphere to refract or bend their signals back to Earth, so that they can travel beyond line-of-sight distances.

In turn, the ionosphere’s ability to refract radio signals depends on its level of ionization or charge. The more ionized the ionosphere is, the more likely it is to bend signals back to the ground rather than let them pass through.

Here’s where the sun comes in. The number of sunspots on the solar surface rises and falls over an 11-year period, during what is known as a solar cycle. The more sunspots, the more solar radiation comes to Earth. [Continue reading…]

City of Delano plans to sell Voice of America property, keep portion for ‘future park purposes’ (KGET)

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The city of Delano is looking to keep a portion of the former Voice of America property for “future park purposes” and sell the rest, according to the Delano City Council agenda for Monday.

The property is on about 800 acres bordered by West Garces Highway, Woollomes Avenue, Melcher Road and Casey Avenue.

It was home to the Delano Transmitting Station, built in 1944 to broadcast Voice of America programming worldwide. It stopped operating in 2007 and was demolished shortly after.

The City Council is set to consider whether it should retain about 20 acres of that property for park-related reasons and designate the remainder as “surplus land” and approve selling it. [Continue reading…]

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BBC Seeks Shortwave Recordings and Listener Stories—Can You Help?

10 Replies

SWLing Post readers,

I’m currently helping a BBC reporter who is producing an upcoming program about shortwave radio—and she’s hoping to tap into the incredible collective knowledge and experience of the SWLing Post community.

There are a few specific things she’s still trying to track down:

Recordings of what was heard when stations like Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty signed off. In other words, do you have final recordings for any of these broadcasters?
Audio recordings of a coronal mass ejection (CME) as heard on shortwave. I’ve heard this before–those broadband waves of fading–but I have no recordings.
Personal experiences of listening to shortwave while living in a closed or restricted country.

If you have recordings, firsthand experiences, or even strong leads, your contribution could help shape this program.

If you’d like to help, please leave a comment on this post–I’ll share your contact details with the producer.

As always, I’m continually amazed by the depth of knowledge and experience within this community—thank you in advance for any help you can offer!

Half a Century of Connection: RTI’s Spanish Service Turns 50

Dynamic Map of Broadcasters Currently on the Air

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Stefano, who writes:

Hi Thomas,

I just wanted to share a small project I created today that I thought might be interesting for your readers. I put together a webpage where you can see broadcast radio stations currently on air displayed on a world map.

It’s based on two frequency databases: the EiBi and Aoki lists. I also keep these databases updated, since they are the same ones used for the data updates of SWList.

https://www.sramp.com/worldradiomap

Here’s also a page from my blog where I describe the project:

https://sramp.com/world-radio-map/

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

Stefano

What a cool map, Stefano! Thank you for sharing this with the wider SWL community.

Federal court mandates reinstatement of over 1,000 VOA employees

Dan Notes Voice of America’s Return to Shortwave

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Greenall, who shared the following message on March 1, 2026 [note the delay in posting Dan’s message due to recent site maintenance]:

Hi Thomas

This evening, I came across a sound on shortwave that I had not heard in a long time. It was the familiar tune of Yankee Doodle being played by the Voice of America on 7500 kHz just prior to 2200 hours UTC. According to both shortwave.live and the Short-wave Fan Facebook page, this was a half-hour program in Mandarin being broadcast through the VOA facility in Tinang, Philippines. They apparently are using a transmitter in Kuwait as well for a few other programs. Though none of the actual programs are in English, the ID at the beginning and end of the transmission are. Follow this link for their schedule.

Here are two brief recordings, one of their sign on at 2200, and the other at sign off at 2230 hours UTC. They were made using Kiwi SDR’s located in Europe.

(Update March 3, 2026) — In addition to the original log, I just heard the VOA signing on at 1530 UTC on 9310 kHz in Korean using a Kiwi SDR in Thailand. Same intro with the retro Yankee Doodle music and English ID.

Has anyone else been tuning into these?

Dan Greenall, Ontario, Canada

90 Years of Broadcasting: Radio Prague’s Anniversary Shadowed by Closure Fears

1 Reply

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Jamet, who shares the following item from Radio Prague:

Radio Prague International has launched a year-long celebration of its 90th anniversary with an exhibition showcasing its rich history, even as concerns grow over its potential closure. The station, which began broadcasting in 1936, faces an uncertain future after the Czech Foreign Ministry proposed cutting its budget by nearly 25% and signaled intentions to discontinue the service by 2027. Despite the milestone birthday, staff and supporters worry this could mark the end of a vital cultural and informational link to the world.

https://english.radio.cz/radio-prague-int-launches-90th-birthday-celebrations-amid-fears-closure-8879585