Shortwave listening and everything radio including reviews, broadcasting, ham radio, field operation, DXing, maker kits, travel, emergency gear, events, and more
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Fred Waterer for sharing this video from the YouTube channel “Today I Found Out” about the origins of the SOS distress signal:
How Did ‘SOS’ Become The Universal Distress Signal?
Three dots. Three dashes. Three dots. Even if you don’t know a single other letter of International Morse Code, chances are you immediately recognized the unmistakable rhythm of “SOS”. It is the universal distress signal, understood in nearly every country and language and appearing everywhere in pop culture including songs by artists as diverse as ABBA, Rihanna, and Great Big Sea. And with good reason: endlessly versatile, SOS can be tapped out on a telegraph key or spoken aloud over voice radio, flashed using a signal mirror or flashlight, written out in the snow or sand, or – if you happen to be held under duress – blinked out with your eyelids. But how did this seemingly random string of letters come to be the universal code for shit hitting the fan, and do the letters actually mean anything? Well, tune your radio transmitters, warm up your signalling fingers, and let’s find out, shall we?
Author: Gilles Messier
Host: Simon Whistler
Editor: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila
In the Northern Hemisphere the nights continue to get longer as we approach the winter solstice; we gain an hour of early evening darkness on Sunday, November 2nd; the summer atmospheric disturbances are nearly gone; propagation is better. It’s time to set aside the activities of summer and once more dive underneath the headsets.
DXing is not the same thing as listening. For listening you position yourself in a nice recliner with the radio on a table beside you. You set the radio to ATS and scan the available fare. You select one of the more interesting results and, together with your favorite beverage, listen to the programming. DXing, on the other hand, requires well planned work and lots of patience. Critics might say it also requires some imagination; however, I have always tried to be honest with myself and ask if what I am hearing is truly QSLable.
Sir Oswald Davenport, intrepid DXer and Chairman, National Association of Armchair Adventurers
Don’t get me wrong, I listen a lot, but I also DX. Living on the East Coast of NA, I often direct my antenna toward Asia and the Pacific hoping to hear Japan and New Zealand. However, more often than not, these have proven to be illusive. DXing is like fishing. Often, you pull up an old boot or find the bait is gone. Further, the sound quality of a true DX signal will have no appeal to an audiophile. It is intentionally weak and subject to fading.
So, you get your wins when you can. Last February I scanned the 49-meter band stopping at 6130 kHz to identify some faint pop/rock music. There were two possibilities, a Chinese station and Radio Europe. If you have never heard of Radio Europe, it is in Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands, and has a rather imposing name for a modest 1 kW station. It is targeted to Western Europe, and is listed in HFCC, B25. The station is identified periodically in English by a dramatic baritone male announcer. The recording was made at 0211 UTC on February 6, 2025. The announcement begins 9 seconds into the clip; Radio Europe is mentioned at 23 seconds.
The curious thing is Radio Europe is not necessarily well received at the U. of Twente SDR site just 100 miles away. Science notwithstanding, there is simply no accounting for propagation.
Well, Radio Europe is back this season as strong as I have heard it, and if you’re a NA East Coaster, you might give it a try from 2300 UTC on. I see it was reported in Florida in 2023. Using exalted carrier single sideband (ECSS) (SSB in simpler terms) seems to produce the best results. Despite low power and long distance, it’s occasional stations like Radio Europe that keep this DXer fishin’. For a clear sample, it streams here http://p.liveonlineradio.net/?p=radio-europe.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Mark Hirst, who writes:
This gem arrived in the charity shop where I volunteer yesterday, a radio made in the USSR (Minsk) in around 1975.
It was in fantastic external condition, although after checking it out discovered that the band changing control on the right hand side had been disconnected.
I suspect something went wrong with the very mechanical way it switched frequencies (shown in the video below), which rotated individual circuit boards into play.
Somebody seems to have opened it up, set it permanently on VHF, and then disconnected the control to prevent any further changes.
It was evidently sold in the UK as it has BBC radio stations on the dial and I even found a UK service manual for it.
I was tempted for a while, but I’m learning these days that this sort of thing just ends up as clutter.
Hard to believe that only five years after this electro-mechanical radio was made, Sony would release the ICF-2001 !
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, for sharing the following guest post:
Algeria on Shortwave – Then and Now
by Dan Greenall
In the early 1970s, Radiodiffusion-Television Algerienne ran a modest shortwave service (no English) mainly for North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. A copy of their schedule from the 1972 World Radio TV Handbook is shown.
As a fledgling DXer in 1971, I was fortunate to hear their signal on 9510 kHz from my listening post in southern Ontario, Canada. Even better, they responded to my request for a QSL with this attractive card.
Fast forward a quarter century to 1996. The international service of Radio Algiers could be heard at times here in eastern North America on 15160 kHz with broadcasts that included English. Here is a brief recording from November 3 of that year that I am lucky to have saved.
In July 2022, two new 300 kW transmitters located at Ouargla and Bechar were put on the air after several years of planning. These were to be used for the Radio Coran service in Arabic, but in May 2023, Ifrikya FM (the African Voice) was born with the objective of providing a pan-African voice by broadcasting educational, informative, and cultural programming from an African perspective.
Although there is no English, they can be spotted on shortwave on 13640 and 13855 kHz after their 1900 UTC sign on. If you can hear the same programming on these two frequencies, you will know you have them.
Here are two recordings made on October 19, 2025 using a KiwiSDR near Sao Paulo, Brazil. They were made one hour apart, the first at 2000 UTC and the second at 2100 hours.
13855 was noticeably stronger than 13640 on this receiver.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who shares the following guest post:
The 90 metre band – Then and Now
by Dan Greenall
A few decades ago, the 90 metre shortwave broadcast band used to be full of interesting and challenging-to-hear DX signals. In the 1974 edition of The Complete Shortwave Listener’s Handbook, author Hank Bennett reports on what you might expect to hear on these frequencies. There is a copy of this book on the Internet Archive. Here is a link to that specific page.
Also, this sample page from White’s Radio Log in the 1972 Communications World magazine shows a number of stations that could be logged in 90 metre band.
Here are a few links to recordings from my personal collection that have survived through the many years. These were all made between 3200 and 3400 kHz from my listening post in southern Ontario, Canada.
[Note: Click on each broadcast link to open the associated Internet Archive page with more info.]
Today, it seems that only a handful of stations can be found broadcasting in the 90 metre band. These would include WWCR in Nashville, the Voice of Indonesia, KCBS Pyongyang and Radio Mosoj Chaski in Cochabamba, Bolivia. As well, the Canadian time signal station CHU still continues to use 3330 kHz.
A recent recording of Mosoj Chaski Radio, a Christian broadcaster logged using a remote SDR in Lima, Peru, is presented here.
Although not in English, listen carefully and you can hear them give their frequency of 3310 kHz in the 90 metre band as well as their location of Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor David Iurescia for sharing the following article about one of my favorite topics, which we’ve covered in the past.
Long before Zoom classrooms or remote-learning platforms existed, Australia was already teaching across the outback via radio. This article from Education Daily explores how the School of the Airbegan in 1951 using shortwave radio and evolved into one of the world’s most advanced distance education systems—connecting students across half a million square miles.
It’s a brilliant look at how necessity inspired real innovation in broadcasting and education.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who shares the following post:
When I began shortwave listening back in 1969, Vatican Radio was one of the first stations I came across. That same year, the late Dr. Richard E. Wood authored a book called “Shortwave Voices of the World” in which he writes some notes about the station that you can read here [PDF].
In fact, Vatican Radio was established in 1931 by none other than Guglielmo Marconi. It wasn’t until sometime after World War 2 that the present-day transmitter site was set up at Santa Maria di Galeria. A nice view of it is pictured on this 1970 QSL card.
By the early 1970’s, short English language broadcasts to North America were still included in their schedule as you can see from these pages in the 1972 World Radio TV Handbook [click to enlarge].
In 1983, Ken MacHarg, a former host of the DX Partyline on HCJB, was the author of a now out-of-print book entitled “Tune In The World”. Read Ken’s comments about Vatican Radio here.
Though their published interval signal (see WRTVH) was “Christus Vincit”, Vatican Radio could also be recognized by the bells of St. Peter’s, which you will hear in this recording from 1971 that I made from my listening post in Ontario, Canada: https://archive.org/details/vatican-radio-1971
In more recent times, I have read that shortwave broadcasts to North and South America, as well as Europe, ended in 2012. In addition, English language shortwave transmissions to Asia ended in 2017, though they could still be found online. A list of their current English language broadcasts, as found on short-wave.info is shown here:
Here is a recording made August 11, 2025 using a remote SDR in the UK, complete with “Christus Vincit” interval signal, as they began their African service on 9705 kHz.
Also included is a recording from September 30, 2025, as they ended a transmission on 15595 kHz.
