Category Archives: Radio History

A DXer Looks Back at the Voice of America

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by Dan Greenall

50 years ago, Voice of America broadcasts could be found all over the shortwave dial.

In addition to a number of transmitter sites located stateside, the VOA used to broadcast from a number of other facilities located in overseas countries in order to help get its signal into all corners of the globe.  Many of these “relay” stations made for challenging DX catches and there was even an award offered by NASWA to those providing sufficient proof of reception of them all.  An example of this can be found on this link: https://k5nd.net/2011/06/voice-of-america/

The familiar tune of Yankee Doodle (heard at the beginning and end of a transmission) along with station ID in English would often include the particular transmitter site in use.  Several old recordings of these can be found on my links to these on the Internet Archive.

Technical staff hired to help maintain equipment at overseas facilities were often licensed amateur radio operators. See the attached scans of two QSL cards from amateurs who worked at the station near Monrovia, Liberia.

Most of the various VOA transmitter sites are listed below. Some include links that will lead to related historical information, articles and/or photographs and are well worth exploring.

VOA Greenville NC  

VOA Bethany OH

VOA Dixon/Delano CA

VOA Marathon, FL

VOA Wooferton UK

VOA Kavala Greece

VOA Thessaloniki Greece

VOA Rhodes, Dodecanese Islands

VOA Monrovia, Liberia

VOA Tangier, Morocco

VOA Okinawa, Ryuku Islands

VOA Poro/Tinang, Philippines

VOA Udon Thani, Thailand

VOA, Sri Lanka

VOA Sao Tome

VOA Botswana

A year ago, in January 2025, I made a couple of recordings, using remote SDR receivers, of some Voice of America programs being broadcast from their Botswana transmitter site.  These have been uploaded to archive.org and can be found here: https://archive.org/details/voa-africa-via-botswana-relay-january-19-2025

Since March 16, 2025, it seems the only former VOA transmitters being used are Greenville, NC (Radio Marti), Tinang, Philippines (Radyo Pilipinas world service), and Wooferton, UK (BBC and others).

Taiwan on Shortwave – Then and Now

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by Dan Greenall

For nearly a half-century, The Voice of Free China broadcast programs via shortwave to a worldwide audience from Taipei, Taiwan. As a relatively new SWL in the early 1970’s, I was always excited to hear English language programs from that part of the world, far away from southern Ontario, Canada, where I lived. There was no relay from WYFR or Radio Miami International at that time, so the signal from Taiwan needed to travel over 12,000 km (7500 miles) to reach my receiver.

I made this recording of their interval signal and sign-on in early 1971.

In 1998, the name of the station changed to Radio Taipei International, then again in 2003 to Radio Taiwan International.

Today, Radio Taiwan International continues to offer programs on shortwave in a number of languages from a transmitter in Taiwan, though there appears to be only one English-language broadcast per day, that being from 1600 to 1700 hours UTC on 9405 kHz. Here is a recording of the station signing on at 1600 UTC on January 1, 2026 using a remote SDR located in Japan:

And here they are signing off for the day on December 27, 2025 at 1700 UTC on 9405 kHz, again using a Kiwi SDR in Japan.

 

The station is received well in southern Ontario during their daily 2200 UTC broadcast in Spanish on 15770 kHz. This transmission is aired using the facilities of Radio Miami International in Okeechobee, Florida. The Kiwi SDR used for this recording is located in my hometown of London, Ontario.

Video: When Shortwave Radio Connected Soldiers Overseas with Their Families in WWII

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Fred Waterer, who writes:

“The History Guy” (a terrific YouTube channel) talks about the technical marvel of uniting the four radio networks and soldiers overseas via shortwave at Christmas 1942 and 1943.

Click here to view on YouTube.

Some holiday reading for shortwave listeners

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by Dan Greenall

Attention all SWL’s!   For those of you with a little extra free time over the holiday season, I would highly recommend having a look at two books that were written by a couple of very respected DXer’s from the past.  They are both available on the Internet Archive and their respective links can be found below.

Shortwave Voices of the World by Dr. Richard E. Wood   (1969)

I have mentioned this one before, but in case you missed it, you will find it here.

https://archive.org/details/shortwave-voices-of-the-world-richard-wood-ed-1-pr-1-1969

The World in My Ears by Arthur T. Cushen   (1979)

Newly uploaded, this one comes in two parts.  Part One describes his early days and how his listening began, while Part 2 gets into the hobby in general.

https://archive.org/details/the-world-in-my-ears-part-1/the%20world%20in%20my%20ears%20part%201/

Happy reading!

Hackaday: The Cold War-Era Survivable Low-Frequency Communication System (SLFCS)

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Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility Minuteman ICBM Launch Control (Wikimedia Commons)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dennis Dura, who shares the following article about Cold War–era low-frequency communications, from Hackaday:

During the Cold War, the U.S. developed the Survivable Low-Frequency Communication System (SLFCS) — a radio network designed to function even after a nuclear attack. Using long-wavelength LF and VLF signals that can travel vast distances through ground and ionospheric waveguides, SLFCS provided a way to deliver emergency launch orders when all else failed. The system’s immense towers and buried loop antennas reflect an era when reliability was paramount — even under atomic conditions.

Read the full article on Hackaday by clicking here.

Video: The Origins of the SOS Distress Signal

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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

Click here to view on YouTube.

Algeria on Shortwave – Then and Now

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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.