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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Tilford, who shares the following update:
From the Isle of Music, March 2025
March’s program will be a Cuban dance party featuring some of our favorite charanga orchestras:
Friday, March 7:
3955 kHz at 2200 UTC
Saturday, March 8:
3955 kHz at 1800 UTC simulcasted with 9670 kHz using beam E-F (repeat of March 7 episode).
Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot, March 2025
March’s program will feature mainly music from Corsica and will air as follows:
Friday, March 14:
3955 kHz at 2200 UTC
Saturday, March 15:
3955 at 1800 UTC simulcasted with 9670 using beam E-F (repeat of March 14 episode).
**In addition to direct radio reception, we do honor reception reports using remote SDRs as long as the whole program is described and which SDR is specified.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Bill Tilford, who shares the following announcement and schedule:
From the Isle of Music, February 2025
February’s program will feature recent Cuban jazz from musicians who participated in Havana’s Jazz Plaza 2025:
Friday, February 7:
3955 kHz at 2200 UTC
Saturday, February 8:
3955 kHz at 1800 UTC simulcasted with 9670 kHz using beam E-F (repeat of February 7 episode).
Uncle Bill’s Melting Pot, February 2025
February’s program will feature mainly music from the Bahamas with some other odds and ends and will air as follows:
Friday, February 14:
3955 kHz at 2200 UTC
Saturday, February 15:
3955 at 1800 UTC simulcasted with 9670 using beam E-F (repeat of February 14 episode).
**In addition to direct radio reception, both programs do honor reception reports using remote SDRs with eQSLs as long as the whole program is described and which SDR is specified.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Carlos Latuff, who shares the following guest post:
Exploring Radio Radio Nikkei
by Carlos Latuff
It’s been a while since I listened to Nikkei Radio, a Japanese commercial broadcaster that operates on shortwave for a domestic audience. If I remember well, the signal was very weak and, since I don’t speak Japanese, I didn’t know what the content of its broadcasts was about. But today, with the possibility of recording the audio, transcribing it and translating it, it has become more interesting to follow its programs on shortwave here in Brazil, more specifically in Porto Alegre (distance between Nikkei’s transmitter in Chiba, Japan, and Porto Alegre, Brazil: 18779 km).
Nikkei Radio 1 was founded in 1954 and Nikkei 2 in 1963, and at the time it was called Nihon Shortwave Broadcasting Co., better known by the acronym “NSB”. Some Japanese electronics manufacturers have in the past released receivers dedicated to receiving the signal from these stations (see below).
Today, the Japanese company Audiocomm has radio models whose packaging states that this receiver is compatible with Nikkei Radio; note the image alluding to horse racing (see below).
I haven’t been able to acquire any of these devices (yet), since they were basically produced for the Japanese public. But any receiver with shortwave bands can tune into Radio Nikkei. I use my good old XHDATA D-808 with a long wire antenna. In Porto Alegre, the best propagation is between 08:45 AM and 06:15 AM (UTC). In the late afternoon, the signal also arrives, but with a fair amount of static.
Both Radio Nikkei 1 and Radio Nikkei 2 operate on the following frequencies:
Radio Nikkei 1:
3.925 MHz (in case of emergency)
6.055 MHz
9.595 MHz (in case of emergency)
Radio Nikkei 2:
3.945 MHz (in case of emergency)
6.115 MHz
9.76 MHz: (in case of emergency)
On the station’s website https://www.radionikkei.jp/ you can find details of its programming, as well as broadcast times, including a table (in Japanese) with this information, which can be translated with the help of Google Lens.
Radio Nikkei also broadcasts its programming via streaming, however the platform used (radiko) is inaccessible to me here in Brazil (see message below).
Nikkei Radio is majority-owned by the business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which means the station focuses mainly on the financial market. However, much of its programming, especially on weekends, is dedicated to horse racing, a popular sport in Japan. In addition to news, talk shows and music, the radio station also broadcasts evangelical preaching (!). One of these religious programs is called “True Salvation” and is sponsored by The Japan Gospel Mission, a Christian Protestant organization.
This heterogeneous mix of business, horses and Jesus Christ makes Nikkei Radio an interesting station to tune into, to say the least.
The radio listening sessions published here were made in the central Porto Alegre, Brazil, between January 15th and 19th, 2025.
(Domo arigato gozai masu Mr. Tagawa Shigeru for helping me with translation).
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who shares his B-24 (version 3.0) season guide to music on shortwave. Alan provides this amazing resource as a free PDF download:
