Category Archives: Shortwave Radio

Alan Roe’s “Holiday Broadcasts on Shortwave” (Version 1)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who once again has published his excellent Holiday Broadcasts on Shortwave schedule.

Alan notes:

I have again been collating a list of programming on shortwave over the forthcoming holiday period, covering Saturday 16 December 2023 to Monday 1 January 2024.

The list includes seasonal and non-seasonal programming. Regular weekly music programming, where no special advance programme information has been provided, are not generally included in this list, but please refer to my Music on Shortwave list.

Many thanks and 73

Alan Roe

Click here to download Holiday Broadcasts on Shortwave Version 1 (PDF).

Thank you so much for sharing your guide, Alan. I look forward to it each season!

Alan Roe’s B23 season guide to music on shortwave (version 3.0)

Back When You Had to Pay: Radio Receiving Licences in Canada

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Many thanks to SWLing Post and SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following guest post:

THE DAY YOU HAD TO PAY: Radio Receiving Licences in Canada

by Dan Greenall

MANY of us who are licensed [Canadian] amateurs can appreciate the fact that we are no longer subject to an annual licence renewal fee. As of April 1, 2000, that practice was discontinued by Industry Canada as a new streamlined authorization procedure was put in place for the amateur radio service. This came as a pleasant surprise to many who were paying $24 per annum per licence up until that point.

What many of us may not realize is that, prior to 1953, Canada had a licensing system in place for your radio receiver. Under the Radiotelegraph Act of 1913, a government minister (for most of this period, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries) had the power to license radio broadcasting stations and to charge a $1 licence fee on each receiving set. By 1929 three hundred thousand licenses were bought at $1.00 each.

An article appearing on the Friends of Canadian Broad- casting website a few years ago stated that the annual licence fee for receiving sets doubled to $2.00 in 1930. It was also noted that this was a lot of money during the Depression days that followed and two bucks could buy more than 40 loaves of bread. As a result, so the story goes, “harassed citizens” would try to outwit approaching government collectors by passing word along in time for their neighbours to shut off their radios and lock their doors.

During much of this period, radios that were made in Canada bore a “Warning” sticker such as the one in the accompanying photo. It stated that anyone convicted of operating the receiving set without first having obtained the proper licence could be liable to be fined for up to $25 and have their equipment confiscated. As noted in the book Radios of Canada by Lloyd Swackhammer, the penalty in 1924 was $50.

As you can see from the attached copies, such licences were being issued by the Department of Marine Radio Branch in 1936. In 1937, it was the responsibility of the Department of Transport – Radio Division.

Then in 1938, the DOT upped the fee to $2.50. It was another 15 years until this practice was finally abandoned.

So the next time you sit back and flip on the switch of your receiver, you might now have a greater appreciation of a privilege that most of us now take for granted.

SWList: A new shortwave schedules app for iOS devices

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Stefano Rampazzo, who recently contacted me regarding his new iOS app called SWList.

SWList pulls all of its radio schedule information from the excellent EiBi list and stores it locally of offline use.

Here are a few screenshots from my iPhone 12 (click images to enlarge):

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you might give this app a try. It isn’t free, but at $3.99 it’s an affordable app.

Click here to check it out in the iOS App Store.

RNZ Shortwave: “Futureproofing Pacific broadcasting – transmitter replacement underway”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia, who shares the following press release from Radio New Zealand:

Futureproofing Pacific broadcasting – transmitter replacement underway

Released at 2:34 pm on 12 December 2023

RNZ has powered down for the last time its 34-year-old shortwave Thompson transmitter, known as “Transmitter 1”, one of two shortwave transmitters that deliver analogue and digital radio broadcasts to the Pacific.

It is part of the preparation for the installation of a new Swiss-made Ampegon shortwave transmitter at its Rangitaiki site.

This project is a milestone for RNZ. For the past 75 years, it has been using shortwave radio to broadcast to the vast Pacific region. Replacing the old transmitter marks a significant step in futureproofing of the service.

Transmitter 1, the 100-kilowatt Thompson unit, was installed just outside of Taup? in 1989, just in time for the Commonweath Games held in Auckland in 1990. Only capable of transmitting in analogue, servicing Transmitter 1 has become an increasingly challenging task with many of the parts for the transmitter now obsolete.

Its replacement, an Ampegon shortwave transmitter capable of both digital and analogue transmission is currently being shipped to New Zealand after being built in Ampegon’s Switzerland factory. However, before the new transmitter can be installed, Transmitter 1 needs to be decommissioned with any useful parts kept as spares.

RNZ’s Transmission Engineer Specialist Steve White said the challenge for the switchover is having an existing transmission building that limits space.

“It will take around four weeks to completely dismantle Transmitter 1 which was built into the building so it’s not just a case of unplugging it and wheeling it out. We need to isolate the transmitter from the main switchboard as well as drain the fluids that help cool the transmitter before breaking it into parts.”

The new Ampegon transmitter will arrive in January and take an estimated six weeks to install, six weeks to commission and a further period of training. At this stage it is expected the transmitter will be operational from 1 May 2024.

When Transmitter 1 is replaced, there will be two transmitters capable of both analogue and digital transmissions, ensuring a complete backup should one of the transmitters stop working.

In the meantime, RNZ Pacific Manager Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor said they were making sure all of RNZ’s Pacific partners were aware of the alternative ways to access RNZ content.

“While digital transmissions will continue, the decommissioning of Transmitter 1 will mean the analogue service will be reduced during the transition period. However, RNZ can still be heard via satellite, and we will be working with our partners in the Pacific on the alternative options of downloading or livestreaming through our website. RNZ Pacific also has an important role during Cyclone season, delivering critical information to the region and this will be prioritised during this period of single transmitter operation.”

RNZ Chief Executive and Editor in Chief Paul Thompson said the importance of the service for the region cannot be underestimated in terms of the content provided.

“Our voice reaches and is welcomed in all parts of the Pacific. During the Tonga eruption, when the undersea cable was cut, RNZ Pacific short wave was a lifeline source of information,” he said.

RNZ’s Charter includes the provision of an international service to the South Pacific in both English and Pacific languages. As part of Budget 2022, the Government announced $4.4m dollars capital funding for a new transmitter for RNZ Pacific.

Announcing Don Moore’s latest book: Tales of a Vagabond DXer

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and friend Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for sharing the following announcement about his latest book! Don is a brilliant author–you’ll enjoy accompanying him on his travels and radio journey in this latest book. I highly recommend all of his work!

Tales of a Vagabond DXer

Tales of a Vagabond DXer by Don Moore is a new book focusing on Latin American radio and DXing. In this 300-page volume, Don blends together stories from his radio station visits, his travels, and his experiences as a DXer. Don has been an active member of the DX listening hobby for over five decades. His interest in Latin American radio inspired him to serve in the Peace Corps in Honduras in the early 1980s.

Since then, he has traveled extensively in Latin America and visited more than 150 radio stations in the region. He has written dozens of articles on Latin American DXing for radio hobby publications including Monitoring Times, the NASWA Journal, Review of International Broadcasting, and Passport to World Band Radio. Today, Don is a regular contributor to the SWLing Post Blog.

Tales of a Vagabond DXer is available from Amazon.com in trade-sized paperback for $12.99 or Kindle eBook for $4.99, or for equivalent prices in local currencies on non-US Amazon stores.

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3t98tZt

Kindle: https://amzn.to/47O3Nak

Note: the Amazon Affiliate links above not only support author Don Moore, but Amazon shares a small percentage of the final sale with the SWLing Post as well.

Carlos’ Experience and Motivation for Receiving Kydodo News via Radiofax

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, friend, and political cartoonist Carlos Latuff, who shares the following guest post:

My experiences receiving Kyodo News

by Carlos Latuff

Back in the 90s, I used the fax machine a lot, I even had one in my house, sending messages and cartoons to my clients and even to live TV shows (see the video example below). Lots of fun!

But for me, the fax only worked through the phone line.

It was only in 2020, during the covid-19 pandemic, that I, by chance, during one of my radio listening sessions, came across a strange signal that I would only later discover was a radiofax.

It was then that I realized that several meteorological agencies around the world broadcast synoptic charts and satellite images to vessels on the seas by radiofax, and that there was a Japanese news agency (the only one left in the world) that broadcast daily news to fishing boats and cargo ships: Kyodo News.

I was fascinated by that!

And I started tuning to the frequency of 16971 kHz USB (16970 in fact, to properly receive images) using basically my Xhdata D-808 and its telescopic antenna (now I use a 3-meter long wire antenna).

All the weather agencies I know broadcast at 120 lines per minute, while Kyodo News broadcasts at 60 lines. When I used to have a laptop, I had programs installed where I could adjust this cadence, like MixW, however, using an Android cell phone, the only application that works for radiofax is HF Weather Fax, which only decodes at 120 lines per minute (I had some problems with the app, which, being old, sometimes generated conflicts with Android and crash suddenly or even didn’t even open. Another bug is that after around 40 minutes of continuous decoding, the app stops). When you receive a radiofax at a rate of 60 lpm and decode it at 120 lpm, it’s as if you cut the image in half, vertically, and joined the two parts into one, mixing the letters.

I noticed that, when enlarging the image with my fingertips on the surface of the cell phone, while receiving the radiofax, I was able to see the right and left side of the image at a time, in an effect known in graphic arts as “moiré pattern”.

So, using HF Weather Fax I cannot download a Kyodo News radiofax in full (except when I receive the bulletin in English, the only time Kyodo News broadcasts in 120 lpm), but I can view parts of it and make print screens. And with these prints, I open them on Google translator app translating from Japanese to English. If image is in good quality, the translation is perfect.

Results I got were obtained from radio listening in Porto Alegre, Tramandaí beach in Rio Grande do Sul, and Urca beach in Rio de Janeiro, all located in Brazil. The best time has been late in the morning/early in the morning.

I’ve already obtained digital QSL cards from some meteorological agencies, such as those in Germany, Australia and Kagoshima in Japan, but Kyodo News doesn’t even respond to my emails.

But the main question is: why go to so much work to receive news via radiofax when you can easily receive it on the Internet through the Kyodo News website–?

Firstly, I’m nostalgic, receiving these radiofax has a touch of the past that I like to remember. And second, I believe that with the advancement of new satellite data transmission technologies, it’s only a matter of time before radiofax disappears as means of communication for vessels on the high seas. This is already happening!

Remember the end of radiofax transmissions from the New Zealand meteorological agency MetService this year?

So I’m enjoying the radiofax, before it ends!

The following are reports from some of my listening/decoding sessions: Continue reading →