Category Archives: SWLers

War Diaries: Stalemate by Volodymyr Gurtovy (US7IGN)

How I Figure Out and Decide What To Log On Shortwave….

by Paul Walker, Program Director, KSKO 89.5 McGrath Alaska (not my radio, stock photo)

Some have asked, so I thought I’d share. Everyones DX’ing goals and rules are different and that’s what makes the hobby interesting……these are mine. If I logged everything, I’d have multi gigabytes of audio on a weekly basis that I’d never ever finish sorting through. Alaska seems to be a great place for direct long path, off the back or over the pole reception of alot of signals!

I have a schedule site (Eibispace.de) that gives me the frequency, schedule, broadcaster, transmitter location, language and target area of the signal. I then quickly work out in my mind where I am in relation to that.

Like something beaming from Oman or the UAE to the Middle East, I may be off center from the main lobe, but it’s a long path trip for that signal. Something from Botswana to Northern/Western African, I am in near the direct center main lobe of the long path of that, as I recall looking up at one point. Or I could be getting something off the back from Galbeni or Santa Maria de Galleria.

I quickly work that out in my head and ten figure out if that’s actual DX. Then i quickly evaluate the signal.. quality over quantity. I know what many signals are capable of here at some point or another.. and If I’m getting a noisy, fadey signal where I know anything from alot better is possible to common, I won’t log it or record audio.

I do regularly log some poor to fair signals because they are rare here and usually low power. (Tarma 4775khz, Brazil 15190khz, et al)

I also take into account what others have logged and how well. I go after the lesser heard or those not heard as well by others. I live in a very unique location for DX and I want to use my time wisely by learning about what I hear, what I hear and going after whatever my personal definition is of the most worthy signals to log.

I typically do not log anything of which I am in the target area or spill over area of. Like Radio Romania International, China Radio international.. because thats just easy pickin’s for me…. with a few exceptions

This is not to say anyone who logs only target area or easy stuff is doing it wrong. We just go after different things and do things differently.

If I logged everything I heard, I’d have multi gigabytes of audio on a weekly basis that I’d never ever finish sorting through and as Thomas Witherspoon knows, I’m behind with processing my audio all the time as it is!

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Dave Zantow (N9EWO) is Silent Key

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I’ve just learned from our friends Dan Robinson and Dean Bianco that Dave Zantow (N9EWO) has died from injuries sustained in a car/pedestrian accident.

From his obituary on Legacy.com:

David William Zantow, age 66, of Janesville, WI passed away on December 6, 2023 at Select Specialty Hospital, Madison the result of injuries suffered in an auto-pedestrian accident. He was born in Janesville on November 8, 1957, the son of Diehl and Joan (Knox) Zantow. The family moved to Beloit and David graduated from Beloit Memorial High School in 1975.

After returning to Janesville, David was employed at Radio Shack until it closed. He was an avid ham radio operator. He will be remembered for being very talented at electronic and computer repair.

David is survived by his mother, Joan Zantow; sister Mary (Paul) Harding; nephews Zack Green and Nick Key. He was preceded in death by his father, Diehl Zantow; sister, Charlotte Key and brother, Richard Zantow.

No services will be held. Entombment will be in Milton Lawns Memorial Park. The family is being assisted by HENKE-CLARSON FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY. Online condolences may be sent to www.henkeclarson.com

If you’ve been a shortwave radio listener for long, you’ve no doubt read Dave’s articles and reviews on his website Dave’s Radio Receiver Page or in the pages of the Passport To World Band Radio.

Those of us who knew Dave well are still trying to process his sudden death. Many of us had only recently been in touch with him.

From all of the SWLing Post community, we send our love and blessings to Dave’s family and close friends.

We will look into archiving his website.

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An interview with Glenn Hauser

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Glenn with his wrist-mounted altazimuth DX-398 for MW direction-finding.

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Since he was in grade school, Glenn Hauser has had the itch to receive broadcasts at long distance, and that interest, continuing throughout his lifetime, has led him to become one of the most respected authorities in the world of radio.

SWLing: How did you get started in radio?

GH: I started with TV DXing, trying to pick up Albuquerque 100 miles away, but often getting sporadic E skip stations more than 1,000 miles away. I also started tuning around medium wave. I was 8 or 9 years old.

SWLing: How did you get started with shortwave radio?

GH: In 1954, the family moved to Oklahoma City. By 1957, I acquired a Hallicrafters S-38E and was listening to shortwave using a longwire antenna, sending off for QSL cards. I was still doing TV DXing.

Then in 1961 the family moved to Enid, better for TV DXing, away from all those local stations, also radio DX. I acquired a Hammerlund HQ160, which was quite an improvement.

SWLing: Were you professionally involved in radio?

GH: In college, I worked on the campus radio station and also at a classical music station, KHFM. My BA was in broadcast journalism. After college, I continued to work on classical musical stations as programmer and announcer. I was very interested in foreign languages, learned phonetic schemes of various languages and learned to pronounce them. Radio Budapest was particularly helpful with Hungarian, which some announcers find difficult. I spent my professional career working for classical music stations.

I spent a year in Thailand, working for the American Forces Thailand Network. I was a newsman on the air in 1969 and 1970.

I had the HQ160 and a small TV in a footlocker, and in my spare time, DXed TV from as far as South Korea and the Philippines and medium wave from Europe.

After four years in the USAF, I resumed classic music radio, notably at WUOT, Knoxville.

By then I was contributing to various DX programs on SW stations, clubs, and eventually started my own program World of Radio. You can find out when to hear my program on the Schedules page at www.worldofradio.com . One of the main places to hear it is on WRMI in Florida. I was SW columnist for Popular Electronics, and later, Monitoring Times. Also published my own magazines, Review of International Broadcasting, and DX Listening Digest; at first on paper, then online.

SWLing: How did you get involved in logging SW radio stations?

GH: It was a natural outgrowth of enthusiasm for hobby; I was a regular contributor to DX Jukebox on Radio Netherlands (monthly) and Radio Canada International’s DX/SWL Digest (weekly).

SWLing: What sort of equipment do you use?

GH: A JRC NRD 545 and an Icom R75 for shortwave and medium wave. For antennas, I use a Wellbrook loop, a 100-foot random wire oriented east-west outside, and some shorter random wires inside the house. It is noisy where I live, and I’ve been trying to get the local electric company to fix line noise radiation.

Here in the town, my property is limited in space for antennas. I’ve been known to hook on to a wire fence in the country as a de facto Beverage antenna.

SWLing: How many hours a day do you monitor?

GH: It varies. Because of my program and my logging reports, I have made myself a nexus for information, so a lot gets sent to me. As a routine, I am always tuning around at bedtime, as well as various times during the day. At random times, I may do a band scan to see what’s happening.

SWLing: What are you most memorable moments listening to SW?

GH: Certainly one was October 4, 1957, hearing Sputnik on 20 megahertz.

SWLing: Any tips, tricks or advice you would care to offer to SWLs or DXers?

GH: Become as well informed as possible by participating in groups such as https://groups.io/g/WOR . Be aware of various references online such as the big 3 SW frequency listings, Aoki, EiBi, and HFCC, among those linked from my homepage http://www.worldofradio.com . In addition, scan the radio bands until you are familiar with what’s there, so you can notice something new or different.

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What is it about SWLing that keeps you coming back? A reader participation post.

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By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

After trying to copy Shortwave Australia on 4835 this AM, the curiosity bug has bitten me. What, I wonder, is it about SWLing that keeps my fellow readers of SWLing.com coming back?

For me, it’s three things. First, I think Treasure Island ruined me as a kid. Ever since I read it, shiver me timbers matey, the search for The Hidden Thing – whether treasure in the ground or a signal on the airwaves – has been a lifelong fascination for me.

Second, I enjoy trying to tease a faint signal out of the ether. That’s why I got a kick out of trying to hear the Armed Forces Crossband Test.

Finally, I enjoy the physical act of operating a radio, turning the dial, adjusting the controls, tuning the preselector, and so forth.

So now, it’s your turn – what keeps you coming back and tuning the airwaves?

Please comment!

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AGA Nostalgia Trip: Haluk soon to be reunited with his childhood radio

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Haluk Mesci, who shares the following guest post:

AGA is the agha of radios…

by Haluk Mesci

Full disclosure: Contains nostalgia of ‘my parent’s radio’ and some 36 ‘and’s…

I was born and raised in Turkey. Throughout some part of my primary and secondary school years–between 1960 to 1968–we enjoyed listening to an AGA tube radio in the family room.

Although AGA is mainly Swedish as far as I know, I re-discovered a stock photo of it on agamuseum.nl which is Dutch:

Ours had a ‘magic eye’ just above the tuning knob on the right

I remember, at age 9, trying to listen to a live broadcast of a soccer match between Fenerbahce–my favorite team–and the French team of Nice: There was a ‘Nis’ -Turkish spelling- on the MW screen, so there had to be a broadcast, right? Wrong.

I learned much later that it wasn’t that easy on radio. (Alas, my team was devastated 5-1 anyhow.) Similar ‘search’ for ‘Russian Sputnik sending messages to the world’ yielded nothing but strange sounds like ‘a diesel engine working loudly’… I wasn’t a silly kid, but nobody taught us basic radio then.

Years passed and my family relocated to Samsun, another city by the Black Sea, because of my father’s work. I was about to graduate from ODTU and there was the famous leftist (anti-US etc) ‘boycott’s of 1968 and later, I had to go live with my parents while my university courses remained suspended.

Ironically, the city had a US radar base; the base had a low power MW radio station broadcasting news and music -rock and country etc- 24 hours in English to the base staff: AFRTS 1590 kHz.

Shortly thereafter, the base was closed and the radio station went off the air, maybe because of the boycotts and the political winds in Turkey, so I had to look up another such station. Continue reading →

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Paul’s thoughts about Mediumwave DXing in Alaska

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who has kindly allowed me to published some notes he recently shared among MW DXers about DXing in McGrath, Alaska, USA:
During a Zoom hang out with a bunch of Pacific NW DXers, one of the things that come up was why my DXing in Alaska is beyond amazing, and we’ve come to a few conclusions.

The extended darkness. Sunrise in the middle of winter here is 3+ hours later than the west coast, so once their Skywave burns off, I’m left with darkness over the pole and to my west.

There’re no operating AM stations within just under 200 miles from me which is a big help. I have heard distant signals on the same channel as “semi locals” such as 780 and 1080.
And I’m pretty sure there’s something to the fact I’m close to the North Pole. Still far, but closer than most.

Interesting to note though: pre sunset DX isn’t a thing there. What I’ve unscientifically discovered is it seems to be that the entire Pacific has to be dark for DX to be worthwhile for me in the evening … despite my evening DX being Canada and the lower 48 US States.
What most everyone else hears at night, such as the transpacific signals from Japan, China, Australia etc…, I hear in the morning. Hearing anything from Asia or the Pacific at night is EXTREMELY rare.

[Since I’m DXing outdoors in extremely cold conditions] I’m getting extra batteries, extra audio cables (to go between the recorder and the radio), another radio, and another recorder. Oh and some hot hands hand warmers. Also have some extra gloves and hats ordered too.. getting prepped for winter DXing well ahead of time!

The hand warmers are as much for my gloves as they are for my digital recorder… AA batteries don’t last long during continuous use in extreme cold.

i also have a portable battery and extra cable so I can use it for my phone. Those lithium ion batteries hate cold even more than aa alkaline batteries–they will shut off in the cold. In fact, you have to not only warm it up but charge it. The cold causes it to think tis dead…. and even warming it up won’t work.

Here’s a video link to my FSL antenna designed and built by Gary DeBock:

DXIng is one of the reasons I moved back up here to Alaska and it’s entirely fascinating. I learn something new every “DX season”.

Lower 48 theory and ideas just don’t hold a bunch of weight up here … I’ve had ideas and suggestions from some really smart people that just didn’t work out.

Until you’ve DXed in Alaska, it’s hard to explain and understand.

Thank you for sharing your notes, Paul! Having never done DX in those latitudes, I can only imagine how different conditions might be–especially in those long, dark winters!

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