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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who shares his B-25 (version 1.0) season guide to music on shortwave. Alan provides this amazing resource as a free PDF download.
Alan has also created at-a-glance, single-page PDF programme grids for BBC World Service, CGTN Radio, Radio Romania International, Voice of Turkey, and Radio Taiwan International — all updated for the B-25 broadcast season and published last week. If you’d like to download these, visit Alan’s Box account here: http://tinyurl.com/shortwaveprograms
As always, thank you for sharing your excellent guide, Alan!
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.
A photo of a shortwave radio in a news article on Radio New Zealand International’s online Pacific page (see screenshot above) caught my attention. It shows someone holding a Panasonic RF-3750 portable FM/MW/SW receiver from the 1990’s (like the one pictured below). The caption reads, “Many remote communities in Pacific island countries rely on shortwave radio.”
Photo Credit: Internet Archive Community Images Collection (IMG_20200605_201148.jpg).
The article, titled “RNZ Pacific Cyclone Watch Service activated” is about RNZ Pacific’s Cyclone Watch Service that operates during the South Pacific cyclone season which runs from November 1 through April 2026. RNZ Pacific will broadcast hourly updates from Meteorological services in the region once cyclone alerts are issues. The article reminds readers that when local power grids and broadcasters are down “our broadcasts may be the only updates that people in the Island nations and territories can receive.” It also lists the on-air frequencies for the RNZ Pacific Cyclone Watch Service for the 2025-2026 cyclone season.
I’m glad RNZI is still on shortwave and understands its role in providing these broadcasts of critical information to remote areas. I remember during the 1970s, listening to Pacific cyclone bulletins broadcast by Radio Australia and plotting them on my National Geographic maps. I grew up on an island at the southern end of the Caribbean archipelago and from June to November I was plotting the track of cyclones in my own region, with information from medium stations like Radio Antilles, Montserrat, and Trans World Radio, Bonaire, and of course WWV on shortwave.
Fans of Radio Canada International’s SWL Digest will be delighted to hear that Ian McFarland has teamed up with Colin Newell for a new podcast episode, SWL Digest 2025. It’s a nostalgic nod to the classic RCI program and a welcome chance to hear Ian’s familiar voice once again!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor James Salmon, who shares the following announcement:
New Month – New Programme!
Out now – the November edition of ‘Sunny Jim’s Trance Journey’! Join me on another musical journey powered by melodic electronic music, & keeping shortwave alive with new music!
WRMI – 9955kHz
Wednesdays throughout November – 21:00 EST / 02:00 UTC (Thursday)
Channel 292 – 9670kHz
Sunday 09th November – 12:00 CET / 11:00 UTC
Saturday 22nd November – 15:00 CET / 14:00 UTC
For up to date WRMI & Channel 292 transmission times and frequencies, or to listen online, visit the website: sjtjradio.com
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–who shares the following post:
The Missouri and Oklahoma Secure Nets
By Don Moore
Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer[SWLing Post affiliate link].If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.
I’m always looking for new stations to add to my logbook, and the more unusual, the better. So I was intrigued by a pair of messages in the Utility DXers Forum (https://www.udxf.nl/) email group in mid-August. Steve Handler posted a list of emergency station call signs from the state of Missouri that he found on the web in a 2014 emergency plan document. Then Jack Metcalfe responded that the last time he had checked, in early 2024, they ran a regularly scheduled net on 5140 kHz.
I immediately sent an email to Jack to find out more. He answered that on Wednesdays the Oklahoma State Secure Net had been doing a check-in at 0900 local time and that the Missouri State Secure Net followed at 0930 local time. Both of these started on 5140 kHz and then moved to 7477 kHz.
Going After the Secure Nets
I was spending my summer at an Airbnb in the north suburbs of Chicago. It wasn’t a good place to DX from, but I had already found a good listening site at the Old School Forest Preserve near Libertyville, Illinois. I began a series of regular Wednesday morning listening sessions. I knew that this wasn’t the best time of year for reception on lower frequencies, but I wanted to give it a try.
All I got from the Oklahoma net was a few very weak and unreadable signals. From the Missouri net, I got two loggings of the net control station, WNBE830, and of WQKX373 in St. Charles County. Two other Missouri stations did check in, but they were too weak for me to copy the call signs. They did say that the net is only on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. And there was nothing on 7477 kHz, so they apparently stick to 5140 kHz only now.
Recording of WNBE830 as heard on 5140 kHz at 1430 UTC on 03 September 2025, as heard in Old School Forest Preserve:
In mid-September, I left Chicago to visit my daughter in western Colorado. While I was planning my return drive back east along I-70, I realized that I would be spending the night of Tuesday, October 14, somewhere around Kansas City. And that meant I would be in the area the next morning for the third Wednesday of the month. I made plans for another mini DXpedition.
I found a hotel in the west suburbs and the next morning headed to a picnic shelter in nearby Wyandotte County Park for another remote DX session with my Airspy HF+ Discovery SDRs and PA0RDT mini whip. It was an excellent location. I logged five stations participating in the Oklahoma net. During the initial chitchat before the roll call, it was mentioned that some of the participants were at a conference. I might have gotten more stations if it hadn’t been for that. The Missouri net, on the other hand, did not make an appearance even though it was the third Wednesday.
Recording of roll call in the Oklahoma State Secure Net on 5140 kHz at 1407 UTC on October 15, 2025, as heard in Wyandotte County Park.
How To Log the Secure Nets
I didn’t hear as many new stations as I had hoped, but then I was listening in late summer and early autumn. There had already been several hours of daylight before the net started, which isn’t the best for propagation on the lower shortwave frequencies. The northern hemisphere is moving into winter, and as that happens, sunrise times will move later. And that will allow 5140 kHz to be heard at greater distances during the timeslot these nets are on. If you can hear WWV on 5 MHz in mid-morning in mid-winter at your location, you should have a chance at these.
The nets are on at 0900 and 0930 local (Central) time. When I was tuning in, that was 1400 and 1430 UTC, but when the US goes off of Daylight Savings Time on November 2nd, that changes to 1500 and 1530 UTC. From what one of the Oklahoma stations said, it sounded like the Oklahoma net is on every Wednesday. The Missouri net did say only first and third Wednesdays, but according to Jack Metcalfe, it was weekly some years ago. And for some reason, they weren’t on the third Wednesday of October.
I’m going to be spending the next four months traveling in Southeast Asia, so I won’t be DXing these again until I return to Chicago for a short visit in March. But hopefully some of you reading this in North America will try to hear these networks, too. Given that there is some question as to which Wednesdays these networks take place, I suggest setting up your SDR to make a spectrum recording including 5140 kHz every Wednesday at 1400/1500 UTC for the next few months. And let me know what you hear by dropping me a message to Don AT DonMooreDXer DOT com. If I get enough good information, I’ll put together an update to this article.
And that brings up something else. Do you know of any other regularly scheduled utility voice networks on shortwave like this one? Over twenty years ago, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Aviation Administration had weekly voice nets, but those are long gone.
Please post what you know in the comments or send me an email to the above address.
Oklahoma Secure Net Stations
On logs going back to 2005, these are the stations that Jack Metcalfe has heard participating in the net.
KNBV428 Santa Fe, NM
KNFG267 Oklahoma City, OK (normal net control)
KNGR728 Rush Springs, OK
WGY926 Oklahoma City, OK
WNBM839 Stillwater, OK
WNCH624 Department of Emergency Management, Tulsa, OK
WNPV700 Durant, OK
WNUW211 Oklahoma City, OK
WNUW212 Department of Emergency Management, Shawnee, OK
WNUW213 Department of Emergency Management, Altus, OK
WNUW215 Ponca City, OK
WNUW216 Oklahoma City, OK
WNUW217 Ardmore, OK
WPBV938 Beaver, OK (Beaver County EOC)
WPFY721, Oklahoma Emergency Management Agency EOC at the National Guard Armory, Seminole, OK
WQSY836 Byng, OK
My logs include three more stations either participating in or being unsuccessfully called.
WQYW833 Unknown location
WQZT582 Broken Arrow
WSHM692 Oklahoma City
Missouri Secure Net
Stations Jack Metcalfe has logged.
WNBE830 Ike Skelton Training Center, Jefferson City, MO (net control)
WNUW240 Missouri EMA, Jefferson City, MO
WQKE203 Missouri Dept of Transportation, Jefferson City, MO
WQOI753 Missouri Dept of Transportation, Hannibal, MO
WQOI754 Missouri Dept of Public Safety, Sikeston, MO
WQOJ557 Missouri State Police Radio Shop, Jefferson City, MO
WQOL350 Missouri Dept of Public Safety, Chesterfield, MO
WQOL459 Missouri Dept of Transportation, Lee’s Summit, MO
I heard one additional station:
WQKX373 St. Charles County, MO
Next listed are the stations Steve Handler found listed in the 2014 edition, Appendix 2, Section 2.22 of the 2014 Emergency Operations Plan. This plan was publicly posted by the City of Battlefield at the following URL:
According to the same document, the net is authorized to use the following frequencies. Under 7477 kHz, there is a note that the station uses 1000 watts during the day and 250 watts at night.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who shares his B-25 (version 1.0) season guide to music on shortwave. Alan provides this amazing resource as a free PDF download.
