Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent Radio ELWA broadcast.
Carlos notes:
Program “Thru the Bible”, with J. Vernon McGee, Radio ELWA, Monrovia, Liberia, 6050 kHz
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report and QSL of a recent Radio ELWA broadcast.
Update/Correction: It was discovered after posting this recording and message that it’s actually Radio ELWA’s 72nd anniversary year, despite a recent post on their website claiming it was their 70th anniversary.
Carlos notes:
While conducting these recent radio listening sessions, I discovered that ELWA Radio celebrated its 70th anniversary in May of this year. To mark this occasion, I decided to create a commemorative illustration of this station, which is a true symbol of the resilience of the Liberian people.
I was informed by the station’s manager, Rev. Perry Saydee, that the program I tuned into yesterday, October 14th, is called “Thru the Bible,” and searching on YouTube, I found the audio related to my radio listening session.
The program is hosted by Steve Shwetz and shows sermons by Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Presbyterian minister from the United States who died in 1988
I was kindly awarded with this e-QSL card due my listening report of October 13th.
Today, October 15th, I also managed to capture ELWA Radio’s interval signal.
By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM
It was a remark from Sebastian Schlüter in response to this post – https://swling.com/blog/2025/10/some-really-inexpensive-ways-to-perhaps-improve-your-shortwave-listening — that sparked today’s post.
He said:
If your RFI is really high, your best weapon is a magnetic loop antenna aka small receive loop. At home, my RFI is so high that I don’t benefit from a larger/longer antenna. For example: Using the telescopic antenna (75 cm) vs using 3m of wire. Reason is that the signal-to-noise ratio is roughly the same in both cases and that all of those very weak signals are below the noise floor anyway, and the ones that make it through the noise are already strong enough to be received with the telescopic only. Conclusion: In a high RFI environment, it’s not about maximising the signal strength but maximising the SNR. You need to find an antenna type that will pick up less of that RFI. A cheap and simple antenna for this is the small receive loop. For a start, you can use a cheap wire terminal with 3.5mm mono jack. Using a 1:1 balun further improves the result.
What really struck my eye was this:
A cheap and simple antenna for this is the small receive loop. For a start, you can use a cheap wire terminal with 3.5mm mono jack.
My CCrane Skywave SSB 2 came with a wire terminal with a 3.5 mono jack, I realized. I hooked it up to my 45-foot horizontal room loop (a single strand of insulated wire run around the top of window frames and bookcases in my radio shack), and then ran the following experiment.
Using the scan function on the Skywave SSB 2, I scanned the shortwave bands using the whip antenna, and then I did it with the loop plugged into the external antenna socket.
The results:
CCrane Skywave SSB 2
Whip antenna: 4 stations detected. Loop antenna: 13 stations detected.
Then I tried the same experiment with a Tecsun PL-880.
The results:
Tecsun PL-880
Whip antenna: 8 stations detected Loop antenna: 15 stations detected.
Clearly, Sebastian’s suggestion of plugging in a simple wire loop makes a huge difference. And, I should note, I didn’t play fair. I did the test while 3 scanners, an LED light, and two UHF/VHF ham transceivers were operating in the vicinity and probably generating RFI.
So now the question: I ran the experiment with a 45-foot simple loop. What do you suppose would be the minimum wire length for an effective simple wire loop? I look forward to your input.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent Radio ELWA broadcast.
Carlos notes:
It’s never been easy for me to pick up the ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa) radio signal on 6050 kHz in Brazil. The signal was always weak, propagation was poor, and conditions were never particularly favorable for listening to the historic evangelical radio station from Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Until then, I had only listened ELWA, with great difficulty, in Porto Alegre and Guaíba, both cities in Rio Grande do Sul, and in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. Recently, while scanning shortwave frequencies during the early morning hours in Rio de Janeiro, I received the ELWA radio signal and decided to try recording the broadcast. I noticed a sort of propagation window between 6:30 and 6:50 (UTC). Even though, it took at least six days of failed attempts, the same weak signal and poor propagation, until finally today, October 13th, I got clear audio.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent CGTN broadcast.
Carlos notes:
Hamas hands over all remaining hostages to Israel, CGTN Radio, 13800 kHz
By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM
Just yesterday morning, I was reminded that sometimes really small things can make a significant difference SWLing. So here are some things that I found can make an improvement, particularly if you are using one of the modern shortwave portables with its whip antenna.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
I hope these small suggestions will be of some help in making your listening better.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who shares the following guest post:
by Dan Greenall
A few decades ago, the 90 metre shortwave broadcast band used to be full of interesting and challenging-to-hear DX signals. In the 1974 edition of The Complete Shortwave Listener’s Handbook, author Hank Bennett reports on what you might expect to hear on these frequencies. There is a copy of this book on the Internet Archive. Here is a link to that specific page.
Also, this sample page from White’s Radio Log in the 1972 Communications World magazine shows a number of stations that could be logged in 90 metre band.
Here are a few links to recordings from my personal collection that have survived through the many years. These were all made between 3200 and 3400 kHz from my listening post in southern Ontario, Canada.
[Note: Click on each broadcast link to open the associated Internet Archive page with more info.]
Radio Rabaul, PNG 1971
Radio Libertad, Santiago, Dominican Republic 1971
Today, it seems that only a handful of stations can be found broadcasting in the 90 metre band. These would include WWCR in Nashville, the Voice of Indonesia, KCBS Pyongyang and Radio Mosoj Chaski in Cochabamba, Bolivia. As well, the Canadian time signal station CHU still continues to use 3330 kHz.
A recent recording of Mosoj Chaski Radio, a Christian broadcaster logged using a remote SDR in Lima, Peru, is presented here.
Although not in English, listen carefully and you can hear them give their frequency of 3310 kHz in the 90 metre band as well as their location of Cochabamba, Bolivia.