Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who shares his B-24 (version 1.0) season guide to music on shortwave. Alan provides this amazing resource as a free PDF download:
Click here to download Music on Shortwave B-24 v2.0 (PDF)
As always, thank you for sharing your excellent guide, Alan!
This dedicated page will always have the latest version of Alan’s guide available for download.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who shares the following article:
“Everything got shut off. This place had never been shut off in 50 years.”
WEST CHESTER, Ohio (WXIX) – The Bethany Relay Station at the Voice of America Park is remembering the day its mission of transmitting broadcasts ended.
The historic station was built in West Chester by radio pioneer and Cincinnati native Powel Crosley Jr.
The station and its shortwave broadcasts served as countermeasures to propaganda spreading across Europe during World War II, allowing people from all over the world to receive crucial information about wartime happenings.
On Nov. 14, 1994, the mission of transmitting broadcasts worldwide from the Bethany Relay Station came to an end. […]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who shares his B-24 (version 1.0) season guide to music on shortwave. Alan provides this amazing resource as a free PDF download:
Click here to download Music on Shortwave B-24 v1.0 (PDF)
As always, thank you for sharing your excellent guide, Alan!
This dedicated page will always have the latest version of Alan’s guide available for download.
Alan notes:
I also attach copies of my shortwave programme grids for the English services of BBC WS, VOA and CGTN in case these are of interest. Click links to download:
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who shares his A-24 (version 4.0) season guide to music on shortwave. Alan provides this amazing resource as a free PDF download:
Click here to download Music on Shortwave A-24 v4.0 (PDF)
As always, thank you for sharing your excellent guide, Alan!
This dedicated page will always have the latest version of Alan’s guide available for download.
Alan notes:
I also attach copies of my shortwave programme grids for the English services of BBC WS, VOA and CGTN in case these are of interest. Click links to download:
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia, who shares the following story:
Breaking the barriers of censorship in China, Myanmar and North Korea is a daunting task, as these countries have built almost impenetrable firewalls against outside news and information. But Radio Taiwan International is successfully using shortwave radio to break through.
“We potentially have 70 million to 1.2 billion listeners who rely on shortwave to get information [from] outside of their country,” said Isis Lee, RTI’s vice president.
On the air since 1928, RTI say their mission is to bring listeners stories they won’t or can’t hear or see on television, radio, online or in newspapers.
“One of our most important audiences to reach is the Mandarin-speaking society in China, which has very limited internet access,” Lee told VOA. “We have a very big audience in China, and they rely on RTI shortwave service to get perspective outside of China in their mother language,” she added. [Continue reading…]
Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Dennis Dura, Rich Cuff, and Dan Robinson for the following tips:
Access to radio becomes even more important for America’s producers in times of emergency.
Producers of milk, wheat, cotton, sugar, corn, rice and many other farm and ranch products in the United States are speaking up in support of the federal legislation that would require AM radio in new vehicles.
Twenty-five agricultural groups have sent a letter to Capitol Hill endorsing the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act. (Read the letter.)
The National Association of Broadcasters highlighted the letter. It said the bill has 196 cosponsors in the House and 44 in the Senate.
“Our members rely on AM radio and the vital services it provides daily,” they wrote.
“AM radio is a source of weather, commodity and national farm policy updates for our members. Access to radio becomes even more important for America’s producers in times of emergency.” [Continue reading…]
Edison Research releases its latest “Share of Ear” data
Pierre Bouvard is chief insights officer for Cumulus Media and Westwood One. This story originally appeared on his blog.
Edison Research’s quarterly “Share of Ear” study is the authoritative examination of time spent with audio in America. Edison Research surveys 4,000 Americans annually to measure daily reach and time spent for all forms of audio.
Since “Share of Ear” has been running continuously since 2015, it affords an opportunity to examine an eight-year view of American audio usage. Here are the major trends:
South Africa first came into my life as a young boy in Canada for two reasons.
One, I had an uncle who worked for a shipping company. Among other things, the company imported goods from and exported goods to South Africa.
A ship carrying South African tinned pineapple, bound for Montreal, sank in the St Lawrence River in the 1960s. My uncle was involved in the salvage operation, and, as a consequence, my family and many other relatives ate tinned pineapple from South Africa for the next few years — we grew to hate it.
The second reason was radio. My grandfather gave me a shortwave radio when I was about eight years old. One of the distant radio stations that blasted into my bedroom, loud and clear, was Radio RSA (now Channel Africa), the voice of the South African government of the day.
I listened to Radio RSA, as I listened to any shortwave station I could pick up, because it was exotic.
The easiest stations to pick up in those days were from the big broadcasting countries — the BBC, Radio France Internationale, the Voice of America, Radio Moscow and Radio Havana Cuba, to name but a few. Even Albania had a strong-signal broadcaster — Radio Tirana. [Continue reading…]
Journalists at VOA have pushed back on newsroom leadership’s AI policy regarding “synthetic voices,” documents obtained by FedScoop show.
Dozens of journalists and staff at Voice of America are strongly opposed to the state-owned news organization’s plan to use AI-generated synthetic voices, documents obtained by FedScoop show, with employees expressing concerns that the tool could breed mistrust with its audience, cause misinformation to spread and potentially eliminate jobs within the newsroom.
VOA, which has a weekly worldwide audience of approximately 326 million, is the largest and oldest of U.S. government-funded news networks and international broadcasters.
The news organization released internal guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in November, following months of discussions with journalists and labor representatives that stirred up backlash and controversy within the news organization.
FedScoop obtained the new AI guidance as well as a letter of opposition — signed by dozens of journalists within the news organization — that was sent to VOA leadership in October and has not been made public until now.
“We are deeply concerned that a portion of the Artificial Intelligence guidance that the agency is preparing to issue will do more harm than good,” the signed letter said. “Specifically, we object to language that would allow Artificial Intelligence to be used ‘for voicing scripts.’” [Continue reading…]
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Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Shortwave retains a role in serving particularly difficult-to-reach audiences
Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine and its simultaneous blocking of Western media outlets has renewed public interest in shortwave radio broadcasters like the federally funded Voice of America.
Now managed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media or USAGM, VOA’s roots go back to 1941, when the U.S. government leased a dozen commercial broadcaster owned/operated shortwave radio transmitters for the VOA’s predecessor, the U.S. Foreign Information Service. (These shortwave transmitters were previously used by U.S. broadcasters to share content between their AM radio stations.)
The VOA came into being in 1942. It played a major role in broadcasting U.S. news and views to the world during World War Two and the Cold War. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, shifting government priorities, the emergence of platforms competing with shortwave, and budget cuts led to VOA’s language services, broadcasts and programming being reduced.
Today, “USAGM operates transmitting stations around the world, including in the U.S., Africa, Europe and Asia,” Laurie Moy, USAGM’s director of public affairs said in an email earlier this year.
“All of these stations are equipped with multiple shortwave transmitters, and four of these stations have a medium-wave (AM) transmitter each. In total, USAGM’s network consists of about 75 shortwave (ranging from 100 to 250 kW) and medium-wave (ranging from 100 to 1000 kW) transmitters.”
The agency also has access to shortwave and medium-wave transmitters via leases and exchange agreements with other broadcasters.
At present, USAGM produces content in 63 languages, 35 of which are aired on shortwave and medium-wave. VOA itself produces content in 48 languages, 18 of which are aired on shortwave and medium-wave.
“In terms of the agency’s shortwave network, shortwave continues to reach particularly difficult-to-reach audiences, such as in North Korea, western China, Afghanistan and elsewhere,” Moy told Radio World. [Continue reading…]
If a tornado or flash flood is imminent, most Americans find out about it through a smartphone or a television.
But as the National Weather Service was reminded in the wake of the deadly Dec. 10, 2021 Kentucky tornado, one segment of the population uses neither of those things: the Amish, who shun technology.
As meteorologists studied damage in the days that followed that storm, which killed 80 people and damaged hundreds of homes, they encountered an Amish community in Ohio County, Kentucky, and asked: How do you get severe weather information?
“They basically said they listen for the weather sirens from town,” said Derrick Snyder, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But as loud as storm sirens are, not everyone is close enough to hear.
A solution may be on the way, as the agency teams with a national radio maker as part of the Weather Awareness for a Rural Nation initiative. Snyder and other meteorologists are part of a project developing weather radios that will be both effective in relaying information immediately, but also acceptable for the Amish lifestyle.
It will be a stripped-down, hand-crank model with absolutely no modern amenities. Continue reading