If anything has made me uniquely immune to #podcasts, it's hearing radio preachers on the #shortwave bands. Those guys ramble on for an hour, and I feel nothing.

I got one of the Explorer Pota33 masts that was on sale. Did some #SWL while detailing the minivan today, which was definitely better than NOT listening to shortwave whilst detailing the minivan. All India Radio Akashvani broadcast from #Bengaluru.

Heard in #FM05 #RaleighNC. Random wire dipole. Mast is held by an old umbrella stand I saved from the side of the road.

#shortwave #Akashvani

Share of #shortwave listeners drops for third consecutive year. kurzwellenradio.wordpress.com/2025/12/14/k...

KBS Audience Satisfaction Surv...

KBS Audience Satisfaction Survey 2025

KBS World Radio’s German service gave details of the 2025 Audience survey in its mailbag show on Friday night. 2,315 listeners from 83 countries took part, 112 of them were from German-speaking regions (this usually refers to Austria, Germany and Switzerland). The German-speaking participants also gave the service in their language the best marks, with 93 of 100 points.

Most listeners (61.1 per cent) showed a particular interest in news and information from South Korea, which makes the news (1), and "Kreuz und Quer durch Korea" (2) a program that corresponds with the French-service "Séoul au Jour le Jour" and the Mandarin service’s "jīnrì shǒu’ěr". The mailbag program came in third among the German-speaking listeners who gave feedback.

K-pop music fared less well among them, while globally, programs focused on K-pop ranks second, only behind news and information.

The share of shortwave users among the global audience dropped for the third consecutive year. It had been at 36 per cent among the 2023 respondents (i. e. 623 swls), at 31.4 per cent in 2024, and is now at 23.8 per cent (551 swls).
On the other hand, the total number of survey participants rose for the third consecutive year, from 1,730 in 2023 to 2,315 this year.

Despite the drop in shortwave listeners, continued use of shortwave has been recommended, because in some regions (including the German-speaking ones), it continues to be the main listener’s choice.

Among the global participating audience, 46.2 per cent listened to the KBS homepage streaming, and the share of app users was 23.2 per cent.

#austria #entertainment #foreignRadio #germany #kbsWorldRadio #languages #shortwave #southKorea

Transmision de datos en onda corta, quiza sea el radiograma porque sale limpita la modulacion tambien en AM, no solo en banda lateral #radio #shortwave #ham #radiogram #shortwaveradio

My First Day at writing Reception Reports

My logbooks of the 1980s are long gone, but most probably, the first reception report I ever wrote went to Radio RSA in Johannesburg, South Africa, on December 6, 1985. But I beg your pardon, I should explain what a reception report means in this context. This is what a reception looks like. "SINPO code" is mentioned without further explanation, but you can find one on Wikipedia.

So that’s a reception report. My second reception report – that’s what my chaotic QSL card archive suggests today – came from the Netherlands, but just like Radio RSA, it "confirmed an African country", as we used to say, as I had listened to Radio Netherlands on 9715 kHz, from its Madagascar relay (picture above). That was on December 8th, and that was a Sunday, and that means that I listened to "The Happy Station Show", usually produced and presented by Tom Meyer at the time.

The QSL card from South Africa was a bit of a disappointment, because it showed garden snails, rather than something spectacular from, say, Kruger National Park.

Yes, garden snails. Seriously. But it is still my first-ever QSL card.

Having a QSL card from South Africa felt kind of sensational all the same – I had never been on a plane yet, and the distance to the country felt unimaginable. I used a typewriter to write reception reports (aka listening reports), and those were probably of some help for many of the shortwave broadcasters at the time, especially when you lived in their target areas. In contrast to nowadays, they couldn’t turn to a remote receiver on the internet then, to check the quality signal in the targeted regions.

Here’s another QSL card. It isn’t one of my earliest, as I wrote my first reception report to Voice of Vietnam on June 16, 1986, but it remains particular to me for several reasons. First off, it was handwritten – my other two favorites were typewritten. Secondly, I’m not sure if I have ever seen a handwriting as beautiful as this one, certainly not on a QSL card. And also, the "Voice of Vietnam" was the first shortwave broadcaster I ever listened to. They didn’t have German programs at the time, so I happened on a transmission in English, probably on 10040 kHz. That was a few years before 1986, probably in 1981. The programs weren’t exactly fascinating, but knowing that this was a station transmitting from Southeast Asia felt exciting.

It still does, even though I’ve been to East Asia countless times since, and even though the internet has made the world look so much smaller.

It is still international radio rather than the internet that gives me a sense of how big the world is in fact. You wouldn’t want to walk it afoot, and you can’t walk its lakes and oceans anyway, unless you are Jesus.

There’s no first day of that kind of walk in my life, but to me, writing my first reception report feels about as special as my first day at school or at work.

#africa #dailyprompt #dailyprompt2151 #radioNetherlands #radioRsa #shortwave #vietnam

I understand Deutsche Welle has discontinued broadcasting to North America on shortwave. This is due to lack of audience there now. They say that Americans are listening or can listen online.

I guess this is inevitable, sign of the “technology” times.

#shortwave #Radio

Mientras hago otras cosas, escucho a la que parece ser la radio pirata Johnny Tobacco, transmitiendo desde un lugar indeterminado por los 6300 kHz AM. #shortwave #SWL #ondacorta

On 6015 kHz, which should be Xinjiang RTV in Kazakh until 1800z, KBS Hanminjok Bangsong 🇰🇷 is in the clear instead - that is, it would be in the clear if not for the 29B6 naZi ruZZian OTH radar overload 😒 #shortwave

6155 kHz: Gugak, Korean traditional performance (music?), with North Korean Pip Jammer, followed by female Japanese announcer & a man commenting. Furusato no Kaze, targeting Japanese abductees - and their ancestors - in #NorthKorea, via Tamsui🇹🇼 #shortwave #jamming

6110 kHz: Radio Fana 🇪🇹, a naZi ruZZia's Zputnik affiliate, is coming in nicely, albeit a bit undermodulated. It's not often that this station could have this freq all to itself 🙂 ... which reminds me Xizang PBS should be there 😳 #shortwave

Strange things w/ Xinjiang RTV 🇨🇳 as their two 75m signals there on 3950 in Chinese and 3990 in Uighur signed-off @ 1700z, an hour earlier than usual 😮 3950 continued to 1701z w/ snippets of a Communist march. On 60m, 4980 music cut off abruptly @ 1702z. 4850, 4500 off, so are 49m freqs #shortwave

@Zugfreundin Sei froh. Habe hier #Shortwave laufen. 483,3 KB. Habe die aber auch sicher auf ihrer Webseite zum Nachhören. Der Interviewpartner von #Oxfam macht hingegen eine gute Figur.

Pues aquí escuchando una radio pirata por Onda Corta en los 3940 kHz, transmitiendo desde algún lugar de Holanda. Se trata de Radio Kontikenzo.

También se puede escuchar por Internet, pero no es lo mismo. 😌
https://contikenzo.com/
#SWL #shortwave #ondacorta

My listening corner – winter 2025 setup

Living in a block of flats doesn't make DXing easy, as inside my place I get hardly any reception. During the spring and summer months I move all my radio equipment to the balcony, where things are more manageable, while during the cold part of the year everything is crammed into this little corner, as close to the window as possible.

https://shortwaveradioblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/07/winter-2025-setup/

#radio #shortwave

QSL cards: World Christian Broadcasting

In response to my detailed report of the World Christian Broadcasting programme in Arabic heard on 12 June 2025, I received a thank-you letter from an unsigned WCB staff member from Franklin, Tennessee, with the accompanying promotional material.

https://shortwaveradioblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/qsl-cards-wcb/

#shortwave #radio

Now try to program all of these frequencies into your SDR software! 😼 #shortwave #utility www.pd8rsp.nl/UDXF-Frequen...

pd8rsp.nl/UDXF-Frequency...

Budget Cuts at Deutsche Welle

Generally speaking, the budget for cultural institutions and projects in 2026, approved by the German Bundestag in November, may look generous, but not every recipient is happy. The allowance to media platform Deutsche Welle has been reduced from 405.5 million (government draft) to 395.4 million euros, "on the last few meters" as enunciated in the Bundestag’s plenary session on November 26, by David Schliesing of the German Left.

Radio Berlin-Brandenburg’s (RBB) "Radio News" feels reminded of the cuts to American foreign radio under the Biden presidency in 2024.

Those however had led to huge slashes into Radio Free Asia’s (RFA) and Voice of America’s (VoA) shortwave transmission schedules. Deutsche Welle on the other hand has long been mostly digital, and is still moving further into that direction.

Even the federal government draft this year had already cut the previously planned 425 million euros to the 405 million mentioned above, and that, in the end, still wasn’t cruel enough.

It isn’t a glorious start for new director-general Barbara Massing. Politics had been nicer to DW in 2024. Massing’s predecessor Peter Limbourg could have served another term, but chose not to, earlier this year.

#broadcasting #foreignRadio #germany #internet #shortwave #usa

#shortwave #santa #seasonalgreetings kurzwellenradio.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/c...

CQ Santa / CQ Seoul

CQ Santa / CQ Seoul

CQ Santa

His QTH may be a fake, but Santa is real. December 6 is actually his day – the Americans just haven’t copied. The Saint can be expected on 3916 kHz (probably single-side band mode) around 01:00 UTC from Saturday through Sunday (that’s Friday and Saturday at 07:00 PM Central time in the U.S.).

Nick is originally from the once Greek town of Myra, or from Bari in Italy, or from Delfzijl in the Netherlands.

CQ Seoul

In other news, KBS World Radio’s German service will run a special Listener’s Program edition on Friday, December 26, as usual on 3955 kHz from 20:00 to 21:00 UTC. Listeners are invited to share their best moments of 2025, or a memory of particular trips they took or encounters they like to think back to, any daily routines they may have come to cherish this year, or to send greetings to friends or family.

#christmas #europe #hamRadio #kbsWorldRadio #shortwave #usa