Greetings, and welcome to Shortwave Tutorial part number 5! This week, we'll take a look at many of the interesting things you can hear on shortwave. Not all of them were intended for general audiences, but that's what makes listening to them so interesting! Let's get to work!

International Broadcasters

The big international broadcasters are probably the reason most of you are here to begin with. If you're new to the hobby then you most likely are spending your time listening to stations like the BBC, Deutsche Welle, the Voice of America, and Radio Japan. Just about every European, Asian, and many African and South American country has a national broadcaster that can be heard in all corners of the globe.

Depending on broadcasting budgets, these stations will air broadcast in several (sometimes dozens) of languages directed to target audiences in specific regions of the world. For example, many stations from most countries broadcast to North America in English, and to Latin America in Spanish. These programs may run from short news broadcasts lasting a few minutes to programs running several hours, and are generally aired so that they can be heard here in the evening, when most of us are home from school or work. Most stations also use powerful transmitters of up to half a million watts, so they are easily heard.

Last week's newsletter provided some links to the websites of some of these stations so you can look up frequencies and program schedules. They can also be found in the shortwave bands I provided in one of the first newsletters.

The Tropical Bands

The tropical bands happen to be one of my favorite places to listen. The 120, 90, and 60 metre bands were set aside years ago by international agreement for the use of countries located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, in the world's equatorial zone. For countries in this zone, shortwave is an efficient way of providing programming to an entire country with a single, relatively low power transmitter, instead of installing a network of FM or AM stations. In fact, many Tropical Band stations use transmitters of 10 kilowatts (kW) or less.

Tropical Band stations were meant for local consumption. They have no interest in the fact that we can hear them in North America, which is why you'll rarely hear programming in English. You are far more likely to hear programming in Spanish or Portuguese from Latin America, French or Arabic from Africa. It's a great chance to polish up your language skills. It's also a good place to hear some interesting music and pick up some of the local flavor of the country.

Another thing to remember is that most of these stations come from what we would consider to be third world countries, so very few of them broadcast 24 hours a day. Most stations will sign off at their local midnight; since they are only serving local audiences they don't bother with UTC, but use local time instead. Thus, when you're listing to stations from West Africa, for example, most of them will sign off near their local midnight, which in this case just happens to correspond with midnight UTC. Keep a map of world time zones handy. It'll help you understand why that station you're listening to from the Central African Republic just dropped off the air. Likewise, a map will also help you understand why they sign on when they do, because most of them sign on an hour our two before their local sunrise...no all night talk shows here!

The 60 metre band is the best place to start for beginners. Listeners in North America will find the 60 metre band full of Latin American stations as soon as the sun sets and late into the evening. A few of the easier stations to try for are Ecos del Torbes from Venezuela on 4980 kHz and Radio Rebelde from Cuba on 5025 kHz. If you're interested in some small town flavor, try Radio Tezulutlan from Guatemala on 4835 kHz, where just about every tune is played on a xylophone!

Listen to 60 metres a few hours before your local sunset and you'll be treated to a wide variety of stations from Africa. As the sun goes down the African stations will gradually fade out to be replaced by Latin Americans. A few of the strongest are the Ghana Broadcasting Corp on 4915 kHz, and Radio Nigeria on 4770 kHz.

Point to Point Communications

Point to point communications are not broadcasts intended for general audiences. Rather, they are voice communications between two parties such as from an aircraft to a ground station or from ship to shore.

Please note that all point to point voice communications use Sideband modulation instead of the regular Amplitude Modulation (AM) that shortwave broadcasters use. In order to receive them you need a receiver that can demodulate Upper Sideband signals. Better portable receivers like the Grundig Yacht Boy 400 can receive sideband signals by hitting a switch, usually marked SSB and tuning a small secondary tuning knob to adjust the receiver for an intelligible signal. Without the SSB circuit, sideband signals are unintelligible and sound something like Donald Duck.

More sophisticated, and expensive, receivers take care of the tuning automatically. You simply tune to the proper frequency and press one of two buttons to set the receiver into Upper Sideband (USB) or Lower Sideband (LSB).

Signals are usually strong but activity isn't constant. If you don't hear anything right away just stay on the frequency for 10 or 15 minutes and let them come to you!

Military Stations

The Canadian and U.S. armed forces still use shortwave for long distance communications. These services are being replaced by satellite communications as they become cheaper and more reliable.

Canada and the U.S. both have shortwave networks in place for communicating with military aircraft that are out of range of an airport. Don't expect to hear "tactical" communications such as the Top Gun style chatter that goes on between fighter aircraft. What you will hear plenty of is routine communication between larger aircraft with routine, but sometimes very interesting, conversations between aircraft on trans-oceanic flights and their home bases.

Look for the U.S. Global High Frequency network on 11,175 and 15,015 kHz in upper sideband. 15,015 kHz is active during the day and 11,175 kHz is active during the day and to a lesser degree at night.

U.S. Coast Guard

The Coast Guard constantly patrols the U.S. coast with aircraft and helicopters. Reports of ships and pleasure craft in distress are dispatched through a network of shore stations and rescue aircraft and ships are sent to the scene. If you catch a rescue early on you can sit back and listen as rescue aircraft radio in and listen in as the event unfolds over the course of an hour or two. When things are quiet, all you will hear are the aircraft as they check in by radio with their home bases a few times an hour. However, thanks to shortwave, you can monitor one frequency and listen to the action on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts! Tune in to 5,696 kHz in upper sideband.

Commercial Airlines

Like the Air Force, commercial airlines use shortwave to contact air traffic controllers when they are out over the ocean and out of range of their regular VHF radios. Three of the busiest frequencies to try for trans-Atlantic air traffic are 5616, 5598, and 8879 kHz in upper sideband. Also check out the following website for loads of information on monitoring aircraft, whether it's on shortwave, or your local airport on VHF. Visit http://www.interlog.com/~rollers