Shortwave Radio
 

Ok, show me how much of a nerd you are...

Anyone else listen to shortwave radio?

Totally awesome, crazy, bizarre, weird, fucked up shit is heard on the shortwaves.

Shortwave Radio.

There certainly is. You're in America, I see, you might hear totlally different stuff to me.

I like all the state-funded foreign stations, coming on for an hour at a time to give out the party line. Radio Tirana (Albania) and Radio Vilnius (lituania) used to be very good at that, but I haven't found them for a while.

The Czech Republic and Turkey seem to take it most seriously, and that Beijing one (Radio China International?) too.

The Romanian one is quite good. I also occaisionally get a combined Asia station, BBC WOrld Service of course, Israel, Bulgaria, Voice of America, Spain, and others too. Years ago there was the American Armed Forces Network, which had live NFL commentary, but not for a long time.

I often come across Brother Stair, from the Overcomer Ministry in South Carolina. Absolute Christian fundamentalism, quite an honest i reading of the Bible, but some of the opinions stated (like on homosexuality) are not tolerant in the least. That's fundamentalisn for you. An interesting listen, though, even if (like me) you're not Christian.

There is a very strange, possibly German station that broadcasts on about 5.98 on the49 meter band. It's either a very unusual experimental avant garde arts station, or it's sinister. Which leads me onto...

NUMBER STATIONS! Great stuff, espionage broadcasts from across the world. There's still a few to be heard, and it's alway a slightly spooky feeling when you do.

How about you?

used to do music - drone - based on sw radio; also listening to sw hiss that stuff morphs. For some reason it becomes better at night - i *think* it has something to do with nocturnal changes in the upper atmospheric layers.
also some german station do better my german lang. understanding

*edit* first post here!

I forgot to mention - for a long time, until recently, there has been a noise at 4.60 on the 50m band. Just a regular noise, I assumed it to be interference from a stellar object.

Any ideas what it was? Or what's happened? It could be that I'm just not recieving the signal for some reason, of course.

At my old house my amp would pick up some frequencies and play spanish radio stations. It got pretty annoying after a while.

I'm positive you pick up more stations than I do, considering your location. I'm in the mid-west United States, the worst place for reception in North America. But I do pick up a few gems that have strong signals to North America, and a few that I probably shouldn't be able to hear, but the scrambling of the waves result in many a strange listen.

Overcomer Ministry is VERY VERY strange. In fact , its quite embarassing that so many evangelical's broacast from my country. Nontheless its interesting, and makes for a lot of thinking.

China Radio International is a favorite, along with Radio Tashkent International (the Uzbek music program is outstanding!) There is one from the Netherlands that I pick up regularly. Not sure if you pick up Radio Habana Cuba, but the US and the UK are always referred to as 'the imperialists'. I get dozens of Central and South American stations as well. Somtimes I get lucky and pick up Voice of Korea (North Korea) on abouts 9335, its in Korean (I can only imagine the propaganda that is spun) but they have odd music segments of drone and throat music, shit is awesome.

Not sure what the noise you're picking up is. Sometimes stations that broadcast world time will make a steady sounding noise. Could be that.

What kind of radio do you have?

Totally. You'll never need to buy another noise album again once you've got your self a shortwave radio. Often times I want to record the crazy noise I hear. But alas...my radio has no output to record.

I pick a boat-load of Russian stations, really helps to understand a langauge when you can hear it on a regular.

I think I get so many because the countries in Europe are either a. welthy enough that they can afford the broadcasts, or b. former communist regimes, which explains the 'party line' nature of the broadcasts.


I don't get many, although there's a station called World Harvest which seems a bit dodgy. Ovecomer/Brother Stair is someone who I find fascinating - I think he's being honest about his beliefs, rather than fraudulent.


I forgot to say Netherlands! Cuba, Tashkent and Korea I've never found - I'd like to hear Korea. Voice of Korea? They might broadcast online, you never know.


It's just an interference noise, repeating evry second or do for about a second each time. I assume an astronomical phenomenon, I have tried to look online. A little deeper, I think!


A Roberts R862. It's a small hand-held one, about 13cm x 8cm x 2.5cm in size. But I have a long length of telephone wire which I turned one end of into a wraparound piece for the aerial. The other end is stripped and the wires wrapped round a screw on our electricity meter! What do you have? I'm planning on getting something powerful if I can.

Did you see my Number Stations thread? There's some good links.

I have a Eton E10 just got it a few months back, I was using my dads old Sony, this one is much better. Blocks out a lot of interference, the downside is that it doesn't pick up ANY really weak signals. So African and Mid-East stations are pretty much a mystery to me.

You're right on about how sincere the Christain radio folk are about what they say. Just as you and I have no doubt that they are wrong, they feel the same way about us. Only they're crazy enough to do something about it.

I need to check out the Numbers Stations thread. Cladendstine....er orwhatever? I know there is a human rights leader from Myanmar that broadcasts often which is a long the same line.

WORLD RADIO NETWORK 1.

I've just been listening to Radio Bulgaria and they mentioned this, World Radio Network 1. It's a place where many shortwave stations (quite a few European ones) can be heard online. It's worth checking out.

Shortwave fact of the day: In a program about Bulgarian honey and it's possible expansion into the European market, they said that acacia honey is very good for people with conjunctivitis!

I've got you all beat. I have a ham radio operators license. I have like 5 shortwave radios.

One of the first things I ever heard was a numbers station. Anyone listen around 6955KHz for pirates?

I'm thousands of miles from you, but I'll try that frequency anyway!

Romanian Radio once said that there are one million stray dogs in Budapest alone. Imagine that.

Hip Priest, Bulgarian shortwave stations are one of my fave tools to create noise these days. fucked up reciever through pedals and an amp makes my bandmates want to jump off some skyscraper. accacia honey is quite good. i like getting it from old men in little villages. also they have quite good homebrew rakia (local alcohol beverage). totally funny!

Are you going to post some music with some of those samples? The honey program was good. They followed it up with a program about the 130th anniversary of some uprising, but the reception screwed up and I ddin't hear it.

What was the uprising???

i don't know what was the exact historical situation but i guess i could check out and tell you. when was the program? like, how many days ago?

It was on last night (23/03/06), at about 10:30pm (is that 00:30am on the 24/03/06 for you?).





(cc)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_uprising

Thanks mate. Even by the standards of autocratic rulers, that empire seems to have had plenty wrong with it, although I'm no expert. I could be very wrong.

According to Radio Budapest of Hungary, some Polish cities have seen a 15% rise in suicide rates. This is in stark contrast to the happy land of Hungary, which has seen a decline in suicide rates.

Is this the one that operates out of Northern Ireland??