For someone who has been into the shortwave listening hobby for many years, I have embarrassingly few QSL cards. So I was very pleased when I rediscovered what I thought was a long lost photo of an e-QSL card from Radio New Zealand International (now RNZ Pacific) from 2013. Here it is, alongside the recording that the card is confirming and the equipment I used to capture the former. Seeing this card makes me appreciate how lucky we are that RNZ Pacific are still with us on shortwave today ..read more

Sant Pere Màrtir summit, Barcelona, Spain. © 2023 London Shortwave I was very lucky to be able to spend one week in Barcelona at the end of June, which also happened to be my first holiday abroad since Singapore in 2019. Apart from immersing myself in Gaudi's architectural wonders and spending countless hours walking around the Gothic quarter of the city, I was also able to explore some of the surrounding hills. My longtime Twitter friend David EA3IEK suggested that I should try Sant Pere Màrtir for shortwave listening, so I made my way there on Saturday July 1st and reached the ..read more

Zanzibar Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) is currently one of those stations that occasionally pop up on air despite no longer being listed any of the major shortwave broadcasting schedules. However, the station was very active in 2010s and was transmitting regularly on 11735 kHz in high fidelity, offering a mix of beautiful Tanzanian music, current affairs and religious programming, in English and Swahili. While reviewing some of my earliest spectrum captures I came across the following recording of this station:  The recording was made outdoors on July 28, 2015, at 1748 UTC using ..read more

  Concept Diagram of Maritime Communications. Image source: soumu.go.jp The shortwave frequency range is commonly used for two-way radio communications between ships at sea, as well as between ships and nearby coastal stations across the world. Usually, these are low-power, non-directional transmissions of around 1 kW and can only be heard well locally. For example, in London it is often possible to hear sailors in the territorial waters of France, Spain, Portugal and, occasionally, Greece. I was therefore very surprised when I discovered what appeared to be maritime communi ..read more

  October 24th marked another day of significant international developments covered on shortwave. Rishi Sunak became the fifth Conservative UK Prime Minister in just over six years and the Chinese Communist Party concluded its 20th National Congress two days earlier. Below is a selection of news broadcasts extracted from the spectrum capture I made outdoors, starting from around 1600 UTC. The BBC World Service coverage expectedly focused on Rishi Sunak's ascent to the prime minister's office, while the KBS World Service (South Korea) aired a long discussion on the party congress in Chin ..read more

The recordings below were made on September 8, 2022 at 1928 UTC on 7445 kHz, and at 1959 UTC on 12095 kHz, using GPD MicroPC, AirSpy Mini, SpyVerter 2, Wellbrook UMB130 balun and a 2x6m dipole. Demodulation and additional signal audio enhancement was performed in SDR ..read more

  From the Amateur Radio Newsline website: Amateur Radio Newsline™ is a free service to the amateur radio community.  We produce a weekly audio news bulletin called a “QST” or “bulletin of interest to radio amateurs” that is delivered by a downloadable MP3 audio file from our website or through a podcast subscription.  Operations are supported primarily by voluntary donations from individual amateurs and amateur radio clubs. Below is a recording of their audio bulletin for August 26th, 2022, broadcast on Shortwave Gold on August 30, 2022 at 1703 UTC: I extrac ..read more

  Quoting The Diplomat: For the first time, North Korea has confirmed a positive COVID-19 case within the country. The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on May 12 that a “specimen from persons with fever” in Pyongyang had come back positive for the Omicron BA.2 variant, a particularly contagious strain of the virus. The phrasing of the announcement makes it unclear how many people are infected. KCNA called the development a “most serious emergency case of the state.” By complete chance, I found this very announcement in the Voice of Korea's English language transmission th ..read more

  For the past four weeks I have been regularly archiving the shortwave coverage of the war between Russia and Ukraine, and my posts summarising these recordings will appear on this blog shortly. Meanwhile, below is a recording of the DPRK's Voice of Korea announcing the launch of the of the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile: I extracted this recording from an outdoor spectrum capture I made on March 25, 2022 using GPD MicroPC, AirSpy Mini, SpyVerter 2, Wellbrook UMB130 balun and a 2x6m dipole ..read more

Lately, I have been able to make more frequent outdoor trips for recording parts of the shortwave radio spectrum using my portable set-up. While reviewing one such recording from August 31st, 2021, I noticed something highly unusual: a continuous music mix on one of the amateur bands, modulated as a lower single sideband audio signal. For readers who are unfamiliar with radio communication regulations, broadcasting music is strictly prohibited on all amateur bands in most jurisdictions. However, it turns out that the frequency in question – 7055 kHz – has now been used for some years by a nu ..read more