A Beginners Guide to Monitoring Shortwave Radio for Survival
What it is and why you should tune in!
Tuning into HAM radio traffic or commercial radio station broadcasts, from thousands of miles away, is fun and can be really exciting especially during emergencies. You can also listen to military and other government transmissions. DeNiro is tuning in on a 30-year old Sangean ATS-803A. (The firearm is a Hellfire 9mm AR pistol available through Royal Tiger Imports.)
This article is an expanded version of the one which ran in the 2021 issue of Be Ready! magazine.
What is Shortwave Radio and Where Did It Come From?
Ask most people under 50 if they know what shortwave radio is, or if they have ever listened to a shortwave radio broadcast, and you will either get a blank stare or a “no”. Shortwave radio has been around since the advent of radio in the late 1800s and is basically long-range radio.
The “Father of Radio”, Guglielmo Marconi, crossed the sea with the first trans-Atlantic radio broadcast on December 12, 1901. 1901! This radio transmission was made in Cornwall, England and was heard in St. Johns, Newfoundland. Long before satellite television of the 1970s, or even television broadcasts of the late 1940s, Americans got their international news directly from where it was occurring, thousands of miles away, and they listened in on shortwave radios.
During WWII, there was no CNN, but Americans could listen in on European government broadcasts and even military radio traffic right in their homes. Ever see a picture of a family in the 1930s or 1940s huddled around a large wooden radio receiver in the living room? Well, that is a shortwave radio which is a true AM receiver that receives broadcasts in the 1900 kHz to 29999 kHz frequency range (or 1.900 to 29.999 MHz). Some of these later radios also had the ability to pick up MW (Medium Wave) as well - you know that as commercial AM radio which receives broadcasts from 520 kHz to 1710 kHz. These radios began being sold commercially in the 1920s when commercial radio stations started broadcast programming which consisted of news, music, dramas, and other programs. Before this time, amateur radio operators, or HAMs as they are commonly known today, built their own equipment to listen in on ocean liners and military transmissions as well as speaking to each other over long distances. Regarding ocean liners, The Wireless Ship Act of 1910 required that all ocean vessels, with a capacity to carry 50 or more people, have radio equipment on board for emergencies. Due to limitations of space, I cannot give a detailed history of the beginnings of shortwave radio, but if you are interested, I highly recommend the book On the Shortwaves, 1923-1945 by Jerome S. Berg.
I started listening to shortwave radio in the early 1970s with my Ukrainian immigrant grandparents. My grandfather, who spoke at least five languages, would listen to broadcasts from all over the world with a portable, late-1960s, Realtone model 2424 radio. All over the world? Yes, all over the world and just with the built-in telescopic antenna, and this is due to the type of radio frequencies that shortwave broadcasts on. Although my grandfather would translate German, Polish, Russian, and other language broadcasts for me, we also listened to Voice of America which was a U.S. government broadcast, in English, to the world.
Commercial Shortwave Broadcasting
In the late 1980s, a federal case was won by WRNO in which the decision allowed shortwave radio to become commercial. That meant that shortwave radio stations could sell commercial airtime and operate like any other AM or FM radio station. Prior to this, private shortwave stations in the U.S. had to be basically “not for profit” and were prohibited from selling commercial advertising. So, the only broadcasts coming out of our country to the world were religious broadcasts, not for profit political group broadcasts, and Voice of America which, as stated previously, was the U.S. government broadcast to the world in order to spread “democracy” (even though the USA is a Republic, not a Democracy, but that’s a subject for another article).
In the early 1990s, in order to counter the left-leaning Clinton administration, as well as leftist mainstream media, many hardcore conservative, and libertarian-leaning, radio talk show hosts on AM began buying airtime on shortwave stations such as WWCR in Nashville, TN. In doing so, they “filled their holes” as if they had broadcasts on say 30 AM (medium wave) radio stations nationwide, but there was no station in Texas that carried their show, Texas residents could listen in via shortwave radio. Remember, there was no internet to speak of during this time, outside of computer bulletin board services which only a very small fraction of the U.S. population used.
