About Shortwave Radio

When most people hear the term shortwave radio they usually think of a Ham operator listening to other hams in another part of the world. In many countries however Governments use shortwave much like we use AM & FM in the United States. They are able to cover their entire countries by the use of very few transmitters resulting in easy control of programming.

Almost all shortwave stations are government owned, such as the Voice of America, BBC, Swiss Radio International etc. However today there are a handful of commercial, non government owned shortwave stations. Many of these offer content that is very different that what you can hear on the domestic AM and FM bands. Some offer broadcasts from groups with a perspective which is in direct contrast to what you will hear from "local domestic" programs. The offerings are varied, from what is known as "patriot" programs which are often informative, to alternative health shows which explore remedies for illness which have been suppressed by the powerful pharmaceutical industry in America. There are ordinary Christians with extraordinary messages such as the Beacon of Truth broadcast to Racist Religious broadcasts. There are even "Christian Cults" which use the shortwave bands to sell their poison theology and merchandise to the unwary. Although one must use discretion and discernment when listening to many of these programs, shortwave radio is an excellent option for those who are tired of the same old mind numbing "programming" offered on local and national radio and television.

Shortwave radio (or HF as the "Old Timers" sometimes call it) is any transmission between the frequencies of 1700 Kilohertz (Khz) or 1.7 Megahertz (Mhz) and 30 Mhz.

Why did the Beacon of Truth Broadcast on Shortwave Radio?

To begin with, broadcasting is a very expensive proposition. And because of the unpopular message which we have been given to share to a people who would rather be entertained with fantasy and fiction, there few people willing to listen to the plain truth of God's word, and even fewer who are willing to help in the tremendous financial burden. The sad truth is that God's people who have a heart for the truth are a Diaspora, scattered and separated by distance across the globe. Of all broadcasting options however, shortwave has the lowest cost per hour. The minimum fee for broadcast time on even the smallest AM or FM station in the smallest community is roughly 10 times that of a 50,000 watt shortwave station. To reach even a fraction of those people who have a heart for God's word, we would have to multiply our efforts (as well as our costs) in hundreds of communities across the country. This combination of a high price to cover a small area, giving an unpopular message to a small group of people in just one regional area makes AM and FM broadcasting untenable.

Shortwave signals however, unlike other radio or TV signals, "bounce" off the ionosphere (an umbrella several hundred miles above the earth's surface). This allows the signal to be received thousands of miles away, not only to listeners in the United States but in other places across the globe as well. Even though relatively few people in America know about shortwave radio at the moment, listeners overseas are more familiar with the shortwave bands and there are indications that more Americans are becoming aware of the medium. This combination of a lower cost to cover a great area makes shortwave radio the only viable vehicle to us for promoting God's message to the world in the last days.

Statistics show that the number of shortwave receivers in the world stands at about 1.5 Billion, up from 1 Billion just a few years ago. That represents one shortwave receiver for each 4 persons on the planet. Because of the great potential shortwave broadcasting offers to reach the world, we believe that we have no other viable alternative but to reach out to God's people in this way.

A Few Disadvantages

Of course there are a few disadvantages in listening to shortwave. The signal isn't as clear as an AM signal or a  high fidelity FM signal heard in a local community, and because of propagation variables, the listener usually needs to add an external antenna to receive an audible signal on shortwave. A shortwave receiving antenna however is very inexpensive, usually no more than a 30 foot piece of wire tied to a tree or even thrown onto a roof. When signals are perceived by the listener as being weak, orientation and length of the antenna may improve reception. To receive the best signal, the wire antenna should be perpendicular to the signal source, that is to say at a right angle to the station. For example, if the station you are trying to hear is directly East or West of your radio, you would want to orient the wire antenna in a North, South direction. One way to think of it is that you want the wire to be exposed to as much of the signal as possible.   There is a slight downside to an external outside long wire antenna when using inexpensive receivers, because of the lack of their ability to handle the increased signal levels of all the stations on the SW dial. Outside antennas can sometimes cause an overload of the receiver and the internal production of images (spurious signals) that can cause stations to be heard on frequencies that are not their own. These images can land directly on other stations, giving the illusion of interference. Sometimes you can also receive local interference from local AM, FM, and television signals depending upon your proximity to the offending transmitters and the quality of their equipment. All things considered however, we do recommend using a long external wire as an antenna for your shortwave radio. The most effective and least expensive antenna I have found in my 29 years of shortwave listening, is to purchase a 30-50 foot piece of ordinary 6 gauge plastic covered wire from a hardware store. The current cost (in my area) is about 8 cents a foot.

Lets Get Technical

Now to get a little more technical, there are different ways to indicate where to find a certain station on a radio dial. For example, we could say that a station is operating on 9680 kilohertz (kHz), 9.68 megahertz (MHz), or on 31 meters. And all three ways would be correct!

Radio waves are transmitted as a series of cycles, one after the other. The hertz (abbreviated Hz) is equal to one cycle per second. You may have noticed that the electric power supplied to your home is rated at 60 Hz. Electric power is distributed as alternating current (AC), meaning it goes through a cycle of changing directions of flow. When we say that electric power is "60 Hz," we mean it changes its direction of flow 60 times in one second.

Radio waves go through far more cycles in a second than electric current, and we need to use bigger units to measure them. One is the kilohertz (kHz), which is equal to 1000 cycles per second. Another common one is the megahertz (MHz), which is equal to 1,000,000 cycles per second----or 1000 kHz. The relationship between these units is like this:

1,000,000 Hertz = 1000 kilohertz = 1 megahertz

Radio is usually thought of "beginning" at frequencies of approximately 5 kHz, although most available receivers can only tune down to about 150 kHz.

The term "wavelength" is left over from the early days of radio. Back then, frequencies were measured in terms of the distance between the peaks of two consecutive cycles of a radio wave instead of the number of cycles per second. Even though radio waves are invisible, there is a measurable distance between the cycles of electromagnetic fields making up a radio wave. The distance between the peaks of two consecutive cycles is measured in meters. The relationship between a radio signal's frequency and its wavelength can be found by the following formula:

wavelength = 300 / frequency in MHz

According to this formula, a frequency of 9680 kHz would be equivalent to a wavelength of 30.99 meters, which we would round to 31 meters. Thus, 9680 kHz, 9.68 MHz, and 31 meters all refer to the same operating frequency!

As the formula indicates, the wavelength of a radio signal decreases as its frequency increases. This is important because the length or height of various types of antennas must often be a fraction (usually one-quarter or one-half) of the wavelength of the signal to be transmitted or received. This means that most antennas designed for frequencies near 4000 kHz will be physically much larger than antennas designed for frequencies near 30 MHz.

Frequencies are seldom given in terms of wavelength anymore. However, certain segments of the shortwave bands are referred to in terms of "meter bands" as a convenient form of shorthand. For example, the term "10-meter band" is used to refer to the ham radio band that extends from 28000 to 29700 kHz. The following is a table of the most common ham radio and shortwave broadcasting "meter bands" found on frequencies below 30 MHz:

You'll notice some inconsistencies in the table above. For example, the 17-meter ham radio band is actually higher in frequency than the 16-meter broadcasting band. These inconsistencies have come about from years of use (misuse?) of a particular "meter band" to refer to a certain range of frequencies.