Most people, when they think of "shortwave," think of shortwave broadcasting. There are lots of other services using the shortwaves, although not as many as there used to be.
Amateur or "ham" radio uses the shortwave spectrum, as does CB radio. It is also possible to hear unlicensed broadcasters or pirates. The world's militaries still use shortwave radio for communication, and some of it is in plain language voice. Much of it, though, is encrypted. A blurry line exists between military and espionage communications; both of these fall under the category of utility stations. Tuning through the band, you will occasionally still hear voices saying, "Zero...quatro...zero...zero...nueve. Ocho...Ocho...tres...tres...cinqo" over and over again. You will even hear five letter code groups still being sent in Morse code. Not all the world's espionage services have abandoned Morse code yet! For more information on numbers stations, see spynumbers.com.
However, until recently many other services used shortwaves. The major news wires, ship-to-shore telephone communications, and others have abandoned the shortwaves entirely. In addition, ship-to-shore telegraphy, which enabled anyone with a shortwave to keep track of the world's shipping with a pencil and a piece of paper, is no more, and has been replaced by data communications. However, these data stations still identify sometimes in CW, so if you can copy code, you can still determine their country of origin. This is a very quick way to determine band conditions; so listen in the 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, and 22 MHz marine bands for short data bursts, followed by CW ids.
Most prognosticators see the future as very dark for shortwave listeners. They believe the Web will kill off shortwave, with its fades, blackouts, and interference. So far, there has been no marked decrease in shortwave audience, and listenership to Webcasts remains low. However, it does seem likely that the longer you wait to start shortwave listening, the more you will miss.
Back to The Radio Pages home page.