Observations About the World, Part Twenty-Nine

Photograph of the Atlas globe

Shortwave Radio |
Thursday – April 16, 2026

Shortwave radio is on my mind – again. Not that I have mentioned my radio interest very much on this page, although I have alluded to this in some posts, but that is all besides my point: I find radio communications of all kinds important for one reason – freedom. Now, I am not someone that tends to talk or write a lot of about freedom, although I have done this in the past as well, but I do find it important to evade government control and coercion as much as possible, and one of the most effective ways of doing this is through the medium of the airways. Now, it is also true, I should make clear, that shortwaves in particular are not the only "radio medium", and there is surely a physical science behind this, something that I may return to later. But because of physics, in the material sense, shortwaves in particular tends to travel very far distances, depending on conditions, and this means that if you want to "listen to the world", shortwave radio would be one of the best options, at least if you seek to avoid the government, corporations, and all sorts of other annoying and often quite evil middle men. When it comes to any radio listening, you simply do not have to pay for anything else than the receiver, and often the receiver will include its own antenna, usually a little telescopic antenna, but that should do the job.

    There are, again, of course other forms of radio or rather other kinds of wavelengths that are more conducive for other purposes, that could range from long distance, one-to-one communication, local communication, broadcasts, data transfers, etc, but again for long distance shortwave is typically the better option, and this is why I encourage everyone to buy a shortwave radio, and preferably that radio should also include options for other wavelengths such as long wave, medium wave, and ultrashort wave, as those modes will typically perform better for certain things. Of course, it is the case with radio that you are going to have to depend on the person or organization transmitting some information, and unless you have your own transmitter, you will have to understand some basic rules of when you should expect to be able to listen in on shortwave.

    But before I get to that, let me just quickly break down, as Americans say, what most people refer to as "FM-radio" or sometimes simply as "FM": first of all, FM just stands for frequency modulation, and that refers to how the transmitter modulates the particular carrier of the transmission, and in the case of FM the frequency of the carrier is being modulated, and for a variety of scientific reasons beyond the range and scope of this post, FM tends to modulate human voice better than other techniques of broadcast; usually FM broadcasts exist in the ultrashort wave range, and that means that the wavelengths are typically much shorter than the the wavelengths on shortwave, which may be confusion but then again the prefix ultra- should perhaps make it clearer why these wavelengths are shorter; basically, the shorter wavelengths involved in most FM-radio broadcasts will not propagate beyond the horizon, and so FM-radio is, for the most part, local; and this all is typically why you will not be able to receive "the world" through most FM broadcasts, but of course, a local station can still relay or repeat stuff from the world or outside your own region, but that again relies on you trusting a middle man. Another technical detail that I should add is actually that there are typically two modes of FM: there is wide FM, which is what most people are used to hearing on those aforementioned FM broadcasts; and then there are narrow FM, which is typically used in other forms of transmissions on ultrashort wave, and these could include the police, local fire department, businesses, and something called radio amateurs; radio amateurs are also available on shortwave. I should also add that you do not need to worry about FM as a transmission mode on shortwave, as it is very seldom used below ultrashort wave, and when it is used, it is typically used by radio amateurs in the upper range of the shortwave band. Also, apropos the shortwave band: the band itself ranges from about 3000 kHz to about 30 000 kHz (or 3 MHz to about 30 MHz).

    It is important to understand the inverse relationship between wavelengths and radio frequencies (RF): the longer the wavelength, the lower the frequency; the shorter the wavelength, the higher the frequency. In the past, it was more common to simply refer to wavelengths on shortwave, but today most people rely on a certain understanding of frequency ranges, and they are important to understand if one seeks to utilize shortwave effectively. It is also important to have a certain idea about bands of frequency ranges on shortwave because of the continually changing conditions in that particular medium: the lower the frequency (the longer the wavelength) the less you should, generally, expect to hear during the day; the higher the frequency (the shorter the wavelength) the more you should expect to hear during the day; there is also a middle point, though technically not in the middle of the shortwave band, around the wavelength of 40 meters (7000 kHz) where conditions tend to be more stable regardless of the time of the day.

    So, why would it matter whether you listen to shortwave radio during the day or the night? Again, here we have to turn to profane science: the general idea is that there is something called the "ionosphere" above the Earth and, without getting into too many technicalities here, there are different layers of this ionosphere, and because of changing solar activity, the particles in this part of the sky will be more or less charged, and often this will depend on whether it is daylight or not outside; because there is little to no Sunlight during the night, the lower layers (called D and E) of the ionosphere will simply not be charged that much during the day, and this will enable longer wavelengths, often down to the medium and long wave range, to "skip" or basically jump between the ionosphere and the ground, which is the entire reason why shortwaves are capable of traveling very long distances; and of course, the opposite is generally true during the day, because during the day more layers of the ionosphere will be charged, which means that the lower frequencies will typically be absorbed, while the higher frequencies are capable of "skipping" or jumping between the lower layers and the ground. Essentially: higher frequencies, typically above 40 meters or 7000 kHz, will propagate around the world during the day, and lower frequencies will propagate around the world during nighttime.

    There are, of course, many other technical details to mention about shortwave radio and other mediums of radio, but doing so would simply take too long: the important thing to know is why you should consider using shortwave radios and how they work, and this post has at least provided some very basic and useful information. I also believe that shortwave radio is a good alternative to the internet for the person seeking information, but note that shortwave radios are not immune to noise, literally and figuratively, and if you are a soul that seeks comfort and rest, then I simply encourage you to retire from the world, or at any rate that you seek to minimize your dependence on the world and on other people.

Reginald Drax – April 16, 2026.