World Band Radio Listening & Shortwave Radio Website Links

The BBC World Service website includes a searchable archive of over 1 million news stories. You can view the site in 43 languages. Listen online:
BBC World Service Live: BBC World Service Player

Radio Australia provides news in 6 languages.
Listen online LIVE: Radio Australia Player

Radio Austria International
Listen online

China Radio International Listen online radio player
Radio Taiwan International

Radio Prague, Czech Republic
Listen online: .m3u

YLE Radio Finland
The Deutsche Welle, Germany
website has news in 29 languages.
Listen online: English audio - Live TV

Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation

Radio Japan Latest news in English: radio player

Radio New Zealand "The Voice of the Pacific" covers Papua-New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Fiji, and other places in Oceania as well as New Zealand.
Listen online: live stream

Radio Polonia, Poland - listen online
Sputnik News (Voice of Russia) Listen online: mp3
Radio Sweden
UN Radio
Voice of America, US

Radio Free Europe RFE has news and links to Internet podcasts.

World Band Radio Listings & Internet Shortwave Listening Websites

Shortwave Schedules in English: hfradio.org has English language shortwave broadcast schedules organized by time and frequency. Also try Prime Time Shortwave (organized by region and country).

Shortwave.be links to the websites of shortwave broadcasters, including some not listed here.

RadioPortal.org is a searchable, categorized database of over 26,000 shortwave links.

Shortwave Radio Information

OntheShortwaves.com includes articles explaining early radio history in general, and the history of shortwave listening and "DXing" (trying to hear the most distant stations) in particular.

Classic Shortwave Radio Hardware

Zenith TransOceanic Radios "During its life the Zenith TransOceanic Radio was the finest tube-type portable shortwave radio in the world... The fact is that it had everything necessary to be a luxury item - fine craftsmanship, often to military specs... Tremendous performance." An overview of all of the models of these radio collector's items, with photographs, info on tube and battery replacements, links to other radio collectors sites, and more.

Phil's Old Radios, also known as antiqueradio.org, is a comprehensive site with photos of and information about hundreds of collectible radio models, including Zenith TransOceanics. There are a few old TV photos, too.

Wumpus´s Old Radio World Old Radio World is another good site for finding data about antique or discontinued receivers-- in German.

R.L. Drake Virtual Museum, tells Drake radios' history, from the 1958 R1-A to the R8B, along with useful information on Drake radio modifications and fixes.

Sony 7600 Shortwave Radio 1978-2018

The Sony 7600 Series Page provides detailed information about this series of fine radios, from the original ICF-7600(W) of 1978 up to the current ICF-SW7600GR.

Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)

Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) is a system for static-free digital world radio broadcasting. On June 16th, 2003, 16 world broadcasters began live, daily DRM broadcasts.

Digital Radio Mondiale has had enormous trouble getting off the ground, and as of this writing there are no DRM broadcasts originating in the Americas, and only a few dozen sources in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.

See also: Internet Sports Radio - Internet Music Radio

TIME Magazine, March 3, 1947, p. 28:

INTERNATIONAL: THE NATIONS:
Let's Talk
Many Americans believe that if they could only talk to those Russians, everything would be all right. Last week, the U.S. State Department tried it.

In a nightly one-hour short-wave broadcast, ambitiously titled the "voice of the United States of America," a staff of 15 Russian-speaking Americans would henceforth give Russia what Secretary of State Marshall called the "pure and unadulterated" truth. In the first broadcast last week (9 p.m. Moscow time), the Voice of America included 20 minutes of straight news. Then followed a twelve-minute lecture on the U.S. form of government, which said, among other things, that the U.S. had lost its fear of the "so-called despotism of the central government."

Next came an interlude of cowboy tunes, including The Old Chisholm Trail ("Coma ti yi youpy, yappy yay, yappy yay, Coma ti yi youpy yappy yay," which probably sounded like static to Russian ears), a talk on a new cure for hay fever (the U.S. has 5,000,000 sufferers), and a new method of exploring the Milky Way.

When the closing theme, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, went out over the air, Soviet Russia was still at least as distant as the Milky Way. Just as the Voice of America signed off, the Voice of Russia (Moscow Radio's foreign service) went on the air with a denunciation of "U.S. imperialists" who were seeking to "dominate the entire world."

And how did the Russians like America's Voice? Reported New York's World-Telegram in a memorable headline: RUSSIANS RESTRAIN JOY OVER U.S. BROADCAST. Listeners who were interviewed said that they liked the music, found that the text did "not sound American." But the Voice of America (which has a long way to travel via an insufficient relay station in Munich) was completely inaudible on all but the very best Russian radio sets, which are owned by the very best Communists.

Passport to World Band Radio, once the undisputed annual bible for shortwave listeners, featuring equipment reviews and shortwave schedules, is now defunct. However, you can find used copies of old editions (the last year: 2009) at Amazon.

SOME of the best world band radios:
according to the "Passport"

Passport: ...'least costly model available with high-tech synchronous selectable sideband'...

Compact:
Sony
ICF-SW7600GR
$159.99 (Amazon)

Portatop: The Grundig ETON Satellite 750 is $263.53 at Amazon.com.

— More info: Shortwave Reviews and Shortwave Receiver Survey.

Greatest Portable Radio of All Time

They're all gone: "Sony's ICF-2010 is the world's finest portable, irrespective of cost or size. Yet it first came on the market all the way back in 1985... This legendary receiver has been the choice of shortwave cognoscenti ever since...

Sony's excellence in world band technology resulted from personal attention lavished on it by the company's founder, Akio Morita, and several top-flight engineers at the Shibaura Technology Center... after 18 years Sony's flagship world band receiver is about to get the axe... get it while you can... a tireless companion-- two of our monitor's units are still soldiering away after 15 punishing years."

— Passport to World Band Radio 2003

You can get one here:
eBay,

the number one auction site on the Internet, is a great place to find a Sony ICF-2010, Drake R8, Grundig Satellit 800, Zenith Transoceanic, or other fine radio.

World Band Radio Listening, News, Search, and Links ( Shortwave Listening, Shortwave News )