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This is a good summary on Shortwave and how it's used.
An annual conference dedicated to shortwave listening is the Winter SWL Fest, located outside of Philadelphia in the USA. Its URL is http://www.swlfest.com
I know there are a lot about but the figure seems extremely high, especially if we're talking about receivers actually in use as opposed to the total number ever produced or something. This works out at about one shortwave radio for every ten people in the world. Can anyone confirm it? — Trilobite (Talk) 04:24, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Suggestion: Anyone think it's a good idea to include a section on PC-controlled shortwave receivers (and software)? (I am not the prospective author, as no experience with this setup.) I didn't find any reference to it in Wikipedia.-- Kibbitzer 07:11, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
This page needs better descriptions of the meter bands. For starters, I dispute the "not in the americas" label for the 41 meter band. I have other descriptions for these bands but I believe it is under copyright (from radio manuals). bneely 19:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I was reading the article and this part was unclear to me:
Shortwave frequencies are capable of reaching the other side of the planet because they can be refracted by the ionosphere. Are radio waves refracted (bent) or reflected? . User:Rjairam
It is actually a dual process of refraction and reflection. As the ray enters the layer it bends - refraction and it eventually reaches a part of the ionosphere where the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection and reflection back or out of the layer occurs and at his point refraction again follows until the ray exits the layer. If you were to plot the path of the ray through the layer it makes a curve. If pure refraction were to occur the actual location of reception is not at the predicted location but can be several hundreds of kilometres away. Proof that reflection plays an important role is that only then can the predicted zone of reception actually in over 90% of the time be reached. Other factors also play a major part but without reflection the ray would not be received where expected. I also happen to be a retired radio engineer responsible for long range (HF) communication and in the context that I refer to a "ray" it means radio wave. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.55.57 ( talk) 12:39, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The shortwave and high frequency articles seem to be about the same subject:
Shouldn't these be merged? If so, which title should be the "main" article title? — Johan the Ghost seance 14:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
This article fails. Lacks date when shortwave was invented and/or came into practical use. -- 68.190.117.179 00:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
The term "HF" is not misapplied; it's historical and has been in use for many, many decades -- particularly before VHF and UHF (which are no longer VERY or ULTRA) transmitting became commonplace. In fact the HF amateur radio bands were allocated to amateurs (like reservations were allocated to indians) precisely because it was once thought they would be of little use to broadcasting. Twang 02:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
There needs to be a disambigulation page to differentiate between radio waves and other uses of "short wave" and "long wave" (such as those terms in Meteorology).
I've added a globalize/USA tag to this article, since it is a particularly bad example of US-centric writing, especially in the first section. 86.31.35.135 ( talk) 23:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Can you support this with some basic elaboration? 71.228.184.188 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 19:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I think that you will find the FIRST across the pond or trans-Atlantic transmissions were from Europe to the Americas and the first almost trans-global or almost 180 degree path was again from Europe actually the United Kingdom to Australia and New Zealand. Like most technology advances in the early part of the 20th Century these occurred strangely in Europe with the US copying and in some cases blatantly stealing the ideas and claiming them as being designed in the US - computers come to mind!
I have tagged File:Modern_Short_Wave_Radio.jpg, which is in use in this article for deletion because it does not have a copyright tag. If a copyright tag is not added within seven days the image will be deleted. -- Chris 10:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
Because of the larger bandwidth required, NBFM is much more commonly used for VHF communication.
I thought that NBFM had the same bandwidth as AM. 72.75.98.88 ( talk) 22:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
"Sliver band" (slang term) FM is a form of NBFM that can have the same bandwidth as AM. It requires that the deviation not exceed one radian at any modulating frequency greater than half of the highest input frequency. This does not provide as much S/N ratio as what is usually referred to as NBFM.
Typical NBFM uses about 16kHz of bandwidth with a 3000 Hz limit on the audio (versus 6 kHz BW of an AM signal with 3 kHz limit on the audio).
I do have in issue with the statement that "phasic distortions" limit the distance of NBFM. If anything, NBFM reception is better than AM reception under skip conditions, provided the signal strength is adequate. Wideband FM broadcasts can be heard with superb quality when Sporadic-E propagation is present on the FM broadcast band.
The user cited a book reference, but without access to the text of the book, one cannot find where Sinclair (the author) received the information in the book. As the title of the book would imply that the purpose of the book is to aid in the obtaining the highest quality audio reproduction, it may be possible that the implications of ionospheric propagation were given limited attention.
NBFM has not been used for shortwave broadcasting because of the bandwidth issues and because of the lack of FM detection capability in virtually all consumer grade shortwave receivers, and has not been used in shortwave voice communication (note that the preferred term in that field is "HF communication) because SSB uses less bandwidth and delivers superior signal-to-noise for a given consumption of power. FM signals will propagate to the same distance of AM, CW, data or SSB signals on the same frequency. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 313 TUxedo ( talk • contribs) 17:21, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
Some mention of this new technology [1] would possibly fit here? 87.74.77.209 ( talk) 21:14, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Frustratingly, the first citation just doesn't support what is in the introductory paragraph of the article. What is the range of shortwave frequencies? Anyone know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.2.230.224 ( talk) 03:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
According to all contemporary information - 3 to 30 MHz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.55.57 ( talk) 12:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm driving along a highway. Ahead of me I see a car, and just below that in my visual field, there's a wavery sort of "reflection" of the car. I know that neither asphalt nor air has any reflective properties, but clearly this is "reflection by refraction" and analogous to the way shortwave radio gets bounced around the ionosphere. Is it really that clear-cut? -- Wtshymanski ( talk) 15:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Even further reading of techinical literature supports that reflection is not the process by which most long distance shortwave communications occurs. – Sparkgap ( talk) 20:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)"Reflection and refraction are two words that often seem to be used interchangeably, even though they describe quite different phenomena. Reflection occurs at any boundary between materials with different dielectric constants. ... Refraction is the bending of a wave as it passes from one medium into another. ... Most amateur communication on the HF bands depends on this bending of radio waves, so it is a very important concept. ... On frequencies below 30 MHz, long distance communication is the result of refraction (bending) of the wave in the ionosphere."
I'm pretty sure that the bit about being able to detect the number of HF listeners via the EM of the circuits is not feasible. Haven't found any mention online or in any other source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.233.139.238 ( talk) 02:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
It also might be possible to spy on people by detecting the IF signal, which unlike the LO, contains the broadcast data. This signal can then be matched up to all the possible stations that you could be listening to.
To minimize this radiated signal would require shielding the LO and IF stages by wrapping them in conductive foil and grounding the foil, and possibly using additional filtering, both of which would make it more similar to a direct conversion receiver.
--
Mikiemike (
talk)
03:23, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
may i point your interest to this photo? i took it today for the german article about shortwave. maybe you find it suitable for the opening section. i wanted to focus on shortwave, not on a universal radio receiver like the one in the intro of this article. Maximilian ( talk) 23:28, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
the blurry photo in the article seems to show a LW/MW/SW receiver. if this is the case, it's a misleading picture for the article. my photo shows the ca. 3 cm wide display of a portable sony ICF-7600. a centimetre scale is, imho, not necessary for this photo and its message. the message is: we're tuning into 15 m band shortwave, bingo! Maximilian ( talk) 23:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
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I see no indication in reliable secondary sources that "world band" or "world radio" receiver is anything more than a marketing term used by a few manufacturers to brand their radio receivers that are capable of shortwave broadcast reception. And it looks like this article duplicates material already covered at Shortwave_listening#Shortwave_radio_receivers. Considering the many errors and misstatements in this article, I think the topic be folded into Shortwave_listening#Shortwave_radio_receivers, rather than a separate article that creates the false impression that "world radio" is something different than a shortwave radio. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 01:44, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
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Hi folks, I notice the longwave article is called that but the shortwave instead of Shortwave radio. Is that right. scope_creep Talk 00:37, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
I'm curious as to why most references to frequencies in shortwave use kilohertz, despite being well into the megahertz range. Is this just the way its always been done? If someone knows the history could just write a quick blurb mentioning the convention it would be very helpful. Thanks Strangerpete ( talk) 18:35, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm surprised that the many private and commercial (two-way) operators on Shortwave are not mentioned. eg In Australia the "Flying Doctor" service was an essential part of outback life, and these days there are many 4WD clubs which maintain Shortwave (eg HF) networks for outback travelers. Likewise police, military, trucking firms, marine operators, aircraft, and others rely on shortwave communications for their daily operations and safety. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.150.22.107 ( talk • contribs) 04:14, 6 September 2021 UTC (UTC)
The Advantages and Disadvantages sections, supposedly illustrating how shortwave radio differs from "newer technology" consist mainly of questionable interpretations (e.g. Gorbachev was able to stay informed during a coup, battery-operation is better than hand crank, etc). None of these opinions are cited, which is a typical feature of unsourced WP:OR. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 19:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
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This is a good summary on Shortwave and how it's used.
An annual conference dedicated to shortwave listening is the Winter SWL Fest, located outside of Philadelphia in the USA. Its URL is http://www.swlfest.com
I know there are a lot about but the figure seems extremely high, especially if we're talking about receivers actually in use as opposed to the total number ever produced or something. This works out at about one shortwave radio for every ten people in the world. Can anyone confirm it? — Trilobite (Talk) 04:24, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Suggestion: Anyone think it's a good idea to include a section on PC-controlled shortwave receivers (and software)? (I am not the prospective author, as no experience with this setup.) I didn't find any reference to it in Wikipedia.-- Kibbitzer 07:11, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
This page needs better descriptions of the meter bands. For starters, I dispute the "not in the americas" label for the 41 meter band. I have other descriptions for these bands but I believe it is under copyright (from radio manuals). bneely 19:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I was reading the article and this part was unclear to me:
Shortwave frequencies are capable of reaching the other side of the planet because they can be refracted by the ionosphere. Are radio waves refracted (bent) or reflected? . User:Rjairam
It is actually a dual process of refraction and reflection. As the ray enters the layer it bends - refraction and it eventually reaches a part of the ionosphere where the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection and reflection back or out of the layer occurs and at his point refraction again follows until the ray exits the layer. If you were to plot the path of the ray through the layer it makes a curve. If pure refraction were to occur the actual location of reception is not at the predicted location but can be several hundreds of kilometres away. Proof that reflection plays an important role is that only then can the predicted zone of reception actually in over 90% of the time be reached. Other factors also play a major part but without reflection the ray would not be received where expected. I also happen to be a retired radio engineer responsible for long range (HF) communication and in the context that I refer to a "ray" it means radio wave. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.55.57 ( talk) 12:39, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
The shortwave and high frequency articles seem to be about the same subject:
Shouldn't these be merged? If so, which title should be the "main" article title? — Johan the Ghost seance 14:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
This article fails. Lacks date when shortwave was invented and/or came into practical use. -- 68.190.117.179 00:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
The term "HF" is not misapplied; it's historical and has been in use for many, many decades -- particularly before VHF and UHF (which are no longer VERY or ULTRA) transmitting became commonplace. In fact the HF amateur radio bands were allocated to amateurs (like reservations were allocated to indians) precisely because it was once thought they would be of little use to broadcasting. Twang 02:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
There needs to be a disambigulation page to differentiate between radio waves and other uses of "short wave" and "long wave" (such as those terms in Meteorology).
I've added a globalize/USA tag to this article, since it is a particularly bad example of US-centric writing, especially in the first section. 86.31.35.135 ( talk) 23:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Can you support this with some basic elaboration? 71.228.184.188 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 19:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I think that you will find the FIRST across the pond or trans-Atlantic transmissions were from Europe to the Americas and the first almost trans-global or almost 180 degree path was again from Europe actually the United Kingdom to Australia and New Zealand. Like most technology advances in the early part of the 20th Century these occurred strangely in Europe with the US copying and in some cases blatantly stealing the ideas and claiming them as being designed in the US - computers come to mind!
I have tagged File:Modern_Short_Wave_Radio.jpg, which is in use in this article for deletion because it does not have a copyright tag. If a copyright tag is not added within seven days the image will be deleted. -- Chris 10:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
Because of the larger bandwidth required, NBFM is much more commonly used for VHF communication.
I thought that NBFM had the same bandwidth as AM. 72.75.98.88 ( talk) 22:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
"Sliver band" (slang term) FM is a form of NBFM that can have the same bandwidth as AM. It requires that the deviation not exceed one radian at any modulating frequency greater than half of the highest input frequency. This does not provide as much S/N ratio as what is usually referred to as NBFM.
Typical NBFM uses about 16kHz of bandwidth with a 3000 Hz limit on the audio (versus 6 kHz BW of an AM signal with 3 kHz limit on the audio).
I do have in issue with the statement that "phasic distortions" limit the distance of NBFM. If anything, NBFM reception is better than AM reception under skip conditions, provided the signal strength is adequate. Wideband FM broadcasts can be heard with superb quality when Sporadic-E propagation is present on the FM broadcast band.
The user cited a book reference, but without access to the text of the book, one cannot find where Sinclair (the author) received the information in the book. As the title of the book would imply that the purpose of the book is to aid in the obtaining the highest quality audio reproduction, it may be possible that the implications of ionospheric propagation were given limited attention.
NBFM has not been used for shortwave broadcasting because of the bandwidth issues and because of the lack of FM detection capability in virtually all consumer grade shortwave receivers, and has not been used in shortwave voice communication (note that the preferred term in that field is "HF communication) because SSB uses less bandwidth and delivers superior signal-to-noise for a given consumption of power. FM signals will propagate to the same distance of AM, CW, data or SSB signals on the same frequency. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 313 TUxedo ( talk • contribs) 17:21, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
Some mention of this new technology [1] would possibly fit here? 87.74.77.209 ( talk) 21:14, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Frustratingly, the first citation just doesn't support what is in the introductory paragraph of the article. What is the range of shortwave frequencies? Anyone know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.2.230.224 ( talk) 03:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
According to all contemporary information - 3 to 30 MHz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.55.57 ( talk) 12:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm driving along a highway. Ahead of me I see a car, and just below that in my visual field, there's a wavery sort of "reflection" of the car. I know that neither asphalt nor air has any reflective properties, but clearly this is "reflection by refraction" and analogous to the way shortwave radio gets bounced around the ionosphere. Is it really that clear-cut? -- Wtshymanski ( talk) 15:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Even further reading of techinical literature supports that reflection is not the process by which most long distance shortwave communications occurs. – Sparkgap ( talk) 20:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)"Reflection and refraction are two words that often seem to be used interchangeably, even though they describe quite different phenomena. Reflection occurs at any boundary between materials with different dielectric constants. ... Refraction is the bending of a wave as it passes from one medium into another. ... Most amateur communication on the HF bands depends on this bending of radio waves, so it is a very important concept. ... On frequencies below 30 MHz, long distance communication is the result of refraction (bending) of the wave in the ionosphere."
I'm pretty sure that the bit about being able to detect the number of HF listeners via the EM of the circuits is not feasible. Haven't found any mention online or in any other source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.233.139.238 ( talk) 02:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
It also might be possible to spy on people by detecting the IF signal, which unlike the LO, contains the broadcast data. This signal can then be matched up to all the possible stations that you could be listening to.
To minimize this radiated signal would require shielding the LO and IF stages by wrapping them in conductive foil and grounding the foil, and possibly using additional filtering, both of which would make it more similar to a direct conversion receiver.
--
Mikiemike (
talk)
03:23, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
may i point your interest to this photo? i took it today for the german article about shortwave. maybe you find it suitable for the opening section. i wanted to focus on shortwave, not on a universal radio receiver like the one in the intro of this article. Maximilian ( talk) 23:28, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
the blurry photo in the article seems to show a LW/MW/SW receiver. if this is the case, it's a misleading picture for the article. my photo shows the ca. 3 cm wide display of a portable sony ICF-7600. a centimetre scale is, imho, not necessary for this photo and its message. the message is: we're tuning into 15 m band shortwave, bingo! Maximilian ( talk) 23:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to 3 external links on
Shortwave radio. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers. — cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 14:35, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I see no indication in reliable secondary sources that "world band" or "world radio" receiver is anything more than a marketing term used by a few manufacturers to brand their radio receivers that are capable of shortwave broadcast reception. And it looks like this article duplicates material already covered at Shortwave_listening#Shortwave_radio_receivers. Considering the many errors and misstatements in this article, I think the topic be folded into Shortwave_listening#Shortwave_radio_receivers, rather than a separate article that creates the false impression that "world radio" is something different than a shortwave radio. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 01:44, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Shortwave radio. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 22:21, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi folks, I notice the longwave article is called that but the shortwave instead of Shortwave radio. Is that right. scope_creep Talk 00:37, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
I'm curious as to why most references to frequencies in shortwave use kilohertz, despite being well into the megahertz range. Is this just the way its always been done? If someone knows the history could just write a quick blurb mentioning the convention it would be very helpful. Thanks Strangerpete ( talk) 18:35, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm surprised that the many private and commercial (two-way) operators on Shortwave are not mentioned. eg In Australia the "Flying Doctor" service was an essential part of outback life, and these days there are many 4WD clubs which maintain Shortwave (eg HF) networks for outback travelers. Likewise police, military, trucking firms, marine operators, aircraft, and others rely on shortwave communications for their daily operations and safety. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.150.22.107 ( talk • contribs) 04:14, 6 September 2021 UTC (UTC)
The Advantages and Disadvantages sections, supposedly illustrating how shortwave radio differs from "newer technology" consist mainly of questionable interpretations (e.g. Gorbachev was able to stay informed during a coup, battery-operation is better than hand crank, etc). None of these opinions are cited, which is a typical feature of unsourced WP:OR. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 19:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)