New Shortwave Broadcaster

Some of you may know this already, but a new shortwave exclusive broadcaster will start broadcasting on October 31, at 7:00PM Eastern. Looks like they will cover most of the United States and Canada with a very strong signal.

Global 24 programming will include news and entertainment and, and as I understand it will use WRMI's transmitters and antennas in Okeechobee, Florida. If I remember correctly, the Okeechobee sit was originally built by WNYW (WRUL).

More here: http://global24radio.com/

I didn't know about this. It will give me a reason to get out my Grundig G8 again, as I haven't listened to shortwave in almost a couple years.

Since I'm about 150 miles from their transmitter, I wonder what kind of signal I will get day vs. night.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I thought I read a post a while back where someone in Colorado said WWV had a weak signal because it was too close for a decent skywave skip.

i still have my magnavox d2999 and its really fun to listen to

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http://www.ebay.com/itm/Magnavox-D2...-Receiver-Radio-GREAT-CONDITION-/121443711616

I seem to recall that the law against domestic shortwave broadcasting was eliminated, but the VOA was prohibited (by their charter) to broadcast to a US audience. Maybe that one is gone, too?

It'll be interesting to see what they broadcast, though. I wonder if it will be a lot like WNYW was.

I just hope it's not another dollar a holler outfit like WWCR.

Any shortwave operation depending on ad sales will be short lived. The audience is too tiny for any potential client to spend serious money for spots. I expect Global 24 Radio will quickly flop, or will morph into brokered programming like most of the other U.S. private SW stations.

Yes, U.S. shortwave stations are supposedly forbidden from targeting listeners within the country, but that is the de facto reality with WWCR, WWRB, WTWW, WBCQ, and others.

BTW, the Okeechobee site for WRMI was built by Family Radio in the 1970's under the WYFR call sign. There are some transmitters still in operation that made the move from the old site in Scituate, Massachusetts that was used by predecessors WNYW and WRUL.

With Jeff White selling time on all those transmitters I would think that airtime rates for U.S. private SW stations are being pushed down.

I certainly look forward to having this on (or back...depending on how you want to look at it). But I can't say as I understand what the business model would be.

kenglish said:

I seem to recall that the law against domestic shortwave broadcasting was eliminated, but the VOA was prohibited (by their charter) to broadcast to a US audience. Maybe that one is gone, too?

It'll be interesting to see what they broadcast, though. I wonder if it will be a lot like WNYW was.

Click to expand...

Nope...FCC rules still prohibit US SW stations from broadcasting to a US audience....it has not been changed.

gar fla said:

I didn't know about this. It will give me a reason to get out my Grundig G8 again, as I haven't listened to shortwave in almost a couple years.

Since I'm about 150 miles from their transmitter, I wonder what kind of signal I will get day vs. night.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I thought I read a post a while back where someone in Colorado said WWV had a weak signal because it was too close for a decent skywave skip.

Click to expand...

Depends on which freq...the 2.5 has good groundwave coverage over CO..

I wish the new station well. Millions of SW radios in the U.S., probably just a few thousands of listeners....

Does anyone know how many active SW listeners there actually are in the U.S. and Canada?

RE: legality: I was under the impression that the US domestic SW broadcasters were officially broadcasting to Canada.

I remember KUSW doing a rock format on SW in the '80s. Most of the listeners they mentioned on-air were from the U.S. Heck, I was one of them! Of course, corralling advertisers was always going to be a problem and the station was quickly sold to Trinity Broadcasting and became KTBN.

Who can say how many SWLs remain in this country? The number must be tiny, given that the most entertaining international broadcasters (BBC, Radio Netherlands, Voice of Russia, etc.) have all either left SW or aren't targeting North America anymore. All anyone has to go on is the number of multiband radios sold in the past two or three decades. But no one knows how many of those receivers have broken down, been thrown away, or just aren't being used anymore. I've got a couple of them, but I only use one these days and that's only for occasional wee-hours ham band entertainment.

Maybe we should pass the word about this new station, and get people in our communities excited enough to...at least.....give it a try and send in a reception report.
If they will QSL, maybe we could get a bit of a "guesstimate" of how many people have some sort of shortwave capability available to them.

Write a little piece for your community newspaper, talk it up at work, say something in your blog................

Hopefully, the project is backed by a many times over billionaire who doesn't care about making money, and just loves shortwave listening.

It's one of you guys, isn't it?

It will not be possible to hear the station on shortwave from the studio building in Hollywood, FL: too far for groundwave, too close for skywave, and in the wrong direction. I will not hear them in Miami unless two things happen: they add a tropical band frequency beamed to the Caribbean, and I get a new receiver.

WRMI broadcasts Brother Stair, or at least did for awhile, on 5015 KHz at night. WWCR and WWRB both have signals at night in the 90/60M bands also.