About SWLing.com

Website & Author

Photo of my father's RCA 6K3.
Where it all began--photo of my father's antique RCA 6K3.

I am a long-time fan of shortwave listening. It all started when I was a child growing up in rural North Carolina. Every Sunday morning, my father would turn on his beautiful antique 1936 RCA 6K3 radio and tune to WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado. He liked to keep his watch set to the famous voice of the atomic clock. Occasionally, we would tune around a bit more and hear voices from all over the world: this hooked me. As a young lad with a strong interest in geography, history, politics, and travel, I learned that through SWLing, I could hear unfiltered voices from across the globe. This was in the late 1970s--long before the internet, long before mobile phones.

SWLing is simplicity itself. All it takes to listen to the pulse of the globe is an inexpensive portable radio. It doesn't matter how remotely you live on this planet, either--with a battery-powered shortwave radio, the world will come to you!  No internet required!

When I was 19, I enrolled in the University of Grenoble, France, for one year.  I took a small shortwave radio with me, of course. I found my little portable indispensable as it allowed me to listen to news from home on the Voice of America. It became my daily ritual to listen to this hour program and it helped lessen a bit of homesickness that would occasionally surface.

As I think back, I realize that SWLing actually spawned a whole interest in "everything international" and was the catalyst for:

  • learning another language
  • getting a degree in International Business
  • finding a job that relies on my degree and language skills
  • traveling through North America and Europe and living abroad
  • becoming a licensed amateur radio operator

I actively maintain this website to promote SWLing because it is educational, fun, relatively inexpensive, and a fulfilling hobby. I want this website to help the total beginner learn everything they need to obtain a good radio and find broadcasting content. I also promote other websites that support SWLing.

Design
You may have noticed that this website loads very quickly in your web browser and is quite accessible--it will work on practically any browser. The website CSS template was originally based on an example site created by Matthew James Taylor. It is very simple and very low bandwidth. Indeed, Matthew, developed this CSS template to be viewable in the tiny iPhone screen. Thanks, Matthew!

I believe less is more, and this site reflects that.  You will not find flashy graphics on this site. I believe its content should capture you, not its ads.

For you web developers out there, I use the following text-based HTML text editors to build and maintain this site: NVU, BBEdit, Smultron & NotePad.

Helping & Funding SWLing

This site is and always will be ad-free. I maintain this site as a hobby, by myself and fund it myself. Though not terribly expensive, there are domain fees and hosting costs to pay each year. Also, when possible, I like to purchase and test the radios I review so my information is not purely based on external sources. This can get expensive, so, on occasion, I will ask radio manufacturers to give me a radio to review. This helps me do a review without the expenditure of a purchase. You will always see a disclosure in the review when I do this.

Ears To Our World

I direct a non-profit organizations called Ears To Our World (ETOW). ETOW is a project that distributes shortwave radios to classrooms in the developing world. Read more about this on the a ETOW web site. Donations to ETOW can be made on its website securely through PayPal in the sidebar.

Steps to SWLing

1. Get a Radio
2. Learn About World Time
3. Find a Station
4. Tune in

It's that simple!

Teach your kids about shortwave

Turning on a radio and tuning in the world is not only educational, it's fun and easy. SWLing has been a catalyst for many professional careers in international fields, such as journalism, social sciences, and diplomacy. When your children listen to shortwave and are exposed to languages, stories, music and news from around the world, it sparks their imaginations like no other medium.

SWLing is inexpensive, and--despite this online guide--ultimately doesn't require that you own a computer, have internet service, nor does it require monthly subscription fees of any sort. It is, perhaps, one of today's most cost-effective educational tools you can get for your family.

So are you ready? All you need to do is obtain a good shortwave radio and read this complete, concise, and free shortwave guide.

Radio Magazines

There are several magazines that provide schedules, product reviews, frequency lists, and other articles of interest for SWLing. Here is a list of these publications: