--information relating to the Mid East, Africa and Asia available on SW

Last updated 2012/09/15
What one thing did more for SW in the last 30 years than any other event? If you said the 1991 Gulf War you would be right. SW allows the average Joe to find out what is really happening in unusual international event situations, and since we've had one war or another and/or domestic unrest and revolutions in the mid-east pretty much continuously since 1991, the point has been driven home yet again countries need to develop other methods of conflict resolution than killing innocent people (sorry -- couldn't resist the political comment!)

Unfortunately, Shortwave broadcast is not as reliable a source as it once was since budget cuts have meant many 'old faithful' stations are no longer around. Indeed, old stand-by stations like the BBC World Service and Radio Netherlands, Radio Canada International, Deutsche Welle, and it seem "you name it" station have either completely abandoned SW or have cut back their transmissions so drastically that it is now rather hard to find objective news on the dial now.

Despite this, SW remains an interesting supplementary news source, allowing those interested to hear what is going on a VERY different perspective than they would find on domestic media. If you ever feel frustrated that the only time you ever hear about a country is after a problem has erupted, it behooves you to try listening to SW from the region you are interested in and see what else is available! We regularly listen to Radio Australia and Radio New Zealand to get a feel for events in Asia and the Pacific that just never make it to the US media. If you own a SW radio, and are interested in international affairs, you owe it to yourself to give a listen to what is out there!

Below are some links to Asia/Pacific, East Europe and the Mid East SW Broadcasters' schedules, but you should also be aware that one of the most interesting 'primary' sources of information is also available on SW, and on SW only -- aircraft and other military coms.
If you have a radio capable of receiving Upper Sideband you have what you need to monitor this kind of transmission. Try the following frequencies first: 

Air Mobile Command (Air Force) frequencies:
Freq (kHz)        Freq (kHz)        Freq (kHz)        Freq (kHz)
4724              8968              10780             13200
                  8992              11176*
6712              9016              11244             15016
6739              9023              11271
                  9037                                17976

Navy High Command voice frequencies:
Freq (kHz)        Freq (kHz)
6697              11267

Also, during the Gulf War, the Military airlift command frequency
of 14.606 saw a bit of use.

According to Chuck Ripple on the east coast
"8.992 and 9.016 was pretty busy last night when I checked (12/November/1998)"
so it appears that despite claims that the HF comms would be less this time
around are not coming to fruition....
While a lot of military traffic has gone 'on the birds' since 1991, when satellites fail or when redundancy is desired, they fall back to the 'tried and true' HF channels listed above. The 11176 kHz channel has seemed the most active, and frequently has activity 'in the clear' (unencrypted) during the East Coast daytime.

Another possibility is that the military wants to keep some of this traffic on HF and in the clear just to let the other side know that it isn't sitting doing nothing. Intimidation effects you know.

Give a listen and tell us what you are hearing in

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    Here are some links to the schedules of SW Broadcasters from the Mid East who broadcast in English, in order of how easily they are heard in Michigan. (There are some that only use Arabic....): (Use your browser's "back" button (the left arrow in LYNX) to return here)

    Here are some links to the schedules of SW Broadcasters from elsewhere but who usually have lots of coverage of events in the Mid East, Africa and Asia. These too are English language broadcasts. (again, use your browser's "back" button (the left arrow in LYNX) to return here:



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