Shortwave Radio Listening for Beginners

by Anita Louise McCormick

Briefly traces the history of radio, tells how to select a shortwave radio, and discusses radio waves, pirate stations, international programs, scanners, and ham radio

173 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

I have been involved with writing and art for as long as I can remember. My interests include animals, nature, and the world around me in general. My cat, Henry the Feline Fiber Artist and I were featured on Animal Planet's Cats 101, and my book, Native Americans and the Reservation, was cited in the Elle Magazine article, Native American Girls Protest High School's Offensive Redmen Logo, by Olivia Fleming.

Reviews

[Seumas W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book off amazon, because I was interested in getting a shortwave radio, but my dad insisted I had to read a book on it first. And so here I am.
This book is an introduction into shortwave radio listening, and covers all the bases, from explaining how radio waves work to how to get in contact with radio stations and explaining what type of radio works best for certain purposes.
Originally I was only interested in shortwave radios because of a conspiracy theory surrounding ‘numbers stations’, but after reading this book I'm actually interested due to more normal, non tinfoil hat reasons. I'm still interested in numbers stations, but this book totally opened my eyes to what other things are out there. The information in this book is all pretty concise, and easy to absorb.
Despite all these great things, there is one glaring fault with this book, but I'm to blame in a way. This book is really pretty dates, so I have a feeling most of the information, like addresses of radio stations, isn't necessarily accurate. Besides the fact that I was born a decade to late, I have one other issue with this book, and that is the fact that, about three quarters of the way through and the writer seemed to have run out of things to put in the book. So the book begins discussing things like HAM radio and police scanners. Seeing as I wasn't interested in that I really just skimmed those sections.