The NASB represents the privately-owned shortwave radio stations in the United States and promotes s Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB) is a trade association for the privately-owned shortwave radio stations which are licensed by the U.S. The NASB also has a number of associate members which include transmitter and antenna manufacturers, receiver and equipment manufacturers, consultants, government broadcasters, overseas international broadcasters, shortwave transmission br
The National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB) is a trade association for the privately-owned shortwave radio stations which are licensed by the U.S. The NASB also has a number of associate members which include transmitter and antenna manufacturers, receiver and equipment manufacturers, consultants, government broadcasters, overseas international broadcasters, shortwave transmission br
Operating as usual
BBC World Service outlines move to digital-first service
The BBC World Service has outlined plans to accelerate its digital offering and increase impact with audiences around the globe.
BBC World Service’s Africa coverage under threat from job cuts | Semafor
BBC World Service is in talks to cut Africa coverage jobs.
Some very preliminary details have been announced about the 2023 NASB Annual Meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. See initial information here: www.shortwave.org/index.php/annual-meeting-info/
On Wavescan, beginning August 7: American radio stations in New Zealand: The 1ZM story. Algeria on the air. Roberto Scaglione death. More from the NASB 2022 annual meeting. Japan DX report from Yukiko Tsuji.
Further information about NASB President Jerry Plummer, who passed away on July 24:
Jerry “Doc” Plummer - 1953 – 2022
Jerry “Doc” Plummer passed away July 24t , 2022, in Nashville at the age of 68. Jerry was born to the late H. B. and Mildred Plummer of Clarksville, TN. In addition to his parents, he is preceded in death by his brother Ronnie Plummer. Jerry is survived by his longtime partner Lynn Fick of Nashville, TN, his brother Mike Plummer of Jacksonville, FL, sisters Judy Sadler of
Hendersonville, TN and Pat Yeomans of Brandon, MS as well as 11 nieces and nephews. He is also survived by his best friend Brady Murray of Pleasant View, TN and his beloved pups Zillah
and Lilly and his cat Annaha.
Born July 26th , 1953, Jerry grew up in Clarksville, TN. He received his Doctorate Degree in Economics from Middle Tennessee State
University and before his retirement he was a tenured full Professor of Economics/Information Systems at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. He was teaching at Belmont University after his retirement. He was also founder and president of docplummer.com, a successful consulting company in computer information systems and finance.
Doc’s true passion was short wave radio, and he was a very active member of the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB). Doc served many roles with NASB and was elected
President in 2022. He was Frequency Manager at WWCR International Shortwave Radio in Nashville since 2007. He hosted or cohosted over 400 ASK WWCR programs with his longtime friend and associate Brady Murray. Doc was elected to the HFCC Steering Board and served in various roles for many years.
Jerry was a life-long lover of radio. Before his involvement in shortwave broadcasting, he grew up listening to Rhythm and Blues on WLAC-AM. Those late nights spent listening to R&B led to
a deep interest in cultures around the world and his love of international shortwave broadcasting.
After earning a doctorate in Economics, Jerry sought to travel and present research internationally. As a Frequency Manager, he traveled to dozens of countries. For the last several years, Jerry delighted in traveling the world with his significant other, Lynn. Thousands of his students were introduced to shortwave broadcasting through Jerry’s over 20-year career as a professor. He also made close friends in countries around the world because of
his involvement in shortwave broadcasting.
Jerry “Doc” Plummer led a rich and full life and had a remarkable impact on those whose lives he touched. He experienced so much of what he loved by traveling, broadcasting, and laughing with his friends and family around the world. Jerry’s absence will be strongly felt, and he will be missed dearly.
NASB President Dr. Jerry Plummer Passes Away
http://hfcc.org/doc/HFCC_Announces_the_Passing_of_Dr_Jerry_Plummer.pdf
The NASB 2022 Annual Meeting took place June 14-16 at Radio Free Asia in Washington DC. It was an excellent meeting in an excellent location. We want to thank AJ, Aungthu and everyone at RFA for their excellent hospitality and organization.
We are broadcasting a conversation about the meeting with WWCR's Jerry Plummer on this week's AWR Wavescan program, which is aired on KSDA, WRMI, WWCR, KVOH, Voice of Hope-Africa and IRRS-Italy. It is also available each week as a podcast on the AWR website. On subsequent editions of Wavescan will have a further conversation with Jerry Plummer, the new NASB President; and Glen Tapley, the new NASB Vice President. We will be broadcasting many excerpts from the talks at the NASB meeting on Wavescan over the coming months. Here are some photos from the meeting.
As Vladimir Putin tightens his stranglehold on what his citizens see and hear, will radio once again become an effective way to get outside voices into Russia?
VOA Chief National Correspondent to Speak at NASB 2022
Voice of America's Chief National Correspondent Steve Herman will talk about an early fascination with shortwave radio which he credits for the path to his career in broadcasting -- now spanning six decades -- and eventually ending up at VOA as an overseas bureau chief before covering the White House for four-and-a-half years. Steve first tuned in to VOA, writing to its headquarters as a child in Ohio and receiving a response that as an American he wasn't eligible to enter its on-air contests. This intrigued him about VOA's mission as a solely external broadcaster. Steve attributes his teen years' experience with ham radio with giving him socialization skills (talking to strangers), learning basic physics (propagation and electronics), geography (DX) and foreign languages skills (initially through speaking basic Spanish and Japanese on HF single sideband).
Steve was formerly White House Bureau Chief, and is now VOA's Chief National Correspondent. He spent more than a quarter of a century in Asia, including years of reporting from Tokyo and subsequently as a VOA correspondent and bureau chief in India, Korea and Thailand. Steve also served in 2016 as VOA's Senior Diplomatic Correspondent, based at the State Department. His travels have taken him to approximately 75 countries, which included on-scene reporting from combat zones, civil uprisings and areas struck by major natural disasters.
Steve is scheduled to speak at the NASB meeting on Friday, July 15 in the meeting room at Radio Free Asia in Washington. The meeting will run from July 14-16 and anyone may attend free of charge. You can find full details about the meeting at: www.shortwave.org. Then click on Annual Meeting Info.
Everyone is invited to the NASB 2022 Annual Meeting in Washington DC
We want to let you know about the 2022 annual meeting of the NASB – the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters. We also have people from overseas who have attended past NASB meetings, and the same will probably be true this year.
The NASB is the association for privately-owned shortwave stations in the United States, but it has associate members from all over who are interested in shortwave radio. And you don’t even have to be a member to attend the annual meeting. Shortwave listeners attend every year, and they are most welcome.
The 2022 NASB annual meeting will take place July 14-16 at the headquarters of Radio Free Asia in Washington, DC. It’s a fascinating location, and many people are eager to attend because the NASB did not have an annual meeting in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
Here’s a brief look at the meeting agenda. It starts Thursday, July 14th. The meeting will begin at 12:00 noon local time with tours of RFA, followed by presentations about various aspects of shortwave radio till 5 pm Thursday afternoon. The idea of beginning the meeting at noon is so that people from the Eastern US can perhaps fly in on Thursday morning and arrive in time for the meeting at noon, saving them a night of hotel expense on Wednesday. And local attendees may be able to get in a half-day of work on Thursday morning.
7:00 pm - There will be a group dinner paid for by the NASB at Teddy & the Bully Bar, a restaurant located a short walk from Radio Free Asia and the St. Gregory Hotel, where attendees will be staying, right next to RFA. The menu at Teddy & The Bully Bar reflects President Theodore Roosevelt’s love for simple American comfort food. Many aspects of President Roosevelt’s life and the era in which he led the US were incorporated into the look and feel of the restaurant, including old time coffee pots, gas-powered light fixtures, faux taxidermy, Mount Rushmore-themed art, a beautiful restored antique stove and a birch “forest” diorama designed to invoke Roosevelt’s love of the outdoors and his National Parks legacy.
There will be a full day of meetings on Friday, July 15, with a lunch break. Presenters will include: Jerome Hirigoyen of Télédiffusion de France with an update on TDF's DRMCast program. TDF transmits many stations and programs from its huge shortwave site in Issoudun, France. Christopher Rumbaugh of DRM North America will have an “Affordable Receiver Petting Zoo” with a bunch of new-crop reasonable and cheap shortwave receivers. Attorney Kate Neiswender will talk about "Shortwaves For Freedom" - the crowdfunding campaign to transmit shortwave programs in English and Russian to Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe during the Ukraine war.
Also speaking will be Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott, producer of the popular program "Shortwave Radiogram." Mike Sabin will give an update from Trans World Radio. And there will be many more talks and presentations.
On Saturday, July 16, from 9:00 am-12:00 noon - The NASB annual Business Meeting will include updates from NASB member stations and associate members, including KSDA, WWCR, KVOH, WEWN, WRMI, KNLS, KTWR, TDF and more. We also expect to have participation by personnel from Radio Free Asia, the US Agency for Global Media and the FCC.
Anyone with an interest in shortwave radio, listening or broadcasting is most welcome. There is no charge to attend the meeting; you only need to pay your own travel and accommodation costs. The NASB has arranged a special rate at the St. Gregory Hotel, right next to RFA. For complete information, go to the NASB website, which is www.shortwave.org. Then click on Annual Meeting Info.
We already have confirmation that representatives from all but one NASB member stations will be in attendance. Please join us if you can.
Commentary from Kate Neiswender of Shortwaves For Freedom
Rebuttal to Radio World commentary "Why Reviving Shortwave is a Non Starter"
“Thank you, from Kharkiv, Ukraine.” (Anatol D.)
“I want to thank you so much for supporting Ukraine and for supporting freedom of speech in Russia under the Putin dictatorship! I know about the Shortwaves for Freedom initiative. Your project is very important. This crazy war must be stopped immediately!” (Dmitry E., Saratov, Russia)
Those are actual comments we have received from listeners in Ukraine and Russia. And that’s why we think that what we are doing, with the help of hundreds of donors, is worthwhile.
Unfortunately, there are no rating services for shortwave radio. No one knows the exact number of shortwave listeners in Russia and Ukraine. But we know from the responses we receive that we are reaching people.
Likewise, no one knows the exact number of shortwave radio receivers in these countries. But there are definitely thousands of Soviet-made shortwave radios in homes throughout the region, not to mention many thousands of more-modern Chinese-made shortwave receivers.
There are millions of shortwave receivers scattered around the world. You can go to public marketplaces in Nigeria, for example, and buy one for as little as $3.
It’s not necessary for governments to build new shortwave transmitting facilities that cost millions of dollars in order to revive shortwave. In the case of VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the USAGM already has transmitter sites that are operational, and adding some hours of Russian or Ukrainian programming to these services would be a drop in the bucket compared to the billions being spent on the war. Other governments that have closed down their shortwave transmitters, such as the Netherlands or Australia, could easily rent airtime on privately owned stations to make their viewpoints heard for a very reasonable cost.
Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott, former audience research officer at the Voice of America, has long noted that shortwave listeners tend to be opinion leaders. Gorbachev was an assiduous listener. So if you can convince these people, they will spread the word among their contacts.
We understand that the USAGM, which oversees VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, got an extra $25 million in the supplemental appropriations bill related to Ukraine, “and we are carefully evaluating the best use of these resources,” says Laurie Moy, USAGM’s director of public affairs.
We think at least a good portion of the $25 million would better be focused on Russia. That is the country that really needs alternative sources of information, and ways to get around the blocking and restricting of the internet. Radio is the ultimate method to do that, because it isn't the internet.
Why would you discount any means of fighting the information war, especially when the infrastructure already exists and the incremental cost is minimal in comparison to the overall budget? If even a few people listen who wouldn’t get the info by another means, then it is useful. A rabid anti-shortwave attitude defies common sense.
Certainly the war in Ukraine has brought a great deal of publicity to shortwave radio and its ability to bypass censorship and get a message to people in countries where the media is all government-controlled and internet and satellite signals can be turned off by a dictator with the flip of a switch. But this is much more than a PR stunt; it’s our contribution to efforts to counter false information, stop the war and bring peace to a region that dearly needs it.
There is no resurgence of shortwave radio
by Gerhard Straub P.E.
Gerhard Straub is the managing member of The Chalaco Group, LLC, and formerly the director of the Broadcast Technologies Division in the Office of Technology, Services and Innovation at USAGM. Prior to that, he was a senior engineer at the consulting firm of Hammett & Edison, Inc.
The title and focus of the recent opinion piece in Radio World, “Why Reviving Shortwave is a Non-Starter,” is confusing, because it is hard to revive something that is not dead. In fact, USAGM is in the middle of a multi-million dollar expansion of shortwave capability at one of its facilities at this very moment. In the past decade, no USG shortwave stations have been shut down, except for one that was beyond economical repair due to severe storm damage. It is true that listener use of shortwave, especially in modern urban areas, has declined with the expansion of media choices available today. There is no argument that shortwave is not the best way to reach the majority of casual listeners during normal times. However, this is not a normal time. This is war. While listenership to radio is based on audience research and surveys, how many of these were conducted during war? One cannot extrapolate peace time results to a time of war.
There are countless accounts in the media of the Ukrainian people making Molotov cocktails to use against invading forces. Clearly, these are ineffective against modern tanks and artillery. In the same vein, can one imagine leaving an old gun in the closet, well, because it is old? Of course not. Any means available is going to be used to try to help the war effort. While any of these measures may not have a huge impact, even small victories help the cause.
The same can be said of shortwave radio. It is one arrow in the quiver. What rational argument can be made for not using every available asset in the information war, just as all available assets are being used in the physical war? Not everyone is adept at using VPN or Tor to circumvent internet censorship. However, most people do know how to tune a radio. Even if one is equipped to use a VPN, how does that work when the city has been bombed and there is no power. That “old” battery operated transistor radio still works. Content plays a major role as well. People will use the media that has the compelling content they need. If the winning lottery numbers were to be announced the day before the drawing, but only on shortwave radio, you can be assured there would be a run on shortwave radios, even in the big cities. We are talking about content that is more important than any lottery here.
There is the argument that people do not have shortwave radios just laying around and that they are unavailable. There is some truth in that. However, let’s think about this for a minute. Based on various estimates on the internet, Russia has about 38,000 Amateur Radio Operators. Let’s say that there are double that number of hobbyist shortwave listeners. That’s over 100,000 shortwave radios and they had to get their equipment somewhere, and that number does not include people that still do have a radio stashed away somewhere. That is still a potentially very small portion of the population. But just like with internet censorship, the goal is to get the information through the “firewall”. Once it is on the other side, it can be spread internally. Something that no one seems to mention as well is that military forces tend to have HF (shortwave) radio, if not for primary then at least backup, over the horizon command and control. So, probably every Russian command and control vehicle has a shortwave radio. Wouldn’t we like to tell them what is really going on?
Finally, let’s talk cost. The shortwave infrastructure already exists. Internal costs for an hour of shortwave transmission time runs probably somewhere from $30 to $100 or more per hour. Let’s say it is $100 per hour to be near the middle but on the high side. Two hours a day of shortwave transmission then costs about $6,000 per month or $72,000 per year. The USAGM budget usually runs around $750M per year so this would be like 0.01% of the budget. Is that too much to spend to have a possibility of getting information to people that desperately need it and may not be able to get it by other means? It is a very small gamble to take, even if it results in zero listeners, which is highly unlikely.
The infrastructure exists, the potential to reach people that desperately need information is moderate to high, and we are in an information war. The cost is low and the potential payoff is high, so what possible rational argument can be made for not using all available resources, including shortwave radio?
The BBC has resumed broadcasting via shortwave radio to ensure civilians can access the news.
Calling all Shortwave Broadcasters and Listeners…to Washington DC
In-person gatherings and meetings are beginning to take place again after the pandemic. In the case of the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB), it meant no annual meeting in 2020 or 2021. But the 2022 NASB Annual Meeting will take place in person in Washington DC on July 14-16. (That’s Thursday through Saturday.)
The 2022 annual meeting will be especially interesting for shortwave listeners, as it will take place at the headquarters of Radio Free Asia, part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), just like the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Martí, etc. RFA has a very impressive facility on M Street in downtown Washington, and meeting participants will have a chance to tour the building and meet broadcasters who produce programs beamed to China and other parts of Asia.
RFA has a very nice meeting room where the NASB meeting will take place on Thursday afternoon (July 13), all day Friday and on Saturday morning. The meeting will start at noon on Thursday so that some people can fly into DC on Thursday morning and arrive in time for the opening. RFA is a short taxi or Metro ride from Ronald Reagan National Airport.
The NASB meeting will start with tours of Radio Free Asia. Then the rest of Thursday afternoon and all day Friday will consist of talks and presentations about various subjects related to shortwave radio that will be of interest to broadcasters and listeners alike. RFA personnel will talk about their programming and technical matters as well. We expect to have representatives from USAGM and from the FCC, which regulates privately-owned shortwave stations in the United States.
Other talks will focus on the Shortwaves for Freedom project to transmit accurate news and information to listeners in Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe. There will be updates on DRM broadcasting from KTWR and other stations. Christopher Rumbaugh of DRM North America will present an “Affordable Receiver Petting Zoo,” where folks will be able to touch and test some of the latest shortwave receivers on the market.
Other speakers at NASB will be Kim Elliott, producer of “Shortwave Radiogram,” Brady Murray and Jerry Plummer of WWCR, Ray Robinson of KVOH, Andy Baker of KNLS and Madagascar World Voice, Dr. Dowell Chow of Adventist World Radio, Glen Tapley of WEWN, and Jerome Hirigoyen of Télédiffusion de France who will talk about TDF’s DRMCast project.
On Thursday night there will be a group dinner at an iconic Washington DC restaurant reflecting the beauty and history of the United States. There is no charge to attend the NASB annual meeting, and the Thursday dinner and Friday lunch will even be included at no charge. Attendees only need to pay their own travel and lodging expenses. The group has a special rate at the Hotel St. Gregory, located right next door to RFA, so there’s no need to rent a car. You can find full details about the NASB 2022 Annual Meeting on the NASB webpage, www.shortwave.org. Just click on “Annual Meeting Info.”
The dates have been set for the NASB 2022 Annual Meeting. It's going to be held July 14-16 (Thursday-Saturday) at Radio Free Asia headquarters in Washington, DC. Accommodations have been arranged right next door at the Hotel St. Gregory. You can find full details on the NASB webpage, which is: www.shortwave.org. Then click on "Annual Meeting Info." There's no charge to attend the meeting, and some meals are included. Travel expenses are on your own. We have a special rate at the Hotel St. Gregory which is great for downtown Washington DC. RFA has a very nice meeting room they are providing us with. There are lots of interesting presentations on the agenda, and lots of interesting presenters talking about all sorts of shortwave-related topics. Shortwave broadcasters, listeners and anyone with an interest in shortwave radio is very welcome to attend. So put the NASB 2022 Annual Meeting on your agenda for July 14-16 in Washington DC.
http://shortwave.org/index.php/annual-meeting-info/
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