Shortwave Stations and The Conet Project

I first heard about The Conet Project 5 years ago, on a hot July morning after having stayed up all night, probably playing videogames and listening to music. It was a lost summer, I spent it working odd jobs that would allow me the luxury of screwing around as much as I wanted, and I did spend many sleepless nights staying up and not really doing much.

I was sitting in the rocking chair in my kitchen as my dad unfolded the Sunday edition of the paper and began to flip through the News section. He was used to my strange hours and so didn't say anything to me when I started leafing through the paper. I picked up the leisure section that allowed writers to explore, in depth, a number of features that ordinarily wouldn't receive much column space.

The cover story was about a European shortwave enthusiast who had spent years collecting sounds that he picked up on his shortwave radio. The article continued onward, explaining the notion of number stations and their purpose. Visions of international intrigue and secret spy networks sprang to mind as I continued to read about the Lincolnshire Poacher and various other innocent-sounding series of numbers and words meant to pass along sensitive information in a rather lo-fi method. The feature kept me awake and as soon as I had finished the article I had quickly run upstairs and downloaded all four discs of the project and sat through them all, scaring myself, considering the source material and its intention every time I hit 'play' to listen to a new clip. I felt satiated after going through the entire project. I fell into an uneasy, intrigue-filled series of dreams about my new discovery,

Something always drew me to the in-betweens of the radio dial, that place in-between stations where static lives and sometimes, when the ionosphere acts in my favour (usually during the late-night hours), I can pick up American AM stations from far-flung locales (Chicago, Philadelphia, sometimes even Florida). They temporarily satisfy my urge to explore, though I constantly turned knobs and then eventually progressed to the shortwave radio my mom kept lying around. Casually scanning for stations and listening to a multitude of languages kept me busy for a while, but I always searching for that illusive number station I'd get to hear live.

After years of false alarms, Evan and I managed to hear our first number station last August at 03h00, after spending evening after evening scanning the airwaves. We'd previously picked up many identification stations that airports use to broadcast weather conditions to planes and thought we had hit the jackpot before listening for two extra minutes and realizing just what we had.

That fateful night, a Spanish number station repeated numbers for an entire half-hour before going off-line. We checked in every night for a week and sure enough, it was there. We lived part of the dream, if only for a little window of time.

Think of the Conet Project as an introductory sampler, of sorts. The collection gives you a taste for the potential stations that one can stumble upon. A decade has passed since the Conet Project's inception and as such a virtual cornucopia of new transmissions have sprung up at seemingly random times. Websites have been dedicated to listing these sightings as they appear.

Click here to download all 4 discs.

WWV - 5,000

Probably one of the most popular shortwave stations in the continental United States and Canada is the U.S. Government's official time station - WWV. Broadcasting Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) out of Fort Collins, CO on five frequencies - 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz, it utilizes atomic clocks to keep extremely precise and accurate time readouts every minute, 24 hours a day/7 days a week. It's also the oldest continuously-operating radio station in the U.S., going on the air 89 years ago in 1920, though it only moved to Colorado is 1966, as it was originally in the Washington, DC area.

Up here at 45°N, 73°W, 5,000 kHz (5 MHz) comes through the clearest, and seems to be the only one to really come through, though this can possibly be due to the fact that we usually tune into this station late at night, and different frequency bands propagate through the ionosphere much differently depending on the time of day.

The station is extremely repetitive, as it should be, and to most would most likely seem boring and quite useless. After all, in a time of the internet, why would someone gather their time from a radio station? Despite how boring most people would probably find it, myself and Brian can't seem to get enough of it. There's something really exciting and intriguing about the station. From the monotonous ticking, repetitive male voice, and high pitched tones, it's just fun to listen to. When there's nothing else to listen to on the AM or SW band, we always know 5,000 will be there, ticking away. Also, it can broadcast storm warning, severe weather alerts, and other useful information when necessary.

Co-located with WWV, WWVB is a time station that broadcasts UTC time to radio-controlled clocks across North America. Its broadcast is not audible at 60 kHz, but clocks and electronic devices can receive the signal and convert it to local time.

In Hawaii, WWVB broadcasts time in a female voice on all the same frequencies as WWV with the exception of 20 MHz. If the atmospheric conditions are right, we can actually hear WWVB along with WWV, surprisingly well. Despite WWVB's directional antennas being pointed west to avoid North America, the properties of shortwave radio make this unavoidable at times. Though they broadcast simultaneously, no voices will ever speak at the same time (Hawaii gives the time readout first, in our experience).

So day or night, rain or shine, winter or summer, chances are you'll be able to pick up the time in probably the most accurate way possible with a single shortwave receiver. The only thing one should know is by how much your local time zone differs from UTC. For us on the East Coast it's -5, but -4 for Daylight Savings. Happy radioing.

Field Report #1

Time: 1200/0400z
Date: 05/20/09
Weather: Overcast - 12°C/54°F

Verified medium wave (AM) stations:

760 AM - WJR - Detroit, MI.
770 AM - WABC - New York, NY.
780 AM - WBBM - Chicago, IL.
810 AM - WGY - Schenectady, NY.
830 AM - WCRN - Worcester, MA.
840 AM - WHAS - Louisville, KY.
850 AM - WEEI - Boston, MA.
880 AM - WCBS - New York, NY.
890 AM - WLS - Chicago, IL.
960 AM - WEAV - Plattsburgh, NY.
1000 AM - WMVP - Chicago, IL.
1010 AM - WINS - New York, NY.
1010 AM - CFRB - Toronto, ON.
1020 AM - KDKA - Pittsburgh, PA.
1030 AM - WBZ - Boston, MA.
1050 AM - CHUM - Toronto, ON.
1060 AM - KYW - Philadelphia, PA.
1080 AM - WTIC - Hartford, CT.
1090 AM - WBAL - Baltimore, MD.
1100 AM - WTAM - Cleveland, OH.
1110 AM - WBT - Charlotte, NC.
1130 AM - WBBR - New York, NY.
1170 AM - WWVA - Wheeling, WV.
1210 AM - WPHT- Philadelphia, PA.

Unverified:

900 AM (CHML? Oldies music)
920 AM (WHJJ? Jim Bohannon)
1040 AM (Coast to Coast AM)
1180 AM (Coast to Coast AM)

Here's a rough coverage map of what we were able to hear tonight:

Intro.

So here is a nice little intro to what will be a blog about pretty much anything radio. Whether it's posting reports from various DXing sessions, or just talking about something on Coast to Coast AM or the like, this is where Brian and I will blog about radio stuff that just doesn't really fit anywhere else. Brian and myself are both very interested in everything radio, and get intense enjoyment out of just sitting in the middle of a field in the middle of the night flicking through various frequencies - be it just on the AM dial or going in shortwave. Frantically searching for station IDs or call letters to let us know what part of the continent we're reaching.

Frequently my cat, who we call Tardcat (for good reason) will join us on our journey through the airwaves, as he walks around aimlessly, getting scared, meowing at nothing, etc. He's a good companion though, and makes us a real radio posse.

Hope you enjoy, as we'll update with various Field Reports which will state the date, time, and weather along with our findings.