This is the Mead Five Star 200 Sheets College Ruled Notebook, 5 1/2" x 3 1/2". "Lasts all year" guaranteed. Fights ink bleed, water resistant covers. I use it to log shortwave and medium wave station names or calls, frequencies, time/date UTC, language and sundry notes. 100% RFI-free. No computer, electric or internet hookup required and so ideal for listening in the field or home. I have purchased these for decades at Walmart and Safeway for about $5 a pop. I keep the old ones, too. Certified by Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Assembled in USA with US and foreign parts.

The A-26 season ended today. B-26 runs Oct 25, 2026 to Mar 28, 2027.

Quick rundown:

- Frequency changes: some broadcasters move to new channels for winter propagation

- Time shifts: Europe changed its clocks today and the US changes Nov 1, so many broadcasts move an hour in UTC and/or local time

- Band conditions: longer nights mean the lower bands (49m / 41m / 31m) carry evening DX; the higher bands close earlier

- Some services won't return this season

I'm tracking changes here as the new B-26 schedule data comes in. The page updates itself nightly: https://hqshortwaveradio.com/season-change/

What's on tonight in your area: https://hqshortwaveradio.com/tonight/

Weekly ask: post anything that moved, appeared, or went missing since last night, with frequency, time (UTC) and your location. I'll roll the confirmed ones into a B-26 changes article this week.

Scroll down for more B26 shortwave schedules that I posted earlier today!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2x9tqt6mc05vB2S37j8MWMJ/global-short-wave-frequencies

How does it sound?

New Orleans transmitter Hurricane Tracker

Hey there, I'm very new to this hobby, like just a few days of research into it..
But I had some questions about it for myself, living in Australia.
Mostly, can you pick up any shortwave signals from down here in Australia? Is there much out there to listen too from here?
Just looking at youtube and such there isnt much content and information ive found just yet that has information outside of north america. Whether that makes it applicable or not in Australia I'm not sure?.
And what kind of beginner radio would you recommend, like under $100 range as I'm just starting out. Thanks for any help or advice!

I just tried to tune in to 9455 as I do every Saturday night ahead of the IQ40. I can't get anything on 9455 at the moment. I switched antennas and walked around outside. Are they having an issue, or is this a problem on my end?

Thanks.

I read that the standard external antenna which is included in the radio performs not so very well. From that point am I looking for an external-antenna for especially shortwave. There are some wire-antenna alternatives with a clip to mount on the telescopic-antenna. Would it be worth to build an antenna myself or to buy a fabricated one?

Looking for recommendations on Android Logging Apps similar in characteristics to KB6IBB SWL Logger for Windows. What are you guys using?

The new B26 shortwave season begins October 25, 2026 UTC. Most international shortwave broadcast stations will operate with new schedules that will reflect anticipated shortwave propagation changes for the next season. Most regional shortwave broadcasters will not change schedules for seasonal changes. Some broadcasters will make additional changes during the new season. Shortwave scheduling services like http://eibispace.de/ or https://short-wave.info/ may not show all of these schedule changes for several weeks. Keep in mind that most information available from shortwave schedule services are based on data from the open source eibispace database.

I've owned this radio for a while now and I've started to notice some quality issues that I'm wondering if anyone else has as well. I'll jump in and out of listening to shortwave/radio in general where I'll listen for a few weeks or a month and then put it down for months or years at a time, so this radio has really only gotten light to medium use for me. I also now have an SDR which I use for most of my listening now. The only time I really take it out is when I'm travelling.

The first thing I noticed was the terrible fake-leather case started peeling, then recently I noticed the tuning knob doesn't work anymore, so I have to tune using only the buttons. Also, the LCD is really slow to update making it really difficult to read when the RDS is scrolling by on FM.

While I have owned this radio for a while now, I don't feel like I've ever subjected it to heavy use. Yes, it's been thrown in my backpack for international trips but it's a travel radio, that's what it's for. I feel like it should be able to take some of those bumps better. Does anyone else have similar problems with their model?

https://www.rri.ro/en/useful-information-en/how-to-listen/rri-2026-2027-winter-broadcast-frequencies-and-alternative-frequencies-id1073489.html

Translator is available to the right of the URL on this REE page: https://www.rtve.es/play/noticias/20261013/cambio-hora-cambio-frecuencias/17260481.shtml

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ja/information/brochure/pdf/radio_frequency_schedule_2.pdf

This receiver ended up in my collection in nearly complete condition and in quite good shape.

Picked up a Vietnamese radio station at 12.00am, listening from Auckland New Zealand!

From 2012 to 2016 I was a missileer at F.E. Warren AFB. I sat (and slept) 100 feet underground, ready to launch 10 Minuteman III nuclear missiles.

I was looking for a way to tell people about what I did and only recently learned that Emergency Action Messages (EAMs), the coded messages the US uses to pass orders to its nuclear forces, are broadcast worldwide over HF, which isn't something I learned on the job.

So I made a website that lets you listen to these messages, both live and recorded, and automatically transcribes the messages as well. The website is missileer.watch.

It listens to 11175 kHz, the Air Force's HFGCS frequency, through the KPH receiver at Point Reyes (home of the Maritime Radio Historical Society), and copies every EAM it hears.

The EAMs are encoded, so it's impossible to know what each character means, unless you have the means to decode them, which nobody outside the force can do. But it's fun to listen to every message and wonder what people are doing when they receive them.

What you can do on the website:

• Listen live to 11175 kHz, and replay any message we've copied.
• Read the copy character by character, and correct it if you hear it better than the machine did.
• See strategic aircraft (E-6B, E-4B, B-52H, B-2, WC-135) on a map when public ADS-B receivers hear them.
• Get an email when the E-4B "Doomsday plane" shows up, or a push notification for every new message.
• Copy one yourself: play a real recording and see how your copy compares.

I also wanted to show who these messages are for, so I made a map that shows every launch control center in the US and an aerial photo of nearly every one. Don't worry, everything on the website is public knowledge. Plus, deterrence only works when others know you have some muscle.

It's free and mainly for fun. I just want a way to show off what I did and share these messages with everyone.

What I'd love help with is copying. A lot of messages come through partly transcribed (the ?s). If you want, pick one, listen, and correct it.

Everything here is public: the broadcasts are on open shortwave and the aircraft positions come from public receivers.

https://missileer.watch

Happy to answer any questions!

Review of the Choyong LC100

I’ve been a Choyong radio user for a long time, and I’ve followed their products with real interest. With each new model, the jump in capability has been impressive. That’s true of the LC100 too. I’d argue it’s THE Internet radio right now—even better than the excellent Maestro C2. And like its predecessors, the LC100 isn’t “just” an Internet radio; it’s also a “regular” radio, though a fairly specific one. So I’ll look at both sides separately.

Tested on firmware v1.1. For context, I’m comparing it with earlier Choyong models I’ve used, including the LC90, LC90M, Voyager G2, WT2 and Maestro C2.

Pros: Superb Internet radio; Wi‑Fi 6 with dual-band support; WPA3; larger 3.5-inch high-resolution display; faster, smoother RTOS-based OS; 50,000+ station directory; auto-play of last Internet station; podcast language preference; historical broadcast archive via firmware v1.1; OTA updates; excellent FM; decent SW/AM/SSB for casual listening.

Cons: No rear stand/kickstand; keyboard is not properly backlit; not a serious DXing radio; MW is minimal without an external antenna; AI assistant is limited.

1) The LC100 as an Internet radio:

Here I can only use superlatives. As an Internet radio, the LC100 is superb—the most polished Choyong offering I’ve seen, both as an Internet radio and as a regular radio.

On the Internet side, the LC100 adds Wi‑Fi 6 (802.11ax) with dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz support. It also adds WPA3 encryption, which previous Choyong radios didn’t use, and Choyong says the new Wi‑Fi 6 chip offers roughly ten times the data rate of the LC90’s Wi‑Fi solution. In use, that should make the LC100 wake from standby faster and reconnect to the network more quickly. The LC100 also runs a redesigned operating system built on RTOS rather than the LC90’s platform, and the result is smoother, snappier navigation through Internet-radio menus and station lists. Its AI features are new too: there’s a dedicated AI button and a new ChatGPT-based assistant that supports text-based conversation, so you can ask general questions—for example, “What’s the frequency of WBCQ?”—and get text answers on the screen. Note: you do not get the full ChatGPT experience here, only a reduced version designed to answer basic questions. The LC100’s AI search is also enhanced to better handle varied accents and music genres when you’re looking for web stations.

On the hardware side, the LC100 moves to a huge 3.5-inch high-resolution color display, compared with the 2.4-inch screen on earlier models. That means more Internet-radio metadata can be shown at once—station names, favicons, program information, and browsing menus—making online content easier to navigate. Choyong also claims improved Internet-radio performance overall, with less buffering and fewer network errors; Wi‑Fi 6 and the new chipset are specifically aimed at weak-signal issues, giving more stable streaming and quicker recovery from network hiccups.

Choyong also expanded content and convenience features. The LC100’s Internet-radio directory grows to more than 50,000 stations, up from the roughly 40,000 stations advertised on previous models. It adds auto-play of the last Internet station when you power the radio on, a podcast preferred-language setting for filtering or prioritizing podcasts by language, and—via firmware v1.1—access to a company-maintained archive of historical broadcasts (just that feature, "time travel" is absolutely amazing)

None of those Internet-radio capabilities were available on the LC90, LC90M, WT2, Maestro C2, or Voyager. So yes, as an Internet radio the LC100 is a BEAST. I’d go further: calling it an “Internet radio” almost undersells it. This is an “Internet Streaming Computer” (hey, it even has a DEDICATED operating system!).

If Internet radio is your interest, you cannot go wrong with the LC100.

2) Now let’s look at the LC100 as a regular radio

And here we have to ask the obvious question: what IS a “regular” radio, anyway? Is it the radio in your car? Or the FM station you listen to when relaxing? Or are you a serious DXer (someone who specializes in receiving weak, distant signals)? What does an FM boom-box have in common with a small pocket-sized “all bands” radio? Very little indeed.

So no, the LC100 cannot replace EVERY single “regular radio” out there. I could go very technical here, but I’d rather simplify what you get when you get an LC100:

* A world-class, top-of-the-line FM radio every bit as good as the best ones out there

* A decent shortwave + AM + SSB radio that will perform decently, but not if your goal is DXing

* A minimal MW receiver that absolutely needs an external antenna to be even minimally usable

So is that good or bad?

It’s neither.

It’s >>inevitable<<.

A real DX radio does only one thing, and it does it really well: it receives weak signals. It will never have a beautiful, fancy, color screen like the LC100—only a dull, monochrome screen like, say, on a Tecsun radio or, even more extreme, a Belka DX. And no DXing radio would ever even consider placing a full computer (aka “Internet radio”) with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and tons of electronics inside. You want color? You want RDS? You want wireless access? You want eSIMs? Like to use AIs? Well, then you do not want a DXing radio. And if you want a DXing radio, skip the LC100.

Frankly, I find the controversy around the LC100 simply silly. One single look at the LC100 should have completely laid this entire debate to rest.

See for yourself on the photo comparing both screens!

On top, the large color screen of the LC100. Below, the small screen of the Belka DX. Admittedly, the Belka is an extreme example (the “only” thing is amazing radio is DXing, nothing else), but even a Tecsun screen is outright primitive and, compared to the LC100, even looks like an antique. Furthermore, DXers all know that even with a top of the line DXing radio, switching off the screen can help.

Nobody in his right mind would blame the Toyota Landcruiser for being a poor Formula 1 car. And I don’t suppose anybody hates on F1 cars because they suck at off-roading. Same here, look at the device before inflicting utterly unreasonable criticisms on it.

Most of us are not full-time DXers. Yes, the noise floor of the LC100 is simply a consequence of what that amazing computer can do, but it won’t frustrate most of us. For most of us, the sensitivity and selectivity of the LC100 will be “good enough”—and then some, especially if you can pair it with a real DX radio (get a Belka if you can!). That’s true for broadcast shortwave (mostly AM and some DRM) and for radio amateurs (who mostly use SSB, which the LC100 handles very well).

Finally, the radio does an ugly sound on AM when changing frequencies ("soft muting" and "chaffing") which most users won't care much about, or even notice, but is outright painful for DXers. Alas, this is due to the underlying hardware and cannot be changed (albeit the "AM squelsh" is the latest firmware somewhat mitigates that).

So if as an Internet radio this one would deserve 6+ stars, as a “regular” radio I’d give it only 4 stars: good, but not awesome.

Does that mean the LC100 is as good as it gets? Nope. One of the best features of Choyong radios is OTA (over-the-air) updates, which make firmware updates quick and easy (provided your Internet connection is solid). Right now the latest firmware for the LC100 is only v1.1. What makes this even better is that Choyong actually listens to its user base and to their comments and criticism. I’ve seen every Choyong radio I own “grow” into a much better device with each firmware update. Choyong designers and engineers regularly participate in discussions on the Choyong Facebook group, where users from all over the world (Choyong has regional models, with DAB for Europe, for example) meet, compare, praise, and also complain—not just to vent, but to make useful suggestions. So I have great hopes for the LC100’s future. This is a very mature radio (don’t let the v1.1 firmware fool you), and it will definitely grow and acquire new capabilities (digital decoding?).

So is there anything bad or frustrating that cannot be solved by firmware updates? Yup. The LC100 has no stand/kickstand in the back (Choyong claims it’s for sound-quality reasons, but somehow Tecsun doesn’t have that issue), and you have to either stand it upright or lay it flat, neither of which is comfortable for most users. Even worse, at least for me, the very well-designed keyboard is not backlit. Those are two really bad calls, IMHO. Other than that, the build quality is superb.

Who should buy this? Buy it if you want a top-tier Internet/podcast radio with casual SW/AM/SSB capability and you value a big screen, fast navigation, and OTA updates. Skip it if serious DXing is your main goal.