Shortwave
Type your ZIP. The set works out what the ionosphere is bouncing into your neighborhood right now, where it came from, and where you can hear it for real.
Chart · where it comes from
Log · what’s coming in
| kHz | Signal | Station · from · path | Language |
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How the set decides what you hear
Every broadcast on the log is real: the schedule is the EiBi shortwave database, refreshed weekly, with each transmitter’s actual site and coordinates. Solar flux and the Kp index come from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center every hour.
For each broadcast on the air at the chosen minute, the set traces the great-circle path from the transmitter to you, splits it into ionospheric hops of up to about 3,500 km, and checks each bounce point: is the sun up there (daytime D-layer absorption eats the low bands), is the F-layer dense enough to reflect that frequency (the MUF), does the path cross the auroral zone, and is the transmitter’s antenna pointed your way. The tuning meter is the result. It is a model, not a measurement, so treat it like a good propagation forecast, not a promise.
LIVE opens a public KiwiSDR receiver near you, tuned to the frequency on the dial: a real radio and antenna someone shares on the internet, so what you hear there is the actual broadcast. The set’s own sound is synthesized static. The cabinet is drawn after the 1970s Zenith Trans-Oceanic Royal 7000, with affection and no affiliation. A toy from OONA 13. Questions: [email protected]. Schedule © EiBi, used with thanks.