Audio Exotica

For the Audiophile with an abiding interest in global goings on, there's fascinating fare awaiting his listening pleasure on the busy bands of today's short-wave radios. Moscow and Melbourne, London and Lisbon, Prague and paris are saturating the air with an intriguing diversity of news, views and features. These far-flung transmissions provide a tasty supplement to local AM and FM programing, and they're now remarkably easy to pick up. Today's transistorized short-wave receivers capture distant stations with clarity and power. If you haven't yet tuned in to the world, it's time to give it a try. There's nothing like hearing Radio Havana reporting on a highjacked plane or the BBC discoursing on a Parliamentary crisis to fully appreciate the impact of having tomorrow's headlines at your finger tips. And catching a "live" performance of Amsterdam's famed Concertgebouw Orchestra is an aesthetic experience of the first magnitude.

Short-wave broadcasting originated about 40 years ago, as an instrument of empire. Britain, the Netherlands, France and other colonial powers used it to keep distant outposts in touch with the home country. Later on, as World War Two approached, Mussolini and Hitler latched onto short wave as a potent medium of propaganda. Since that time, short wave has become an accepted tool of foreign policy. Sometimes the sell is relatively soft, as on England's BBC or our own Voice of America. Sometimes it's blatantly hard, as on China's Radio Peking. But in all cases, the broadcasters' aims are to entertain and influence the growing audience of global listeners.

With a few notable exceptions, overseas auditors cannot eavesdrop on transmissions destined for native ears. The stuff we hear is strictly for export. Most often, the language used is that of the country to which the program is directed. During the peak-audience evening hours in North America, when most international broadcasters are beaming transmissions to this continent, one is more apt to encounter English on the short-wave bands than any other language.

From an ideological standpoint, the most bizarre and far-out fare comes from Radio Peking, which directs English-language transmissions to this continent daily from seven P.M. to midnight and again at four A.M. (Eastern standard time). No matter when you tune in, you're certain to get an earful about the perils of "U.S. imperialism" and "Soviet revisionism," together with much commentary on the perfidious collusion between Washington and Moscow.

Listeners on the West Coast can pick up Radio Peking directly from transmitters in mainland China. In the East and Midwest, Peking's programs come in best via powerful relay stations located in Albania, whose own Radio Tirana also regales us with English-language programs. The content is similar to Peking's but with an Albanian accent.

Radio Moscow's broadcasts to North America are now far less pugnacious than in the days when the Cold War was at its height. Although the message isn't all sweetness and light (especially when U.S. foreign policy is under consideration), Moscow is obviously trying to accentuate the positive in its current programing for Stateside listeners. A typical broadcast includes news, features about life in the Soviet Union, interviews with visiting Americans and brief musical selections played by leading pop and classical artists in Russia. Radio Moscow beams a strong signal to America throughout the evening hours. Earlier in the day, a sensitive receiver is able to pick up other English-language programs from Radio Moscow directed to Asia, Africa and western Europe. They vary in substance according to the audience--those aimed at Africa, for example, stress the advantages to young Africans of studying at Soviet universities.

Variations on the party-line theme can be heard from a number of Soviet allies. The closest to home, of course, is Radio Havana, which broadcasts every night in English. One regular feature is a program titled Mailbag, which answers letters from inquisitive listeners about the facts of life in Castro's Cuba. Other Radio Havana programs include The Voice of Vietnam, a compilation of news and views about the war, and Songs of the People, which features folk music from "the souls of people the world over." Listeners adept in Spanish will probably prefer Radio Havana's broadcasts to Latin America, in which the programs are more heavily weighted with south-of-the-border rum bas and cha-chas.

For over-all enjoyment and elucidation, nothing beats the World Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, which now stays on the air 24 hours a day. The BBC's news broadcasts, heard almost every hour on the hour, are justly renowned for their objectivity, thoroughness and literacy. Equally praiseworthy are its programs on current affairs--Radio Newsreel, The World Today and Outlook--which emanate daily from the London studios. Devotees of the English rock scene will want to make a habit of checking the current British hits on Top Twenty and Pop Session, while investors in international securities can keep abreast of latest developments via the BBC's detailed financial and business reports. Although the World Service turns its directional antennas toward North America only during our evening hours, the program can generally be received here at all times of the day and night--either direct from transmitters in England or via the BBC's new Atlantic relay station on Ascension Island.

According to taste, you'll find plentiful nourishment from the short-wave services of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Italy and Germany--all of which beam programs to North America in both English and their native tongues. For a neutralist viewpoint on the day's events, tune in Berne; for the opinions of young Swedes on sex and society, tune in Stockholm; for the smoky sounds of fado, tune in Lisbon. Classical-music buffs will be especially partial to Radio Nederland for its weekly programs by the aforementioned Concertgebouw Orchestra. Inasmuch as Radio Nederland's broadcasts are directed to North America from 300-kilowatt transmitters on the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean, the sound quality is apt to be first-rate. BBC's World Service also goes in heavily for classical-music programing, relaying concert-hall performances by the major orchestras of London and the provinces. Not surprisingly, Italy's RAI highlights operatic fare, often sung by splendid young artists on their way to international fame; and Germany's Deutsche Welle puts understandable emphasis on lieder and chamber-music recitals.

Linguists will want to sample the relays of local broadcasts that are simultaneously transmitted on short wave. France, for example, assumes that all civilized people know at least a smattering of French and obligingly puts the popular France-Inter program on short wave from morning to early evening, our time. It's a well-paced talk-and-music show that might segue from an Aznavour concert at the Salle Pleyel to a critical roundup of new plays in Paris and on to a leg-by-leg account of the Monte Carlo Rally. There's no better way to brush up on your French or to imagine yourself in Paris. Similarly, the Soviet Union short-waves its local Mayak program most of the day for the benefit of Russian-speaking listeners beyond its borders. Though the average American college grad won't get much out of the verbal portions of these broadcasts, the musical parts can be excellent and, again, one has the feeling of being tuned in to the genuine article. Short-wave relays of home programs can also be heard from Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and a variety of Caribbean islands and Latin-American republics.

The boom in international listening hasn't gone unnoticed by purveyors of electronic merchandise. Short-wave radios now come in a tempting variety of models, ranging from pocket-size portables in the under-$100 category to state-of-the-art communications receivers that carry price tags of more than $1000. Within this wide area, you're certain to find a set that will get you satisfactorily tuned in to the world.

The cost of a short-wave radio generally rises in direct proportion to its ease of tuning and its sensitivity to weak signals. The tuning problem is paramount. By international agreement, shortwave broadcasting stations are restricted to a few extremely narrow bands interspersed at various points in the spectrum between 3.5 and 26 megacycles. If the entire spectrum is put onto a dial of normal size, each of these bands will occupy a space of about one quarter inch. Under such conditions, tuning becomes a very fine art, indeed, since there may be dozens of clamorous stations wedged (concluded on page 197)Audio Exotica(continued from page 134) together within that fraction of an inch. To get around this difficulty, the spectrum must be split up into smaller segments. Many of the new sets spread each of the several major short-wave bands across the entire width of the dial. This greatly simplifies tuning but also increases the cost.

Sensitivity to weak signals has to do with the power and complexity of a set's electronic innards. Any well-functioning short-wave radio will be able to pick up programs beamed to North America from Europe's superpower transmitters. It's when one attempts to tune in programs directed to other parts of the world or to catch less potent stations in Asia, Africa and South America that the greatest sensitivity is needed. A pertinent parallel can be found in the difference between a pair of good field glasses and a really top-notch telescope. Just as the telescope will reveal stars that the glasses won't see at all, so a highly sensitive receiver will bring in distant stations that the ordinary radio won't even detect.

Portables offer the widest range of options in the short-wave field, and they're particularly useful on vacations and weekend trips, when long-distance listening is often most appreciated. At the low end of the scale, you'll find an abundance of all-wave portables that include one or more short-wave bands in addition to medium-wave (standard-broadcast AM) and FM bands. Typical of the breed is the Sony TFM-1000WA ($79.95), which operates on four D batteries and has two short-wave bands (2.3-6.2 and 7-18 megacycles), plus local AM and FM. As you move up in price, the number of bands increases. RCA's Landloper 77 ($99.95) and Zenith's Royal 3000-1 ($199.95), for example, split the short-wave spectrum into three and six bands, respectively, and include long wave (for FAA weather reports) in addition to AM and FM. Panasonic's World-Wide ($299.95) puts a total of 11 bands on a rotating drum dial, while Nordmende's Globetraveler III ($159.95) raises the ante to 15. At the top of the heap stands the Sony Model CRF-230 ($695), a 23-band instrument that features the kind of power, selectivity and controls normally associated only with professional communications gear. Incidentally, all of these portables come equipped with built-in antennas and are ready to go into operation at a moment's notice.

If portability isn't essential, you might want to investigate the professional sets specifically designed for short-wave reception. These receivers are so accurately calibrated that you can dial a station's assigned frequency and be certain of finding it--an important consideration, when you realize that short-wave signals are separated from one another by only five kilocycles and that as many as 60 transmitters may be operating simultaneously on one narrow band. The ne plus ultra in this league is undoubtedly the Squires-Sanders International Broadcast Receiver ($1255), whose motor-driven tuning mechanism provides digital readout to the nearest kilocycle on nine major short-wave bands. If you want to tune in Deutsche Welle's African relay station at Kigali in the late afternoon, just dial the SS-IBS to 15380 kilocycles and you'll pull it in. Less affluent radio globe-trotters should investigate the Hammarlund HQ-215 ($529.50), the Drake SW-4A ($299) and the Heathkit SB-310 ($259, in kit form only)--all of them feature crystal-controlled calibration as well as highly sensitive circuitry.

In between the portable and the professional sets, there's a new breed of all-wave receivers designed for installation in a component stereo setup. Most of these come from Europe, where shortwave listening is de rigueur for the well-informed citizen. Grundig's RTV 320 ($259.95) and Normende's 8001-ST ($429.95) are typical examples. Both receivers include short wave as well as the expectable AM and stereo FM, and both are notable for handsome Continental styling.

Nobody this side of Easter Island would want to depend solely on short wave for his listening pleasure. But even the man with 30 or 40 local stations at his beck will appreciate the sense of exhilaration in being able to travel across the ocean from time to time whenever domestic fare begins to pall. Whether it's a Shakespearean festival at London's Old Vic, a performance of Hair by the Parisian cast or streetside coverage of the Grand Prix of Monaco, it's all there at the twist of a dial.