Kids with shortwave radios always did great in geography ... It isn’t like the radio could play games or — unless you were a ham — allow you to chat with your friends.

This is KDDI Corp.’s Yamata Transmitting Station, the nation’s only facility broadcasting shortwave radio programs to overseas listeners. The station started broadcasts on Jan. 1, 1941.

Radio transmission in the 1.7-30 MHz frequency range worldwide. Like AM radio, shortwave signals reflect back from the ionosphere and follow the curvature of the earth. As a result, shortwave (SW ...

Amateur radio operators and shortwave listeners have a common enemy: QRM, which is ham-speak for radio frequency interference caused by man-made sources. Indiscriminate, often broadband in nature ...