[NostalgiaRadioTime]

OK, not a big band music quiz, but rather a question regarding old radio band frequencies. My Coronado c800 has the following bands: 19M, 25M, 31M, 49M, in addition to the broadcast band My question is what were the designations for these bands? What did each provide access to? I assume they are all obsolete today. Many thanks to those in the know.

[morzh]

They are not obsolete, it is all what in Europe (or Russia) is called Short Wave Broadcast, and most of those still work fine. We never called them anything other than what ytou wrote - Short Wave and then the length in meters. Most advanced transistor radios had it.
These same wavelengths were covered by two SW buttons on tube radios but on transistor they made them separate and we called them "stretched" Short waves, as more slices allow better accuracy in tuning.

[NostalgiaRadioTime]

Thanks! Most all of the Philcos I have that have short wave just have one extra band for it (and maybe a separate band for police). I guess I was just curious if these 19M, 25M, 31M, 49M bands were region specific (ie, is one primarily for Europe, one for Asia, one for New Zealand, etc.)

[Arran]

Those were all fairly common shortwave band designations for Canadian made radios on the range switch. The dial itself would have both the frequencies and the wavelengths marked for each band with the frequencies in larger print. Unlike the U.S, the shortwave craze seems to have held on longer in Canada, even many post war sets up until the early 50s have multiple bands.
Regards
Arran

[BrendaAnnD]

The various meter bands are used at different times of the day. 49m (6 MHz) is mostly a nighttime band. 31m (9 MHz) is a night and day band. 25m (12 MHz) is a daytime band. 19m (15MHz) is a late afternoon band. The major broadcasters move among these bands, sometimes broadcasting on more than one at a time because of differences in the coverage of the different bands during different times of day.

[morzh]

I remember listening to "Voice of America" and "Radio Freedom" on shortwaves. Mostly at nights. Sometimes they would be jammed. And fading did not help either. And it was held in secret. No one was supposed to know.

[GarySP]

I remember as a kid seeing commercials on television soliciting donations to help keep "Radio Free Europe" in operation. Classic cold war programming. Gary

[morzh]

Yes that was there too. Russian programming was broadcast by Voice of America, Radio Freedom, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle and Col Isroel.

[Paul Philco322]

Fond memories of BBC, Radio Netherlands- Happy Station Show, Radio Tirana, hah, they seemed to dislike everyone. What about Joe Adamov and Moscow Mailbag! Those really were fun days even though behind the curtain it was grim.



Paul

[morzh]

I don't know who those were.

[Michael Dennis]

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