Links for Radio Music November 2025

“Radio—the world’s cheapest, lightest, most powerful synthesizer. Like a Cagean jukebox, the dense emporium of New York airwaves” (from Semi-Conducting by Nicolas Collins).

What’s on the SD Card?

https://youtu.be/nE4H1mJB0eU

A beginner’s guide to radio

(A friend wrote to me a few months ago: “I’m looking at getting something that will fit the bill for picking up “all sorts” via the airwaves! I’m not exactly sure what I actually need but I assume it falls into the category of whatever Scanner was using back in the day?” and this is what I replied:

Main thing I’ve learned is that environment is really important - In South London it’s really hard to pick up anything very much - I’m not sure what it would be like in Bristol. Last weekend I was in a little cottage up a hill in Abergavenny surrounded by fields and it was much clearer - more to pick up.

Antennas - these are complicated and weird if you try to research them - but I’ve found about 6-12 feet of ordinary wire - like thin speaker wire - stripped at one end, twisted around the built-in metal extending antenna, then draped somewhere around the room - works well

Bits of jargon:

SSB: LSB / USB = Single Sideband Low Sideband / High Sideband = this is the thing Radio Hams use - it’s a kind of ring modulation thing - interesting because it adds / removes carrier pitches. i.e it’s kind of cool - makes weird noises

Filters - these are just like synth filters - preset low-pass filters - sometimes called Bandwith / BW.

##Things I’ve used:

ATS-20+

This is a neat little modern digital shortwave radio - very nifty, small with a rechargeable battery. £20 from Aliexpress, £35 frrom Amazon. Comes with an extending antenna. It’s very powerful, has all the features - SSB, Filters. Gets good reviews and everything - but I found it very irritating to tune - it’s like clicking through frequency by frequency a bit slowly, lots of little buttons to press, lots of modes and things. Not really recommended.

XHDATA D-328

Very unglamorous looking tiny shortwave radio £18 from Amazon - digital but feels pretty analog - a simple tuning / volume knobs, decent little speaker, sounds good with headphones. LIttle rechargeable battery. In Wales, with a wire extending the antenna, I was able to get pretty good interesting stuff - morse code, lots of foreign stations, lots of just mysterious interesting noise. Doesn’t have anything like SSB or filters. I’ve actually modified mine to take CV control! Recommended

Yaesu FRG-7

This is a big old 1970s-80s Japanese thing, I bought it for £60 from the radio ham car boot sale - LOVELY thing - like an old Moog or something. Totally analogue. The most bonkers turning method - you have to tune three big illuminated analog dials simultaneously to tune anything in. Not sure it really works better than the little Xhdata but I’ve only tried it in London. This is what it sounds like in London with about 30 feet of wire going up the side of my house. Has a primitive version of SSB that sounds quite cool. Kind of recommended if you have the space and time and can find something cheap that definitely works.

TECSUN PL-880

I don’t have one of these - it’s £180 - seems to be the state of the art for a modern good quality small shortwave radio - is digital but apparently feels very analogue to use - not annoying to tune like the ATS. Cheaper Tecsuns (PL-330) apparently have a really annoying muting thing - there’s a little gap between each tuning position so it feels very un-analog as you go through frequencies. Has all the features - SSB Filters etc. I don’t have one but it seems very recommended.

SCANNERS

All this has been shortwave radio - old-school spy stuff, weird religious cults, morse code etc. I haven’t chatted with Robin R yet about all this - I think scanners are something different - higher frequencies - Aircraft talking to control towers, police etc, although a lot of that is now digital/encrypted obviously. I think that something like the Quansheng UV-K5 is the modern version of that - basically a walkie-talkie but universal, you can somehow hack it, give it new firmware. I don’t really understand it, but they’re incredibly cheap - at the car boot sale I went to they were selling pre-modified ones. I’m fairly sure they can’t pick up shortwave but could be wrong. Conclusion: ??? maybe worth a punt?

DIY / crystal / all band radios

Shortwave Collective are coming to the Cornwall event - they make DIY radios from wire and tent pegs that pick up all frequencies simultaneously - presumably very useful as sound / noise sources.

WEB-SDR

So this is the wild card. Web-SDR (Software Defined Radio) is modern magic. Universities and ham radio clubs get a big proper radio with a big proper antenna. They somehow digitise the entire output from the antenna and let you tune through the signals. Live, in real time. So it’s like sitting in front of a super powerful setup using it yourself. So you can tune in and listen to radio in Brazil, or Utah or Russia. Has all the bells and whistles - SSB and filters - cool visualisation to let you find stations. Sounds incredible, really fun to play with. Has an ‘audio recording’ button to spit out wavs. AND it’s free. Start with Twente in the Netherlands, I think they invented it + always seems to work well.. Highly recommended - amazing.

So it’s a bit of a dilemma - if you’re interested in listening to shortwave radio - Web-SDR is incredible, a world of weird interesting noises. But it’s a laptop (or mobile) so not physical, not hardware. Real radios are always a bit annoying and frustrating - often it’s just noise, particularly in cities (also worse during the day, better at night) but they are magic.