Trends in tropical bands broadcasting 2022

[ChrisSmolinski]

https://aer.org.es/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/202204_trendstropical.pdf

[ThaDood]

In a bit of irony, we've actually gained a station in this FREQ region, if you want to include WBCQ's 4790kHz.

[RobRich]

At the bottom of the tropical bands, other than time interval stations, are there even any 120m broadcasters left? AFAIK, it has been years since last hearing anything on the band.

[East Troy Don]

Sad.

[Shortwave_Listener]

The only 120 meter band station I know of is Symban radio 2368 kHz from Sydney Australia. They use 500 watts but I don’t think they have been heard outside Australia. It’s sad how few tropical shortwave broadcasters are left now. From my location in BC Canada (were I sadly have a noise level too high to hear anything particularly weak) I have heard a few tropical stations, but not many. Radio Clube do Para of Brazil 4885 kHz (10 kw) is regularly heard on US and even European KiwiSDRs. Some other Brazilians are also common. “La Montana Colombia” can also be heard in the US. There are a few Australian station that can be heard with KiwiSDR’s there. Solomon Islands BC can be heard in Australia. Peru is nearly impossible to hear outside of South America. Voice of Indonesia is all that is left from that country. Almost all low power stations in Asia are gone. Sadly many tropical countries no longer have any shortwave stations. Even with KiwiSDRs I have yet to log a low power African station.

[BoomboxDX]

Conditions have been horrible most nights over the last 4-5 years, so that may be part of the problem with the overall loggings of lower band, SWBC stations. Rebelde is still audible on 5025 khz, they're pretty dependable over much of the US.

I personally never heard all that much on the Tropical bands, at least not over the past 25-30 years. For a while there were a couple Brazilians in the 4800-5000 range that I would hear periodically, but not recently.

[Pigmeat]

I used to here a lot of stuff from S.America, Africa, the Pacific, Autralasia, and S.Asia. It was a winter time sport involving lot's of wire and homemade loops.

My best catch was Bangla Betar on 4880 over the pole. You could get them regularly between Thanksgiving and  Christmas once you knew their heading. They were weak but they were there. I never got Radio Nepal, which I was shooting for on 5010 due to them being buried by the time station on 5000 and the Cubans, due south opposite of the best heading north, blasting away. Cuba owes me a crate of Trinidad Lanceros.

90% of those stations are gone, except for those damned Cubans.

[BoomboxDX]

Most of the "tropical" stations I heard in the past were PNG, Solomon Islands, Malaysia (Kuching, Sarawak) and a couple Indonesians, and I think most of them were in the 49 and 60 meter bands. I never heard anything lower than that, aside from WWV on 2500 and hams on 80 meters and a couple hams here and there on 160 meters.

60 meters gave up a couple Venezuelans and Colombians in the 80s. Rumbos, and Caracol. The station out of Barranquilla... Radio Barquisimeto I think it was?

Definitely sad that most of it is gone. There was a magic to hearing tropical music and other tropical broadcasts filtering over the airwaves.

[ChrisSmolinski]

The Venezuelan stations were great fun to listen to.  The tropical bands are pretty empty now, except for the blasted CODAR wave radar.

[Pigmeat]

I remember The Guide to World Band Radio saying in the 90's that the only way to get Radio Mali to qsl was to send porn. It was a great station if you liked extended Afro-Pop jams,they hardly ever id'ed.

[East Troy Don]

Rebelde is still audible on 5025 khz, they're pretty dependable over much of the US.

Radio Rebelde pretty strong tonite @ 0237 utc with music and narrative:

"Arrancadome La Vida"  ALAIN DANIEL

[ChrisSmolinski]

Rebelde is still audible on 5025 khz, they're pretty dependable over much of the US.

Radio Rebelde pretty strong tonite @ 0237 utc with music and narrative:

"Arrancadome La Vida"  ALAIN DANIEL

Arnie still owes me a QSL for Radio Rebelde.

[RobRich]

Radio Rebelde at 5025 and its sometimes up to like S9+80 (or higher!) signal here at night. I have threatened to build a notch filter for it, though in turn, that also would mean actually doing something about Radio Marti on 6030 as well. Instead, I just forget about running remote feedpoint preamps on my 31' vertical and 148' LoG antennas.

[Pigmeat]

Radio Rebelde at 5025 and its sometimes up to like S9+80 (or higher!) signal here at night. I have threatened to build a notch filter for it, though in turn, that also would mean actually doing something about Radio Marti on 6030 as well. Instead, I just forget about running remote feedpoint preamps on my 31' vertical and 148' LoG antennas.

I can't imagine what 49 meters was like in Florida and along the Gulf Coast from Mexico east in Radio Havana's heyday? They were bad enough here in the southern Appalachians blasting "Mambo #5" on what seemed like every other frequency 

I'd go to the beach hoping for some S. American MW dx with just maybe the possibility of some trans-Atlantic African MW dx,but it was
just more Cuban's. A bright spot was after 11 p.m. or so the Cubans would go long and you could hear Radio Jamaica on 4 or 5
MW frequencies along with some Colombians and Venezuelans.