Pan American Broadcasting on 5960 kHz: weekend religious programmes via Issoudun

What you hear

On Saturday and Sunday evenings at 19:00 UTC, 5960 kHz comes alive with an hour of English-language religious programming: sermons, Bible teaching and devotional music, produced by American evangelical ministries and introduced with the name of the programme rather than of a station. On Sundays the block runs longer, until about 20:35 UTC. Between programmes you may hear an announcement giving the broker's name, Pan American Broadcasting, and a postal or web address for listeners who want to write in, which is how these ministries measure their audience. The style ranges from quiet Bible study to full-throated preaching, depending on which producer has booked the slot.

The signal is the easy part. The transmitter is one of the big ones at Issoudun, so the audio is wide, the carrier is rock steady and the volume in Europe is high. Outside the weekend hours the frequency is used by other broadcasters or is empty.

Who transmits and why

Pan American Broadcasting is a company in the United States that does not run transmitters of its own. It sells airtime: it gathers programmes from religious producers, books hours on commercial shortwave transmitters around the world and delivers the audio to them. For this European slot it uses the Issoudun transmitting centre in central France, the same site that carries Radio France Internationale, on a 250 kW transmitter aimed across Europe. The ministries behind the programmes want to reach English-speaking listeners in Europe and the Middle East, and shortwave at a fixed weekend hour is a cheap way to do that compared with any other broadcast medium that crosses borders. This is a common arrangement on the shortwave bands: much of what is left of international broadcasting in English is religious programming bought by the hour.

When and where to listen

The window is Saturday and Sunday from 19:00 UTC, an hour on Saturday and until about 20:35 UTC on Sunday. 5960 kHz lies in the 49 metre band, which at 19:00 UTC is already open across Europe in every season. Receivers anywhere in France, Benelux, Germany, the British Isles, Spain and Italy hear it at great strength; receivers in Scandinavia, Poland and the Balkans get it clearly too. From outside Europe the transmission is harder to hear, though the east coast of North America sometimes catches it late in the hour in winter.

The catalogue mode is AM. The 49 metre band is busy in the European evening, so if a neighbouring broadcaster on 5955 or 5965 kHz interferes, choose upper or lower sideband and keep the clean side of the carrier.

In ShackDeck

The entry sits under Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Pan American Broadcasting 5960. ShackDeck picks a public receiver whose range covers 5960 kHz, tunes it and sets AM from the catalogue, so you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. Listen on a weekend evening; on a weekday the frequency will tell you nothing about this station.