Shortwave Radio on 3975 kHz: a hobby station from Winsen in the 75 metre band

What you hear

Shortwave Radio is what its name says: a small station run for the love of the medium. On 3975 kHz, from 15:00 UTC until midnight every day, it plays music, mostly pop and rock of the last six decades, with programmes made by hobby presenters, listener requests, and occasional relays of DX and radio-related shows produced by others. Announcements come in German and English, and the station identifies simply as "Shortwave Radio" with its frequencies. The daytime half of the schedule, on 6160 kHz, carries the same kind of programming for the hours when the 75 metre band is useless.

The sound is low-power AM, clean and a little narrow, and in northern Germany it is as steady as a local station. Further away the signal rides the night-time behaviour of the 75 metre band, rising after dusk and fading with the dawn.

Who transmits and why

The station transmits from Winsen, a town on the Aller north of Hanover in Lower Saxony, with a licensed 1 kW transmitter, and describes itself as non-commercial: no advertising, no sold airtime as a business, a hobby project with a licence. Germany allowed private low-power shortwave broadcasting in the 2010s, and a handful of stations grew out of the DX and pirate-listening scene to use it; this is one of them. Its choice of 3975 kHz is interesting in itself. The 75 metre broadcast band between 3950 and 4000 kHz is shared with amateur radio in parts of the world and has been almost abandoned by big broadcasters in Europe, so a 1 kW station can own a frequency there in the evening without being flattened by a neighbour.

When and where to listen

3975 kHz behaves like the 80 metre amateur band next to it: short range in daylight, regional to continental after dark. The schedule runs from 15:00 UTC to midnight, so in winter the station is already a night signal from the start and can be heard across Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland and Scandinavia, and on good nights in Britain, France, Austria and the Czech Republic. In summer the first hours are daylight and the signal stays close to home until the evening. By day the same station is on 6160 kHz in the 49 metre band, where the reach is similar, a few hundred kilometres. From southern Europe both frequencies are weak, and from outside Europe the station is not a realistic target.

The catalogue mode is AM. The band is quiet but amateurs use sideband nearby, and on winter evenings a narrow filter in upper or lower sideband gives a cleaner result than wide AM.

In ShackDeck

The entry sits under Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Shortwave Radio 3975. ShackDeck picks a public receiver whose range covers 3975 kHz, tunes it and sets AM from the catalogue, so you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. For the daytime hours, type 6160 into the receiver; for the evening, let a receiver in northern Germany or Denmark show you the stripe on the waterfall.