AWR - Wavescan

Wavescan is the international DX program of Adventist World Radio, and radio is both its medium and its subject. Jeff White introduces it from the studios of WRMI Shortwave in Okeechobee, Florida. The research and writing are credited to Dr. Adrian Peterson in Indianapolis, whom the program names as its editor-in-chief, and to Ray Robinson in Los Angeles. Editions carry numbers such as NWS 757 and NWS 811, and Jeff White sets out the items before the first feature begins. History gets serious attention. The Zenith Radio Corporation story runs as a serial drawn largely from a brochure the company issued in 1955. Part 3 picks up in 1925, when, as Ray Robinson tells it, the US Secretary of Commerce held sole control over American radio. The development of radio in Mozambique also runs across more than one part. It covers LM Radio's shortwave stereo tests, which used two frequencies in the 60-meter band and so needed two receivers to hear. It also tracks the later decline of government shortwave, as spare parts ran short and transmitters drifted or failed. Trinidad and Tobago gets its own chapter, built partly on a document that a listener, Richard Chen, sent to Dr. Peterson years earlier. It follows one broadcaster's FM stations through repeated changes of name and format. Some features step outside broadcasting. One item covers Hedy Lamarr, the film actress who co-invented an early form of spread-spectrum communication to counter radio jamming, a method now standard in wireless technology. Current shortwave news runs alongside the history. Ray Robinson, a presenter on one of Radio Caroline's two full-time channels, updates the story of the offshore ship-based station that broke the BBC's monopoly in the 1960s. There are reports on the HFCC B-24 frequency coordination conference in Uzbekistan and the 2024 European DX Council Conference in Estonia, plus a rare visit to an Armenian shortwave and mediumwave station. One edition lists the closure of Venezuela's oldest radio station among its items, and another lists radio's importance in the Maui wildfires. A Philippine DX report appears in more than one edition, with Henry Umatai named on one. The delivery is plain and exact, and kilohertz figures, kilowatt ratings and dates come without flourish. The sources are named as it goes: a company brochure, a BBC monitoring report, listings in the World Radio TV Handbook. Some editions open and close with Adventist World Radio's Voice of Hope station identification. Closings name relay outlets such as KSDA in Guam, WWCR in Tennessee and IWRS Italy, and give an address for reception reports.