Latest Domestic Band Survey Now Available

One of the best research lists going around is the annual Domestic Broadcasting Survey (DBS), compiled by the Danish Shortwave Club International (DSWCI). The latest and 15th edition is now available for purchase at the DSWCI website:  http://www.dswci.org/dbs/

This unique publication contains three parts:

Part 1: The 41th edition of the Tropical Bands Survey covering all ACTIVE broadcasting stations on 2300 - 5700 kHz, including clandestines.

Part 2: Domestic stations on international shortwave bands above 5700 kHz broadcasting to a domestic audience. A13 schedules are included where available.

Part 3: Deleted frequencies between 2 and 30 MHz which have not been reported heard during the past five years, but may reappear.

The Domestic Band Survey is the ONLY publication that seriously looks at the tropical bands. The list is made up of actual monitored reports by DXers around the world.  For me, this is what makes the survey such an invaluable resource.  It is not just some government or broadcasting authority’s view of what should be on frequency, but accurate loggings by people who constantly scan the bands for this information.  Added to this is the coded listing of activity for each station by regular, irregular, sporadic or likely inactive, which really helps confirm to which station you are probably listening. In many listings, it even includes accurate quotations of station identifications likely to be heard by listeners.

The survey is jammed-packed with useful information on languages, transmission times, the broadcaster’s network, parallel frequencies, announcements, locations, transmitter power and a host of other tips.

I also find interesting the list of stations deleted from previous editions of DBS. It is a handy feature of the DBS, for occasionally stations can suddenly be reactivated without warning.  If you keep past copies of the Survey for reference purposes, study of these can reveal when the station was last heard and its previous operating schedule.  This is very useful information for that all-important logging of a reactivated broadcaster.  

It must also be mentioned that there is an excellent review of domestic broadcasts on the higher frequencies outside the tropical bands.  This detailed analysis of non-international shortwave broadcasts puts DBS in a league of its own.

AND.......in addition, all purchasers of DBS-15 will get a username and password to the monthly updates on the tropical bands published as "Tropical Bands Monitor" on the DSWCI website. 

Congratulations to Anker Peterson and the Danish Shortwave Club International for, once again, producing such a fine resource.  Their foresight in electing to make the document available by email in a PDF format ensures that the Domestic Broadcasting Survey gets into the hands of DXers for a reasonable price.

Get more information on this great handy tool by clicking the DSWCI link above.

Rob Wagner VK3BVW