BOOK REVIEW:

Shortwave Unlocked: Radios, Antennas, Signals, Secrets

& the World at Your Fingertips

Garner, P. [2026] Shortwave Unlocked: Radios, Antennas, Signals, Secrets & the World at Your Fingertips, Massachusetts: Aegis Press; ISBN 9798253249659.

A new book aimed primarily at beginner shortwave enthusiasts is a disappointing addition to the literature already available for this wonderful hobby. While it offers some useful, well-presented information, it is also rife with inaccuracies and many laughable moments.

Note: My review copy is a Kindle edition. Its content may well vary from a hard-copy printed version.

Garner’s slim book covers such a broad range of topics that it fails to provide meaningful information on most of them. Sixteen chapters and seven appendices cover radios, propagation, antennas, pirates, number stations, utility stations, digital modes, software-defined radios, international broadcasting trends, and other topics.

But the book’s layout has not been given much thought, with topics appearing haphazardly and lacking a logical structure. For example, in its sixteen chapters, Chapter 3 is titled FAQs! The “questions”, which the author admits were drawn "...from buzzing listener forums..." such as Reddit and X, could have easily been addressed in well-written descriptions in other chapters. Instead, he gathers a bunch of topics and offers brief paragraph responses. This makes for lazy writing! And why would an FAQ chapter appear in the first 20% of the book? Shouldn’t it go towards the back of the book?

Chapter 1 - “A Modern Guide to Shortwave Listening” has very little that’s modern, with only a few paragraphs on shortwave history, tuning methods, and related topics. However, the chapter also launches into a checklist of current and late-model receivers. But wait! Why wouldn’t you put information on the receivers discussed here in Chapter 2’s “Shortwave Radios, Old & New” instead? Odd!

Chapter 4 – “Time: What Is UTC in Shortwave Listening?” is actually helpful for those unfamiliar with the UTC concept, although it is messily laid out. However, it is let down by an error-riddled photo of three ‘UTC Clocks’ whose faces display nonsensical numbers.

Chapter 5 – “What Is Propagation & How Does It Affect Listening?” offers little in-depth explanation of how signals travel around the globe at different times of day, preferring to provide a checklist of abbreviated facts. The diagrams in this chapter contain errors that make them confusing and difficult to use. Their appearance gives me the impression that they may have been AI-generated, though I can’t verify how they were made. One showing daytime propagation layers with the D, E, F, F1 and F2 layers incorrectly labelled and weird arrows pointing at nothing in particular! Another diagram, captioned “Sun’s radiation effect on the ionosphere”, is a complete mystery, with mislabelling, incoherent symbols, and no useful information.

Chapter 6 – “Antennas and More” begins not by discussing antennas but by listing modulation types – AM, SSB, DRM, and a very vague paragraph on Emerging Digital Standards. What about all the other modulation types, of which there are many that can be heard on shortwave?! When we do get to antennas, there is very little here, apart from a mention of the W6LVP loop antenna. Not much to encourage the beginner SWLer. Also, several photos in this chapter are miscaptioned. One shows a vertical antenna and a separate multi-wire antenna using the same support post, which he has identified as a “Residentially-mounted vertical longwire antenna”.

Oh! And in the Kindle edition the antennas chapter reporduces one of MY PHOTOS (below), captioned “Typical dipole antenna”, without crediting me!

My August 2017 MEDXR blog post.

Furthermore, it is NOT a dipole! Nothing like a dipole!! The photo shows one corner of my horizontal skyloop antenna. I originally published the photo in my August 2017 MEDXR blog post “Horizontal Loop Antenna Experiments” and accompanying YouTube video! I received no request from the author or publisher to use the photo. I can’t tell from the book whether either of them selected or cleared the image.

But the antennas chapter then finishes with some absolute GOLD!!

“Tip: Test with an SWR meter; low readings mean happy signals.”

This random “tip” appears to be apropos of nothing in particular – no explanation, just thrown out there in passing! The book gives no explanation of what an SWR (Standing Wave Ratio) meter measures or how a listener without a transmitter could use one. Does he realise it requires an RF power source to take measurements? This “tip” will be a complete mystery to any budding shortwave listener without a transceiver, or, say, a nanoVNA or a RigExpert antenna analyser. And referencing SWR is pretty much irrelevant for antennas used in general broadband shortwave listening!

Other chapters include “Regulatory Landscapes” (perhaps unnecessary), “Shortwave as Propaganda” (short and disjointed), “Pirate Radio” (a brief introduction), “Numbers Stations” (a slightly longer introduction with too many bullet points that interrupt the flow of discussion), “Utility Stations” (full of brief bullet points that make it difficult for a beginner to read and understand), “Digital Modes” (a short chapter that focuses on DRM), “International Broadcaster Trends” (demonstrating outdated information), resources, and a collection of appendices that really should have clickable links for this e-book format.

Quotable Quotes

“Deutsche Welle recently faced a €10 million drop in federal subsidies (to €415 million total), forcing €21 million in savings—leading to the end of its Greek service (after 62 years) and reduced programming in Spanish/Portuguese for Latin America/Africa.”

In the section titled International Broadcaster Trends, the reader would expect a discussion on Deutsche Welle's current shortwave presence. After all, the book is about shortwave radio! But the above statement appears to conflate Deutsche Welle’s Greek service on shortwave, which ceased in the late 1990s, with DW’s Greek-language offerings online and on other media platforms today.

Shortwave ops from Germany (Nauen) largely ceased by early 2026, with some lingering via relays (that is, transmissions from Issoudun, France).

The above poorly phrased sentence is only partly correct, as DW no longer broadcasts from German soil. However, the Nauen relay station is still very much in operation and used by other broadcasters. The second half of that sentence is grammatically poor (“…with some lingering…”). Again, the Issoudun site remains in active service for Radio France International and other broadcasters, but not currently for Deutsche Welle.

Deutsche Welle's staffing is down. Nauen transmitters have been largely silent since early 2026 (licenses were allowed to expire), with relays (such as Issoudun, France) as costlier alternatives.

Nope! Once again, the book appears to confuse Deutsche Welle’s use of Nauen with the ongoing transmissions from that site by other broadcasters, as noted above. Deutsche Welle ended its use of Issoudun for its remaining transmissions in December 2025. The book says relays such as Issoudun are more expensive, but gives no basis for comparing their costs with maintaining the Nauen site.

African broadcasters like Voice of Nigeria hold firm on 7255 kHz (Hausa, Fulfulde, with English slots from Abuja), serve local/regional audiences where internet costs bite.

Incorrect! Shortwave listeners have not reported Voice of Nigeria's 7255 kHz service since June 2023. Indeed, for several years before that, VON broadcasts were irregular or inaudible. The existing transmitters fell into disrepair. A beginner trying to hear VON, based on the information in this book, will be sadly disappointed! However, there is talk of VON restarting the service with new equipment, but that is still some years away.

SDR software like WSJT-X uses Al for weak-signal modes; emerging tools scan bands autonomously and flag odd signals.

WSJT-X does not use artificial intelligence or machine learning in its core weak-signal modes (FT8, FT4, JT65, JT9, Q65, WSPR, etc.). Its decoders rely on deterministic digital signal processing, forward error correction (FEC), and protocol-specific algorithms. The official WSJT-X documentation and user guides describe these techniques in detail and do not mention neural networks, deep learning, or other AI methods.

Other issues

I could not find source credits for many of the photos in my Kindle edition. Missing credits make it difficult to identify their sources; by themselves, they don’t establish whether the images were licensed.

A photo is captioned: “A WWll-era Allied radio operator wearing headphones, intently monitoring and logging shortwave broadcasts.” The image in my Kindle copy bears Alamy watermarks. That raises a question about its licensing, but I can’t determine from the book whether it was licensed or who was responsible for clearing it.

Summary

The book is filled with imprecise or incomplete descriptions and disjointed sentences, with ideas thrown together. This is not great writing! The frequent em dashes and bullet-point lists give the prose a formulaic feel. I can’t determine whether AI tools were used.

So much fabulous information on the Internet already covers what's in this book. Garner’s work adds nothing that cannot be sourced elsewhere. Overall, I am reluctant to recommend Shortwave Unlocked: Radios, Antennas, Signals, Secrets & the World at Your Fingertips to anyone! Astonishingly, Amazon reviewers give it 4.5 stars, but I can’t! The best I can do is 1.5 stars.

Rob Wagner VK3BVW