8. Option C: Shortwave Listening

Smartphone Listening

8c5.
Demonstrate listening to a radio broadcast using a smartphone/cell phone. Include international broadcasts in your demonstration.

How to Listen on a Smartphone

Modern smartphones don’t have traditional radio receivers (most lack even an FM chip). Instead, you listen to radio broadcasts via internet streaming — apps that connect you to live streams from stations around the world.

  • TuneIn Radio — aggregates thousands of live radio streams worldwide; search by country, language, or genre
  • Radio Garden — a globe-based interface where you spin the Earth and tap on green dots to hear live stations from that location
  • iHeartRadio — primarily U.S. stations but includes some international content
  • BBC Sounds — direct access to BBC World Service and BBC radio stations
  • NHK World Radio — Japan’s international broadcast service

For Your Demonstration

Show your counselor that you can:

  1. Find and play a domestic station — tune to a local or national U.S. radio station through a streaming app.

  2. Find and play at least one international broadcast — listen to a station from another country. Good choices include:

    • BBC World Service (UK) — English-language news and programming
    • Deutsche Welle (Germany) — English and German broadcasts
    • Radio France Internationale (RFI) — French and English
    • NHK World (Japan) — English-language service
    • All India Radio — multiple languages

  3. Explain the difference between this internet-streamed listening and the over-the-air shortwave listening you did earlier. Key point: the smartphone is using the cellular or Wi-Fi internet connection, not receiving radio waves directly. The audio travels as digital data packets, not as an analog radio signal.

You’ve completed Option C. Continue to Option D below, or jump to Requirement 9 using the sidebar.