Shortwave Broadcasters and Listeners to Meet in Indiana
By Jeff White, Secretary-Treasurer, NASB
The National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB) is an organization consisting of privately-owned shortwave stations in the United States, as well as associate members from overseas, shortwave equipment manufacturers and other organizations with an interest in shortwave radio. The 2018 Annual Meeting of the NASB will take place on Thursday and Friday, May 17 and 18, at SonSet Solutions (formerly the HCJB Global Technology Center) in Elkhart, Indiana, USA. That’s in northern Indiana a couple of hours east of Chicago, about three hours southwest of Detroit, and about three hours north of Indianapolis.
Everyone with an interest in shortwave radio is welcome to attend -- listeners, broadcasters, consultants, equipment manufacturers, academics, etc. There's no charge to attend the meeting. All you need to pay for is your transportation to Elkhart and your hotel accommodation. All of the details can be found on the NASB webpage, www.shortwave.org. Then click on Annual Meeting Info.
The NASB held its annual meeting at the HCJB Global Technology Center in Elkhart in 2007. HCJB has built many shortwave transmitters at the plant, including units up to 500 kilowatts of power, for HCJB itself and other religious broadcasters. Recently, its name has changed to SonSet Solutions, but it continues to focus on missionary radio technology as well as technology for better health around the world. Charlie Jacobson and his team will be showing everyone around the facility and they’ll be explaining about their activities, including shortwave transmitter and receiver manufacturing.
Legendary shortwave broadcaster Adrian Peterson will be the keynote speaker at the NASB meeting on May 17. Adrian, who originally hails from Australia, was the head of Adventist World Radio-Asia for many years, and he produced and hosted the AWR DX program Radio Monitors International, which eventually changed its name to Wavescan. So SWL’s who have been listening to Wavescan for years and want to meet the originator and editor-in-chief of the program will have a chance to meet Adrian Peterson in person. Adrian will be giving a presentation about his best “Radio Memories.” Adrian has vast experience as a shortwave listener, a shortwave broadcaster and a frequent visitor to shortwave broadcast facilities virtually all over the world for many decades. Incidentally, Dr. Dowell Chow, who recently retired as President of Adventist World Radio, will also be in Elkhart to report on some recent AWR developments around the world.
Other presentations are being planned for the meeting from George Ross of Trans World Radio, John Tayloe and Ray Robinson of the Voice of Hope (which operates KVOH in California, Voice of Hope-Africa in Zambia and Voice of Hope-Israel), Dr. Jerry Plummer of WWCR in Tennessee, and yours truly and my wife Thais White from WRMI in Florida. Also in attendance will be Terry Borders and Glen Tapley from WEWN in Birmingham, Alabama and two representatives from World Christian Broadcasting, which operates KNLS in Alaska and Madagascar World Voice. Charles Caudill, President of World Christian Broadcasting and the current president of the NASB, has recently announced his retirement. He will be in Elkhart to introduce his successor, Andy Baker.
Jerome Hirigoyen of Telediffusion de France and other overseas broadcasters will also be in attendance. And Dr. Kim Elliott, a native of Elkhart and recently retired from the audience research department at the Voice of America and host of the popular Shortwave Radiogram program, will talk about his experiences broadcasting digital programs over analog shortwave transmissions. There will even be a special shortwave broadcast of Radiogram that can be heard on a SonSet Solutions receiver.
The main social activity at the meeting will be a group dinner at Das Dutchman Essenhaus, an Amish restaurant in nearby Middlebury, Indiana, to enjoy typical down-home Amish cooking. The Amish are a group of traditional Christian church fellowships who inhabit that area of northern Indiana.
If you would like to join the attendees at the NASB annual meeting, just go to www.shortwave.org, and on the Annual Meeting Info page you can register online. Attendance is free, but you need to register to let the organizers know you are planning to attend. You will also find information about the hotel where most of the attendees will be staying near SonSet Solutions and how to make reservations there. And if you’re not able to attend the meeting, you’ll be able to hear about some of what happens there on the Adventist World Radio DX program Wavescan after the event. Besides AWR, Wavescan can also be heard on WRMI, WWCR, KVOH and Voice of Hope-Africa.
