A year ago, the “end of WRTH” was announced. But the WRTH is back, more complete and up-to-date than ever before! And the “Directory of Global Broadcasting” is now also available as a web app!

The new publisher, Radio Data Center GmbH (RDC), was created in 2012 to provide professional data delivery and services for broadcast radio-related business and industries. Günter Lorenz founded FMLIST, the world’s most comprehensive and up-to-data database of FM broadcasting in 1986. It went online in 2005 at fmlist.org and was soon followed by MWLIST, its counterpart for mediumwave and shortwave broadcasting. Oliver Schmidt is CEO of RDC and Chairman of the Board of UKW/TV-Arbeitskreis e.V., the organisation that owns FMLIST, and publisher of “Sender-Tabelle” and “European Radio Guide” books. The worldwide RDC team defines their work, which extends the community-supported databases to professional level, as “being cartographers of the global radio landscape”.

It is a fact that broadcasting is making less and less use of the possibilities of global shortwave. The reasons for this are manifold and in essence understandable – but the attraction of long-distance reception (DX) remains: The bands may not be as densely occupied as they were in the last century, but many interesting stations can still be heard, and especially in crisis situations it becomes apparent that broadcasting can still reach many people. Benefiting from the shutdown of medium-wave transmitters, especially in Western Europe, completely new reception possibilities are available there. Broadcasting is not limited to the RF frequencies below 30 MHz, and so long-distance reception on FM and even on DAB offers interesting prospects. In all frequency ranges, better receivers are available today than ever before, whether portable in the pocket or as SDR on the home PC.