SW from California (stations, shortwave, best)

[Snort]

I bought a shortwave radio some time ago, but never use it for that purpose because I can hardly pull anything in. I realize that stringing along a ton of wire as an antenna would help a bit, but I wanted to know what people might be listening to on the west coast, if anything.
Thanks in advance.

[catman]

It doesn't matter much where you are concerning SW listening. What make/model of receiver do you have? You should be able to get the stronger stations without an external antenna. Do you know what frequencies the international bands are on?

[AksarbeN]

Some types of radios don’t need an antenna attached to them, they have a built in antenna that isn’t the best but works. You might find that if the radio has a connection for an external antenna you’ll greatly improve the reception of a large amount of the broadcast spectrum for shortwave. It doesn’t have to be perfect but anything added will help. I used a length of wire laying on the floor next to the walls for a while and it helped. Months later I was able to get an outside antenna put up that greatly improved the radios reception. A good antenna with a poor radio will work better than a good radio with a poor antenna.