Jay wrote:
Sorry my questions caused you so much anger. I was asking if anyone could
tell me about what is going on at the VOA and if anyone could report on any
signals they might still be able to receive for VOA. They seemed like
reasonable questions for this forum.

Shortwave has pretty much disappeared from this newsgroup. Nearly all
posts are by closed-minded ideologues berating each other. The best way
I know of to identify a fool is that fools like to argue with people
they consider to be fools.

In answer to your original question, many international broadcasters,
including the VOA, have judged that they get better coverage of their
intended audiences via FM, satellite, and internet broadcasting, at
least in the more developed countries. It has gotten much more difficult
to pick up international shortwave in North America because of this. So
it becomes much more of a research problem: understanding propagation,
look for a broadcast intended for somewhere else that might make it to
your location. I can't give you specifics because I haven't done the
research for the VOA, and in any case, it depends on what part of the
country you live in. It often depends on things like transmitter antenna
sidelobes. It's generally impractical to obtain this information, so you
just have to try a bunch of frequencies to see what you can get. A good
antenna is a must.

-jpd