Conan Ford wrote:

I'm located in Calgary, Alberta at about 51 N and 114 W. I've noticed that
I can often copy Radio Australia and Radio New Zealand International all
throughout the night, even up to 15 mhz sometimes. Shouldn't broadcasts
above about the 49 m band be very hard to hear at night?

Considering the currently low solar flux and the early sunset time for
your location now, it would be unusual to hear them on 15-Mhz all night
at this time of year, but it does occasionally happen. Compared to
eastern North America, you do have an advantage for the higher
frequencies because you're farther west and your sunset time is
relatively later. The lower frequencies like 31-m are usually
propagating well from the South Pacific to North America after midnight.
I start hearing RA and RNZ at around 0800-UTC on 9580/9590 and 9885
respectively. I'm located in the northeast.

Sometimes I can
get broadcasts that seem intended for a domestic audience in Australia or
New Zealand. I'm wondering why I can hear these at all. I'm using a
Sangean ATS-803a with a 20 foot horizontal wire fed through a balun and 75
ohm coax.

Much of their programming on shortwave actually comes from their
domestic radio services. That's why it sounds like it's intended for
local listeners there. Both countries used to have more international
programming but it was reduced because of budget cuts.

I've noticed that Radio NZI and Radio Australia don't seem to be scaling
back broadcasts like their European counterparts are. I'm wondering why
this is. My best guess is the sparse population and large area of
Australia makes these broadcasts more useful, as for New Zealand, I'm
guessing the Pacific islands?

Yes, that's the main reason. These two countries are the protectors of
many islands in the South Pacific. This happened after World War-II when
each country was assigned certain areas. The US also became the
protector of some islands, like Guam and the Marianas.

I was using the Ilgradio schedule with Scan320DB, but the B04's still
aren't out and the A04's are showing their age. Is there another source
for a quality schedule, or a better database program to use?

Try this one:

http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/


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