The Story of PAL
Discover The Pacific with the Pacific-Asian Log [PAL Guide].
Editor-in-Chief: Bruce Portzer
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The free PAL Radio Guide list thousands of AM and SW stations across the entire region. Includes station location, region, frequency, power, station call or brand name, hours of operation, format and much more.
The Story of the PAL Radio Guides
The Pacific – Asian Log (PAL) Radio Station Guide edited by Bruce Portzer in Seattle WA is the definitive guide to AM broadcasters in this extensive region of the world.
Used by broadcasters, engineers, listeners, advertising agencies, government planners and many others, PAL is the only list of its kind based on widespread monitoring of the mediumwave dial from Afghanistan to Alaska and the rest of the Pacific and Asia region.
PAL was first published in the late 1950’s by the New Zealand Radio DX League and editor Merv Branks was a well known AM listener. He contacted hundreds of radio stations in the region and began publishing a 50-60 page long guide with results of his queries and observations from hundreds of club members.
“The area that PAL embraces is No.1 spotlight in today’s current events. It may be a haunting rhythm from the Pacific, a weird melody from the vast Asian continent, a muezzin summoning the faithful to worship from the minaret of a mosque in the lands of the Middle East, or even beat music from some jungle outpost.”
Merv Branks, ‘Listening with PAL’ 1966
Pacific Log
Merv withdrew from publishing PAL because of advancing age, the final edition being in October 1966.
Chris Martin of the Southern Cross DX Club (Australia) published a ‘Pacific Log’ in 1978 dedicated to the memory of Merv Branks. This ran to 90 pages and co-incided with the move to 9kHz spacing along the mediumwave dial throughout Asia and the Pacific.
Another smaller guide was published in 1983, when Robert Chester of the ARDXC, issued a ‘Mediumwave Guide to Australia, NZ and the South Pacific’ running to 36 pages and excluding Asia.
PAL reborn in the digital age
It would be almost 20 years before Bruce Portzer took advantage of the digital age to begin compiling PAL again, with regular revisions, and the tradition established by Merv Branks was reborn.
Almost 50 years later, PAL has returned to New Zealand as ‘flagship’ of the Radio Heritage Foundation Guide Series under the control of editor-in-chief Bruce Portzer.
New features include on-line search of the database
Maintained almost ‘live’ with updates, PAL has great new features. Use the new search facility for the most popular data such as country, location and frequency.
PAL is the most comprehensive guide to mediumwave radio in the Pacific – Asia region, and continues to be freely available.
We now refer to the PAL guide as our “Pacific Asia Listener Guide” on our website.
Send your changes and updates to us now
Continuing the half-century tradition of using monitors and broadcasters to keep PAL up-to-date, send us changes,correct errors and add new information.
Online database updates and PDFs for download are released several times a year.
Download the latest PDF version:
Download “Pacific-Asian Log (PAL Guide)”
PAL-SEPT-2024.pdf – 5.08 MB
Search the Database:
Bruce Portzer has been an avid medium wave DX listener since 1964. He has specialized in trans-Pacific stations for many years, and has heard hundreds of stations throughout Asia and the South Pacific.
His interests often take him to quiet receiving locations along the coast of Washington state, away from the noise and interference at his home in Seattle.
In the late 1990’s he started compiling information found on the internet to supplement other DX references. After a while, he had enough material to put together a complete logbook, and the current Pacific Asian Log was born.
Bruce works as an engineer in the wireless industry.