Most SW (Short Wave) radios are quite simple.
For best results you need some sort of an antenna, and perhaps a ground wire to go along with the antenna. Most of these older radios did not have a built in antenna, so without adding one you may not hear much at all. An antenna can be as simple as attaching a length of wire to the antenna (ANT) screw on the back panel and then just simply stringing it up in your room. Usually the longer the better, but some SW antennas could be a hundred feet long depending on the type that you would like to use and the amount of room that you have, but even a 10 or 20 foot antenna may pick up some of the stronger stations, depending on the frequency and conditions.
What you can hear depends on if the radio is capable of receiving AM (Amplitude Modulation) only, or one that also can listen to CW (Continuous Wave, a.k.a. Morse code) and or SSB (Single Side Band). Also note that different frequencies are better during the day vs. night; there are seasonal as well as 'sun seasonal' cycles that can affect what you will hear at any given time.
Half the fun is discovering things on your own. Create a log book, write down the date, time and call sign or other identifying info about what you hear.
For example, at night on lower frequencies, you can hear stations from the other side of the world. During the day, you may not hear much at all. An example of this is the AM radio band (510 to 1610 KHz) that is still in some cars of today. At night you can hear stations from all over the country if you tune and listen carefully, but during the day you can only hear local stations.
It used to be that you could actually hear spy broadcasts, etc. But in these internet days, I'm not sure if these are still around.
http://lifehacker.com/5961035/how-to...asts-right-now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station
There are books and guides, do a little googling and find some that appeal to you.
I'm a licensed Ham radio (Amateur radio) operator, but haven't been very active lately as other things have taken my time, but the basics of SW listening hasn't changed in years. So I can't say I can say what sort of things you may hear these days. But there still is a lot out there!
Here's a guide I found with a simple google search:
http://www.shortwaveschedule.com/?now=true
Here's a Web SDR (Software Defined Radio). Choose a station and listen to Short Wave online, from the comfort of your computer! Try it:
http://websdr.org/
From the list above, here's a receiver based in California:
But just like any SW radio, you need to have an idea or where to start, what mode to use, etc. But feel free to experiment with it as you can't hurt anything. Note that these SDR's may not tune to every frequency. They tend to be focused on the Ham radio frequencies. I pretuned this one to a frequency inside of the Ham radio "20 meter" voice band to get you started. Feel free to tune around and see what you can hear:
http://69.27.184.62:8901/?tune=14290lsb
To save you from playing around too much, here is a preset SDR in the Netherlands listening to BBC Radio 4
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/?tune=198am
Here's another preset... listening to WWV/WWVH (National Institute of Standards Time)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station) on 10 MHz. The interesting thing, the Male voice is from the signal in Fort Collins, Colorado, the Female voice is from Kauai Hawaii. Which do you hear from this station in Half Moon Bay in California? It may change during different times of the day:
http://69.27.184.62:8901/?tune=10000am
Ok, any more and this would start to get too nerdy! LOL
