On Sat, 14 Sep 2013, Curious wrote:


Some decades ago I was a serious shortwave listener but have since not done
much.

Please don't think this a provocation, but where does it fit in with the
internet allowing far more exposure to the entire globe then shortwave ever
could?

That's one of the issues, more and more countries are shutting down their
shortwave service.

There was always a split. The hobbyist who was less concerned about
content and more about receiving distant stations. And people who wanted
the contents, because they were away from home or were interested in other
cultures. I'm not sure which was stronger, but obviously the statinos were
really there for the latter group.

Even forty years ago, the magazines would run editorials about whether
this was the end of shortwave or not (though I can't remember what reasons
they gave as to why it might be the end).

Oddly, shortwave kind of got a boost from technology. Cheap receivers
were awful in the old days, best for the strongest signals only (and of
course, the major countries did have strong shortwave transmitters), but
also just lousy dials. Then suddenly about 1980, technology allowed for
digitally tuned receivers, so you could be sure of where you were tuned
to. Suddenly that was put into portable receivers, sold through consumer
channels, making the receivers a lot more accessible than "in the old
days". It was certainly a better grade of receiver than when you bought
some conusmer receiver that incidentally had a shortwave band or two. I
don't know how that affected the area of those who listened for content,
but I suspect it changed things, at a time when many had decided shortwave
was dead.

Then it changed again. You can get the BBC world service on a lot of NPR
stations overnight. You could hear foreign programming on the CBC here in
Canada overnight (so I assume we weren't the only ones). Reception was
much better, no fading, which seemed too often to happen at key points,
and the fading certainly made the reception of music pretty bad (and if
you listened for different cultures, that surely was a factor).

And then high speed internet put a lot of stations online, really easy for
Joe Average to listen, indeed at this point more people have computers
than ever had shortwave receivers. And the internet allowed for no fading
and better signals, and slowly the countries started dropping shortwave
transmissions, or at least dropping transmisions to North America ("3rd
world" countries may still be another issue, radio still has value there).
Which of course caused the content listeners to move away. It was only
about 6 o 7 years ago that I saw a shortwave receiver at a rummage or
garage sale for the first time (after about 15 years of going to such
things), but I've found about one a year since then, at low prices, which
I think reflects the content listener loosing interest or moving elsewhere
for their listening.

And the problem is, the countries broadcast to those listeners, the ones
who actually listen to the shows, not the hobbyists that just want another
notch in their list of received stations. So once that goes away, there
won't be shortwave stations to hear. There will still be things to hear
on shortwave, amateur radio, utility stations, whatever else is still on
shortwave, but it will be different.

Michael