Stereophile22 wrote:

I've been listening to shortwave radio broadcasts sine the summer of
1984,

I first listened to shortwave either in te late 60's or early 70's.

November 1986. I was just turning 12 (November 27) and Boy's Life-a
magazine for Boy Scouts-had an article on SW broadcasting and how you
could hear stations from around the world. The idea gripped me, and soon
I was bugging my parents for a SW radio. Problem is, they were broke,
and the cheapest radio we could find was $150-and of course it was
analog and so on. Finally my mom got in contact with a ham who went to
our church who dug out a Hallicrafters S-40 from his shack and gave it
to me. I'd never seen anything like it-what's a vacuum tube?-and was
utterly fascinated. I would rush home from school every day to listen to
the 31m band. I knew nothing about SW except what the old ham had showed
me, and when I tuned to either side of 31m I heard nothing, so for a
while I just stuck to 9500-10000 khz. But I heard most of the day's
major broadcasters, including the BBC and Radio Moscow.

I once read that Americans are the *least* knowledgable about the rest
of the world than the other way around.

I think that idea isn't true and that foreigners just think that.

Heck, even the Americans admit that they're ignorant about world
affairs! Part of the post 9-11 shock and the whole "we're so kind and
helpful, why do they want to kill us?" reaction was due to American
ignorance about what the US govt has done in their name to people around
the world.

However, it probably will be true for a lot of Americans if the foreigners keep
getting rid of their shortwave broadcasts and their English language shortwave
broadcasts.

I simply can't understand why the suits at DW and BBC are so intent on
cutting their First World directed transmissions. I think they're under
some grand illusions about how people live in reality. VOA I can
understand-it's run by people from FM radioland, and they're focused on
music services like Sawa.

Not everyone has a computer.

And I don't see a lot of people with satellite dishes, either.

And DirectTV had very little foreign originated stuff.





----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---