RadioBanter - View Single Post

August 19th 05, 10:50 AM

On 18 Aug 2005 17:34:10 -0700, wrote:
with good reception. My comments are directed to those listeners who
can't find any of their old favourite commentators anywhere on the
shortwave bands. People like Chuck Harder, Bo Gritz, and Robby Noel.
Because of a sprained knee, I was bedridden for a few days with only my
bedside (dx 394) short-wave radio ( and two vintage laptops: an IBM 380
ED and a Macintosh Powerbook 3400c.

Thanks for that, really insightful and confirms what I've also
observed here in the UK after coming back to SW DXing after ten years.

I wonder how much of the reception problem is due to the current high
solar activity, and how much is due to reduced investment in shortwave
broadcasting?

For instance, in my recent visit in January to Boston MA and LA/San
Francisco CA, I was completely unable to find the BBC World Service on
shortwave at all. On inspecting the BBC WS website, it appears that
they have completely stopped all shortwave transmissions to the USA
and are insted relying on Internet audio and overnight FM relays by
co-operative local stations. In the end, like yourself, I ended up
listening on my laptop in the hotels where there was broadband
available. When I stopped over at rural motels, this wasn't an option
- so no BBC at all, hardly "World Service", is it?

As regards content quality and presenters, for me as a Brit, obviously
the BBC World Service is my mainstay and I have to say, unlike your
experience, the BBC WS seems to be MUCH better these days than it was
ten years ago. I hear familiar big-name UK presenters and the news
coverage is superb, exactly the same high quality as our rolling news
TV channels. I'm actually quite glad that the news content of the BBC
WS seems to have increased at the cost of the magazine, drama and
music programmes since I never really saw the point of drama and music
on shortwave, and the magazine programmes were invariably Z-list celeb
interview filler or dreary consumber ramblings anyway.

It was interesting to hear that you got what you wanted from audio
streams over the Internet. Out of interest, do you have a solution for
listening to your PC output whilst in bed, or do you just keep your
laptop near your bedside?

My solution, and this was really irritating, was to purchase an FM
transmitter whilst in the USA and take it back to the UK with me. In
theory it is illegal to use an FM transmitter in the UK, but since
these little models are so short-range I can't really see what the
harm is. So now I plug in the FM transmitter to the headphone sockets
of my PC, or the audio output of my digital terrestrial TV receiver,
and listen from my bed in the next room using a regular FM bedside
radio.

--
Andrew Oakley andrew/atsymbol/aoakley/stop/com
Gloucestershire, UK