Paul_Morphy wrote:

The Richard Clarke book is a case in point. Although it is selling well, it
is not changing many peoples' minds about the role of the government before
and after 9/11. People who were inclined to think the government failed find
support in the book, but people who think the government is doing a fine job
don't believe it.

The people who think the government is doing a fine job won't be buying
the book at all.



I do miss the old days, though. There was nothing so enervating as listening
to R. Tirana, when Albania hated everybody.


I used to think enervating meant something like invigorating, or
energizing. Then I found out it meant the OPPOSITE of what I thought...



mike

I think The States will be attacking there via Columbia very shortly.
Venezuela is the fifth largest producer of oil in the world.

Also, It's a member of OPEC and has the sweetest crude in the world.

But back to your statement: Regarding Haiti, Kerry is pro-democratic government

but, regarding Venezuela, he is anti-democratic government.The difference is
that Haiti has no oil.

Speaking of FM stations, Venezuela has them, but they are privately-owned. So,
Prez Chavez allows unlicensed pro-government stations to operate.

Which reminds me... The FCC is illegally controlling intRAstate radiation. But
the FCC has, as has the IRS, the guns.

Bill, K5BY

The people who think the government is doing a good job aren't the
type who are likely to read anything.

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 01:18:29 GMT, m II
wrote:

Paul_Morphy wrote:

The Richard Clarke book is a case in point. Although it is selling well, it
is not changing many peoples' minds about the role of the government before
and after 9/11. People who were inclined to think the government failed find
support in the book, but people who think the government is doing a fine job
don't believe it.

The people who think the government is doing a fine job won't be buying
the book at all.



I do miss the old days, though. There was nothing so enervating as listening
to R. Tirana, when Albania hated everybody.


I used to think enervating meant something like invigorating, or
energizing. Then I found out it meant the OPPOSITE of what I thought...



mike

But yes, satellite and internet are going to replace shortwave. It's
inevitable. BBC is available on many cable TV systems already.
Noisy, static filled, fading, garbled shortwave is about as interesting
to today's digital satellite TV watching, MP3 player toting, cable modem
equipped PC "digital consumer" as smoke signals were to us 40 years ago.
I myself sometimes stream BBC over my cable modem. It's the only way I
listen to Australia.

There's something to be said for the more personal touch of amaetur
radio, to actually be reaching out to make communication, not merely
placate victim to it. although the general point of the digital
consumer age is to mock spending effort, to bring us maximal convenience
and laziness, there'something to be said for doing so. Particularly
with short wave because it is an art itself.

having said that, the way things are going, we have a lot of signals and
systems evolution to do before ham radio as a technology can mature past
perhaps deserving maybe some of the of the smoke signals jokes.

Permit the quote:
"97.1(b) Contiunation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to
contribute to the advancement of the radio art."

although modes like PSK31 provide an easy entry point; just plug in your
sound card; i'm sure amateurs will start cooking up more advanced direct
sampling systems which we can then digitally process and optimize
signals. mixed signal silicon will advance and be made more integrable,
hopefully, and we can use these to design more efficient and further
advanced networks. to advance the art.

The corporations are done; they've achieved perfection in the cell phone
network and will dole out improvement one wireless .5 generations at a
time. the consumer cant imagine demanding any more. they built their
wireless networks and they're tied to that infrasturcture. Aside from
some bandwidth tweaking for 3G, 3.5G, 4G, they're happy and static.
they'll just dump a boatload of cash into refining the existing network
and never design something better. Call me cynical; hell, I could just
be talking about Intel and the x86/Pentium story, but I cant help but
feel the same corporate game applies to radio.

that leaves amateurs to evolve radio, not because we need it, but for
the sake of advancing the art.

It may seem a sad state of affairs to us, but the day is surely coming
when all you will hear on a shortwave radio is static.

although i have absolute faith that noise will not be unwasted, i do
worry you are right. this aspect could have a more tragic fate.

i cannot speak for amateur's radio role as a raw communications element
yet. ( still cant afford that first rig to be able to comment better).
still, i cannot help but imagine it will always have a place. in
todays slightly more heated world, people will again seek supranational
communication. a large part of the reason i seek to become a ham is to
connect with a nationality outside my own:
97.1(d) "Contination and extension of the amateu's unique abiliuty to
enhance international goodwill", as the party line goes.

please pity some 97.1(c) on me while I try and join you guys and catch up:
"Encouragement and improvement of the amatuer service through rules
which proivde for advancing skills in both the communications and
technical phases of the art".

I'm trying to learn FPGA's now in hopes of future application within
amateur radio. I'll be lurking till then.

-myren

I can go back a little further than 5 years when the tropical bands were
loaded with small stations and it was challenging to hear numerous SW
broadcasters on the 120, 90, 75 and 60 meter bands which many of them are
gone now.
I assume the cost to maintain a station and the falling world economy has
driven many SW broadcasters under

--
Remove NOSPAM to reply
"tommyknocker" wrote in message
...
I was just thinking about this today. Has anybody noticed that shortwave
radio has really declined over the past five years or so? We've lost BBC
and Deutsche Welle transmissions to North America, we've lost several
smaller European broadcasters entirely, other stations have drastically
cut back. Are transmitting facilities really going on the blink so soon
after the end of the cold war? Or has everybody jumped on the BBC's
bandwagon and concluded that satellite and internet broadcasting has
replaced shortwave? Any thoughts?

In article k.net,
"gil" wrote:

I can go back a little further than 5 years when the tropical bands were
loaded with small stations and it was challenging to hear numerous SW
broadcasters on the 120, 90, 75 and 60 meter bands which many of them are
gone now.
I assume the cost to maintain a station and the falling world economy has
driven many SW broadcasters under

I don't think "the falling world economy" has anything to do with it.
Back 5 or 10 years the world economy was roaring. No, what happened
was the internet and satellites. It's simply easier and cheaper to
reach greater numbers of people with a higher quality signal over the
net than thru the air. It's actually a win-win situation.

Today's listener doesn't want to fiddle with knobs and antennas just to
hear the news or Top of the Pops, any more than he wants to fiddle with
knobs and antennas to watch CNN. It's simply expected to be there when
you turn on the TV, from anywhere on earth.

Dan

Drake R8, Radio Shack DX-440,
Grundig Satellit 650, Satellit 700, YB400
Tecsun PL-230 (YB550PE), Kaito KA1102
Hallicraters S-120 (1962)
Zenith black dial 5 tube Tombstone (1937)
E. H. Scott 23 tube Imperial Allwave in Tasman cabinet (1936)

"Dan" wrote in message
...
In article k.net,
"gil" wrote:

I can go back a little further than 5 years when the tropical
bands were
loaded with small stations and it was challenging to hear numerous
SW
broadcasters on the 120, 90, 75 and 60 meter bands which many of
them are
gone now.
I assume the cost to maintain a station and the falling world
economy has
driven many SW broadcasters under

I don't think "the falling world economy" has anything to do with
it.
Back 5 or 10 years the world economy was roaring. No, what
happened
was the internet and satellites. It's simply easier and cheaper
to
reach greater numbers of people with a higher quality signal over
the
net than thru the air. It's actually a win-win situation.

But the broadcasters he's talking about aren't on the 'net or
satellites. They've just gone away, so it's not like one medium has
stolen from another. The Eurpoean majors--certainly that's the
case--but not the little guys AFAIK.

Today's listener doesn't want to fiddle with knobs and antennas just
to
hear the news or Top of the Pops, any more than he wants to fiddle
with
knobs and antennas to watch CNN. It's simply expected to be there
when
you turn on the TV, from anywhere on earth.


I don't think yesterday's listener wanted to do that either by and
large--which is why SW was essentially a "fringe" hobby then as well.
I think both generations have/had a very high percentage of
individuals who wanted to use the dominant, "easy" technology. It's
just a different technology today. I'd be very interested to know
how many individuals gravitated to SW -solely- because they couldn't
get the content elsewhere, opposed to being attracted to both the
content and the radio itself. IMO, to the extent SW may be suffering
today, it's because interest in radio as hardware has diminished
relative to other "techie" hardware, rather than the content
necessarily being available elsewhere.

"tommyknocker" wrote in message
...
I was just thinking about this today. Has anybody noticed that shortwave
radio has really declined over the past five years or so? We've lost BBC
and Deutsche Welle transmissions to North America, we've lost several
smaller European broadcasters entirely, other stations have drastically
cut back. Are transmitting facilities really going on the blink so soon
after the end of the cold war? Or has everybody jumped on the BBC's
bandwagon and concluded that satellite and internet broadcasting has
replaced shortwave? Any thoughts?


It's not just the changes in the media (transmitters, satellites, the
internet), there's also less message (programs cut, languages dropped).
There's less news/propaganda money as money gets tighter.

But there's good news. There's less interference, and US domestic SW is
dominated by entertaining -- um -- characters. Not only do these characters
want to be on SW, but they're willing to pay for it with their own money.

As I see it, SW radio has never been better.

Frank Dresser

Frank Dresser wrote:

But there's good news. There's less interference, and US domestic SW
is dominated by entertaining -- um -- characters. Not only do these
characters want to be on SW, but they're willing to pay for it with
their own money.

As I see it, SW radio has never been better.

Frank Dresser

Except that the US domestic stations are almost all religious
fundamentalists. About as interesting as static. I long for the days of
the big guns of the cold war: Radio Moscow, BBC, Radio Sofia, etc.

--
Brian Denley
http://home.comcast.net/~b.denley/index.html

"Brian Denley" wrote in message
news:hW4cc.75611$w54.433850@attbi_s01...

Except that the US domestic stations are almost all religious
fundamentalists.


Technically, they're aren't necessarly fundamentalists, but they are
evangalists. But there's a wide gulf between the views of such
fundamentalists as James Lloyd and George W. Gentry.


About as interesting as static.

I'm interested in religious views. I know learning religion from SW radio
is like learning physics from Warner Brothers cartoons. And it can be just
as entertaining.

But there's much more than evangelists. Conspiratorialists, Health food
pushers, Gold Bugs, Con Artists, Free Thinkers.

I long for the days of
the big guns of the cold war: Radio Moscow, BBC, Radio Sofia, etc.

--
Brian Denley


Ultimately, there's a chance something wonderful may happen if the old line
international broadcasters go away. The international broadcast bands will
be nearly empty, and they won't be refilled any faster than the other
currently underutilixed SW bands. Hobby broadcasters could start
broadcasting, and the governments might not even care if there's no
international broadcasting to be interfered with.

Frank Dresser