In article
. rogers.com,
"Pierre L" wrote:

Somewhat the same situation is going on now in photography, with the growing
popularity of digital. However, I think the same arguments against can be
made as with shortwave. If it's digital, it's somewhat exclusive to those
who can pay, and it requires a fairly steep investment in equipment that is
rapidly superceded. It might be better in performance, but to keep up with
it, the user pretty much becomes a slave to the technology. Shortwave, on
the other hand, just needs a cheap receiver, and it's free for the taking.
Just like an expensive digital camera gives you the picture but takes all
the fun out of actually taking it, satellite radio is good, and just a
button press away, but is there any fun in it? Where's the fun in listening
to "radio" on the internet?

How does an expensive digital camera take all the fun out of taking
pictures? You can still fiddle with exposure and focus and f-stops and
all the other things that serious photographers want/need.

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)

In article ,
David wrote:

More like ''now''.

Good point. Stations *are* disappearing "now".

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)

The 40 years of the Cold War was the time of the greatest number of SW
stations on the air. The propaganda war raged constantly until the
fall of the Iron Curtain.
The war is pretty much over and the need for the propaganda
organs is just not there. Voice of Russia is still on the air with a
(usually) strong signal and is much less strident than the old Radio
Moscow. It is worth a listen for an alternate perspective.
I too, miss the "Golden Days". Gone is the thumping Latin beat
on RRadio RRhumbos, a station that introduced me to S.American music.
Too much has gone , I suspect forever. (Sniff, sniff--tear on cheek.)
Bob

"Bob" wrote in message
om...
The 40 years of the Cold War was the time of the greatest number of SW
stations on the air. The propaganda war raged constantly until the
fall of the Iron Curtain.
The war is pretty much over and the need for the propaganda
organs is just not there. Voice of Russia is still on the air with a
(usually) strong signal and is much less strident than the old Radio
Moscow. It is worth a listen for an alternate perspective.
I too, miss the "Golden Days". Gone is the thumping Latin beat
on RRadio RRhumbos, a station that introduced me to S.American music.
Too much has gone , I suspect forever. (Sniff, sniff--tear on cheek.)
Bob

Well, I don't miss the golden days of stations packed in sholder to sholder,
utility transmitters on SW broadcast bands, high power jammers and the
Soviet woodpecker.

I'll agree about the tropical band stations, though. Most of 'em are gone,
and I did like hearing them.

Frank Dresser

Frank Dresser

Dan wrote:
snip

How does an expensive digital camera take all the fun out of taking
pictures? You can still fiddle with exposure and focus and f-stops and
all the other things that serious photographers want/need.

Dan



Many of the low to mid priced digital cameras are PHD (Push Here Dummy) cameras with little if any manual control options.

Digital SLR's and better compact ones usually seem to include manual over ride options.

It's like a camera that could only use one single brand of film.

"Dan" wrote in message
...

How does an expensive digital camera take all the fun out of taking
pictures? You can still fiddle with exposure and focus and f-stops and
all the other things that serious photographers want/need.

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:

Yeah. Radio Moscow on the old Cuba relay on 11840 calling us "running
dog capitalists" was fun. Now VOR has commercials!

Not to forget Radio Peking and Radio Tirana!

Art Harris

"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.

This is a time of change throughout the broadcasting industry. My local
small-town police force, who I thought would be broadcasting VHF forever,
skipped right by trunking, and now our entire town's communications is
handled through Nextel. As a former newsperson, this breaks my heart,
especially when I have several scanners that won't be a whole lot of use to
me from now on.

Of course, digital television is on its way. I thought that might take 10 to
20 years, but stations are really putting out the programming and consumers
are really buying the receivers. It truly won't be long until analog
televisions will be useless without a converter box and companies are
basically giving away analog tvs right now.

It disturbs me that the Eton E1, successor to the Grundig Satellit 800, is
now XM and DAB ready. But why shouldn't it be? If digital is truly taking
over the airwaves (and it is), why shouldn't the receiver makers build the
newest technology into their newest products?

I guess I'm just a child of the 20th Century who somehow has made it into
the 21st century.

Or in the immortal words of ELO's Jeff Lynne (circa 1980):

"Things ain't how you thought they were
Nothing have you planned
So pick up your penny and your suitcase
You're not a 21st century man."

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
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


You may have something there Frank. Lets hope. I cant see the short-wave
medium going away. There's always someone going to use it.
--
73 Brian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant
never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare
to die.

Brian's Radio Universe
http://webpages.charter.net/brianehill/