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

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"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.