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)

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rapidly superceded.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?

Hopefully, radio will not become like TV, where the good programming is only
available to those who can and are willing to pay for satellite or digital
cable services.

Personally, I find this trend profoundly disturbing... entertainment for the
affluent.

By the way, as has already happened twice to me in the five years, when the
power goes out, so does all that digital junk. But radio still works as long
as you have batteries on hand. Broadcast radio got me through 7 days of no
electricity. There was no TV, no cells phones, no internet. It seems to me
that if shortwave and ordinary broadcast radio did not exist at this time,
we would have to invent it, because you can't rely on anything digital being
there when you need it. During the power failure in the east last summer, I
was on my way somewhere in the car. I couldn't make it because, with no
traffic lights, it was gridlock everywhere. Cellphones were out too. But AM
radio was on, and within less than half an hour, anyone with an AM radio
could know what was going on. Was it a big terrorist attack? No, just a
power failure. But I knew that because as I was sitting in the gridlock, the
radio in my car worked fine. I never thought about it much before the two
big power failures that affected me directly, but I like broadcast AM and
shortwave just as it is.

I want to wrap this up by saying that, in terms of things that you can
actually listen to, I find shortwave is better now than it has ever been. I
don't see a decline at all. If anything, it's the opposite.



These are very good points! Because of the cheap receivability of analog
shortwave, I assume it will continue to be broadcast for many years yet,
though with signals increasingly aimed at just the third world.

For the casual listener like me, this does not auger well. I've always
liked those big broadcasters because you could easily receive them on
the cheap radios and small antennas I've always had. What are some
stations/shows that you listen to that make shortwave now better than
it's ever been?

Leonard

--
"Everything that rises must converge"
--Flannery O'Connor

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

How does one forget the Radio Tirana interval signal titled

"With Pick Axe and Rifle"

Those were the shortwave days.

Greg
"Harris" wrote in message
...
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

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?

4 or 5 years ago my brother and I bought my father a grundig 800. He
is a ww2 vet, Navy signalman and loved to listen to morse. He had
always asked me if I was interested in SW and at the time being
possesed by the internet I thought it (SW) was a dying interest only
taken to by guys like my dad. Well as ill health has taken much of
his mobility he gave me the 800 (about 4 mos ago). Well to cut to
the chase I now have my own little mini-shack next to my pc and I'm
loving it. To work the dials in the dark of the late evening,
pulling in some radio broadcast from the other side of the planet is
something I find hard to explain! My once flat and clean Passport now
dogeared and smudged attest to my late hours. I don't listen to any
sw from the net as I kind of want to keep it the way it is. My father
by the way most vicariously shares my "new" found interest. Sure
things will change over time...I have,,good listening RN

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 19:17:04 -0500, R Neutron wrote
(in message ):

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?

4 or 5 years ago my brother and I bought my father a grundig 800. He
is a ww2 vet, Navy signalman and loved to listen to morse. He had
always asked me if I was interested in SW and at the time being
possesed by the internet I thought it (SW) was a dying interest only
taken to by guys like my dad. Well as ill health has taken much of
his mobility he gave me the 800 (about 4 mos ago). Well to cut to
the chase I now have my own little mini-shack next to my pc and I'm
loving it. To work the dials in the dark of the late evening,
pulling in some radio broadcast from the other side of the planet is
something I find hard to explain! My once flat and clean Passport now
dogeared and smudged attest to my late hours. I don't listen to any
sw from the net as I kind of want to keep it the way it is. My father
by the way most vicariously shares my "new" found interest. Sure
things will change over time...I have,,good listening RN


If your Dad likes a particular type of broadcast - as opposed to chasin' DX -
you might think of recording some of what he likes.

/gray//

"R Neutron" wrote in message 4 or 5 years ago my
brother and I bought my father a grundig 800. He
is a ww2 vet, Navy signalman and loved to listen to morse. He had
always asked me if I was interested in SW and at the time being
possesed by the internet I thought it (SW) was a dying interest only
taken to by guys like my dad. Well as ill health has taken much of
his mobility he gave me the 800 (about 4 mos ago). Well to cut to
the chase I now have my own little mini-shack next to my pc and I'm
loving it. To work the dials in the dark of the late evening,
pulling in some radio broadcast from the other side of the planet is
something I find hard to explain! My once flat and clean Passport now
dogeared and smudged attest to my late hours. I don't listen to any
sw from the net as I kind of want to keep it the way it is. My father
by the way most vicariously shares my "new" found interest. Sure
things will change over time...I have,,good listening RN

Yep its just plain fun and you never know what you will find in the ether.
SW fuels the imagination unlike any other medium and when it is gone nothing
will ever replace 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/

In article ,
(R Neutron) wrote:

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?

4 or 5 years ago my brother and I bought my father a grundig 800. He
is a ww2 vet, Navy signalman and loved to listen to morse. He had
always asked me if I was interested in SW and at the time being
possesed by the internet I thought it (SW) was a dying interest only
taken to by guys like my dad. Well as ill health has taken much of
his mobility he gave me the 800 (about 4 mos ago). Well to cut to
the chase I now have my own little mini-shack next to my pc and I'm
loving it. To work the dials in the dark of the late evening,
pulling in some radio broadcast from the other side of the planet is
something I find hard to explain!

Yes I can't explain the attraction either. Worse I actually like some
of the noise and distortion impressed on the signals as they make their
way through the ionosphere. Listening to weak signals with the static
coming in stronger signal fading and then the signal coming back with
the static fading in rhythmic fastion sounds at times like ocean waves
breaking on the beach while listening to distant stations.

You may have guessed that I live near the beach for several reasons.

My once flat and clean Passport now dogeared and smudged attest to
my late hours. I don't listen to any sw from the net as I kind of
want to keep it the way it is. My father by the way most vicariously
shares my "new" found interest. Sure things will change over
time...I have,,good listening RN

Nothing beats sharing your interests or spending time with your family.
A win-win situation if I ever saw one.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California