"Thurston Howell III" wrote in message
om...
INTERNET RADIO V. SHORT-WAVE - IS SW DYING?

I am getting back into SW from a ten year absence. I will be
purchasing a new, nice quality radio, in the next few weeks. The
reason for my renewed interest is that I purchased a YB FR-200 for
Hurricane Charley. I forgot how I enjoyed SW. However, after surfing
the Internet for a wile, I was surprised (not really) to see limited
to no growth in SW receivers. My last Passport book is from 1995, and
I found that in 2004, the receivers from the 1995 book are the ones
still available, with few new entries.


Radio is a mature technology. There's not much difference between the
current radios and the radios of ten years ago. But there hasn't been much
change in refrigerators or washing machines lately, either.



It is obvious, the advent of the Internet in the last ten years has
changed drastically, the available of worldwide audio and video
programming. With that said, what is not available on the Internet,
that is available on SW? Let me preference by stating, that I
understand SW as a hobby, and I also understand that the challenge of
pulling in programming from a radio is a lot more rewarding than point
and click Real Audio or Windows Media streams. However, for fun, over
the last few days, I would find a signal/program on my little FR-200,
and then, I would find same streamed audio on the Internet. I had a
100% success rate, and the Internet stream is superior, as there is no
interference.


Actually, satellites and television is the biggest change in public
diplomacy. TV programming can be produced for little more than radio
programming now. Governments and networks can use satellites to distribute
programming at low cost. When government spokesmen want to get the word out
now, they get it on TV and give it to the news networks. The message will
trickle down to radio and the internet later. And that message will usually
be just excerpts from a TV speech or TV press conference.



Maybe the FR-200 only pulls in the major stations, and that is why I
found everything, however, is there any worthwhile programming not
streamed live, or available as archive on the Internet.


I suppose that depends on what "worthwhile" means. There's still number
stations, which must be worth something to somebody. I don't think any of
the remaining tropical band stations stream on the internet. The pirates
don't, although some of their programming is distributed on CDs.

Brother Stair and Alex Jones say they are streamed on the internet, but I
only tried it once, and it wasn't working at that time.

A large amount of the worthwhile programming is gone, due to changing
priorities and budget cuts.



To further
tilt program availability on the Internet, there are hundreds of
websites that make available, professional model SW setups, that
Internet uses can directly control.

I understand that poor countries do not widely have access to the
Internet, but US access is far reaching. Will and/or have programmers
stop targeting the US by SW? So I ask, is SW dying a slow death? I
look forward to a nice discussion, Thurston Howell III