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![]() "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 |
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