Dan wrote:

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 15:00:37 -0800, tommyknocker
wrote:

As for DW, they haven't totally stopped transmitting in English on SW,
but their current English SW broadcasts-mostly to Africa-are hard to
hear in North America. Like the BBC, DW management thinks SW is out of
date and is concentrating on the internet and satellite.

It's not that they "think SW is out of date" - SW *is* out of date.
Today's listeners are used to clean, digital sound. No one is
thrilled by chasing noisy, static-filled, fading signals these days.

You know, with sufficient relay stations, SW can be heard clearly
anywhere in the world. The big guys such as DW and BBC had relays that
allowed them to cover most of North America with great signals. VOA used
to have relays around the world that allowed them to penetrate even the
noisiest conditions, including the massive jamming operations of the
Soviet Bloc. Sure, it's not FM stereo, but stereo sound is necessary
only if you're listening to music. Unfortunately, the moguls and
managers who run many radio operations today are focused on music and
not the news and features that have been SW staples. VOA is being shut
down in favor of FM stations that carry American music, such as Radio
Sawa, which is broadcast mostly on local FM stations in the Middle East.
I remember reading a quote in an article on Sawa that said it best:
liking American music doesn't mean you like America. But the US
government seems to think otherwise. When the USSR fell, we learned that
the Soviet people wanted the news and information their own government
denied them, not rock music. Why should we think that people in the
Middle East, where most "news" is of the "non Muslims are evil and must
be killed, see this?" variety, are any different?

Internet and satellite broadcasting are where it's at these days. SW
broadcasting's days are numbered. We need to enjoy them while we can.

Internet broadcasting has one BIG problem, and that's bandwidth. I've
tried listening to streaming web radio for prolonged periods of time on
a 56k dialup connection, and the result is always the same-a gradual
degradation of signal quality due to "net congestion" that ends up with
the signal sounding mostly like BBs rattling around in a soup can. I
later learned that the rattling was a placeholder the program put
wherever the packets didn't make it, and after a while a LOT of packets
get dropped. As for satellite, as far as I know you have to subscribe to
it to get it, which leaves the people who can't pay the fees out of
luck. Did you know that half of humanity lives on less than $1 a day?
How do you expect them to pay for satellite radio, even if they want to
listen to every concievable style of American music there is?



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