I'll tell everybody what I honestly see happening to shortwave. There
will be 4-5 Big Boys, major stations that broadcast in every major
language and can be heard almost anywhere, like Radio China and Radio
Netherlands. Then there will be a zillion Little Guys, small regional
stations that broadcast only to a relatively local audience and almost
none of which will be in English-but in local languages and dialects.
This will mean the death of QSLing, since Big Boys will have paid
monitors and Little Guys won't have the money or language skills to
answer their reception reports. But if you're not a QSL hog, it will
mean wonderful opportunities for DX, since a lot of the blowtorch
stations that characterized the Cold War will be gone or on the air
under different names and reduced power (think Radio Kiev, which is now
Ukraine Radio International and is hard to hear, or Radio Tirana, which
used to be infamous for its bizarre rants but is now almost inaudible)
opening up opportunities to hear signals that during the Cold War were
blanked by the blowtorches. I've never sent for a QSL in my life, so I'm
not concerned about reception reports, but I'll be listening for the
small Sam Neua station in Laos that Passport talked about in the 2005
edition as long as their transmitter doesn't burn the station down. Most
of the world's population can't afford internet access or satellite
radio and will not be able to in the foreseeable future. A lot of those
people live outside the range of existing AM and FM stations. So
shortwave radio will be around for a while, just not in the form that it
was during the Cold War.


Interesting. I agree with much of this, but I think there will be more
major broadcasters. I wasn't at all surprised when the Swiss pulled
out because of the nature of their programming. My sense was that
their programs were designed to prop up their tourism industry and, if
so, that's something they can do more efficiently via the internet.
However, if a country, group or institution has a real message to get
out, I don't think the internet, all by itself, is enough. In other
words, I don't think they'll be content to put up a website and wait
for people to stumble across it. They'll want to take a more proactive
approach to securing an international audience. Satellite radio is a
possibility, but so is shortwave, depending on the nature of the
audience they hope to reach.

But maybe I'm missing something. I'm not used to being the 'optimist'
in connection with any issue, but I appear to be just that where the
future of shortwave is concerned.

Steve