Another good response thanks.

I am currently trying to convince myself that I need to pay nearly a
thousand dollars to buy a WinRadio G313I.

I love surprised and like you all it is fun to hunker down and just
turn the tuner, or push the button to seek stations not knowing what
you will find from day to day.

I love listening to the viewpoints of people from all over the world
because I have traveled a lot and lived in many different countries,
and states. I know for a fact that ALL humans are the same on the
inside.

If you are in a crowded movie theater and someone yells fire, everyone
who understands English is going to run for the door, no matter what
their skin color, or ethnic group, or religion. So I don't believe
most of what America has to say about countries we call "Foreign" So I
like listening to ChannelAfrica four or five hours a day to hear what
they are doing. China is interesting, and so it Belgium, and the
Netherlands.

The problem is I can't get Channel Africa on my shortwave here in the
Midwest of the USA. At that point, I turn to their home page on the
Internet which I am listening to right now. I can hear African news as
explained by an African; not an American, or an African lackey. Also
during the daytime I receive very little of anything other than these
Short wave preachers and other hate groups spewing out their garbage
all day.

So I use the Internet during the day. I can listen to Radio New
Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, and many other places clear as
a bell all day long in many cases.

It is very hard for me to think about spending so much money for a PC
radio when I can hear everything perfectly on Webcast.

So I am happy that I have both options available. I don't know much
about satellite yet. I haven't signed up for any of those satellite
radio services like sirus, or what its name.

When I drive across country, I prefer to listen to the small local AM
and FM stations in the areas that I'm driving through instead of
listening to Rush Limbaugh, or Howard Stern for two thousand miles.

Peace

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 20:59:54 GMT, "G.T. Tyson"
wrote:



I think the reason why many international broadcasters are phasing out
their shortwave services is because they are catching on to the fact
that very few members of the public, aside from radio hobbyists, are
listening. It simply doesn't make financial sense for the governments
of these countries to continue pumping mega-money into these facilities
just so a radio hobbyist overseas can add another entry into their
logbooks. Most DX'ers could care less about the actual program content.
For them the fun is in capturing an elusive signal.
I realize there are still many places in the world that rely on SW due
to remote locations, local regulations, etc. Those places are the ones
the government SW broadcasters should focus on. In most urban areas in
most countries, local FM dominates the listening habits of the general
public. Here in the USA, in my neck of the woods, hardly anyone
listens to MW/AM any more. I remember a friend of mine being absolutely
astounded that my car radio could pick up WCBS-AM 880 in NYC. She
thought I had some kind of special supercharged radio. I would have
shown her how to get the BBC and really impressed her if I'd had my
shortwave reciever with me. But the BBC World Service is available on
local FM here, in stereo with no atmospheric interference, so why bother?
Like it or not, international shortwave broadcasting is slowly going
the way of the LP vinyl record. It is much more cost-effective to beam
programming overseas via satellite then rebroadcast it on local FM.
As broadband internet becomes more widely deployed, look for it to
become another similar medium.
Before you get out your flamethrowers, I want to state for the record
that I am an SW listener and I much prefer to use radios that glow in
the dark and get warm. But unfortunately we are in the minority there.
Watch for more international megawatt broadcasters to shut down as
this trend continues.

GTTyson