Michael Black wrote:


craigm ) writes:
Peter Maus wrote:


The exit of manufacturers from SW has to do with shrinking customer
base for SW hardware. SW is declining in use, people are exiting the
hobby for, among other things, satellite radio and internet listening,
so there are fewer sets being purchased.

SW may not be declining in use (or it may be). Degen and Tecsun seem to
have found enough of a market for them to produce several new portable
radios. Granted, these are near the low end of the market.

The problem comes with the supply and demand for higher end receivers.
Much of the worldwide listening audience may not be able to afford
several hundred dollars for a tabletop receiver. The big market for
these receivers may be the US and Europe.

There's always been this split. Hobby types who are more interested
in the where rather than the content, and who not only may be interested
in great equipment, but that equipment can be an end as much as a means.

Then you have the people who are only interested in the content. They
emigrated from another country and want to hear news from home, or have an
interest in world affairs. The radio is only a means to that end.

The former group seems to be shrinking. Passport has said that most SW
listeners listen to just a handful of favorite stations.

I'm not sure how the latter group was served decades ago, though there
were all those multiband portables you could buy at the neighborhood store.
The Big Name shortwave manufacturers were sold in relatively isolated spots,
ie ham stores, and while you could get cheap ones the good ones cost
a pretty penny.

Well, back in the 1930s, a six tube table radio (portables were rare
because of the tremendous power demand of the tubes, requiring 90 volt
batteries in some cases) that cost a modest amount usually had a SW
band, usually 3-12 Mc (cycles back then) or something similar. The
cheapest radios only had mediumwave AM, usually called BC, but the next
step up in price range usually had a SW band. Console radios, which were
big, 5 foot high radios with over 10 tubes that sat on the floor and
which were practically furniture, usually had several SW bands, covering
from 1700-1800 or so kc to 25-30 or so Mc. Shortwave listening was quite
popular during World War 2, and sophisticated propaganda stations were
operated by both sides. Even in Nazi Germany console radios usually had
a couple SW bands from what I understand. The kicker is, few Germans
could afford them.

When transistors came on the scene the familiar multiband portables were
built, including the Transoceanic, the World Monitor, and the Japanese
brands. They were heavy, had poor dial calibration, and had other
technical issues, but it didn't take much to tune in the blowtorch
stations operated by the Communists, and that was the main attraction.
Nobody ever admitted to listening to Radio Moscow of course, but it did
have listeners in the West, usually interested in the amusement factor
and the chance to hear the Cold War being fought live over the air.
During this period the big name SW radios were mostly for hams.


Nowadays, as you point out, there are quite a few shortwave receivers
available, and available all over the place. I suspect they tend to
be better than the cheap receivers of years gone by. At the very least,
they are easier to use. None of that calibration where there is a mark
every 500KHz (well, it's sort of closer to the 9 than the 9.5); you get
digital readout so you know you are tuned the the right frequency. One might
argue that digital tuning, plus availability, has meant more people tune
into shortwave, or at lest buy such receivers in order to tune in (though
perhaps they don't stick with it after the initial tuning).

Compared with the big multiband portables of the 60s, today's radios are
well built, incredibly accurate, and have more features. They're also
smaller and lighter-not to mention cheaper. A TO cost several hundred
dollars, a pretty penny back then. Today's Degens and Tecsuns can be had
for $50 over Ebay, and a Degen 1102 is better in almost every way than
the TO.

Of course it's a loss if the relative high end receivers disappear. But
they cater to a relatively small market, ie those who can afford such
receivers and those who actually want them. Maybe there is a decline
in those numbers, so there is no longer enough of a market. But it
could also mean that the receivers have priced themselves out of the market,
that they can't be manufactured for the limited numbers at a price that
will bring in enough buyers. For that matter, the available of decent
receivers from Sony and Grundig may impact on those expensive receivers.
If once upon a time one could buy an S-38 or an HRO, the performance level
is pretty black and white. But if you can get a fairly decent receiver
for $300, like a Yaught Boy 400 or the Sony 7600, it may be good enough
for far more people than that S-38. And that may cut into the pool
of buyers for the R-75 or the Drake.

I really think that the market for tabletops is saturated. There's
simply no more demand for them. In a world where a $50 radio will easily
pull in the 4 or 5 stations you listen to regularly, there's little need
for a $1800 radio whose main attraction is its ability to ferret out
weak signals, a vocation 95% of SW listeners simply aren't interested
in. The few who are interested in DXing have a deep pool of used
tabletops to choose from. The rest have cheap, well built Chinese
portables to buy, and for them, that's all they really need. Tastes
change, technology marches on, and the old becomes obsolete. Tabletops
are, for the most part, obsolete.


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