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BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

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Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#61

Post by asdefghyk »

Animats wrote: post #53
mariojv wrote: post #10

What is the best type of radio, or best type of radios, to have in the event of a protracted, possibly nuclear conflict? Ready.gov suggests a hand crank or NOAA weather radio. Specifically, I suppose some good goals would be: 1. Receive instructions from any functioning local or state government. This would require that the local government know which type of radio the populace is likely to be listening on, which giv…

Most likely AM radio. The range is thousands of miles at night, and most cars still have an AM receiver.

Correct about AM radio . FM radio, mention previously in other comments is only short range.

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#62

Post by anon2020dot00 »

watwut wrote: post #48
anon2020dot00 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who cry whataboutism are the ones extinguishing critical thought. No one can think or compare or draw analogies anymore. Analogy: Definition, a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects. "works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature" Anytime anyone brings-up Western aggression, people cry whataboutism and so the topic cannot be discussed anymore. It's fine for people to sa…

> Anytime anyone brings-up Western aggression, people cry whataboutism and so the topic cannot be discussed anymore This is literally lie. There are both discussions and articles about Iraq, Afganistan and what have you all the time. Especially here in HN. Hey, why do you dare to talk about Iraque when you did not stopped Balkan conflicts, you never attempted to help Tibet or stop genocide going on in Chine, so no ta…

Here is an even better example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30548787

Razengan

"Not resorting to Whataboutism, but try to see how the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan (two in a row, and the subsequent occupation for 20 years no less!) by the US was seen as “just” by all the nations now condemning Russia. Take a look at maps of NATO expansion:

https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t37zf4/countries_j...

If America was concerned about Russian nukes in Cuba, shouldn’t Russia be concerned about an alliance encroaching up to their literal border?"

selfhoster11

"This is basically whataboutism. I don't consider myself well informed enough on any Middle Eastern conflicts, but if I found anything objectionable there, I'm happy to call out both the US and Russia on their BS. BTW, "NATO expansion" was there for a reason, and you don't get to claim that the new members didn't want to join of their own initiative. Every post-communist country that wants to keep their self-determination is worried about falling back into being Russian puppets once more."

Razengan raises the perfectly valid point of how come invasion of Iraq and Afganistan was not met by any outcry or sanctions by those countries who supposedly value countries sovereign rights?

selfhoster11 instantly replies with "whataboutism" and so kills the discussion that way.

Question: how is asking about what makes the Ukraine invasion different from the Iraq invasion, whataboutism?

Answer: It's not whatboutism.

People just throw blindly throw whatboutism when there is any discussion about other countries even when there is zero whatboutism. In this example, selfhoster11 doesn't even bother to come-up with any explanation on the differences between Iraq and Ukraine and just cites "whataboutism" like it's a magic word.

Russia would be committing Whatboutism if they just said since USA got to invade Iraq and Afganistan and violated those countries rights', we should be able to do the same to Ukraine. Basically, USA committed a wrong and so we get to do the same as well.

But that's not what Russia is saying, what Russia is saying that there is such a thing as justified aggression versus a threat; USA's justification for the Iraq invasion was Iraq having WMDs. Russia's justification is threat of Nato Expansion and the interesting discussion would be if that justification is valid or not. But no, most discussions just cry "whatboutism" and all discussion ends there.

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#63

Post by digitalsankhara »

Nux wrote: post #55
digitalsankhara wrote: post #39

The BBC has been broadcasting on shortwave for decades - BBC World Service. The, somewhat hyperbolic, article implies this is somehow new and "WWII era". Many counties around the world still use shortwave for various reasons - unofficial propaganda being one of them. The BBC World Service itself is and has been funded by the British government to promote its interests abroad.[1] The content is usually cultural in con…

BBC stopped shortwave broadcasts to Europe in 2008 alas, glad to see it brought back. Very glad. Was tired only hearing Radio Romania International and China Radio International.. :)

Ha! Indeed, I'm listening to CRI as I type this!

When you say stopped broadcasts to Europe do you mean programming content rather than frequencies used? I hope there is more will to expand these BBC services permanently.

Long time before I got into computers as a career I was a sound recording engineer. I had a brief time at Nottingham University's languages department recording off-air shortwave broadcasts from racks of Eddystone receivers onto 1/4" Levers Rich tape machines. Comparing the diversity of broadcasts then to now is quite startling.

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#64

Post by digitalsankhara »

noneeeed wrote: post #60
digitalsankhara wrote: post #39

The BBC has been broadcasting on shortwave for decades - BBC World Service. The, somewhat hyperbolic, article implies this is somehow new and "WWII era". Many counties around the world still use shortwave for various reasons - unofficial propaganda being one of them. The BBC World Service itself is and has been funded by the British government to promote its interests abroad.[1] The content is usually cultural in con…

One of the cuts to BBC funding that Cameron introduced was for the World Service. They removed main funding from the Foreign Office, it is now funded from the BBCs general budget. I hadn't realised that they had been topping it up with additional funding from the FO.

Either did I until writing my post! Perhaps they are having second thoughts.

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#65

Post by jayflux »

The BBC do the same thing for North Korea. They have been doing this sort of thing for quite some time. The article makes it sound like it’s the first time they needed to do it since WW2 times.

https://www.38north.org/2017/09/mwilliams092617/

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#66

Post by [deleted] »

dillondoyle wrote: post #46
teraflop wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, in the US it is technically illegal to transmit with a Baofeng radio in any way without a license. Even if you program it to only use the FRS/GMRS frequencies, it is not properly FCC certified as a device that is legal for use on those bands by an unlicensed operator. (For one thing, it may exceed the legal output power limit.) With an amateur license you can use pretty much whatever equipment you want, includ…

thanks for the info. Yeah it's not like I have anyone to talk to lol I don't plan on chatting up a storm. I figured it is better than the crappy plastic hand crank radio thing I have and to me this is pretty long tail risk likely never be in that much of a bad situation. Plus ham is interesting to me so who knows maybe in the future worth investing the time.

[deleted]

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#68

Post by CraigJPerry »

“DX”ing is a niche radio hobby, I’ve definitely fallen into it from time to time. The aim is to hear geographically distant stations - so it’s all about radio propagation throughout the day and that differs seasonally too.

These days you can cheat, there are directories of SDR radios available for free online - in a couple of clicks you can explore the RF spectrum as heard from most populated locations in the world.

If you want to play “old school” there’s a few radios are prized, i have a Sony ICF2001D which is a circa 90s radio and expensive today because of its reputation. The US manufacturer C.Crane is a common name on the list of top performing sets and they’re much cheaper.

There’s an annual catalogue of broadcast stations published, the WRTH - World Radio & TV Handbook.

Propagation behaviours of different frequencies throughout the day is definitely one of the most interesting parts for me.

One thing I’ve learned from scanning the bands over the years is that there’s a LOT of chinese sponsored English language content.

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#69

Post by jillesvangurp »

mariojv wrote: post #10

What is the best type of radio, or best type of radios, to have in the event of a protracted, possibly nuclear conflict? Ready.gov suggests a hand crank or NOAA weather radio. Specifically, I suppose some good goals would be: 1. Receive instructions from any functioning local or state government. This would require that the local government know which type of radio the populace is likely to be listening on, which giv…

The modern tools to have would be phones equipped with mesh networking and some solar powered chargers. There are a few nice things on the market for this that will charge your phone with just sunlight.

Some phones also used to have radios built in; I recall Nokia had a few models with radios built in. Some might still have that. Otherwise, building radios from parts is not that hard and used to be a rite of passage for kids interested in tinkering with electronics. I remember playing with a kit when I was about 9 or 10.

It would be interesting to learn what people on the ground in the Ukraine are doing that works.

Re: BBC resurrects shortwave broadcasts as Russia blocks news of Ukraine invasion

#70

Post by IMSAI8080 »

avh02 wrote: post #51
laurent92 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Europe also bans media they don’t like, namely RT News and Sputnik, along with severe guidance on content with regular threats of fines or deplatforming, coming from governments such as CSA in France. Censorship has absolutely a role in democracy.

I think the difference is that western media generally can and do publish at least some critical pieces. The same can't be said in Russia right now. It's a whole different level.

Exactly. Just before the war kicked off, the BBC was doing nothing but hammering the UK prime minister on various matters. How many Putin critical articles did RT or Sputnik news post?
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