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Bring Back Shortwave

spectator.co.uk

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Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#41

Post by kanbankaren »

II2II wrote: post #39
TylerE wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That website is broken. When you drag the dot it says to reload the page for the change to take effect...and then when you do the dot snaps right back to africa.

It works under Firefox. That said, I don't know how reliable the predictions are. My SWR is packed away at the moment.

I used this website to listen to stations just last week. If the signal strength displayed in the right-most column is 3 or 4 bars, I have been able to receive the broadcast most of the time. Of course, it depends on local interference and other conditions too.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#42

Post by jdietrich »

The UK's last remaining shortwave transmitter site has a power output of nearly 3 megawatts across ten HF transmitters. For all the romance of shortwave, it's an incredibly inefficient way to serve an ever-shrinking listener base.

I can see the case for analog radio as an emergency communications system in regions with unreliable infrastructure. I can see the case for limited-area shortwave transmissions to serve populations with poor domestic media. I really struggle to see the case for throwing vast amounts of RF in the vague direction of the ionosphere, on the off chance that someone in the Pitcairn Islands wants to hear the cricket scores.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woofferton_transmitting_stat...

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#43

Post by bongodongobob »

jdietrich wrote: post #42

The UK's last remaining shortwave transmitter site has a power output of nearly 3 megawatts across ten HF transmitters. For all the romance of shortwave, it's an incredibly inefficient way to serve an ever-shrinking listener base. I can see the case for analog radio as an emergency communications system in regions with unreliable infrastructure. I can see the case for limited-area shortwave transmissions to serve pop…

It's extremely efficient and doesn't harm anything else. What would you replace it with?

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#44

Post by jdietrich »

bongodongobob wrote: post #43
jdietrich wrote: post #42

The UK's last remaining shortwave transmitter site has a power output of nearly 3 megawatts across ten HF transmitters. For all the romance of shortwave, it's an incredibly inefficient way to serve an ever-shrinking listener base. I can see the case for analog radio as an emergency communications system in regions with unreliable infrastructure. I can see the case for limited-area shortwave transmissions to serve pop…

It's extremely efficient and doesn't harm anything else. What would you replace it with?

Any or all of the technologies that people actually use. Like it or not, the number of active shortwave listeners is tiny, even in poor and remote parts of the world. Voice of America and the BBC World Service are the strongest possible case for shortwave, but even they have been scaling back their shortwave operations because most of their listeners prefer local AM/FM transmissions or streaming. Whatever the benefits of shortwave might be, they're entirely hypothetical for the vast majority who have no interest in buying a relatively esoteric receiver, stringing up a longwire and chasing a carrier across the bands.

I still occasionally operate on top band with a straight key, but even I have to accept that shortwave is now almost entirely irrelevant and rapidly headed towards extinction.

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/guest-commentar...

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#45

Post by II2II »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #28

> Britain and most western countries have put all their eggs in one large basket: that of digital communications. In a time of global conflict, this could be a risky and painful prospect. There's a scene in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) where a man (Jewish) is listening to the events of WWII play-out over shortwave. He is living at the moment in relative safety but he understands from what he hears that cha…

There is a difference between being prepared and being a prepper. Having the means to receive outside information is being prepared. Listening to it day and night because you think your government is out to get you is being a prepper.[1]

[1] Unfortunately, many exceptions apply.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#46

Post by toast0 »

II2II wrote: post #45
JKCalhoun wrote: post #28

> Britain and most western countries have put all their eggs in one large basket: that of digital communications. In a time of global conflict, this could be a risky and painful prospect. There's a scene in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) where a man (Jewish) is listening to the events of WWII play-out over shortwave. He is living at the moment in relative safety but he understands from what he hears that cha…

There is a difference between being prepared and being a prepper. Having the means to receive outside information is being prepared. Listening to it day and night because you think your government is out to get you is being a prepper.[1] [1] Unfortunately, many exceptions apply.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. :p

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#47

Post by ggm »

frrlpp wrote: post #38
ggm wrote: post #31

I used to get the woodpecker, and some very ominous semi-continuous monotonous hums in human hearing ranges with occasional tweedle. And the lincolnshire poacher. Or, something very like it. This was 70s Edinburgh, with a long-line antenna strung from my window to a tree about 50m away. I tried to make a dipole out of it, not sure it really worked. The radio was WW2 bomber surplus store, about 15U high and probably s…

Wow, that would be a National HRO receiver. Quite capable radio.

I think it was a variant of what in the UK is called R1155E RAF Receiver 10D/1332

If not exactly that model, very similar.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#48

Post by cbarrick »

don-code wrote: post #35
jen729w wrote: post #25

In the early 2000s I was lucky enough to travel the world for work. I was a football nut and always carried a Sony radio so I could pick up the BBC World Service. I vividly remember turning it on late in a Sunderland vs. Newcastle match. I was in central Bogota, Colombia. Struggling for reception, knowing we'd gone 1-0 down early in the match, I can still hear the commentator: "and who would have thought, after going…

While admittedly not at all the same, there was a certain romance shared by all listeners of a Boston-local FM radio station, WFNX. Whereas many commercial radio stations broadcast with tens of thousands of watts, FNX made do with a Class A broadcast license, limiting them to around 3000 watts of power. This made picking up the station a challenge for all but the closest listeners. My particular romance was taking a…

In college, I would listen to WPPP in Athens, GA (100 watts). These days I listen to WPTS in Pittsburgh, PA (16 watts).

Low power college radio is great! The broadcasts are always so varied, and there's never any commercials.

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#49

Post by lutusp »

More astonishing than knowing what HF radio can do, is to notice how empty the HF bands are compared to past decades.

During my around-the-world solo sail (1988-1991) (https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/), I relied on two-way HF radio for many things no longer present, including open-water phone calls. But that absence represents a choice, not a necessity. Here's an easy receiver project: "Create Your Own Open-Source Software-Defined Radio" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXNgPYVpTng).

Receiving is cheap and easy. To transmit on these bands, you must get a Ham license. But that's easier than it was -- Morse code is no longer required.

I can remember what I thought when I first heard about the Internet -- that it would make Ham radio look slow and stupid by comparison. I was never so wrong about anything in my life (not for a lack of eager candidates).

Re: Bring Back Shortwave

#50

Post by lutusp »

sneak wrote: post #4
euroderf wrote: post #3

Having a shortwave (with a decent antenna) is fun. You twiddle the dial and find all kinds of goodies. Pretty soon you'll be scouring teh interwebz for programming schedules.

I have never been able to pick up anything on my SW radio with its integrated antenna. What am I doing wrong?

> I have never been able to pick up anything on my SW radio with its integrated antenna. What am I doing wrong?

If the radio and its antenna are indoors, that's the problem. As a test, take the radio outdoors to an open area. You should see a big improvement.

To make that change permanent, install an outdoor long-wire antenna that runs inside and connects to the radio. The wire can be invisibly thin and still do the job. Your neighbors don't need to know about your retro pastime.

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