Let's not forget that there are countries with strict control over internet. By having acces to a radio, you can still hear the opposition, have an other aspect on truth. By internet, you are limited to what these countries allow you to access. ie... only their propaganda. Long live radio!
Untrue. People have been using VPNs for a decade to circumvent futile attempts to limit internet access. Furthermore, shortwave radio is becoming more and more a propaganda network itself. Lots of religious propaganda and bizarre numbers of chinese and arab radio stations. Always been like that to a degree.
Amen Matt. Here in the UK it's all about moving radio onto online. It will be interesting to see what happens to the broadcasting spectrum that is being vacated. Shortwave broadcasting enables one to hear news and views that your Government may not like and cannot block.
Matt I totally agree with you, and younger generations don’t seem to care. Like the song “Big Yellow Taxi” refers “They paved Paradise and put up a parking LoT”…on urban development we need a radio song for this happening . 73! Have a great day!
unfortunately, the trend is going the wrong way, day by day important broadcasting radio stations closing down it is very painful for us because we love our hf receivers....
Here in Romania SW, MW and LW stations are all state owned and heavily subsidized by the state. The state keeps them on for the rural areas where the VHF FM stations from the big cities do not reach. And to some extent for the big Romanian diaspora and the listeners from other countries. We do not have DAB, so the (private) FM stations are doing quite well. The local station I'm mostly listening to, EBS Radio has recently expanded from Cluj-Napoca and Dej to three other cities: Sighisoara, Alba-Iulia and Brasov. Myself, I tend to listen mostly to the local FM stations for the music and local info and only occasionally switch at night to MW where I can get Greek stations (including pirates 😀) with lovely Greek music, Spanish stations, some North African stations and of course all neighbours (Hungary, Bulgaria, even Czech and Slovenia). There are big differences between countries regarding broadcast radio coming from local conditions and also historical reasons I guess.
Romanian stations on MW and the LW 153 kHz are received here. The Greek pirates also come through here at times. In Finland there is just 2 very low power MW stations with one only transmitting on occasions, everything has gone FM and DAB.
addicted to radio since i was 9.. RTE 1 (eire) closed its longwave service 252 khz you can now hear the algerian station quite well now even in the day time! RTE does not even broadcast on DAB .. online only or through satellite. this is a national station..
radio : internet :: cash: CBDC radio: internet :: homestead food: corporate GMO food. In other words, it IS indeed all about control. Nothing is as reassuring and soothing as being on Pitcairn, Apo, Easter, Elephant Island and being able to pick up radio signals from non-government beamed propaganda stations from far away. But it will be a struggle for radio to survive. As with any coup, the first thing targeted is communications. Starting to compile a reception list of stations and times I can receive on my JRC.
Nah mate, it's just capitalism doing its thing. The consumer massively prefers media like youtube, and shortwave broadcast simply cannot compete and goes under. The antennas for professional broadcast stations are highly expensive to maintain, and the energy needed for a 100kW world radio transmitter is not trivial. With the exception of some religious nutcases with stations funded by rich church-related organisations, the only things you find on shortwave have almost always been exclusively government funded stations - though with the shutdown of those, there are now a handful of small semi-hobbyist operations like Channel 292 that rent out broadcast time. Either way, failure to compete happened to horses VS cars, happened to real timber VS composite wood products and it's happening to radio too. Mind you, i'm not saying the free market and open competition are resulting in what's best for people here. I think there should be a non-internet based route to propagate information too.
My hope is eventually there'll be a backlash to all this. I genuinely think many people feel the same about the creeping censoring of radio. Slightly off topic. Meshtastic, the open source messaging system is becoming quite popular. It not centrally controlled, and I think people like that.
Matt, is Radio Garden available on the internet in your country? They have a huge variety of stations available. That said, I do agree. Being a SWL since the 60's our listening options have declined considerably.
There is a famous song a bit old now, called "Video Kiilled The Radio Star". Nowadays We'll have to sing : "The Internet Is Killing The Radio Star". Sorry to say.
