Is Shortwave Listening For Me?

If, for some unaccountable reason, you decide to read these notes in one sitting and it takes you day to do it, the world will have spent $7,000,000 on getting its message to you. That's only transmission costs for broadcasting stations. Add to that production costs, salaries, all the other usual commercial overheads and you can safely double it. Add in the utilities, the marine, aero and tactical, the number stations and everything else we hear between the broadcast bands and I reckon, speaking very generally, that the world's HF operations don't get much change out of $37M a day. If there is that level of investment in sending the stuff, we owe it to ourselves to listen to it. Or at least some of it...

As we support the drive toward a better class of receiver, we will reiterate that money has to be parted with in the hope of good performance. The writer's pedigree takes him back to The Classic Collins and the world renowned AR88D. Those who followed my column in SHORTWAVE MAGAZINE here in Europe will have seen my features showing how getting to grips with these military giants gives you the best push up the radio design learning curve. And it is with all credit to them that we honour The Classics here, although the trade press prefers to let the history go.

The Present

In which we finally decide that the past is another country, it's a jumble out there...

The world of radio communications and international broadcasting is changing daily. Some have already given up on short wave, moving up onto satellite and internet to reach the target country.

They will tell you this is the only future for radio.

Some continue to invest in short-wave, changing frequencies to make the best of changing conditions for radio over the 11 year sunspot cycle. They know that in under-developed countries the investment in even the simplest of portable radios takes a vast proportion of available income, so to suggest the village elder's cough up for a satellite dish is out of the question. With the rush for web-delivered news and the closure of so many short-wave services to force folk onto The Internet, I wonder about ISP provision in Third World countries. With feeding the population taking a priority, home ownership of a computer is well down on the must-have list...

But they will tell you this is the only future for radio.

Some will continue to invest in AM Radio or medium wave, moving against the rush for FM, WWW, DRM and DAB because these are the only frequencies becoming available for new radio formats.

They will tell you this is the only future for radio.

So what can we expect?

The truth is when it comes to home entertainment, we have been spoiled rotten. We expect digital quality sound from our CD hi-fi, NICAM stereo from our televisions, surround sound in our cars with the value-added luxury of MegaBass and all our favourite radio stations in glorious FM or DAB Stereo. Transmitter processing will have left us with false perceptions of loudness and tonal balance. We can say from the outset that short-wave will not live up to this. Reception will vary from the quality of the worst international phone line right up to what we have come to expect from a pre-recorded cassette - if that is a good example - stopping at all points in between.

It's not all gloomy.

Recent developments in radio design can get the best out of steam wireless. Point-to-point communication channels that once required the constant attention of a radio operator are easy pickings from a favourite armchair, thanks to the receiver designer's commitment to synthesiser and detector design. My generation remembers Tony Hancock and would like to think his outlook is, at last, quite redundant. Or is it?

They say that travel broadens the mind. Now, for about the cost of an airline ticket to somewhere half-decent, a radio can be bought that will take you almost anywhere on the surface of the globe. If you can live without the Air Miles, the world can be your oyster. And radio travel is safer, post 9/11...

A modern receiver can have the capacity to deal with the specialised transmissions used in air traffic control. For a few extra pounds, the world is your whelk.

World travel without the airport delays. If there are any, you'll hear about them first. Armchair travel broadens the behind. (My therapist advises it is best, at this early stage, to let me get these old gags out of my system.)

So, who is listening?

• The broadest range of people imaginable including you. From the new listener who has just heard Moscow for the first time on something marked "SW1" on his ghetto-blaster, to the professional monitor reporting back world events to his government.
• Ex-patriots wanting news from home while reading a four-day old copy of The Daily Mail.
• People on ships, on expeditions or on holiday. World leaders and policy makers wanting to know how the world sees them and how they see the world.
• The armchair traveller who wants to know just a little bit more.
• In oppressed countries where media is strictly controlled, short wave can be the only source of uncorrupted news. It can also be the catalyst that sparks the revolution.
• In India and Africa where one radio serves an entire community.
• A chap who has heard an international station on the WWW.
• And the just plain nosy. If you have ever felt the need to mute the sound on the TV to check up on the unholy row going on next door, then this is the hobby for you...

If you already have a radio, The Guide is designed - if that isn't too grand a term - to be used as the colour supplement to your Instruction Manual. If you are new to the hobby, we hope this Guide will give you a valuable insight into the radio world that lives somewhere between the AM and FM bands on your average ghetto-blaster and if it eventually causes you to call a dealer, all the better. There is a downside to everything - we did say this site is about getting you hooked...