[HBR] Whither SWL'ing...?

[Tim Shoppa]

VE3CUI writes:
> What a change for the worse the past 38 years have ushered-in! 

> The lack of the "used-to-be" omni-present former big powerhouse
> stations like HCJB, Radio Deutche-Welle, the BBC, and Radio
> Canada --- and their informative broadcasts --- is bad enough,
> but it's the quality of stuff from the U.S.A. that is most shocking:
> nine out of ten U.S.-based SW BC'ers seem to be dominated by
> religious themes...and those that aren't are heavily into radical,
> extremist political rants that shock and amaze even me with
> their blatant content...

> Whatever happened to the steadying, re-assuring transmissions
> from The Voice of America...? It is sadly missed!

VOA, BBC, Deutsche-Welle, etc. are all still there but they are targeting
their broadcasts more towards the third world - where Shortwave is
still the primary means of the masses to hear the world - and less
towards North America and Europe where the internet has taken hold.

The broadcasts beamed towards Africa, or the middle east, or the far
east are IMHO far more interesting than the stuff that used to be
beamed towards North America. It's only moderately more challenging
to hear them.

What remains on the bands that strikes me as most difference is the
way that China Radio International has become the blowtorch on the bands.
And what's really weird is that they sound like any typical US drive-time
talk show in format.

In terms of the contents of the broadcast, I remember some really
bizarre broadcasts from the 70's on the SW bands. Radio Tirana/Albania
was a real hoot back then with its extremist Marxist/Leninist propoganda
going all hours, a trip into a kind of alternate reality (at least
as seen from the perspective of a kid in the US!). Now the only way
to hear something similarly bizarre is to find a Pacifica Radio station :-).

As a ham, I think things have improved a lot over the years. 40M has been
less and less polluted as European SW broadcasters either tone down or point
in different directions, with a big relief coming up at the end of this
month. The woodpecker is long, long gone, too.

Tim N3QE