I get asked this question quite frequently. People tell me that I can listen to any station in the world online. That's not true, there are many stations that are not online. And what if the Internet fails one day? It takes a lot of energy and technology to run the Internet that might not be around in the future. Who knows.
I do listen to radio on the Internet but I enjoy being able to turn the tuning knob and happen upon a programme by accident. You can't do that online, you have to know what you are looking and then type in an address. There is excitement from finding something new online.
There is a lot more going on in shortwave. You can listen in as radio hams talk about everyday things, something you can't do online unless you are invited into an online chat. You can listen to the strange world of espionage through number stations and listen to their lists of numbers and call-signs. There are people sending fax and teletype messages. Diplomats sending encrypted messages. Weather stations sending reports. You can practice learning a new language. Many stations have language lessons. There is a lot going on in the shortwave and it is a joy to happen upon it during an evening.
Shortwave equipment is a lot more approachable, a lot more simple and a lot cheaper than computing equipment. You are reliant on yourself and can make a lot of equipment yourself. With a computer you are dependent on others to connect you to the Internet. In many countries, governments restrict access to the Internet but can't jam every of shortwave band.
In areas of the world where computers and the Internet have not reached you can be sure there is a shortwave radio. There will be a need for shortwave for many years to come.
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3 comments:
I'm interested. How can you listen to shortwave radio? Do you need a special radio? What kinds of stations do you pick up?
Your blog is interesting!
You need to look for a radio with SW on the band selector and not FM, MW or LW as is common on most radios.
I direct you to this post about equipment http://shortwave-listener.blogspot.com/2008/05/shortwave-listening-equipment.html
eBay has many SW radios for sale. I have the Grundig Satellit 500 which cost me $150.
There are modern radios made by Eton which are good. The E1 and E5 being the better ones.
Make sure you get one with a digital tuner and full coverage from 1800 KHz to 30,000 KHz.
The best time to listen is at night when the sun goes down. I will post about that at a later date.
Here in the UK I have listened to radio stations in South America, Europe, US, Africa and Asia.
There are a lot of English language stations and I practice my Spanish on the Latin American and Spanish stations.
Programmes are varied from music, to chat, to current affairs and culture.
Thank you for that information! I will look into SW radios. I used to be a disc jockey at a few small radio stations, years ago. It was so much fun!
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