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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 a great deal of money on getting its message to you. Add in the utilities, the marine, aero and tactical, the number stations and everything else we hear between the broadcast bands and I reckon 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, 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. And it is with all credit to them that we honour The Classics here, although the trade press prefers to let the history go even if it is the best teacher.

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 web, 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 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?

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...

News As It Happens

"Nation shall speak peace unto nation" So it says in the entrance hall to Bush House, or it used to. Fair enough, but as you tune around the short-wave bands you will hear different cultures, sometimes radically different ideologies all stating their case - very firmly and very loudly. They all think that they are right and that we should agree and support them, just as we think we are right. And never the twain shall agree - at least not in our lifetime.

The only way to deal with the wealth of propaganda available to you is to adopt the attitude of the gold prospector sitting on the bank of the river panning for nuggets. Nobody can tell him how much silt he will have to sift through, nobody can say how long he will have to be there or if he will come away with new-found riches, or what wealth he may have missed in the passing current. All he can do is place a value on what little he finds. Sift through the propaganda, set what you hear against you own values, and you still may not like it.

By tuning in to the politically sensitive areas of the world, you can get the news first hand, biased by that country's ideology. Tune into the other side's radio and you will hear another view biased by a different ideology. Strike a balance and you have a working base for your own newsgathering - coloured only by your values which are, of course, correct. Remove the bias if you can and you have hit upon the work of radio monitoring stations like BBC Caversham near Reading.

All the main stations listed in the Guide carry news on the hour. Take time out to listen, the order of the main stories, the wording of the copy, the placing of stresses by the newsreader and you will beat any newspaper or TV bulletin for speed of reporting. And you will know how to feel about it long before the local networks have added their own brand of sensationalism to sell the advertising time in the middle break.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions without political interference and to seek, receive and impart ideas through any media regardless of frontiers".

Taken a different way and this statement gives carte blanche to all kinds of radio piracy. Every major country will have some form of broadcasting system, financed by the State by grant-in-aid, by licence or subscription fee. By virtue of this it may strive to be impartial, but to some it will always be the Voice of the Establishment and therefore something to rebel against. If the State Radio has a political stance, people will be quite prepared to go against the law to air the opposing view. Prosecution is only an occupational hazard. To find a pirate station, listen for countries where the latest news stories are breaking. Somebody there will have always had other ideas.

Radio is always the media for breaking news but by the time it makes it to print, career journalists and house style will have shifted the agenda. To see how far, check the press...