[HN Gopher] Bring Back Shortwave
___________________________________________________________________
Bring Back Shortwave
Author : austinallegro
Score : 162 points
Date : 2025-03-07 12:16 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.spectator.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.spectator.co.uk)
| austinallegro wrote:
| https://archive.is/a5lqU
| euroderf wrote:
| Having a shortwave (with a decent antenna) is fun. You twiddle
| the dial and find all kinds of goodies. Pretty soon you'll be
| scouring teh interwebz for programming schedules.
| sneak wrote:
| I have never been able to pick up anything on my SW radio with
| its integrated antenna.
|
| What am I doing wrong?
| the-grump wrote:
| It helps to be high up and to have an unobstructed view.
|
| An antenna extension
| (https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/sgn-ant-60) would help.
|
| Even better would be an active antenna. I have only heard
| great things about the MLA30+ though I don't own one myself.
|
| WWCR (4840) has always been the easiest broadcast for me to
| pick up in the US.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Height isn't going to make any real difference for
| shortwave reception unless you're seriously high up and
| putting up a very efficient antenna like a dipole. At that
| point it's kind of moot, as you don't need an efficient
| antenna anyways to receive shortwave.
| euroderf wrote:
| I've read (but not tried) that what works is a verrry
| loooong wire strung up like between trees or in a barn.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| It's not a bad choice, but the tiny tecsun radio I have
| has a telescopic antenna that is about 3 ft long when
| extended. It receives shortwave very well.
|
| If there is some distant broadcast (maybe overseas) that
| you want to receive you can definitely build a very
| efficient antenna system for that broadcaster's
| frequency. Be prepared to shell out well over $10,000 for
| this.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| What kind of equipement one would need for that ?
|
| Also interested in what kind of equipment broadcasters
| use - it's some off the shelf stuff ?
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| For reception, a tower with a 3 element Yagi antenna with
| a rotator so you can point it in exactly the right
| direction.
|
| Although I think you can do it cheaper - people have had
| a lot of success with a Beverage antenna. It takes up a
| lot of space though!
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| This explains the process -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dUaMXxWYao
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Regarding simply stringing long wire, if you have a huge,
| flat land area and don't mind overhead wires, erect a
| rhombic antenna on dedicated poles for extremely high
| gain but with a few downsides worth reading about, such
| as the sheer size needed for shortwave. Don't string
| wires between trees as they are guaranteed to snap in the
| wind.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhombic_antenna
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| To my knowledge there is basically one person doing non-
| commercial work with rhombics in north america:
| https://www.k0uo.com/
|
| The same guy also owns an airport from what I recall.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| At some overseas US military bases they have a huge dual
| rhomboid for HAM / MARS.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| I tried that with my buddy's shortwave while on guard
| duty in Iraq and fried the thing due to atmospheric
| electrostatic energy discharge (or it's actual scientific
| name), needless to say he was less than happy with me.
| First clue probably should have been the visible sparks
| coming off the antenna wire. Second clue should have been
| I was sitting in a truck insulated from the ground. Yep,
| he definitely should have known better.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| its more likely that the wire coupled in a very large
| amount of RF power from a transmitter that was at the
| base, damaging the unit. I obviously don't know your
| units deployment equipment, but the transmitter at the
| base is often greater than 100 watts of output
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Could be, I always just assumed it was from the high
| prevalence of static electricity in the desert. When I
| lived in Phoenix I would _always_ touch the back of my
| hand to anything metal (like doorknobs) before touching
| it with my fingers because I 've been shocked way too
| many times.
| tinix wrote:
| as a ham, I highly recommend K9AY receiving loop antenna.
| you can find instructions online. it's a loop antenna
| design that's steerable via DPDT switch and has
| directional noise rejection. it also takes up less space
| horizontally than an efhw.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Correct about altitude... it is a common misconception
| that height always improves reception, because it doesn't
| take into account that radio waves propagate in vastly
| different ways according to their frequency and
| wavelength. Thankfully there are organizations like the
| IRAU and ARLL that have vast amounts of info on what does
| and doesn't work in a wide variety of locations, bands,
| and altitudes:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amateur_radio_organ
| iza...
| the-grump wrote:
| It helps as far as avoiding obstructions is concerned. I
| can barely pick up anything in my porch. On my ceiling
| it's many times better.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Unless the obstruction is a faraday cage it is not going
| to matter in the least bit for shortwave.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| The MLA30+ is ok if you throw away the crappy bias tee
| power injector that comes with it and replace the coax with
| something a little more durable.
|
| There's other gear like the cross country wireless loops
| that aren't much more expensive that perform much better,
| at least in my experience.
| lormayna wrote:
| A Youloop antenna is good too and no issue with the power
| injector.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Check for noise sources (tube lights, solar equipment) as
| well. A friend had an old thinkpad and the psu brick was so
| noisy, it was blanking out my radio within 6-10 meters...
| lysace wrote:
| Cheap LED light bulbs...
| ChainHacker wrote:
| IIRC Ethernet over the Main Electricity can interfere with
| Shortwave as well.
| lutusp wrote:
| > I have never been able to pick up anything on my SW radio
| with its integrated antenna. What am I doing wrong?
|
| If the radio and its antenna are indoors, that's the problem.
| As a test, take the radio outdoors to an open area. You
| should see a big improvement.
|
| To make that change permanent, install an outdoor long-wire
| antenna that runs inside and connects to the radio. The wire
| can be invisibly thin and still do the job. Your neighbors
| don't need to know about your retro pastime.
| lormayna wrote:
| The easiest antenna for SW listening it's just a long wire in
| an high position, clipped to integrated antenna with
| crocodile connectors. Easy, portable and very effective.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Shortwave is magic, I recently made this [0] receiver and it is
| so much fun (in Europe I received about 10 stations with it on a
| random wire)
|
| [0] https://www.qsl.net/pa2ohh/08regrx.htm
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Those who've had experience with either transmitting or receiving
| on the HF band and or lower frequencies (<=30MHz) and who've
| knowledge of ionospheric propagation _just_ know that short,
| medium and longwave RF bands are still essential in this digital
| /cable/satellite era for reasons that when all other
| communications systems have failed then communications on these
| frequencies will still be reliable.
|
| Moreover, in wartime or during some other major catastrophe when
| technical infrastructure is likely to be impacted or destroyed
| then establishing and maintaining communications services on
| these frequencies is easy for reasons that the technology is low-
| tech and easy to understand--and there's an enormous amount of
| engineering experience to fall back upon (about 100 years'
| worth).
|
| That we even have to raise this discussion is a quintessential
| example of intergenerational information loss.
|
| Given their strategic importance, governments should put priority
| on educating the smartphone/streaming generation that these other
| modes of electronic communication _actually_ exist and that they
| may even have to depend upon them.
|
| I only need to refer to the current debate over retaining AM-band
| reception in car radios to illustrate the paucity of
| understanding. That EV manufacturers are pushing for the removal
| of the AM band in their car radios is proof-positive of how
| little the current breed of electronics engineers knows about
| these frequencies let alone their strategic importance.
| baskinator wrote:
| A ham technician license is pretty easy to obtain in the US,
| and a handheld radio can be had for cheap. HF takes a little
| more hardware though.
| MandieD wrote:
| Bonus: all of the US license exams can be taken online,
| proctored by three volunteers watching you on your laptop and
| second mobile device camera.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And I believe you don't even need a technician license for
| just listening in.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| You do not!
|
| You can get started for as little as $17:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074XPB313
|
| For the other amateur radio operators on the site, the
| UV-5Rs from the main Amazon seller all comply with spurious
| emissions regs - the ones from AliExpress are hit or miss.
| Plus searching YouTube with 'Baofeng UV5R' will turn up a
| ton of material including explaining why people should care
| about the spurious emissions.
| lormayna wrote:
| Just a note: this device is not able to listen shortwaves
| as it's capable to listen only VHF/UHF. If you want to
| listen shortwaves for cheap, you need something like an
| ATS-25 or this:
| https://it.aliexpress.com/item/1005008266218975.html
| chasd00 wrote:
| I have a yaesu ft65 and every now and then turn it on. I
| listen to an automated voice dispatching fire trucks in
| Dallas TX. They're pretty busy as something comes across
| about once a minute. Heh I turned it on while typing this
| and "emergency child birth" just came across. Man, glad I'm
| not dealing with that at 7:30AM Monday morning.
| digitalsankhara wrote:
| You covered all the points I was going to make. As part of the
| pre-internet generation that grew up with radio and a ham radio
| operator since my school years this is second nature and common
| sense to me.
|
| It is interesting that governments have long recognised the
| power of shortwave such that they have restricted what a
| citizen can do with it. In wartime, ham radio is usually made
| illegal. The recipient of a broadcast cannot be detected (save
| some very local factors - meters range) which is why
| governments around the world still use shortwave number
| stations to transmit coded instructions to spies.
|
| I suspect the removal of AM radio in EVs is also because the
| cost to RF shield the car against EM emissions in that
| frequency range was deemed too high for the audience it would
| address, and maybe just lazy or engineering too. Agree, very
| short sighted.
|
| Hell, even the BBC in the UK is closing down local AM
| transmitters on cost grounds (but I suspect there is political
| pressure to move the masses to digital UHF infrastructure).
|
| A medium wave/shortwave transmitter is the ultimate in post
| apocalyptic film memes!
| dalke wrote:
| > such that they have restricted what a citizen can do with
| it
|
| My grandfather, born in Canada and later naturalized as a US
| citizen, got his ham ticket back in the 1960s, but, as he
| wrote: "This was O.K. for one year but to renew & become
| general I would have to obtain more than just a US passport;
| It would be necessary to get a certificate of citizenship.
| This took years and during those years I landed up in the
| Dom. Republic & got my Ham ticket there without it, HI3XRD."
|
| He later moved to Miami. When Hurricane David came through
| the D.R. in 1979, he was one of the ham volunteers who helped
| handle communications from the island.
|
| Oh, and he never got Extra because while he could manage 13
| wpm for General or Advanced, he couldn't manage the 20 wpm
| for Extra.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| > Hell, even the BBC in the UK is closing down local AM
| transmitters on cost grounds (but I suspect there is
| political pressure to move the masses to digital UHF
| infrastructure).
|
| Yeah in a couple of years it'll just be Radio Caroline and
| various small-time pirates on AM. Even the venerable longwave
| transmitter for Radio 4 is getting shut down in a couple of
| months sadly.
|
| Can't help feeling this is all a bit short-sighted, it's not
| like you can do anything else with those bands and if things
| go sideways it's a reliable way to reach a lot of people
| without power. Personally if we can't keep our medium and
| long wave transmitters on economic grounds I think those
| bands should be opened to unlicensed hobbyists, it'd be an
| excellent technical and artistic opportunity that would allow
| for actual broadcasting rather than just two-way
| communication. I doubt there'd be a huge issue with
| interference as few people have the room to put up a 150'
| quarter wave, and if copyrights were a material issue rights
| holders would have gone after public SDRs capturing the
| broadcast bands years ago.
| digitalsankhara wrote:
| Totally agree. Thought about this myself, as a way of
| having true community radio. A simple hobby broadcast
| license of low cost might be pooled to cover copyright
| music only to prevent the types raids of seen on pirate
| stations (leaving aside what politics can be read into that
| enforcement). Maybe that would not be such an issue these
| days, but anyway, there is a lot of Creative Commons
| content out there.
|
| I love listening to the North Sea pirates on medium wave.
| So diverse and ecletic!
| kube-system wrote:
| > ionospheric propagation [...] will still be reliable.
|
| ...for varying definitions of 'reliable' :)
| YarickR2 wrote:
| Yes , please, yes ! Having the world on your fingertips under the
| dial knob (ok, I'll settle for synthesized frequency receiver) is
| a feeling of discovering something not polluted by a countless
| hordes of opinionated ..persons of no interest. Many teenage
| nights spent catching voices from the other side of the planet.
| y33t wrote:
| I love the idea of shortwave but all I ever pick up are Jesus
| channels.
| kanbankaren wrote:
| http://www.short-wave.info/
|
| There are other broadcasts too. You just have to listen during
| certain periods as they mayn't be up all the time. The website
| above allows you to figure out what you can receive at your
| location.
| TylerE wrote:
| That website is broken. When you drag the dot it says to
| reload the page for the change to take effect...and then when
| you do the dot snaps right back to africa.
| II2II wrote:
| It works under Firefox. That said, I don't know how
| reliable the predictions are. My SWR is packed away at the
| moment.
| kanbankaren wrote:
| I used this website to listen to stations just last week.
| If the signal strength displayed in the right-most column
| is 3 or 4 bars, I have been able to receive the broadcast
| most of the time. Of course, it depends on local
| interference and other conditions too.
| AnonymousPlanet wrote:
| I'm in Europe, so it's mostly Chinese propaganda in various
| languages that you pick up on shortwave around here. There's
| exactly one American broadcast you can get here and that is,
| you guessed it, a Jesus channel.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Jesus!
| cloudbonsai wrote:
| It would be funny if a prepper spent $100+ on an emergency
| radio receiver, and took all the trouble to ensure it's
| reliably working. Then, when the apocalypus day finally
| comes, all they can listen to is a jesus channel.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Time to set up more shortwave radio stations then (assuming
| that's allowed etc) with different content.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I don't think the UK is willing to licence any shortwave for
| broadcasting. There's pirates of course but I think Ofcom
| still track down persistent offenders on shortwave.
| criddell wrote:
| I have a shortwave receiver and it is all weird Christian
| stuff.
|
| Even if that were my thing, I probably wouldn't listen because
| it all sounds awful. Is there something about shortwave that
| limits the audio fidelity?
| johnflan wrote:
| How do they finance those radio stations?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Probably the same way a lot of that stuff gets funded, a
| rich true believer or a bunch of less-rich true believers
| donating. I used to live in a town where one of the largest
| landholders was selling off land a few acres at a time. He
| had a couple thousand acres (had been farmland, but the
| city had grown since that time and it was not that
| profitable as a farm) and was able to sell it at something
| like $25-50k/half-acre lot. Neighborhoods went up, he got
| money and funded a lot of missionary activities (primarily
| in Africa, as I understood it). You get someone like that
| to bankroll a radio station, they could probably set up an
| endowment to keep it running for quite a while. The land
| the station uses and towers, if owned by the station, can
| be rented out for more income as well.
| themusicgod1 wrote:
| seems like shortwave can come back if 2 things come back * access
| to electronic components [ie something like radioshack used to be
| being accessible] * local governments stepping back of regulation
| of airwaves a hint
|
| unless you have one or both of those things, shortwave is useful
| only iff the government collapses
| jen729w wrote:
| In the early 2000s I was lucky enough to travel the world for
| work. I was a football nut and always carried a Sony radio so I
| could pick up the BBC World Service.
|
| I vividly remember turning it on late in a Sunderland vs.
| Newcastle match. I was in central Bogota, Colombia. Struggling
| for reception, knowing we'd gone 1-0 down early in the match, I
| can still hear the commentator: "and who would have thought,
| after going one-nil down at St. James' Park, Sunderland would be
| two-one up". I shouted out loud like a lunatic. We won the game.
|
| I've strung wire coat-hangers from windows in Nigeria, Ukraine,
| and Macedonia all trying to improve reception so I could listen
| to a football match.
|
| There's a romance there that internet streaming will never touch.
| don-code wrote:
| While admittedly not at all the same, there was a certain
| romance shared by all listeners of a Boston-local FM radio
| station, WFNX. Whereas many commercial radio stations broadcast
| with tens of thousands of watts, FNX made do with a Class A
| broadcast license, limiting them to around 3000 watts of power.
| This made picking up the station a challenge for all but the
| closest listeners.
|
| My particular romance was taking a pair of TV rabbit ears and
| hanging them out the window by the twin-lead cable, much to my
| mother's chagrin.
| cbarrick wrote:
| In college, I would listen to WPPP in Athens, GA (100 watts).
| These days I listen to WPTS in Pittsburgh, PA (16 watts).
|
| Low power college radio is great! The broadcasts are always
| so varied, and there's never any commercials.
| 42lux wrote:
| Yep, was my gateway to the world as little boy before the
| internet/bbs came around.
| tomwheeler wrote:
| Same for me. Beyond the broadcasts, I'd write the stations
| and they'd reply by sending program guides, newspaper
| clippings, postcards, and other neat things from faraway
| places.
|
| Some of the stations even offered language lessons over the
| air. I learned basic German when I was 12 from the ones on
| Deutsche Welle. I _attempted_ to learn Chinese the following
| year from the big shortwave station in Taiwan.
| energy123 wrote:
| Access to the internet is like when you use cheats in a game
| and it ruins the fun.
| xattt wrote:
| If people had the internet when shortwave was king, they
| would most certainly be using it.
| deshpand wrote:
| Growing up in a somewhat remote part of India, I would tune to
| BBC, Radio Australia to listen to test cricket commentary, on
| short wave. I have fond memories and owe a lot of my personal
| growth to SW.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _There 's a romance there that internet streaming will never
| touch._
|
| Simple broadcast rights for one. It's hard to explain to my
| father why he needs to still pack a handheld radio for the
| beach because he can't listen to the game by streaming the
| local sports station on his phone.
| ricktdotorg wrote:
| shoutout fellow Mackem! not often spotted on HN!
| rawandriddled wrote:
| Whose keys are these keys? ;)
| hot_gril wrote:
| Idk, it was pretty fun when all my friends were huddled around
| a single phone on the subway to watch the World Cup final on
| grandmastreams123321.xyz, with a second tab open on
| soccerplus321123.ru as backup
| rpcope1 wrote:
| Honestly if we could just make the pirates around 6950 a little
| more tacitly legit (I mean it's clear the FCC doesn't care, but a
| little more wink wink nudge nudge might be cool), that would go a
| long way towards a shortwave revival. Some of the most fun
| listening is pirate broadcasts in the shortwave bands. Maybe even
| something like non-commercial ham-esque licenses that also allow
| people to play music?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > Britain and most western countries have put all their eggs in
| one large basket: that of digital communications. In a time of
| global conflict, this could be a risky and painful prospect.
|
| There's a scene in _The Garden of the Finzi-Continis_ (1970)
| where a man (Jewish) is listening to the events of WWII play-out
| over shortwave. He is living at the moment in relative safety but
| he understands from what he hears that change is afoot in his
| country.
|
| At the risk of sounding like a prepper, it was clear to me then
| that having a radio capable of long distance reception was a very
| valuable thing to have around.
| II2II wrote:
| There is a difference between being prepared and being a
| prepper. Having the means to receive outside information is
| being prepared. Listening to it day and night because you think
| your government is out to get you is being a prepper.[1]
|
| [1] Unfortunately, many exceptions apply.
| toast0 wrote:
| Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to
| get you. :p
| jordanb wrote:
| Being a prepper is a consumer activity.
|
| Conversely trying to prepare for things that could occur by,
| for instance, getting first aid training, ham radio license,
| etc. is a communal activity "how could I be an asset to my
| community in times of trouble?" I think it's telling that in
| the cold war the "prepper" activity was putting together
| civil defense groups. In this century it's building a bunker
| full of guns and spinning fantasy about protecting your hoard
| of stuff from the mob.
| blitzar wrote:
| My plan for the apocalypse is to take down a "prepper".
| beng-nl wrote:
| Like how humans' strategy to eat protein is to take down
| vegetarian animals - let them do all the hard work and
| then use the result yourself :-)
| blitzar wrote:
| The zombies might be the apex predators in the
| apocalypse, but I will want to stay as close to the top
| of the food chain as possible.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The Dutch government updated their "prepper" guide the other
| day, basically asking everyone to make sure they'll be
| alright for up to 3 days (was 2) in case of calamities -
| weather events, utility outages, etc. It's pretty standard
| stuff - water (3 liters/day/person), food, radio / powerbank,
| flashlight, candles, first aid kit, blankets, hygienic
| products, etc.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| SDR has started me on the path of exploring the radio spectrum, I
| encourage anyone who is interested in radio who has not tried it
| to get a cheap SDR dongle and give it a spin.
| _def wrote:
| You can even try some websdr servers, it can be really fun,
| even/especially(?) if you don't really know what you are doing
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| That's what got me into amateur radio - with your SDR you can
| receive signals from the ISS repeater, and watch the
| frequencies change due to the Doppler effect.
| ggm wrote:
| I used to get the woodpecker, and some very ominous semi-
| continuous monotonous hums in human hearing ranges with
| occasional tweedle. And the lincolnshire poacher. Or, something
| very like it.
|
| This was 70s Edinburgh, with a long-line antenna strung from my
| window to a tree about 50m away. I tried to make a dipole out of
| it, not sure it really worked. The radio was WW2 bomber surplus
| store, about 15U high and probably some precursor to a 19" rack
| width. you swapped out brick sized tuning blocks to reset it's
| frequency bands and then used a blade-overlap condenser tuner. I
| also used bakelite headphones, no soft foam. Hardcore! We had a
| better one downstairs with a vernier which tuned more accurately,
| consistently and it did MW for BBC radio. When FM became more
| common we got a small philips and it sat next to it, doing the
| hard work.
|
| Shortwave picked up a lot. I was too young to understand what QSL
| cards would be about otherwise I would have some.
| frrlpp wrote:
| Wow, that would be a National HRO receiver. Quite capable
| radio.
| ggm wrote:
| I think it was a variant of what in the UK is called R1155E
| RAF Receiver 10D/1332
|
| If not exactly that model, very similar.
| tacet wrote:
| >very ominous semi-continuous monotonous hums
|
| could be buzzer perhaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76
| ggm wrote:
| Too modern. But similar intent perhaps
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| QSL cards (just looked it up) look like a fun hobby to send or
| receive, but probably moreso if you live somewhere remote or
| exotic (not me, I live in peak Dutch suburbia).
| jdietrich wrote:
| The UK's last remaining shortwave transmitter site has a power
| output of nearly 3 _megawatts_ across ten HF transmitters. For
| all the romance of shortwave, it 's an incredibly inefficient way
| to serve an ever-shrinking listener base.
|
| I can see the case for analog radio as an emergency
| communications system in regions with unreliable infrastructure.
| I can see the case for limited-area shortwave transmissions to
| serve populations with poor domestic media. I really struggle to
| see the case for throwing vast amounts of RF in the vague
| direction of the ionosphere, on the off chance that someone in
| the Pitcairn Islands wants to hear the cricket scores.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woofferton_transmitting_stat...
| bongodongobob wrote:
| It's extremely efficient and doesn't harm anything else. What
| would you replace it with?
| jdietrich wrote:
| Any or all of the technologies that people actually use. Like
| it or not, the number of active shortwave listeners is tiny,
| even in poor and remote parts of the world. Voice of America
| and the BBC World Service are the strongest possible case for
| shortwave, but even they have been scaling back their
| shortwave operations because most of their listeners prefer
| local AM/FM transmissions or streaming. Whatever the benefits
| of shortwave might be, they're entirely hypothetical for the
| vast majority who have no interest in buying a relatively
| esoteric receiver, stringing up a longwire and chasing a
| carrier across the bands.
|
| I still occasionally operate on top band with a straight key,
| but even I have to accept that shortwave is now almost
| entirely irrelevant and rapidly headed towards extinction.
|
| https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/guest-
| commentar...
| IshKebab wrote:
| It's extremely _inefficient_ , not efficient. It uses a lot
| of power. It harms everyone else by wasting power.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Nah, it's efficient. Any number of people in that area are
| able to pick up the broadcast without a subscription or
| wires.
| lutusp wrote:
| More astonishing than knowing what HF radio can do, is to notice
| how empty the HF bands are compared to past decades.
|
| During my around-the-world solo sail (1988-1991)
| (https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/), I relied on two-way HF radio
| for many things no longer present, including open-water phone
| calls. But that absence represents a choice, not a necessity.
| Here's an easy receiver project: "Create Your Own Open-Source
| Software-Defined Radio"
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXNgPYVpTng).
|
| Receiving is cheap and easy. To transmit on these bands, you must
| get a Ham license. But that's easier than it was -- Morse code is
| no longer required.
|
| I can remember what I thought when I first heard about the
| Internet -- that it would make Ham radio look slow and stupid by
| comparison. I was never so wrong about anything in my life (not
| for a lack of eager candidates).
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| This seems like a pretty silly article.
|
| A shortwave radio station is a single point of failure. You can
| either physically interrupt the transmitter - conveniently it
| tells you exactly where it is the whole time it is transmitting.
| Or, you can broadcast interference.
|
| The internet or digital communications does not share that same
| single point of failure.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| I think you might be lacking imagination here.
|
| Frequency hopping algorithms can be used. Multiple
| transmitters, globally dispersed and coordinating with each
| other can deliver service. Shortwave can be digital.
|
| Not everything is a competition, other means of communication
| don't mean the internet has no use.
|
| Imagine being able to push micro-blogs to a local station and
| having it broadcasted globally over shortwave.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Interference is a problem for sure, but that's only in one
| potential scenario (open warfare with troops / interference
| broadcasting nearby); for all the other scenarios it's good to
| have a backup.
| lormayna wrote:
| It's not exactly like this. The localization is not easy,
| because the distances are huge (several thousands of
| kilometers) and shortwaves are bouncing over the atmosphere.
| Think about the number stations, that are still not localized
| after years.
|
| And even jamming it's not always easy: the Turkish government
| usually jam the Kurdish shortwave stations like Denge Welat
| targeting Europe, but they are moving up or down in frequency
| to avoid the jamming. Moreover, you need a lot of power to jam
| another station.
|
| Another advantage of the shortwave is that it don't require a
| complex hardware neither infrastructure to receive them: a
| rudimentary AM receiver is very simple to implement and can
| work also on battery for long time.
| lormayna wrote:
| I am into shortwave listening since many years and it can be
| funny, especially when you can catch strange signals and contact
| them to get QSLs cards.
|
| If you want to start, the top is to buy a Belka DX (probably the
| best portable shortwave in the market) but also ATS-25 or a
| SI4732 based radio that costs less 50$ on Ali.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Shortwave isn't dead, but locking it behind the amateur licenses
| does pose a bit of a problem, not many people care about half of
| the questions on the test... I just checked the Canada one, and
| it's asking me what license I need to rebroadcast RTTY... Like I
| don't bloody know...
| countWSS wrote:
| Btw ignoring "internet radio"(which is just streaming) the reason
| shortwave niche as media source is narrowing is sattelite radio,
| which is high-end long-range media alternative and low-end FM
| receivers for local stations(at much higher sound quality).
| donatj wrote:
| I had a shortwave radio as a kid in the 90s in Minnesota. I never
| picked up much with it. Some Mexican stations, weather
| broadcasts, and when the ionosphere was right BBC World Service.
| On exceedingly rare occasions I could even pick up stations from
| South East Asia.
|
| As a lonely and somewhat isolated child, these fleeting glimpses
| of the wider world were nothing short of magical.
| shrubble wrote:
| It reminds me of the song by Van Morrison about listening to (I
| presume shortwave) radio... "Athlone, Budapest..."
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Syc4hFobLD0
| cantrecallmypwd wrote:
| I recently picked up a Qodosen SR-286 compact radio that supports
| LW, AM (MW), SW (HF), and FM but not aircraft/VHF bands, sadly.
| every wrote:
| When I was a kid my dad gave me his war surplus radio. He had
| been a communications officer in WWII. It was a huge metal box
| with a separate speaker. Inside it was full of tubes, wires and
| other stuff. I knew nothing about it so I turned it on, ran a
| wire outside for an antennae and started spinning dials and
| flipping switches. It kept me amused for years. Eventually I
| stumbled across actual broadcasts such as BBC and Radio
| Luxembourg. But the funniest was the English language Radio
| Moscow. It was filled with vignettes of happy working couples in
| their modern apartment living a fulfilling life in the Soviet
| Union. The stuff was risible to even a child in the 1950's...
| bobsomers wrote:
| There has been a bit of a shortwave revival in recent years, with
| activities like POTA (Parks on the Air) and SOTA (Summits on the
| Air) getting people back onto the HF bands. For those unfamiliar,
| POTA encourages people to get out to State and National parks,
| set up a portable radio (usually shortwave), and make as many
| contacts as they can in a short time. If you make 10 contacts,
| you've "activated" the park. The activator submits their logs to
| the website, and everyone they talked to gets credit for
| "hunting" that park.
|
| Whoever designed the POTA website... it's uncharacteristically
| brilliant for the amateur radio community. There are gazillions
| of metrics you can track about which parks you've hunted and
| which ones you've activated, progress bars for every state, all
| sorts of awards and "achievements" for various operating times,
| modes, repeats, etc.
|
| It's turned portable shortwave operating into gamified crack,
| except these are real skills that are valuable during an
| emergency. Having the equipment is one thing, but the regular
| practice of knowing how to quickly set it up and operate it
| anywhere is invaluable.
| ralphc wrote:
| I've been a shortwave listener for over 30 years. I remember
| listening to Radio Israel when Saddam was sending scud missiles
| into Israel and the radio was directing people into shelters,
| real time.
|
| One thing I'd like to see, especially if there is a concern for
| communication, is loosening the licensing restrictions that US
| shortwave stations cannot broadcast to the US. Back in the day
| when US station operators were interviewed they had to say that
| the were broadcasting to "Canada and Mexico", which was code for
| "to the US".
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