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[HCDX] Snap and crackle goes pop
Snap and crackle goes pop
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=115
90746
Jun 19th 2008
>From The Economist print edition
Life in the old wireless yet
PROPAGANDA, news, curiosity and even espionage were the fuel of short-
wave radio broadcasts. Readers of a certain age may recall the thrill of
hearing a crackly, venomously worded broadcast from far away, such as the
Voice of Free China denouncing the communist bandits on the mainland, or
Radio Peace and Progress in Moscow deriding the imperialist hullabaloo
about human rights.
The huge advantage of short-wave was that such material was simple to
send and hard to stop. Thanks to their high frequency and short wavelength,
even low-powered signals can bounce off the ionosphere halfway round the
world; anyone can listen. Jamming them-a favourite Soviet tactic, still
practised by China today-is an expensive and patchy business.
The end of the cold war, deregulation and new technology made short-wave
look out of date. The propaganda war between east and west abated. Poor
countries liberalised their broadcasting regimes, turning information famine
into abundance. New stations, transmitting on crackle-free FM, soaked up
listeners. Many started partnerships with international broadcasters who had
previously used short-wave. Satellite-television news from stations such as
CNN provided powerful competition in meeting the needs of the news-
hungry. Broadband internet connections and even mobile phones can be
used to listen to a plethora of radio stations.
But short-wave's retreat has slowed. Though the BBC's World Service uses
around 15 different technologies to reach its listeners, short-wave is still
king: latest figures, published last week, show 105m of its 182m-strong
global audience still listen that way, the majority of them in Africa. In Nigeria
the short-wave audience even grew slightly last year. That's not going to
change soon: the BBC is upgrading its transmitters on Ascension Island (to
be powered, greenly, by a new wind farm). Mike Cronk, a BBC bigwig, says
the business case was "compelling".
As competition for slots on the spectrum has eased, private broadcasters
are moving in, notably American-based religious ones such as Assemblies
of Yahweh, Adventist World Radio and the Fundamental Broadcasting
Network. Short-wave also stays useful after natural disasters or political
crises. Foreign broadcasters such as Voice of America have been stepping
up their short-wave offerings to Zimbabwe in recent weeks.
Perhaps the most loyal users of all are intelligence services. So-called
"Numbers stations" such as the Cyprus-based Lincolnshire Poacher (named
after the jaunty tune that precedes the broadcasts) allow Britain's MI6 and
others to send messages to anyone anywhere in the world, untraceably and
in unbreakable code. No other medium is as ubiquitous and as secure. The
only snag would be if owning a short-wave radio were to come to be seen as
so eccentric as to arouse suspicion. Indeed, fewer such sets are sold these
days. But as Simon Spanswick of the Association for International
Broadcasting, an industry umbrella group, notes, people rarely throw their
radios away.
Please read my aricle on SINPO at http://tinyurl.com/yt7qjd
________________________
http://zliangas.blogspot.com (radio tech , gadgets, grk ethics)
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........
Zacharias Liangas , Thessaloniki Greece
greekdx @ otenet dot gr ---
Pesawat penerima: ICOM R75 , Lowe HF150 , Degen 1102,1103,108,
Tecsun PL200/550, Chibo c300/c979, Yupi 7000
Antenna: 16m hor, 2x16 m V invert, 1m australian loop
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