Re: [Swprograms] Happy 10th anniversary to the swprograms list

[Joe Buch <josephbuch@xxxxxxxxx>]

I distinctly remember the 1998 conversation in the Winter SWL Fest hospitality room. We were standing around a keg that for some reason had begun to mysteriously levitate in the ice-water tub.  The well-lubricated neurons were firing profusely.  

At the time I had been an editor of Cumbre DX since 1995 and had come to realize the value of that e-mail newsletter to quickly inform DXers about unusual propagation or new stations showing up.  It was an era before hardly any advance program information was available on the Internet.  After much discussion about how to get a timely newsletter for programming going, Richard Cuff decided we were making a mountain from a mole hill.  He just went ahead and figured out how to set up "swprograms" and just did it.  The rest is history.

Today the broadcasters who still care about and target foreign audiences have their own web sites to advertise upcoming program details, even linking to the actual programs.  

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum.  That was surely true in the radioland of March 1998.  A vacuum of program information was neutralized initially not by broadcasters but by we the listeners, gleaning information from anywhere and everywhere, and bringing it to the attention of any who wished to subscribe via this medium.  Power to the people!

It was back somewhere in that time that I presented a talk at the Fest entitled, "Shortwave, Who Needs It?"  Credit is due to John Figliozzi for having the courage to allow such heretical thought to be presented to what was at the time a very biased audience.  After dodging a fuselade of invectives, Bozo-The-Clown dolls, and half-full 807's, I managed to sneak out of the hotel through the kitchen.  I had no idea that a decade or so later, almost nobody would need a SW radio.

Maybe the time has finally come to address the "shortwave" part of this group's title.  In order not to have to change the address in hundreds of e-mail address books, I suggest we leave the actual e-mail address alone and only adapt the title slightly.  Instead of "SW" referring to shortwave, why not "Simply Wonderful" or possibly "Silly Wonkers"?  The possibilities are endless.  Your turn.

Joe Buch

> From: rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 10:00 AM
> To: Shortwave programming discussion
> Subject: [Swprograms] Happy 10th anniversary to the
> swprograms list
> 
> Think about it...back in 1998 we still had the BBC
> available targeting North
> America for most of the day; DW had North America-targeted
> broadcasts in the
> evening; RCI filled our evenings with "The World At
> Six" and "As It Happens".
> 
> Hopefully we'll continue to have things to talk about
> here, though I suspect,
> for many of us, listening to this programming via shortwave
> happens less
> frequently than it did back then.
> 
> Thanks also for everyone's patience and understanding
> in helping this remain a
> civilized discussion without the flame wars that plague
> many Internet forums and
> e-groups.
> 
> Richard Cuff
> Allentown, PA USA
> 
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