Check out this article from Radio World which addresses the state of shortwave radio broadcasting.
Jeff White of WRMI and Kim Elliott of the VOA are both interviewed. Elliott even speaks about the virtues of the VOA Radiogram experiments which have had success circumventing shortwave radio jamming (broadcasts which were completely omitted from the BBG Special Committee report on the efficacy of shortwave radio).
Ha! An early RA experience was that listeners in PNG & central Pacific listened on hf & FM relays and fed back to us via SMS (which was affordable). The conclusion was that the listeners could use the internet – “they all (will) have smart phones” was the hopeful management mantra. Well, that didn’t work out did it? – 30 Mb/hour for a stream at Fiji$3/Mb mobile rates … oops.
The temptation to make the Pacific Islander user pay (for internet) and save on hf power bills is too beguiling for (essentially) domestic public broadcast managers & their equally myopic political masters.
The last paragraph of the article says it all for me,
“In recent years, an increasing number of these Cuban listener pleas have come to WRMI by email. “But as for listening to our webstream simulcast?” asked White. “So far, we have not received even one letter or email from a listener in Cuba who says they can listen to us on the Web!”
Dave
AA7EE