Source: NASA
Where are the Broadcasters?
As posed by Bob Colegrove
Whenever I ask myself that question, I can’t help thinking of a couple analogies. Let me explain one. In the mid-80s, there were three contenders for the home computing market: IBM, Apple, and Commodore. There were others, but those were the main ones. It was not uncommon for entrepreneurs to rent out halls and host fairs at which vendors for all three platforms would display the latest peripherals and software. The IBM PC was incompatible with the Apple IIe; each, in turn, was incompatible with the Commodore 64. Most of the software came at premium prices. Why? I was told that developers had to recoup their cost from the existing group of owners of each specific platform. Being the early days of home computing, these groups were relatively small, and consequently, this determined the cost of software. This situation was euphemistically known as the “installed base” ? an existing population of users who owned computers for the targeted software.
Applying this to radio, is there an installed base to warrant more international shortwave broadcasting? From all appearances, there are more shortwave radios being marketed now than I can ever recall. I searched for “shortwave radios” on Amazon, hoping to get a reasonable model count, but soon gave up.
Without getting into the politics of the issue, the Chinese are the dominant player in shortwave use today. They are making most of the shortwave radios and doing most of the shortwave broadcasting. The targeted audience is both domestic and international. The radios they make are marketed around the world, apparently quite successfully. An AI inquiry on the Internet can’t put a number on it, but states that there has been a resurgence of interest in shortwave, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global conflicts. Isn’t it reasonable to assume there is now a sizeable installed base of potential shortwave listeners?
If I may be allowed one more analogy, in 1950 the physicist Enrico Fermi asked the cosmic question, “But where is everybody?” He was referring to the scope of the universe, the real probability that there are enough other habitable planets such that some others should support life. His paradox is that we have not yet heard from anyone else.
Again, translating this to radio, given the proliferation of shortwave radios and listeners, where are all the broadcasters? Hasn’t the quality, performance, reasonable cost, and availability of shortwave radios been the seed to start the resurgence of shortwave broadcasting?
The well-worn argument is that times have changed. We now have the Internet and cell phones to instantaneously bring us an incomparable mass of information and entertainment, all of this on demand. Why contend with noise, interference and weak signals? Why wait for desired content to be available on a certain day at a certain hour? Further, and just as important, public broadcasting is costly in terms of production and delivery. To put a face on it, shortwave radio does not permit one to fasten a $200 GoPro to the front of his bicycle, video his ride, post it on YouTube, and garner thousands of likes.
All of that is strong poison. On the other hand, radio waves are an immutable form of electromagnetic radiation. The medium is not going away. With a high degree of certainty, it will eventually be repurposed, possibly in digital form or with some method of modulation which is yet unknown. The content may be commercial, military, private, or public. Someone is going to figure out a way to use it.
In the meantime, why can’t we use it just the way it is? One advantage of radio is real-time broadcasting – talk radio, spontaneous news reporting, and emergency information. While this is possible on the Internet, its implementation has been tangential. For example, I can go for a live cab ride with a truck driver, watch trains run around Horseshoe Curve, or listen to a techno-specialist field viewer questions – all live it’s true, but still not quite the same thing. Perhaps it is just a matter of time for the Internet to catch up.
The Internet is better for drawing maps and ordering products for home delivery. Ultimately, however, it fails to engage the imagination. Instead, the world is presented to us in vivid color leaving no detail in question. With radio, the listener’s faculties are permitted much wider freedom. One is allowed to color between the lines, “a fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust…” Even the fading or hollow aural echo of a distant shortwave signal can stimulate further vision. That is radio’s ace in the hole. It just needs the initiative of one visionary to give the ball a push and start it rolling.
I think a part of the problem is too much RF clutter…. not from SW stations, of course, as there are less and less of them, but by pollution from other sources…. I wonder to what extent cell towers, smart meters, and wifi interfere with shortwave signals. These may transmit in bands much higher up in the spectrum, but can there be residual beat-frequency effects down-stream, so-to-speak? When I play with multiple audio oscillators, setting them close together but at the edge of human hearing, I hear the resulting low-end beat freq… Could something like this be going on in RF environment at large?
As a passive SW listener, all I know is I’m picking up much less than what I used to, where I’m at in the city, at least (but going out into the country is a different story.) In fact, just the other day, I listened to an old tape, recorded circa 20 years ago, of solar emissions, which I find quite soothing. Used to be that on an average day I could pick them up all over the dial, but now I only get them when there are major CME events, like the May 10, 2024 storm. I was struck at how vivid the 2005 recording was, even with vox-like qualities, like the sun is “speaking” to us. And, not to mention numbers stations and other oddities which I gravitate towards…. The Russian UVB-76 station for instance, which, from what I’ve been reading, has been relatively active lately, but when I tune it in…. nothing but clutter.
Beautiful! Well put, well written, right on target.
One question: Shouldn’t the DRM proponents be promoting their case better?
Adding shortwave to a radio is a way for manufacturers to make more money selling people features they will pay more for but never use. How many people did you know in the 60s and 70s who owned multi-band radios with SW, air, and police bands but only used them for AM and FM? Why did they pay more for those radios? If it has lots of features then it must be good.
Sure. There are some remote regions where SW is still necessary. But most of the people buying those Chinese radios today are no different than people buying multi-band radios fifty years ago. Same thing is happening with cellphones today. People pay top dollar for phones with features they never learn to use but they want to believe they are getting the best.
Excellent point, Don. I dare say our kitchen and laundry appliances have never run on other than basic settings. My wife and I have never learned to set the clock or radio in our 7-year-old van. We need some interest-grabbing content on SW. Maybe if WRMI got exclusive broadcast rights to Superbowl LXI. 🙂
I started listening to SW in 1958 on my mom’s Zenith Transoceanic portable. It was not really portable,unless you bought many batteries, but it pulled in many foreign stations. Later I bought a Lafayette receiver and started collecting QSL cards. Content of the broadcasts was interesting because it was the Cold War.
Problems for broadcast on SW now:
1. People are used to listening at the time OF THEIR CHOICE or AVAILABILITY
2. SW has propagation problems at times.
3. SW tends to reflect better at a NIGHTIME to NIGHTIME situation.
4. Countries can send out programing more effectively and inexpensively by Internet.
5. Static on AM is a problem.
6. Range on FM is a problem.
7. Digital broadcasts have only niche interested listeners.
8. Broadcasts to and from Mars will be greatly delayed.
9. Really good SW receivers are expensive.
10. SW listening is advanced: antennas, bands/frequencies, UTC/local times.
11. We old fellows may love to hear Rock and Roll from our youth, but music has really, really moved on.
Brent in Danville, Illinois, USA
Shortwave is like being in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean: water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.
I read the nice MLite-880 review yesterday and thought, man, that would be cool to have. (Admittedly, I think that about most every review I see.) But reality set in. I already have four shortwave radios within arm’s reach – all far more capable than anything I owned back in the day – and I can’t remember the last time I actually logged a station worth hearing. Oh sure, I dabble in AM and FM DXing and tote one around on Sunday walks to listen to a game. But shortwave? The few stations out there aren’t my cup of tea, so shortwave is pretty much zip, zero, zilch.
Late afternoons, I used to pull up a seat on the balcony and tap in 9.420 MHz to hear how the Voice of Greece was coming in. Often, I’d stay until it was time to get the dinner grub going. No more. And that’s just sad.
Great question, Bob. And I think the responses by Bob Biermann and Eric Smith are both quite relevant.
One other thought I will add with regard to the idea of radio engaging the mind (and I totally agree) is that most folks today (I can only speak to this issue with Americans) do not want to engage their minds – they want it all laid out before them.
The “entertainment” and information sources today are all about color, noise, flashing images, constantly moving camera angles, with no time to digest what is being said. Even advertisements often show nothing about the product other than the last second or two showing a name – the rest of the commercial is totally unrelated.
I am an “Old Fart” curmudgeon (and no doubt a bit jaded), and so I like to engage my mind whenever possible. However, the recent couple of generations do not seem to have that desire (I generalize here of course), and it does not bode well for the future on any level. I genuinely hope I am wrong, but I am not holding my breath.
Great commentary, Bob. Your “installed base” analogy really stuck with me. There are a lot of shortwave radios out there right now. More than people think. China is making the vast majority of them, and they are selling. So I don’t think it’s crazy to ask why the broadcasting side has thinned out so much.
I do not think shortwave went away because it stopped working. It went away because it could not be measured and managed the way the internet can. Governments can’t geoblock signals in the sky. Broadcasters can’t get analytics from it. That made it look outdated.
Yet, every time a country shuts down or throttles the internet, it isn’t hard to notice that radio does not care. It just keeps going. Think of the lengths the Soviets, Chinese, and other governments went to jam shortwave – particularly in the 70s and 80s – and how little effect their efforts ultimately had.
China seems to be the only country that truly understands the value of shortwave. China is on track to lead in advanced IT and network technology, yet it continues to invest in traditional broadcast media. That is not nostalgia. It suggests a layered approach. Keep the modern systems, but do not abandon the ones that still function when networks are denied. The Chinese build the radios – great ones, like the Tecsun line – and they keep transmitting. CRI is ubiquitous. On the other hand, the response from the West is a great station like WRMI, isolated religious broadcasters, and the VOA and BBC with greatly reduced footprints. Even the Russians have completely abandoned shortwave.
So your question feels less nostalgic and is really more practical. If the radios are out there and the medium is still viable, then what exactly are we waiting for?
In response to Mr. Biermann’s comment (I like your show, by the way), I don’t discount the cost and supply chain realities that you describe. But I am not convinced that cost is the root issue. High-power shortwave has always been capital-intensive. That was true in the 70s and 80s, too. What changed was not physics or tubes. It was institutional will and how value was measured.
International broadcasters pivoted heavily to the internet beginning in the ’00s because the medium looked cheaper, modern, and measurable. But that move assumed a free internet and open networks. It wasn’t true then, and it certainly is not true now. Governments like Iran, North Korea, China, and even the U.S. can geoblock, throttle, or shut down online information at will. When that happens, the distribution layer disappears immediately.
Admittedly, shortwave is not efficient, and it certainly is not elegant. But it does not depend on permission. Walking away from it entirely in favor of platforms that can be switched off was, in my view, a strategic mistake. Not because the technology failed, but because resilience stopped being the priority.
China is an interesting case. While Western giants like the BBC and Voice of America have mostly retreated from the shortwave bands, China has aggressively moved in to fill the vacuum. In the world of international statecraft, radio spectrum is a “use it or lose it” resource, and Beijing has spent the last two decades colonizing the frequencies abandoned by the West. By producing millions of affordable, high-quality receivers through brands like Tecsun and XHDATA, they ensure that their “soft power” broadcasts – now the most powerful and numerous on the dial – actually have an audience in the Global South, where internet access is often expensive or unreliable.
Beyond international influence, there might also be a massive domestic and strategic play at work. For China, shortwave could be the ultimate communication tool for reaching their remote mountainous regions where building cell towers for every village is impractical. Maybe because of this, they are currently leading the global transition to DRM, which – theoretically, at least – provides good sound quality over shortwave. It’s likely that they will soon start flooding the market with dual analog-digital receivers, essentially future-proofing the medium, to ensure that the “Voice of China” remains loud, clear, and ubiquitous.
“In the world of international statecraft, radio spectrum is a “use it or lose it” resource, and Beijing has spent the last two decades colonizing the frequencies abandoned by the West.
…
Beyond international influence, there might also be a massive domestic and strategic play at work. For China, shortwave could be the ultimate communication tool for reaching their remote mountainous regions where building cell towers for every village is impractical. Maybe because of this, they are currently leading the global transition to DRM, which – theoretically, at least – provides good sound quality over shortwave. It’s likely that they will soon start flooding the market with dual analog-digital receivers, essentially future-proofing the medium, to ensure that the “Voice of China” remains loud, clear, and ubiquitous.”
Very well stated and entirely my point. China has been playing the long game since the days of Deng Xiaoping.
“Admittedly, shortwave is not efficient, and it certainly is not elegant. But it does not depend on permission. Walking away from it entirely in favor of platforms that can be switched off was, in my view, a strategic mistake. Not because the technology failed, but because resilience stopped being the priority.”
Amen, brother, Amen!
Cheers, Jock
The real issue is cost, equipment, and risk. Maybe for governments funding losing entities is the norm but not in the private sector. I worked in the 1980s for a US transmitter manufacturer. We built AM, FM & high powered SW. We had units shipped globally. There were a dozen companies in the US then building SW at that time. There is only one left now, and it may be leaving soon. Order a transmitter and delivery is now 2 to 3 years. Internationally at least a dozen companies were in the business back a couple of decades ago. Now there are three. Tubes are getting hard to find and VERY expensive. Some tubes are no longer even made. One of the last tube rebuilders is,closing this summer. Nobody is building high powered solid state shortwave transmitters. There is simply no market. The radio world I knew 40, 50, and 60 years ago is gone and not coming back. Like the horse and buggy, a tiny number remain,l as a novelty but the mass usage is all replaced by the automobile. We know the pros and cons. The average non-radio person of today simply does not care or even care to know.
Lastly, many programmers who paid for this very expensive media have aged out or moved on. Private stations are in difficult times. Governments even have to decide if it is worth it much anymore.
Absolutely, as I said, cost is certainly strong poison. On the other hand, top-of-the-line, custom 500 kW transmitters and studios in Radio City might be gilding the lily.
1. During the 1860s the Government spent $48M ($1.8T in 2026) to build the Transcontinental Railroad. This was on a long-shot bet that tens of thousands of folks in the eastern US and Europe would pack their knapsacks and ride the wooden benches of the Emigrant Cars 2000 miles into a barren, hostile country for cheap land and a better life.
2. Today, Constellation Energy with the same Government’s help is spending undisclosed billions restarting the Pennsylvania Three Mile Island nuclear power facility for Microsoft, who in turn will have exclusive use of the power for its data centers, all on the bet that we are ready for its subscription-based cloud service.
“Build it and they will come.” But it is still a gamble.