The Sydney Morning Herald: “We need to broadcast to the world, not whisper”

(Source: The Sydney Morning Herald)

As the Cold War was ending in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Western nations, confident of a lasting peace, began to neglect the tools that had sustained them in the ideological war against communism. In the US, institutions of public diplomacy and strategic communications were disbanded, and foreign service hiring frozen, in what the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, called a “gutting” of the US’s ability to engage, assist and communicate with the world. Other countries blindly tagged along.

[…] Right after the BBC World Service was forced to announce deep cuts to its budget affecting even its Arabic-language services, Egypt and Tunisia evicted their presidents. The impact is reverberating around the Middle East.[…] The events of the past few weeks in the Middle East have surely reinforced the power of the media (new and old) to inspire, engage and propel change.

Read full article here.

While some shortwave broadcasters are leaving the China market, one expands

(Source: The Epoch Times)

“While BBC is canceling its Mandarin broadcasts in April 2011 and Voice of America (VOA) its Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts in October 2011, Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) Network announced that they will be expanding short-wave broadcasting to China to meet the demands of its Chinese audience”

Read full story in The Epoch Times

Radio Documentary: The Wireless World of Gerry Wells

I just discovered (via PRI’s The World Technology Podcast) a 2010 radio documentary about lifelong radio designer and repairman, Gerry Wells.

If you haven’t heard it before, I suggest you drop what you’re doing and give it a listen below. This is the most charming radio doc I’ve ever heard out of the BBC World Service.

Audio Player

For archival purposes, I have a full copy of the radio doc available for download by clicking here.

Again, a special thanks to Clark Boyd with PRI’s The World for bringing this to my attention.

Our New Shortwave Radio Index

The Shortwave Radio Index contains over one hundred shortwave radios currently in production.

We’re delighted to announce a new website in the SWLing.com family: The Shortwave Radio Index (SWRI).

The SWRI is a comprehensive database featuring all known shortwave radios available on the market today. Each post contains a photo of the receiver, links to retailers, links to reviews, specifications, and a brief summary of the featured radio’s capabilities. What’s more, each radio is tagged and categorized so that it is easy to find and compare to similar models.

Keep in mind, the SWRI is a work in progress; as new models appear on the market, we will be adding them.  If you become aware of a review or retailer not included in our database, please contact us to share this information.

Happy browsing!

The new RFspace NetSDR–limited availability Feburary 10

The RFspace NetSDR wideband receiver

The new RFspace NetSDR has been announced on the RFspace website and Universal Radio is already accepting orders. According to RFSpace, they will have limited availability on February 10th 2011.

Based on the NetSDR’s specs, it appears that this will be a very robust and high-performance SDR. RFspace is touting that it’s fully plug and play and designed to be integrated with your home network and the internet.

We will post all updates about the NetSDR here and on our new Shortwave Radio Index website  (click here for the RFspace NetSDR entry).  When available, we will also link to relevant reviews in the SWRI entry.

RNW adding more shortwave broadcasts to Egypt

Radio Netherlands Worldwide has announced that it is increasing shortwave and satellite broadcasts into Europe after Egyptian authorities shut down internet and mobile services.

The new shortwave times/frequencies are:

  • 0600-0700 UTC on 9830 kHz
  • 1600-1700 UTC on 5955 kHz + 9750 kHz
  • 1730-1830 UTC on 11615 kHz + 11655 kHz

For the full story, please read RNW Media Networks’ post.