Hello, Mark...I'm one of the co-perpetrators of this group as well.
One of the things that has changed since I first started listening as
a 10-year-old in the mid-1960s and even since I awakened from SWL
dormancy in 1985 is that information from faraway places is much, much
easier to come by now...thus some of the "thrill" of shortwave has
vanished. However, if you chat with a broadcaster, all they want is
for people to hear them by whatever means is possible and affordable.
The development and maturity of National Public Radio also comes into
play, I would opine -- until NPR came into existence there was no
domestic source for a global perspective on news and world events;
shortwave-based international broadcasters were the only radio sources
available to us.
As many have mused, the end of the Cold War ideological struggle took
the wind out of the collective sails for many broadcasters...as there
was less of a reason for them to exist, in the eyes of the funding
sources for them.
Other broadcasters -- Radio Netherlands and Radio Australia come
specifically to mind -- have focused their energies (creative as well
as RF) on reaching areas where media diversity, availability, and
freedom are not as plentiful as the bounty available here in the
developed world.
We have tried to keep this group focused more on the "messages" that
shortwave broadcasters espouse(d) than strictly the technology of
shortwave.
There are many groups that exist for discussions regarding DXing,
QSLing, propagation, and the like, and we really have tried not to
duplicate the fine efforts of others who specialize in those areas.
We have tended to focus on English language spoken-word programming,
but there still is a ton of great music accessible via shortwave (and
admittedly on other platforms) that's worth firing up the receiver
for.
What part of the world do you call home?
Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA USA
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Mark F. Tattenbaum, M.F.A.
<mft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Mike,
Yes there is more qrn but the new receivers seem to be handling it
better.
Conditions are never as good as we remember them. It does seem that
propagation paths have changed from the past though. 15 meters was
open this
am with some Europeans and 20 meters is spotty here usually opens
as the sun
comes up but is gone before the afternoon.
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