Wave Goodbye to Shortwave
The EETimes posting Is shortwave a short-timer?
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recently announced that it would discontinue its shortwave radio broadcasts to Europe, following the lead of other major shortwave services. The very mention of the phrase “shortwave” (the spectrum from about 3 to 20 MHz) brought a nostalgic image to my mind.
Nostalgic images indeed. I’ve spent many an hour listening to shortwave broadcasts, and drooling over the latest and greatest radio receiver technology. One thing I learned early on was different parts of the world report the same news event differently.
(Credit: Ham Radio Gallery)
Shortwave broadcasts aren’t gone completely.
We should keep one more thing in mind before we put shortwave in that shallow, barely marked grave our industry digs for its castoffs: We may be prematurely saying goodbye. The BBC pointed out that it will continue broadcasts to much of Africa and Asia, where Internet access is rare and costly, despite the intentions of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and similar programs.
…John
