It hasn’t been amazing to find a 1995 WRTH at a recent hamvention for two bucks, but reading one of the stories it featured in its last pages. Named “Shortwave broadcasting begins it slow long fade (but International broadcasting endures)”, it’s a visionary altough sharp picture of what would happen in the following fifteen years by Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott, a personality that in radio domain needs no introduction, who nowadays still analyzes and research communication issues on his ofen updated website.

What was in the picture taken by Dr. Andrew Elliott in 1995? Basically, the fact that, even if in the shoes of an avid shortwave listener for thirty years he was disturbed by repeated claims of HF being dying, “as an international broadcasting audience researcher, however, I cannot deny that shortwave has begun to decline as a medium for international broadcasting”. However, his long experience allowed him to see the glass only half empty: “the good news is that shortwave broadcasting is declining slowly. […] it has at least a decade or two to go, time enough to do many good things. And International broadcasting, with many technologies to choose from, has a bright future”.

In a few words: “The decline of shortwave is not an avalanche, but we can see the rocks starting to tumble”. Biggest (and most noticeable) ones, in our reputed colleague vision, were in those days: Trans World Radio shutting down its Bonaire facility; KGEI religious station in San Francisco signing off permanently in 1994; Voice of America reducing Hungarian, Estonian, Spanish and Portuguese broadcasts; Radio Netherlands dropping programs in French, Arabic and Portuguese. Others symptoms of the decay were highlighted in Brown Boveri deciding to get out of the HF broadcast transmitter business, and 1995 Radio Shack catalog showing only five shortwave radios, down from nine in 1994.

I didn’t live the era as an active listener (I went on hold around 1992, to resume in 2006), but my strong feeling is that these words were taken sceptically. Great minds aren’t often understood, and previous pages of that same WRTH offered enough to think that Andrew Elliott’s one was, at best, a risk, something that not necessarily would have turned true. In Europe, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta (in joint-venture with Lybia!), and Norway all had shortwave outlets. The same happened in Africa, where you could still tune to Gaborone (Botswana) on 3356 kHz, to Buea (Cameroon) on 3970 kHz, to Accra (Ghana) on 3366 kHz, to Maputo (Mozambique) on 3210 kHz, and to Enugu (Nigeria) on 3970 kHz.

If we name Middle East, you could find Kabul on 7200 kHz (the same channel where it reappeared last week!), Yerevan on 4040 kHz, Gyanca (Azerbaijan) on 4785 kHz, Dusheti (Georgia) on 5040 kHz, Abu Grahib on 4615 kHz, more than twenty Israeli service frequencies, and Qatar on 9, 11 and 17 MHz. In 1995, Asia offered Cambodia on 4907 kHz, Taiwan on 3335 kHz, Kazakhstan on 4545 kHz, Laos on 4535, 4660, and 4991 kHz, as well as Vietnam on more than fifteen tropical band channels. In the Pacific rim the decay was advanced, but spectrum was anyways alive with Kiribati on 9825 kHz, and French Polynesia on three frequencies. As for North and South America, the list would be so long that you’ll forgive me if I won’t go into detail on those areas of the world.

Briefly, who would have taken so seriously Dr. Andrew Elliott when you could have 24 out of 24 hours a day chasing remote signals, let alone International broadcasters relay stations from distant corners of the world? Instead, more attention should have been paid: if you look closely at the mentioned above schedule, you’ll realize that Comoro Islands – to name only an example – were already off, and that other elusive locations (especially in the Pacific) had remained just on MW. The long fade had already begun, but everyone was so busy it passed unnoticed. Matter of fact, all the named above are today in the memories drawer. Forever.

Sadly enough for us, who live for the thrill of a distant signal, it’s not just that. The day that Dr. Andrew Elliott guessed to be ten/twenty years far has come. VoA is planning a shortwave dismissal, BBC shut off broadcasts, and Deutschewelle closed historical relay facilities. Digital technologies, for different reasons, didn’t offer the awaited débouchée on the radio side, but they boosted another vision. In a lesson held recently to Vatican Radio personnel (and it’s interesting to notice that who really cares for shortwaves usually comes from the religious world, and rarely from public Institutions), Andrea Lawendel, owner of the useful Radiopassioni blog, focused on how cross-media evolution see no centrality for the shortwave platform, and on how international broadcasters are turning into “broadbanders”. You can check his blog entry here, including the slides he used for his speech. It’s in Italian, but it gives a lot to think, especially about the loss of “public diplomacy” that leaving shortwaves implies.

To end where Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott started in 1995, as an avid shortwaves listener, I still have fun in exploiting the chances that hf spectrum can offer in 2011. With State stations now half off and the others in the rush to unplug transmitters (Italy went that way in 2007), this means running after an handful of regional stations (some from Africa, and Latin America, but most of all from India and China, with “resisting” examples like Nikkei in Japan), or trying to get most distant relays of International Broadcasters, before the curtain will finally pull down on them. Sites like www.short-wave.info, allowing geographic visualization of broadcasting origin, are very useful in this task.

I know that its kinda fetish. A bit like embracing a pullover that a woman you dated in the past dressed that particular night, to breathe – at least – her scent. However, it’s all that is left (if you’re not able to turn yourself into an MW DXer, but this means wide spaces for aerials and a no-noise location). Recent Lybia crisis taught us that radio can play a key role when masses have to be reached with entry level technologies. It’s deeply true, and “free” lybian outlets on MW were socially and radio wise an incredible experience, but we can’t, on the other hand, hope that the world has to fall more and more in trouble, in the wish to have more broadcasts to listen to. Shortwaves are still popular for amateur operations (in the last part of this interview, IARU Region 1 President denies hf dying for this service, in a sort of mors tua vita mea), and – broadcasting wise – to target large communities, spread in the whole world, Governed by someone who understood the importance to have people accessing information (or what a Government suppose to be information) at the lowest price ever. It’s written in the stars: we’ll die with China National Radio and China Radio International every 5 kHz, tuning to them on our brand new Degen and Tecsun sets. Our DX will be Cuba on 6 MHz. Anyways, I won’t complain. Or should I?

Christian Diemoz