Conspiracy theory?

[Mediafrog+]

The question to the likes of Allan Weiner is - do you believe the conspiracy crap your stations peddle, or are you just in it for the money?

Weiner is a free speech absolutist, and the programming on WBCQ reflects that. He and his wife have also expressed far-right conspiracy views on their own talk show, which airs at 8pm eastern time. So I think both observations are true in this case.

The other broadcasters (particularly WWCR and WRMI) are in it for the money...they don't seem to care about content.

Big issue going forward for these stations is aging ownership as well as increasingly ancient transmission infrastructure. Rising electric rates could also be a death blow.

 

[gr8oldies]

As for US commercial shortwave, its programming is just not something that is going to be of interest to anyone other than the most strident conspiracy nuts.

So-called "free speech" WBCQ out of Maine runs hour after hour of the homophobic convicted violent sex offender "Brother" Stair; regular shows from far-right racist convicted criminal Hal Turner; and multiple hours of other right-wing racist conspiracy programming. They now also have a multi-million-dollar high-power transmitter running 24/7 flat-earth, end-of-the-world bullcrap, paid for by an Egyptian cosmetics magnate.

I question the sanity of anyone who is not a far-right headbanger who subsidises the operation of these stations by buying airtime. Several non-political "hobbyist" broadcasters rent time on WBCQ, WRMI etc. This mix of fascism and wacky religion is not the only way to run this kind of brokered-time SW station - the German station Channel 292 runs the hobbyist and music broadcasts while steering clear of politics and, for the most part, religion. It helps that it's bound by German laws that prohibit things like Holocaust denial, which is commonplace on the US outlets.

The question to the likes of Allan Weiner is - do you believe the conspiracy crap your stations peddle, or are you just in it for the money?

I seem to recall Allan Weiner being quite liberal in his politics. I still don't know how commercial shortwave is a business model, and why investors keep throwing money at him and Jeff White.

 

[joebtsflk1]

I seem to recall Allan Weiner being quite liberal in his politics. I still don't know how commercial shortwave is a business model, and why investors keep throwing money at him and Jeff White.

Because dollars don't equal "sense."

 

[RadioFan2J3]

As Radiofan pointed out, the music is fill to insert in between local programming if needed on VOA transmitters specific to each nation or region. As mentioned, it is intended for local use by repeaters or originators in other nations and distributed by satellite.

Some may not be aware, but at least in the past the VOA, through US embassies in many nations, offered taped VOA material to local stations. Shortwave was not the only distribution, even going back 50 and 60 years.

Let me clarify this a bit, for on almost all of the VOA 24-hour FM transmitters which run VOA1 music programming, that local programming is not programming inserted locally at the transmitter location, but is in the satellite audio feed from the VOA studio complex in Washington. These VOA 24-hour FM transmitter sites typically have no local access to the audio stream, short of a physical access between the satellite receiver and the transmitter input, when the satellite receiver is at the transmitter location.

One exception that I am aware of is with the VOA FM on Sao Tome, where the audio for the FM transmitter on the mountain location is fed by an STL from the VOA station on the coast. The programming for that transmitter is usually the VOA1 music feed, but there were a few program changes, late afternoon and early evening, where the VOA1 is not run, but program segments from the Portuguese for Africa feed and French to Africa feed are used.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no VOA1 programming on any of the short wave transmitters.

The VOA affiliate operations, local broadcasters, have agreements to run VOA programming, as a minimum, they would have to run the programing per the agreement, but I don't think any of those agreements limited those local broadcastings to only those programming segments. Since the VOA satellite feeds are not encrypted, there are probably broadcasters using VOA programming and VOA HQ might not ever know about that program use.

David mentions tape programming, and many years back, even some of the VOA programming was distributed to the overseas VOA transmitter locations, on disk in the early days and later, magnetic tapes, programming which wasn't of a time-sensitive nature. This was because the audio feeds to the overseas transmitters were the shortwave transmitters in the United States, and propagation wasn't always great, so with these canned programs, the overseas transmitters would have higher quality audio available than what might be available via the short wave feeders. Once the VOA set up the satellite distribution network, there was no longer any need for the feeder transmitters at the stateside locations.

 

[Miss Tuned]

Weiner is a free speech absolutist, and the programming on WBCQ reflects that. He and his wife have also expressed far-right conspiracy views on their own talk show, which airs at 8pm eastern time. So I think both observations are true in this case.

The other broadcasters (particularly WWCR and WRMI) are in it for the money...they don't seem to care about content.

Big issue going forward for these stations is aging ownership as well as increasingly ancient transmission infrastructure. Rising electric rates could also be a death blow.

In the case of WBCQ, they've got a brand-new transmitter and antenna system (paid for by the World's Last Chance end-times religious operation and its backer). I don't know what the operating model is for this, or why the WLC paid for a new transmitter at 'BCQ instead of setting up its own station somewhere - it pumps out World's Last Chance programming 24/7, so I presume it was installed on the basis that it wouldn't run any other programming. The rest of the infrastructure of WBCQ and the other stations is "vintage" at best.

It's interesting to note that WBCQ recently bought a religious SW station, WHRI, for $1.25 million. Unless Weiner is sitting on millions, I suspect this was another purchase funded by the flat-earth millionaires of World's Last Chance.

I don't know who is listening to any of these stations. Most of the programming is US-specific religion and/or politics and is of little interest to listeners outside the US. Listeners inside the US (and in most of the world) have ample access to this type of content online should they be interested.

 

[boombox4]

The real issue is not "who is broadcasting?" but "who is listening?". With the content formerly limited to SW now all over the internet, who would listen to low-quality AM with static and fading on SW?

Those in fourth world countries, often war torn, where the local governments control any internet that is available?

 

[boombox4]

The BBC is still a strong presence on shortwave, but I hear much more Chinese than English these days.

I think the English broadcasts are aimed more towards West Africa, from Ascension Island.

 

[davideduardo]

Those in fourth world countries, often war torn, where the local governments control any internet that is available?

The issue is that there are practically no SW radios being sold. When FM started taking over in most of the world... and that was in the 70's and 80's mostly, radios sold at local retail became AM & FM, not Medium and Shortwave. So for quite a few decades, no SW radios have been sold in any of the nations you refer to.

Local radio is plentiful, but under totalitarian governments, most don't step out of line. And the average citizen can't afford the much more expensive shortwave radio options if they are even available.

Most nations don't have wars going on. In this hemisphere, none. In Africa, just a couple out of the 54 are totalitarian. One analysis states that just Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe are in such a state. A couple more, like Algeria, are near that state.

If you look at this List of countries by Fragile States Index you can see that the US is not even in the top 25 most "solid and stable" nations any longer, so maybe we need some SW stations in the Turks and Caicos programming for this country.

 

[davideduardo]

I don't know who is listening to any of these stations. Most of the programming is US-specific religion and/or politics and is of little interest to listeners outside the US. Listeners inside the US (and in most of the world) have ample access to this type of content online should they be interested.

And while the conspiracy theorists may have sources of SW radios, the average consumer does not 1) know what shortwave is and 2) know where to get a receiver and 3) have any need for a receiver.

 

[Mediafrog+]

I think the English broadcasts are aimed more towards West Africa, from Ascension Island.

The BBC still has a fairly significant SW presence for Africa, transmitted from several sites, though output is much reduced from years ago. Many African cities have an FM outlet for the World Service. Elsewhere there are two-hour morning/evening shotwave blocks for the Middle East, South, Southeast and East Asia.

You can see their current English shortwave broadcast frequencies here: BBC - Global Short Wave Frequencies

 

[Mediafrog+]

And while the conspiracy theorists may have sources of SW radios, the average consumer does not 1) know what shortwave is and 2) know where to get a receiver and 3) have any need for a receiver.

Not too long ago I did a Google search for shortwave receivers online, just to see "what was out there" (not in the market, just curious.) Afterwards, I started getting all sorts of Google inserted ads for survivalist gear, food rations, guns and ammunition, etc. Appears the Google tracking algorithms thought I was some sort of survival/conspiracy nut from having looked at shortwave radios online. Needless to say, I quickly cleared my browser cache and deleted cookies to get away from all that.

I suspect there are a number of conspiracy/doomer types who purchase cheap portable SW radios online in order to listen to all the nutbars on WWCR, WBCQ, WRMI, etc.

 

[davideduardo]

Let me clarify this a bit, for on almost all of the VOA 24-hour FM transmitters which run VOA1 music programming, that local programming is not programming inserted locally at the transmitter location, but is in the satellite audio feed from the VOA studio complex in Washington. These VOA 24-hour FM transmitter sites typically have no local access to the audio stream, short of a physical access between the satellite receiver and the transmitter input, when the satellite receiver is at the transmitter location.

One exception that I am aware of is with the VOA FM on Sao Tome, where the audio for the FM transmitter on the mountain location is fed by an STL from the VOA station on the coast. The programming for that transmitter is usually the VOA1 music feed, but there were a few program changes, late afternoon and early evening, where the VOA1 is not run, but program segments from the Portuguese for Africa feed and French to Africa feed are used.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no VOA1 programming on any of the short wave transmitters.

The VOA affiliate operations, local broadcasters, have agreements to run VOA programming, as a minimum, they would have to run the programing per the agreement, but I don't think any of those agreements limited those local broadcastings to only those programming segments. Since the VOA satellite feeds are not encrypted, there are probably broadcasters using VOA programming and VOA HQ might not ever know about that program use.

David mentions tape programming, and many years back, even some of the VOA programming was distributed to the overseas VOA transmitter locations, on disk in the early days and later, magnetic tapes, programming which wasn't of a time-sensitive nature. This was because the audio feeds to the overseas transmitters were the shortwave transmitters in the United States, and propagation wasn't always great, so with these canned programs, the overseas transmitters would have higher quality audio available than what might be available via the short wave feeders. Once the VOA set up the satellite distribution network, there was no longer any need for the feeder transmitters at the stateside locations.

Thanks for the clarification of the VOA1 satellite feeds. I was under the belief that that could be used in the past in certain time periods such as on the MW service for Kuwait and the Gulf States (Emirates).

My involvement with the agency has been with Radio Martí as one of the congressionally mandated annual analysis "experts" named each year. I did two of those evaluations quite a few years back.

 

[davideduardo]

I suspect there are a number of conspiracy/doomer types who purchase cheap portable SW radios online in order to listen to all the nutbars on WWCR, WBCQ, WRMI, etc.

Probably (hopefully?) no more than the low triple digits. Hopefully, soon "zero".

 

[Miss Tuned]

WRMI is an interesting case, because it carries Spanish-language programming from a few European broadcasters - Radio Prague and Radio Slovakia International. I wonder if the state broadcasters in these EU countries know that they're sharing a station with, and being promoted on a web page alongside, the likes of Hal Turner, The Crusade Channel and the rather unsubtle title of The Far Right Radio Show?

Honestly, if the only way to make money out of your SW station is to rent time to these unpleasant racist gasbags, the kind thing to do would be to turn it off and pull down the towers.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

Thanks for the clarification of the VOA1 satellite feeds. I was under the belief that that could be used in the past in certain time periods such as on the MW service for Kuwait and the Gulf States (Emirates).

And of course, it could be used that way! Since both MW transmitters at Kuwait were mostly 24/7, there would be a need to program them when the transmitters were up and without checking the schedule for those two transmitters, I could not specifically state there was no VOA1 on the MW transmitters at some point in the day.

I've not been to Kuwait for almost five years, so I can't personally tell you what is going on now.

The VOA English FM in Kuwait ran mostly VOA1, but there were time slots when other programming was run. There were English teaching programs, business reports and some of the VOA news and commentary programming. The feed for that FM transmitter was, at the time, a satellite channel in the VOA satellite package, so all of the program switching was done in Washington. The station in Kuwait did have access to the STL to the FM transmitter site and could override the satellite feed, if necessary, but it was seldom done that way.

Similarly, the Kuwait station could control the audio on the MW transmitters, the same way the station did control the audio on the short wave transmitters, but it was all scheduled by the Washington folks and the techs simply programmed the audio switcher to follow that schedule.

As you can imagine, it takes only one OPMEMO to change the programming.

For many of the African 24/7 VOA FMs, the program is a dedicated satellite audio channel on the AFSAT package. To get into the audio chain for these transmitters, someone would have to get into the TX location and actually disconnect the audio pairs off the satellite receiver and then feed those pairs with local audio.

My involvement with the agency has been with Radio Martí as one of the congressionally mandated annual analysis "experts" named each year. I did two of those evaluations quite a few years back.

Yea, I've read some of your comments. My contact with the Radio Marti side of the house was almost totally limited to knowing a few of the folks who worked or work at the Marathon transmitter site. And many years ago, doing audio proofs on the telco line from Greenville to Marathon, prior to the satellite circuits and the change of programming for the Marathon transmitter from the regular Spanish feed to the Radio Marti program feed.

 

[boombox4]

As for US commercial shortwave, its programming is just not something that is going to be of interest to anyone other than the most strident conspiracy nuts.

So-called "free speech" WBCQ out of Maine runs hour after hour of the homophobic convicted violent sex offender "Brother" Stair; regular shows from far-right racist convicted criminal Hal Turner; and multiple hours of other right-wing racist conspiracy programming. They now also have a multi-million-dollar high-power transmitter running 24/7 flat-earth, end-of-the-world bullcrap, paid for by an Egyptian cosmetics magnate.

I question the sanity of anyone who is not a far-right headbanger who subsidises the operation of these stations by buying airtime. Several non-political "hobbyist" broadcasters rent time on WBCQ, WRMI etc. This mix of fascism and wacky religion is not the only way to run this kind of brokered-time SW station - the German station Channel 292 runs the hobbyist and music broadcasts while steering clear of politics and, for the most part, religion. It helps that it's bound by German laws that prohibit things like Holocaust denial, which is commonplace on the US outlets.

The question to the likes of Allan Weiner is - do you believe the conspiracy crap your stations peddle, or are you just in it for the money?

I can't speak for Mr. Weiner, obviously, but he has been involved in SW broadcasting since his pirate radio days in the 1970's, and obviously loves the medium of SW broadcasting.

It's obvious that he's just trying to keep his station on the air. You could say the same thing for most of the rest of the domestic SW stations, although a few were installed by religious broadcasting agencies, with the intent of propagating religion (WEWN being an obvious example of that, and here are a couple others whose call letters I have forgotten which were set up by evangelical broadcasters).

And even a few of the religious stations play some extreme religious broadcasts because they're simply trying to stay on the air.

RE: sharing a station with extremists: do you share the same opinion about social media, which may have one's own innocuous postings placed near some extremist rant from a complete stranger, as sometimes happens in a newsfeed? A medium is a medium. Everyone makes their choices.

 

[boombox4]

Not too long ago I did a Google search for shortwave receivers online, just to see "what was out there" (not in the market, just curious.) Afterwards, I started getting all sorts of Google inserted ads for survivalist gear, food rations, guns and ammunition, etc. Appears the Google tracking algorithms thought I was some sort of survival/conspiracy nut from having looked at shortwave radios online. Needless to say, I quickly cleared my browser cache and deleted cookies to get away from all that.

I suspect there are a number of conspiracy/doomer types who purchase cheap portable SW radios online in order to listen to all the nutbars on WWCR, WBCQ, WRMI, etc.

Or it may have nothing to do with the politics of SW radio programs, and may be closer to the survivalist aspect of SW, as historically presented -- the only means of obtaining mass information during a TEOTWAWKI event. A lot of new hams are apparently survivalists, and the association of SW and HF Ham activity is pretty substantial.

I personally think MW is a better choice for disaster communications reception, and CB would be preferable if a survivalist wants to keep in touch with local associates (CBs are less expensive, antennas are more portable, more obtainable, and smaller).

As for your experience, Mediafrog, I've looked at SW radio ads before and have seen none of what you've mentioned. Just other radio ads from time to time.

 

[Dondd]

As despicable as the thought; All Conspiracies All The Time, could be an interesting AM radio talk format. It would combine the old Art Bell sleep deprived crazy's with not-dead yet shows like Alex Jones. Securing business insurance could be a challenge, and the legal fees would be astronomical. But hey, considering how many Anti-Vaccer's, QAnon freaks, and believer's of The Big Lie there are out there...

I can't believe Coast To Coast AM still features Alex Jones as a guest.
I listened to his show recently. He was whining about possibly "leaving the air" and "ending his show..." Bluster, of course.
The "New World Order" is "out to get him," of course.

 

[gr8oldies]

Any station that carries the Alex Jones network would be a possibility. We have an AM that does in Knoxville. I call it Conspiracy Talk 1470. Add a few religious broadcasters.