Hahaha I was looking for that image when you posted it 🤭🤣Packing up the shortwave transmitter like:
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WTWW Transmitter For Sale
- Thread starter SomeRadioGuy
- Start date
Thats why KIYU and KSKO's Harris 10kw transmitters were scrapped when the AM licenses were voluntarily surrendered in the early part of this decade and 2015 respectively. KSKO's tower was taken down immediately. KIYU in reality hadn't been on AM in years before the license was officially turned in, several attempts were made to revive the AM, one of which I was a part of, but for a number of reasons, it didn't work out.
Even if KIYU or KSKO had GIVEN AWAY the transmitter for FREE, it would've been cost prohibitive to ship it to anyone in the lower 48 or Canada in any method
KIYU's AM tower used to belong to AFRTS at Campion Air Station and KSKO's tower was purpose built, with cell co-located. Cell mvoed elsewhere. In the early 80s, KSKO's TX shack burnt down and were back on the air in like 3 days with a loaner transmitter from Anchorage and using what I think was the Airports NDB Beacon tower
According to George McClintock (via Glenn Hauser) that transmitter has now been sold to someone who wants to launch a shortwave station but doesn’t currently have a Construction Permit. Identity of the buyer not revealed.
I'm curious as to who would want to start a shortwave station today. Would this be an experienced world broadcaster who understands and accepts the decline in SW usage, or is this someone with a "Field of Dreams" belief that if they build it, listeners will come?
In other words, is there a way, still, today to justify running a shortwave station?
In Europe, there are a few shortwave stations, some licensed, others unlicensed. The purpose seems to primarily be for hobbyists. Nobody is seriously listening to the programming, and the majority of people who tune in are others who are involved, picking up one another's stations and sending reception reports. It's a harmless use of otherwise worthless and unused spectrum, and there's very little enforcement on the unlicensed stations. It's basically ham radio, but with music.
There are people whose mindsets are stuck in the 1950s that consider shortwave to still be an effective distribution platform. They have absolutely no grasp of how technological change has affected listener media preferences and use.
Cue the Field of Dreams theme music. Maybe that new station will be based in Iowa. Cornfield as a transmitter site?
Only in a very few and very specific and narrowly targeted circumstances. Afghanistan comes to mind.
Germany and The Netherlands have a number of such operations at widely varying power levels. The current World Radio TV Handbook has all the details. Many of these stations have very limited operational schedules.
Australia also has several private SW broadcasters that seem to be DX curiosities rather than any serious attempt to reach a broader general audience.
It’s basically shortwave for the sake of shortwave. Think of them as a restaurant that only caters to the chefs and cooks at other restaurants.
I actually see no problem with that. If the spectrum is virtually empty, why not let wannabe broadcasters have a platform for whatever programming they want to try? Only thing to insist on is clean technical specifications for the transmitters in use.
I’ve wondered if a lower powered shortwave service would ever be authorized in the U.S. given the libertarian leanings of a lot of politics these days. LPSW?
That is a great way to sum things up!👍🤣
This also largely described WTWW under Ted Randall, as well as his continuing top 40 programming on WRMI. Randall had entire hours-long interactive radio programs for ham radio operators, and half of his commercials were placed by ham radio OEMs, resellers, and service providers.
There was also a large community of shortwave/DXing enthusiasts listening (as opposed to "ordinary" shortwave users with strictly modern receivers, searching for particular content with no affinity for the delivery medium itself). This would be evidenced every Christmas when WTWW went all Christmas oldies. Every year at that time, listeners would begin submitting photos of their receivers situated among their homes' Christmas decor, and the results, compiled each year on the station's web site, were predictable, with a predominance of classic receiving equipment from the 1930s through the 1930s showing up, and comparatively little modern kit among it. One year's haul of photos, for example:
WTWW - Christmas Picture Contest
web.archive.org
Anyway, I would also love seeing the shortwave broadcast bands fall into the hands of hobbyist cultures like this. There is no general public appeal for those bands anymore, and it would also be nice just having a "second, fallback internet" that was much more resistant to censorship (from the perspective of technically unsophisticated end users), and that was much more immune than the modern internet to mass-generated content (from the perspective that only skilled engineers can successfully put wide-area broadcast on the air). Radio started out with hobbyist experimental broadcasters serving the technically-literate little guy. A return to that, at least on shortwave, would be cool beans.
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Can't edit my post above anymore, but I meant to say "with a predominance of classic receiving equipment from the 1930s through the 1990s."
P.S. If the web archive didn't grab them all, the original-size photos for the thumbnails archived at the link above are still available here:
https://wtww.us/media/minigal2/22/
Some interesting old hardware in that batch.
P.S. If the web archive didn't grab them all, the original-size photos for the thumbnails archived at the link above are still available here:
https://wtww.us/media/minigal2/22/
Some interesting old hardware in that batch.
Speaking of Shortwave Radio, you all should make a point to listen to the series the public radio weekend show "On the Media" is running on its history. "The Divided Dial" started the weekend of May 10. I just listened to part 2 (on May 18) which gets into how the medium in the US became a training ground for white nationalists and militia types, by selling discounted blocks of airtime to extremist hosts. One of which is mentioned above. I quit listening to short wave by the time this changeover happened, tho' grew up enjoying Radio Nederland Worldwide and other 'friendly' national broadcasters who, as you know. all seem to all have abandoned shortwave. At least aimed at North America.Can't edit my post above anymore, but I meant to say "with a predominance of classic receiving equipment from the 1930s through the 1990s."
P.S. If the web archive didn't grab them all, the original-size photos for the thumbnails archived at the link above are still available here:
https://wtww.us/media/minigal2/22/
Some interesting old hardware in that batch.
The radio feature didn't get into why Radio for Peace International, a rare alternative to right wing rhetoric, shut down. I remember it being shuttered by the Costa Rica government - a lock out on the transmitter site. I'd be interested in knowing more about that one. But for more on the rest of the US stations, you'll want to listen. On the Media is produced by WNYC and if you don't hear it on your local public radio outlet, I'm sure you can find it online, or the podcast, very easily.
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