[zafiro17]

This article feels like it written specifically for me. I have a strong nostalgia and affection for shortwave radio while sadly also forcing myself to come to grips with the fact that it's a dead medium.

I was a volunteer in rural Central America from 1998-2000 and shortwave radio was an important news source for me (but already a VERY niche medium, even then). Nights I dialed in VOA and then found a lot of other interesting things too, from Cuba to broadcasts from Spain, Germany, and Indonesia. It was all fun and exciting.

Ten years later I began a decade of work overseas in rural West Africa. I dutifully brought my shortwave with me, only this time I found close to nothing on the airwaves. Some crazy religious broadcasts here and there, but nothing. I looked around and can confirm that in ten years of living in Africa (with a lot of West African friends and colleagues) not a single one of them had or used shortwave, or even really had any awareness that it existed. The number one media source even then was FM radio tuned in over cheap Chinese FM radios or over FM radio apps on cell phones.

I've still got a shortwave and occasionally scan the frequencies from my hammock here in North Carolina. But there is really not much there (religious stuff still being one exception). I ask myself, if rural West Africans aren't listening to shortwave anymore, really who is?

This article answers it: a few pockets remain, like Nigeria and Myanmar. But the shortwave era ended: everyone who left shortwave never came back, even when newer methods failed. Guess it was fun while it lasted :)

[bobochan]

I was in Central Africa (CAR and Chad) in the early 90s and shortwave was a lifeline. The BBC was on in the background almost all day, with the exception of switching to the VOA once in a while to check on sports scores. Beyond news, shortwave was how things like evacuation and security reports were shared.

My shortwave broke in transit home, but I picked up a new one around 2000, just in time for the BBC to end its broadcasts to North America. That really signaled the beginning of the end as other broadcasters cut back or eliminated their broadcasts.