Shortwave Once a New Technology

I recently began a new job at the National Voice of America Museum.  For many, myself included, the Voice of America is one of those institutions that we had heard about but have a very fuzzy understanding of what it is.  The very beginnings of the organization, which provides unbiased radio programming from the United States to listeners in countries around the world, are rooted in shortwave radio.  Shortwave radio is a technology that never really took off in the United States but in the rest of the world during the last half of the 1900s it was a mainstay of radio.

In the United States it has always been relegated to hobbyists.  I can remember when I was a little kid being fascinated by the old radio in my aunt’s house that had a shortwave band and emblazoned on the dial were names of cities from half way around the world that I could listen to.  When I was able to get a receiver of my own I would spend hours listening to strange broadcasts in languages I could not understand but nevertheless is was so cool. 

Who knew some 50+ years later, when shortwave is at best a footnote in the history of broadcasting, I would get a job that was so closely connected to this technology.

Shortwave broadcasts can travel great distances since they can be easily reflected off the ionosphere back to earth and thus overcome the barrier of the curvature of the Earth. Most broadcast signals, like those of all local TV stations and most radio stations, are effective only when the transmitter and receiver are in line of sight. Anyone driving across the country knows how stations come and go on our car radio as we travel farther from the transmitter.

The Voice of America, transmitting from the West Chester, OH location was an effective tool for the US during WWII and the following cold war years.  Unlike many of the shortwave services supported by other more restrictive and controlled foreign governments, VOA’s guiding principle was “Tell the truth and let the world decide.”  Even in the darkest days of the war VOA did not sugarcoat a lost allied battle or another fallen state to Hitler’s terror.  This credibility served the VOA well then and continues to do so now.  

While shortwave has been replaced with satellites, the internet and mobile phones, the messages and the unbiased programming from the VOA remains.  Radio programming is now only a portion of the offerings expanded to include TV, online streaming of video and audio and social media.

As we look at the technologies of today, I wonder what our kids some 50 years in the future will think of iPads and smartphones.   Will they be seen as old and obsolete as we now view shortwave?

Major Changes Coming for Radio

The digital revolution has had an impact on most every facet of modern media: we read newspapers on tablets and Kindles, watch television on our phones and make video telephone calls with our laptop computer.  Absent from this list is radio.  Sure there are some apps for radio stations but up until now radio stations and our consumption of radio programming today is not all that different from our great grandparents.  In fact, if you found an old radio in the attic dating back to the 1930s and you could get it to turn on, that radio could receive most every local radio station now operating today. 

We are likely to soon witness a change in how and where we receive radio programming and that change might well be more revolutionary than what we all experienced with television.  This revolution could change forever the economic model of radio broadcasting.

Radio stations have operated in such a way as to cover a specific geographic area.  Anyone driving cross country has experienced the frustration of listening to a baseball game or interesting talk program only to lose the signal as you drove further away from the station’s tower.  Radio stations based the cost of their advertising spots on the coverage area and the number of people who listen. 

Most stations have for several years streamed their programming on the internet and those with an internet connection could receive the station no matter where they were.  There are even internet radios that can receive most any streamed station in the world.  The popularity of these devices and services has been modest since most people listen to radio in their automobile and, up until now, internet access while driving down the highway has been elusive.

Close attention to advertisements for new cars will show that this is changing and changing fast.  The dashboard now is becoming a multimedia center for getting email, instant messages, map direction and, yes, internet radio.  A driver on the Santa Freeway will be able to listen to a station in Cincinnati as effortlessly as a commuter on I-75.  Services like iTunes radio, Prodigy, Spotify and iHeart Radio will show up on the dial along with WLW and WKRC.

In essence it makes every radio station a potential global station.  What it will do for the advertisers is uncertain.  Will Mr. Gilkey want to spend money to advertise his windows to thousands of homeowners who can’t buy them?  How about local news and weather? 

Managers of radio stations have a lot to think about as another facet of our media faces extraordinary change.  Stay tuned.