Shortwave Radio

One would be mistaken to think that with the thousands upon thousands of AM and FM radio stations, plus the new technologies of HD radio and satellite broadcasts, shortwave radio is now becoming a thing of the past. The truth is this type of radio broadcast has its own territorial niche, unlikely to be eroded by technological advances.

Shortwave broadcasts are popular in sparsely populated areas where AM or FM stations find it uneconomical to operate. Parties with political interests adverse to governments are prime exponents of clandestine broadcasting via shortwave. So with religious preachers and other special interest groups whose views may not pass muster in the norms and standards of mainstream broadcasting.

Sending messages via shortwave are used by utility, shipping, or transportation companies for their internal work organization. Cloak-and-dagger stuff from embassies may be sent coded via shortwave, or it may be the mode of transmission for the more ordinary concerns such as local weather and time check reports.

Long distance communication using shortwave radio frequency is reputedly discovered by amateur radio operators during the 1920s. Experimenting with the then newly developed vacuum tubes, these so called “hams” successfully transmitted signals at the 200-meter medium-wave band, the shortest wave length allowed to them during that time. Restrictions in official wave lengths allowed the amateur radio operators later forced them to seek shorter and shorter wave lengths. They were so successful that from the pivotal 200-meter band signal in the 1920s, hams had accessed the 15-meter band by the early 1950s, a solid footing for shortwave radio that would be hard to shake.