Lean and mean International broadcasting tightens its belt

I found it rather ironic that, on the very day of President Bush's State of the Union address, in which he said that the US is "addicted to oil", we learned that US government international broadcasts are cutting about 90,000 transmitter hours per year.

High-powered international broadcast transmitters need a lot of fuel, and in most cases it's oil. The two are not directly connected, of course, but it's a coincidence that reminds us just how energy-inefficient broadcasting, and especially international broadcasting, can be.

I was a shortwave listener and DXer for many years before coming to work at Radio Netherlands, and I still have fondness for the old analogue signals that delivered programmes from stations around the world. I never gave a thought to the amount of energy that was needed to get these signals to my radio, until in the early 1980s I paid a visit to the Radio Netherlands Bonaire relay station, and was shown the generator room. Later, I went to the Flevo transmitter site when it was nearing completion, and saw one of the 500 kW transmitters with the side panels off, glowing white-hot. These mental images have stayed with me.

Energy-efficient alternatives
In 2006, there are much more energy-efficient ways to get radio signals to listeners, even on shortwave. The cost of transmitting digitally on shortwave via DRM is substantially lower. Unfortunately, delays in introducing affordable user-friendly receivers are proving to be a major problem, and it's by no means certain that DRM will ever realise its potential, as in the meantime international broadcasters are dropping significant amounts of shortwave output. DRM probably came a decade too late.

On the other hand, retreating from shortwave is a risky strategy. Take the situation in Indonesia, where a number of international broadcasters, including Radio Netherlands, have partner stations that have been broadcasting their satellite-delivered news and current affairs programming on FM. Now, the Indonesian government has introduced a new media law that forbids live relays of news, which means that the shortwave signals might suddenly become more important again.

FM and Internet
Other international broadcasters, such as the BBC, Deutsche Welle and Radio France International, have had various services via mediumwave and FM cut off without warning for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's just bureaucratic bungling, other times it's because the government of a particular country objects to something that has been aired by the international broadcaster.

Broadcasting via the Internet isn't always the solution either. One of the major UK Internet service providers is running a very misleading TV commercial which implies, quite incorrectly, that the Internet is uncensored everywhere. Try telling that to users in China, which is a subject of great controversy because some western companies have agreed to "censor" their search engines to leave out things that would be displeasing to the Chinese government. China also has the ability to block certain IP addresses, or groups of IP addresses, coming into the country. "The great firewall of China" does exist, and is just as effective as shortwave jamming.

Satellites
Even satellite delivery isn't immune to deliberate interference, as London-based Libyan opposition station Sawt al-Amel found out. Its uplink was intentionally jammed by Tripoli, resulting in widespread disruption that affected broadcast services such as the BBC, ESPN and CNN, and also US and UK diplomatic and military communications traffic sharing the same satellite. Sawt al-Amel was removed from the airwaves by the satellite provider and placed on a different satellite, which also suffered from the jamming attacks. The station was then asked to "voluntarily" suspend its programmes. It has now returned to the air - on shortwave! And it's still being jammed.

All of this means that shortwave broadcasting remains important, even where potential alternatives exist. However, the industry needs to become even more efficient at using the resources at its disposal. Cutting 90,000 transmitter hours (a little less than 250 per day) from the shortwave schedule of a major international broadcaster can be done as long as the frequency management and monitoring is good, which it certainly is in the case of IBB which runs the US government's international broadcasting services.

Involuntary efficiency
So international broadcasters are becoming more energy-efficient, out of necessity rather than voluntarily. Long gone are the days when a station made its presence felt by using multiple transmitter sites and frequencies, sometimes not even announcing the individual frequencies because there were so many of them. "Lean and mean" is now the policy at most international stations.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Radio Netherlands.

I love the efficiency and immediacy of getting my news via the Internet, especially via Free Republic. Despite that, there's still something viscerally satisfying about receiving a distant signal via shortwave - static crashes, fading, and all.

Yeah, shortwave is still the way to go for simple yet a cheap way to reach a lot of people. I know it can get expensive as Andy Sennitt (haven't heard about him in a long time) said with the 500 kW transmitters, but even low powered transmitters can cover a lot of areas. I once heard New Zealand one night when their SW transmitter was rated only at 7500 watts. I picked up the Camaroon's 300 watter at the time too on my DX-440 I know this is an AM station, not a shortwave one but one night here in Pittsburgh, I picked up KDIA out of Berkeley, Calif, in my Ford Explorer and that was a 10,000 watter. Wish I had more time to DX. I do like to listen to CFRB out of Toronto, Canada on 6070 kc during the day.

Trouble is that not everyone has an SSB receiver although you can reduce power by usingthe carrier and only one sideband as opposed to two, I know CHU in Canada, the time station does that. You can have a reduced carrier too as well.

Especially when you open the top of your Collins 75A4 and feel the warmth from the glow bottles inside.

Ah, what a classic receiver! Real radios glow in the dark.

I still don't have a Collins in my collection, and given the prices they tend to fetch these days it may be quite a while before I do. In the meantime I'm content with my BC-348Q.

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