My comments were directed to ‘shortwave broadcasting’ not ham radio. Ham radio is alive and well and I highly recommend it to everyone.
It is shortwave broadcasting that is sadly essentially dead. All the major shortwave broadcasters have pulled the plug. There are some exceptions, broadcasting to ‘closed’ countries continues in non-english.
What remains are the religious broadcasters such as Brother Stair who has been predicting the imminent end of the world for as long as I can remember.
It is a very sad developement. Shortwave listening used to be a pleasure.
If you are interested in radio, get involved in ham radio instead!
If it were dead as you say, there would be no one broadcasting in SW....
Ham radio is alive and well and I highly recommend it to everyone.
We agree.
Excellent advice. Ham Radio is enjoying quite a renaissance now that morse code is no longer required. Some of the older hams think it's "ruined the hobby" as a result but it you really look at who's getting into the hobby and what they're doing now, many of the newcomers to the hobby are experimenting more in the digital modes of communications, over the air networks, packet radio, echolink (which I contend isn't really ham radio...) and other modes of communication as well.
I got into the hobby about 3 years ago now and in that time have worked all 50 States, all Canadian provinces and about 50 countries outside the U.S. A few weeks ago I managed to make a contact in Moscow and have a conversation that lasted over an hour on 20 Meters (14.285) before the band fell out. I've talked as far as Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa for example on a simple wire and 100 watts when conditions were right.
My first rig cost me a few hundred bucks, I did the work to re-condition it myself with some help from a ham friend ("elmer") and my first antenna was a long wire between the peak of my roof and a tree 100 feet away. I think I worked almost every state with that setup by itself.
You'd be amazed at the people you can talk to all over the world and they know english really well. It's a great hobby with something for everyone I think. My 12 year old son is testing for his first license in another week or two, he's looking forward to being able to use Dad's radio's.