Forum Friends,

The last BBC broadcast from Bush House left the airwaves today.

Or perhaps left the digital divide today.

You can find a video of the last news from Bush House on the BBC.

So it goes...

Regards,
Mike

I was going to post a link for the auction that was handling most of the BBC
equipment from the Bush House.

IMHO, the loss of the BBC world wide services on SW marked the beginning of the
end for shortwave's future. It was extremely shortsighted as well. Most countries
are under the assumption that listeners will migrate to the internet. Unfortunately
those in the poorest and most oppressed countries are the ones who lack internet
access, availability of uncensored news, and are those who relied on uncensored
SW broadcasts to hear the truth.

Pete

Peter- As one who has donated hand crank rechargeable radios to those who live in areas of occasional electricity, I fully agree. And as the number of Short Wave transmitters dwindles, the physical location and frequncies of those left will often be less than optimum for many of the listeners out there. As well as providing fewer voices for those listeners to find.

Yet so much of what the BBC posts on it's news pages is about the poor, those the BBC yells are "left behind", and the very people the BBC itself has abandoned.

Irony, no?

John S.

I used to have an office right across the street from Bush House (and, of course, Marconi House, from where the BBC first broadcast in 1922).

Very sad.

Wow ,
?I remember as a kid listening to BBC wow thats to bad before you know it Shortwave will be no more

I'm still hearing the BBC on Shortwave every morning, they have a long broadcast in English to East Asia and Oceania, clearly audible on the West Coast.... I've also heard their broadcast in English to Africa from Ascension Is.

However, it is disturbing to see so many former broadcasters leave the shortwaves (i.e. Radio Netherlands, BBC no longer broadcasting to North America, Radio Canada off the air, etc.).

Shortwave has been useful because the ionosphere is kind of like a 'poor man's satellite'. You don't need expensive equipment (relative to the cost of satellite receiving gear or internet service), and don't have to pay fees, all you need is a radio, maybe a hunk of wire to add to the whip antenna if needed, and the cost of a set of batteries. Propagation, of course, helps.

I still listen to Radio Romania and Serbia in the evening, here on east coast US. Also, Radio Australia early in the morning, sometimes New Zealand. And sometimes Cuba.

All news is censored and largely slander.

There is some truth to that, but to keep things in the realm of non-political poignant reminiscences, may I offer the observation that, while the World Service occupied the upper floors of Bush House, the ground floor featured a small and exclusive mall.

I used to get my hair cut there. Cost a bloody fortune, but I haven't had a haircut as good since we moved away.

Hey All,

Sad.

Part of this may be the COST. SW transmitters use HUGE amounts of juice, often need at least "decent" propagation (which usually has been fairly bad this year ! ) and apparently are used and needed by a demographic that suddenly doesn't seem to matter anymore ( the "third" world).

"IMPORTANT" folks in the "first " world don't need SW to get foreign opinion or news anymore ( we've got the WWW). And the web is a MILLION times cheaper to operate.

I grew up largely, if not mostly with radio, but like it or not, "the times they are a changin' ".

K

Money can't be the whole story, as the BBC seems to have it to spend when it comes to propping up the National Peoples Radio (NPR) in many US cities...... Here in Las Vegas, NPR used to broadcast dead air in the "no audience" Midnight to 4 AM time slot; now the BBC pays it's cousin to air day old "news"....

For decades, I used to listen to the much respected World Service as I traveled in Europe, the Pacific, and when at home in the US. For many reasons (money, changing technology, and I suspect some we shall not speak of here), the BBC decided to blow off the 1st world. They literally give away the top spot in international SW broadcasting, to compete on the Web with every 14 year old that has a blog.

The sun has indeed set on what was the BBC empire; a loss for the free world, a gain for the likes of Radio Cuba, Radio China, and NPR.