The Philosophies of Shortwave and Pirate Listeners

[Swede P]

Perhaps some of you know whether there has ever been a statistical survey of the kind of people that listen to shortwave radio in general and to pirates in particular. As an avid listener since my teens, I am painfully aware of how unaware the major part of the population (at least in any country I have lived in) is about shortwave radio altogether. Americans seem to be more savvy than most in this regard, while, at the opposite end of the scale, in some countries, such as my own, the radio culture is generally very poor and people are in the dark.

What I have noticed, however, is that among those who are into shortwave, they tend to be more individualistic and freedom-oriented types as compared to the rest of the population. Since I also count myself among that group, it would be easy for me to romanticise that we shortwave types are generally to my own way of thinking. Perhaps, I am only flattering myself...or maybe not.

Listening to WBCQ and other US shortwave stations, much of the content is either religious or else it is of a rather patriotic and/or libertarian slant and I am wondering if that is indicative of the SW listening public generally.

It would also be interesting to see if the personal interests, habits, hobbies etc of shortwave listeners differ from those of the public at large. On SW there are some programmes dealing with science, music history and sometimes some rather arcane topics which I do not hear often on mainstream media. Conversely, except for on the major international broadcasters, it is rare for me to hear programmes dealing with professional spectator sports, for instance.

Already, I can sense subjective a divide between myself and non-SW listeners. There are few places where I could make an allusion to Brother Stair or Harald Camping, or for that matter Timtron, and be understood. I am the only one I know who is a regular listener to Marion's Attic, and even in normal conversation, my base of life experience makes for completely different set of metaphors. For instance, I was speaking with a friend last week about how China is developing economically and I said "It is easy to listen to China Drive and be enamoured with that country, but in reality they still have a long way to go." He had no idea what I meant by "China Drive".

I guess there is something romantic in the idea of the SW radio culture being somewhat separate from the mainstream. I wonder if this phenomenon has been studied to any great extent. Furthermore, if the sort of moral, philosophical and political messages heard on SW are a case of breaking the mold or preaching to the choir.

[Jolly Roger]

I can only toss my experience and interests into the pool and see if it corelates with the general public.
I started listening to SW as a pre-teen in the early '70's. This was because I was growing up in a tiny mining town in the arctic, and there was not much else to listen to. One day in the basement I found an old transistor portable that my Dad had and tried it. My first two stations were Hilversum, Holland and The United Arab Emerites. Freakin' amazing! Here was new music and news I had never experienced before. I was hooked. I soon obtained a Hammarlund HQ-110A and would spend all of my spare time tuning the world. News broadcast were of particular interest. Tropical band DXing and South America brought in brilliant music and insane D.J.'s. Then spy numbers, then pirates. I listened to US military traffic talking about a fatal helicopter crash as it happened, a day before it hit the news. I obtained emergency air transport for a stranded research crew in the high arctic. And so much other stuff it would take a book to list. Heck, I was even singled out by a lunatic rodent broadcaster for harrassment when he mistook me for someone else.

[Northern Relay Service]

  Personally I would have to say that the average SW listener is a little more savvy than most when sussing out BS.

 Shortwave really only had a short hay day in the 30's and 40's . After the invention of the Tv the idea of going to any effort to listen to a foreign broadcast to those in the developed world was lost. This left two audiences in general who were targets for shortwave broadcasters. The undeveloped world to weaken them to invasion,and people who were in search of another kind of truth  . Governments were quick to hone in on this . The West and East used this tool to weaken the will of the other side by using huge transmitters to shove their message down the throats of people searching for something different from the party line . Be it capitalist or communist. Or any other opposing ideological doctrines.The west trying to convince russians blue jeans are cool ,and the russians trying to convince Americans that the chains of capitalism were to heavy to wear. It's still going on today but governments are giving up left right and center realizing that it is pointless in a digital world where even the poorest sometimes have access to some other simpler means of indoctrination.

  So for me anyone who grew up listening to shortwave broadcasting during the cold war knows bullshit when they hear it. Pirate radio is just a last safe haven for those driven mad by all the lying they have heard over the decades. Kind of like a retirement home for cold war propaganda veterans.Tuning here and there for a kernel of truth in a hay stack.

[Pigmeat]

I remember listening to Ali beat Foreman in the "Rumble in The Jungle" via AFRTS. It was the only way to get live coverage of the fight unless you were willing to shell out 25 bucks to watch it via closed circuit TV in an auditorium or arena.

If you like baseball and have a working knowledge of Spanish,Radio Rebelde on 5025,regularly carries Cuban games,and replays them at night.

Many of the members of the British Commonwealth carry soccer,rugby,and cricket via their shortwave services in various languages.

My memory is going,but didn't WRNO carry Saints football games in the 60's and 70's on their shortwave service?

[ChrisSmolinski]

My memory is going,but didn't WRNO carry Saints football games in the 60's and 70's on their shortwave service?

That would be the 1980s, Pigmeat. Apparently you've been standing next to Pat's Time Distortion Field for too long.

[Swede P]

I remember listening to Ali beat Foreman in the "Rumble in The Jungle" via AFRTS. It was the only way to get live coverage of the fight unless you were willing to shell out 25 bucks to watch it via closed circuit TV in an auditorium or arena.

If you like baseball and have a working knowledge of Spanish,Radio Rebelde on 5025,regularly carries Cuban games,and replays them at night.

Many of the members of the British Commonwealth carry soccer,rugby,and cricket via their shortwave services in various languages.

My memory is going,but didn't WRNO carry Saints football games in the 60's and 70's on their shortwave service?

Thanks for the correction. I should offer a small caveat: As I said, I have heard sports on the big international broadcasters (BBC), and secondly the radio experience in my part of the world was arguably different than others.

Still, thanks for the info.

[Swede P]

Would I be correct in concluding that SW types tend also to be do-it-yourselfers and rather handy people generally?

Serious shortwave listening entails quite a bit of tinkering and experimentation on the part of the listeners already. This in turn feeds a curiosity in trying to get even fainter signals, which then leads to more experimentation and tinkering with antennas and circuits, which requires an interest in science and quest to learn etc, etc, etc. It is not the same as tuning on the local FM station to hear the hit parade.

Of course, those of us on this forum understand this already. It is heartbreaking to hear non-SW types ask me things like "Who the hell listens to AM any more. It is 2011!" - clearly some people just don't get it. The only question in my mind is: Is that the majority opinion or the minority?

[Andrew Yoder]

I think that very few people in the US know anything about shortwave radio. Probably well below 1% of the population. But the really great thing is that even 0.33 percent of the US is a million people. If it's even 0.1 percent, that's still 300,000 people and stations like Wolverine Radio and XFM can reach every one. Wide geographic coverage of a niche audience is pretty cool.

Likewise, I've thought that the aspect of creating our own culture is a pretty interesting thing. TV shapes the bulk of our culture, but we've got a little eddy of current that, although still part of the river, is a bit different. And I've had the pleasure of meeting a number of pirate listeners and sometimes it feels almost like I've already met the person because we have a number of things in common that few other people understand

[The Hokie]

Would I be correct in concluding that SW types tend also to be do-it-yourselfers and rather handy people generally?

Serious shortwave listening entails quite a bit of tinkering and experimentation on the part of the listeners already. This in turn feeds a curiosity in trying to get even fainter signals, which then leads to more experimentation and tinkering with antennas and circuits, which requires an interest in science and quest to learn etc, etc, etc. It is not the same as tuning on the local FM station to hear the hit parade.

Of course, those of us on this forum understand this already. It is heartbreaking to hear non-SW types ask me things like "Who the hell listens to AM any more. It is 2011!" - clearly some people just don't get it. The only question in my mind is: Is that the majority opinion or the minority?

Definitely majority, but I think you're spot on with those comments

[Zoidberg]

...Americans seem to be more savvy than most in this regard, while, at the opposite end of the scale, in some countries, such as my own, the radio culture is generally very poor and people are in the dark.

I get the impression the Dutch and British have a somewhat stronger heritage in radio culture, especially in free or pirate radio.

What I have noticed, however, is that among those who are into shortwave, they tend to be more individualistic and freedom-oriented types as compared to the rest of the population.

Probably true.  We don't expect the FCC or any regulatory authority to protect us or tell us what's okay or not okay to hear on radio.  The tuning dial takes care of that when we don't care to listen to a particular bit of programming.

Listening to WBCQ and other US shortwave stations, much of the content is either religious or else it is of a rather patriotic and/or libertarian slant and I am wondering if that is indicative of the SW listening public generally.

Not necessarily.  While I've listened to many extremist transmissions on radio - religious, political and cultural - I don't necessarily subscribe to any of those beliefs.  Similarly, I'm an avid media consumer and lurk equally on ultra-liberal and ultra-conservative websites alike, and everything in between.

My impression is that the typical SWL is a pragmatist in terms of politics and economics, skeptical but tolerant of other's spiritual beliefs, and patriotic but not fanatical regarding their own national identification.

It would also be interesting to see if the personal interests, habits, hobbies etc of shortwave listeners differ from those of the public at large.

We have a higher noise to signal tolerance.  Makes it easier to pretend we didn't notice that honeydew list of weekend chores.

Already, I can sense subjective a divide between myself and non-SW listeners. There are few places where I could make an allusion to...

That's true of any niche hobby, interest or community.  You see it a lot on tightly knit web communities, where regular participants develop their own jargon and memes.  Take a peek at reddit, Something Awful or any other web-based pop culture site and see how long it takes to figure out what anyone is talking about - the communication styles tend to rely heavily on tropes familiar only to regular visitors or participants.  And woe unto anyone who carelessly mixes in jargon, catchphrases or memes from a rival site.

I guess there is something romantic in the idea of the SW radio culture being somewhat separate from the mainstream. I wonder if this phenomenon has been studied to any great extent.

I'm not aware of any comprehensive overview, but there are publications that have focused on certain niches within the radio hobby.

For example, Andrew Yoder has written extensively about the shortwave pirate radio hobby.  He gets at least some credit/blame for my interest in this particular aspect of SWL.  If only I hadn't seen Yoder's books years ago... 

If you read enough articles published in Passport to World Band Radio, WRTH and various periodicals you'll get a sense of the diversity in shortwave listening.  The hobby is diverse enough that there are many SWLs who know little or nothing about pirate radio; others who listen to almost nothing *except* pirate radio; others whose interest is (or was) confined to major broadcasters like DW, RNW, VOA, BBC, etc.; others who primarily chase numbers and utility stations.

Furthermore, if the sort of moral, philosophical and political messages heard on SW are a case of breaking the mold or preaching to the choir.

Probably neither.  Sure, there are some SWLs whose primary reason for listening is to hear messages with which they agree.  But as more and more content is available more conveniently online via podcast or streaming audio - or in some cases via local AM/MW and FM radio - I suspect it tends to pare down SWLing to the hobbyists who are in it for the same reason sport fishermen go fishing for fun rather than food, while the more sensible folks buy fish in a grocery store.

[Swede P]

Thanks Lex. You sure don't miss anything 

[Zoidberg]

Yeahhh... I've never been sure whether that's a good thing or not.   

Interesting discussion, though.  I'd bet similar conversations 10 or 20 years ago would reveal very different profiles of typical SWLs.

Thanks Lex. You sure don't miss anything 

[ChrisSmolinski]

Interesting discussion, though.  I'd bet similar conversations 10 or 20 years ago would reveal very different profiles of typical SWLs.

Back in college, I remember reading old Popular Electronics magazines in the library (when I should have been studying). I recall a few mentions of pirates in the SW loggings column. One from the early 70s stands out, it was WBBH claiming to be broadcasting from the Cortland School of Music. It was almost treated as a scandal by DXers, for someone to be violating FCC rules. This would have been just a few years before the explosion of the top of the band MW pirates from NYC, like WHOT. But this was also back when you could be sure to get a nastygram from a ham OOS if you went 11 minutes without an ID. My, how the times have changed. Today's 14313 antics would make a ham from the 70's head explode.

[Jolly Roger]

Interesting discussion, though.  I'd bet similar conversations 10 or 20 years ago would reveal very different profiles of typical SWLs.

Back in college, I remember reading old Popular Electronics magazines in the library (when I should have been studying). I recall a few mentions of pirates in the SW loggings column. One from the early 70s stands out, it was WBBH claiming to be broadcasting from the Cortland School of Music. It was almost treated as a scandal by DXers, for someone to be violating FCC rules. This would have been just a few years before the explosion of the top of the band MW pirates from NYC, like WHOT. But this was also back when you could be sure to get a nastygram from a ham OOS if you went 11 minutes without an ID. My, how the times have changed. Today's 14313 antics would make a ham from the 70's head explode.

Your post brought back some memories of a similar situation. I recall reading old issues of Pop' 'tronics as well. Tom Kneitel always wrote great articles on shortwave stuff and I remember being facinated by a story on Voice of the Purple Pumpkin. That was my first exposure to the existance of pirates.