9 ms·

Dissidents Are Using Shortwave Radio to Broadcast News into China

140 points by jonbaer 7y ago

Leary 7y ago
The problem with these "pro-democracy" broadcasts is that they are funded by Falun Gong, whose founder thinks mixed race people from interracial marriages should be outcasts in society: "The races in the world are not allowed to be mixed up. Now, the races are mixed up and it has brought about an extraordinarily serious problem. Once races are mixed up, one does not have a corresponding relationship with the higher levels, and he has lost the root. Mixed races have lost their roots, as if nobody in the paradise will take care of them. They belong to nowhere, and no places would accept them. Therefore, you find the place where the continents of Europe and Asia meet a desert in the past and a depopulated zone. When the transportation means were not advanced, it was difficult to pass through it. With the progress of modern means, all these are broken through. Thus, races have become increasingly mixed up, which can lead to serious consequences. Of course, I will not go into details. I'm just saying that the higher levels do not recognize such a human race." [1] [1]http://en.falundafa.org/eng/lectures/1996L.html http://en.falundafa.org/eng/lectures/1996L.html
- devoply 7y ago
  Whataboutism. Most religions have strange unacceptable beliefs and yet in the West we do not remove their organs after killing them in prisons.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Ironically, bringing up other religions and organ theft is itself whataboutism here.
    - mamoswine 7y ago
      Indeed, whataboutism is itself just a way to shield your preferred beliefs from comparison and criticism at this point and is a form of intellectual laziness.
    - devoply 7y ago
      whoosh.
- dionian 7y ago
  your very directed criticism of FLG still doesnt make them sound anywhere near as bad as the CCP (the group murdering and silencing them), so...
  - yorwba 7y ago
    ... so it's perfectly acceptable that they don't get any funding from the US government, but only from donations by people who presumably are okay with their various religious beliefs.
- endymi0n 7y ago
  [citation needed]
  - Leary 7y ago
    https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06HONGKONG4115_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06HONGKONG4115_a.html
- nullwasamistake 7y ago
  Is there a reason why almost every single comment you've made in the entire year history of your account on a tech news website involves China politics? In fact, almost every post you've replied to has the word "China" in the title. Almost like your replies are semi automated. I'm going to guess somebody is paying you for it
  - dang 7y ago
    I looked through the account's history. Your statement isn't accurate, and you've violated the site guidelines by posting this. If you're worried about abuse, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com, as they ask. Don't post accusations of astroturfing or shillage in the threads—the poison that adds to the site is much worse than whatever it's trying to combat. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - nullwasamistake 7y ago
      Thanks for looking Dang. I don't agree with you this time though. Hiding abuse out of the comment chain behind emails is a good way to make things disappear. What kind of community is this if you can't question the motives of someone with a penchant for only replying to policital threads of a certain flavor? His profile is public, it's not like I made everything up. He posts on articles with "China" in the name about 90% of the time. And basically never replies to his own comment responses or posts that don't relate to China. > Don't post accusations of astroturfing or shillage in the threads—the poison that adds to the site is much worse than whatever it's trying to combat. I don't agree at all. If I didn't say anything about the guy's post history would you have checked? I don't think so. And even though you did, it's very clearly biased towards "China" news articles and the CCP party line. I'm out. Leaving on my own this time. I appreciate the great work you and the moderators do. But if you can't admit the most obvious AstroTurf shill account I've ever seen is real, there's no point sticking around being a thorn in your side.
      - dang 7y ago
        > What kind of community is this if you can't question the motives of someone with a penchant for only replying to policital threads of a certain flavor? The kind of community where users are asked to assume good faith and not allowed to sling mud at each other. > If I didn't say anything about the guy's post history would you have checked? In this case I already had, because another user followed the guidelines and emailed us. > it's very clearly biased towards "China" news articles and the CCP party line Every account that posts on political issues is biased toward their point of view. Alas, many users, when confronted with an opposing bias, simply can't imagine that someone else sincerely disagrees with them. That's absurd, of course, but it's what underlies virtually every accusation of astroturfing/shilling/spying on political topics, including, I'm pretty sure, the one you're making here. > the most obvious AstroTurf shill account I've ever seen That is a good example of what I just described, as anyone who looks carefully at the account's public history will see. It's true that they were breaking the site guidelines by using HN primarily for political battle. But that's not evidence of astroturfing or shilling, it's evidence that they're fighting for the group they're loyal to. Such loyalty isn't hard to understand and needs no sinister explanation. It's as simple as that people come from different backgrounds. HN is a diverse international community, so many different backgrounds are represented here. As long as people follow the guidelines, they have a right to comment without being denounced or smeared.
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  Why is "pro democracy" in quotes? Is there any evidence the broadcasts themselves are not supportive of democratic rule of law, autonomous HK, and so on? I don't get what you're getting at. But you don't seem to reply to your posts, so oh well.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Leary 7y ago
    https://www.theepochtimes.com https://www.theepochtimes.com Read it and judge for yourself
- dang 7y ago
  It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and national battle, which is not what this site is for. Some political overlap is inevitable (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20political%20overlap https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), and occasionally commenting on political topics is ok, but when you cross the line into doing that primarily (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20primarily%20test https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), you're violating the intended use of the site, and we ban accounts that do that. Intellectual curiosity is not a battle emotion. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
euroclydon 7y ago
As an US citizen, I feel like China's lack of free press and due process is fundamentally at odds with my countries core values. So maybe we should ratchet down trade with them. Now if I'm China, and I'm looking at what Russia just did in the last presidential election, I'm thinking, let's just buy ourselves a pro-China candidate here in 2020. And I think our system is still vulnerable. I don't even know how China got in the WTO in the first place. There were rumors that they had some significant influence in the Clinton administration, but I guess the promise of opening up the biggest market in the world to US companies was too shiny. Bush was too busy going to war to piss anybody else off. Who know's why Obama didn't do anything...
- hungryhobo 7y ago
  That's a rather naive point of view. Yes free press as an ideal is great, but that rests on the premise that press' goal is for the betterment of the country. But in reality, press is effectively weaponized as a propaganda tool that's trying tirelessly to push their own agenda. I think of limited press freedom in China as a measure of protectionism, it knows it does not have the level of sophistication when it comes to pushing out their own narrative, so it blocks it off. And I have no doubt that there will be free press when the parity in sophistication is reached.
  - chillwaves 7y ago
    What point are you trying to make? That state propaganda is superior to free press? I do not agree. The press has its faults but the idea of openly accepting state propaganda seems like a low value proposition.
    - hungryhobo 7y ago
      I'm saying free press can also be free propaganda, it's not a matter of which is superior because fundamentally they all have an agenda to serve. Also I'm not sure what you are referring to when you are talking about state propaganda. Do you mean BBC or abc or what?
diminoten 7y ago
I wonder why they've chosen to report on news themselves, rather than pipe in AP/Reuters or something similar. Perhaps because no one else is covering the same stories?
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
  "It was his response to a dearth of Chinese-language news coverage that wasn’t heavily influenced by the Chinese government." So maybe because AP/Reuters/etc. are biased? It also seems from browsing their site that most articles are summaries/commentaries of other sources.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    There are hundreds of news outlets around the world covering China that aren't biased towards PRC...
jdietrich 7y ago
A majority of shortwave stations are engaged in propaganda of some form or another, beaming a message across international borders. The US has multiple operations covering the Middle East, Asia, the CIS and Central America, most of which were historically funded and controlled by the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia >The station now uses more than 100 radio antennas located in countries all around China, such as Thailand and Taiwan, which trade the signal — in effect, playing a game of keepaway with the station’s broadcasting. Shortwave broadcasters change transmitter sites and frequencies throughout the day as a matter of routine, because the atmospheric conditions that allow shortwave signals to travel beyond the horizon are constantly changing. Most modern shortwave transmitters are steerable and frequency-agile, so they can be reconfigured in a matter of seconds to provide the optimal coverage of the target area. Efforts to evade jamming are really just an extension of the normal operation of a shortwave station. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALLISS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALLISS It's surprisingly difficult to jam a shortwave station within your own borders due to a phenomenon called beam skip - at typical frequencies, there's a large gap between the line-of-sight coverage area of a transmitter and the longer-range signals that bounce off the atmosphere. It's just about viable for a country the size of China, but it would require multiple overlapping transmitter sites and would be unlikely to provide consistent jamming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_zone
- criddell 7y ago
  I bought a shortwave receiver a couple of years ago. I have great memories from when I was around 9 or 10 (end of the 1970's) playing with a table top radio and listening to all kinds of stuff on the shortwave bands. With my radio, all I could receive were terrible religious stations. Shortwave is dead in the US.
  - swiley 7y ago
    As far as voice goes about all I can here is radio free America (US propaganda) and the religious stations. But I can hear all kinds of digital stuff. I think once I was able to decode part of a RTTY transmission from Germany. Another time I got half of an amerature Morse conversation, I think the station I heard said they from Ontario. If you listen carefully with the right space wether there’s all kinds of stuff. I think most amerature voice uses SSB which is harder to tune than AM (but I’m not totally sure) and that’s why you hear it less. Plus a lot of shortwave users like digital since a lot of it is about minimalism and there’s a limit to how small you can make a voice transmition.
Animats 7y ago
The Voice of America still has Mandarin short wave broadcasts.[1][2] Whether anybody is still listening is a big question. [1] https://www.short-wave.info/index.php https://www.short-wave.info/index.php [2] https://www.insidevoa.com/p/6440.html https://www.insidevoa.com/p/6440.html
- hnnmzh 7y ago
  I have listened to it many many years ago. It's filled with propaganda and misinformation to incite disorder/riot and distrust of the government. Another fun fact: The intent of the legislation in 1948 was to protect the American public from propaganda actions by their own government and to have no competition with private American companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
  - pp19dd 7y ago
    Say what you will about the quality of the news reporting itself, I'll respect that as a fair criticism, but it's not propaganda. Unlike any other news agencies that I know of, VOA has an actual U.S. law in place that legally separates editorial control from any political influence or interference. It's referred to as "the firewall" internally, and VOA's journalists receive yearly training on that. The 1948 legislation you've cited has been updated number of times, with the firewall codified in 1994. The training isn't some random click here and sign this paper and we're covered thing. It's a well-developed, focused, small group training with comprehension discussions. Here's an actual video of the exact training VOA journalists get. There is no political interference in the newsrooms: https://www.insidevoa.com/a/4533468.html https://www.insidevoa.com/a/4533468.html
taf2 7y ago
I wonder if when starlink goes live globally if it will be something that allows anyone anywhere to connect to the internet without any great firewall? It would be like shortwave radio on steroids...
- entropea 7y ago
  Haha...thinking private corporatiom ownership will allow any sort of true freedom. Silly.
- rini17 7y ago
  In near future, the antennas will be too expensive to use for dissidents. Then, China and Russia already demonstrated they have means to destroy satellites. The satellites will be required either to disable service over their geographical regions, or comply to local regulations.
- syedkarim 7y ago
  That's not true. Existing satellites can provide internet access across the whole world, but the hardware required to access those satellites is often highly regulated or just illegal for normal citizens to own. A Starlink terminal will be just as illegal in China in the future as a BGAN/VSAT/Iridium Certus terminal is today.
- mensetmanusman 7y ago
  China can disrupt any above its country with lasers. It has researched this.
Mindless2112 7y ago
> Shortwave (really, AM) radio can be a powerful tool, but it can be drowned out by a more powerful signal. https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Chinese_Firedrake_Jammer https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Chinese_Firedrake_Jammer
woliveirajr 7y ago
> Shortwave (really, AM) Just bought some am/fm/sw radio yesterday. I was hopping to hear some SW radios, just like I did 30 years ago, when it was a good way to learn a bit more of other languages. I'm having trouble finding any... Does anyone still do it? Any recommendations?
- floren 7y ago
  There's quite a bit of Spanish-language broadcasting that you can pick up from the US. Also check out Radio Havana Cuba; they have a strong signal and are relatively close.
- entropea 7y ago
  I really wouldn't recommend shortwave for that. It is mostly religious nutcase stations from around the world. Make sure to go into an empty field or wood. Everyone running dimmer switches, homes full of IoT are blasting HF noise into your radio.
stevespang 7y ago
Totally Cool . . . .
weld 7y ago
It won't be long till dissidents are using FT8. Audio is dead. http://www.arrl.org/news/ft8-mode-is-latest-bright-shiny-object-in-amateur-radio-digital-world http://www.arrl.org/news/ft8-mode-is-latest-bright-shiny-obj...
- SamPatt 7y ago
  Probably JS8Call instead. It's an FT8 fork that allows for arbitrary text. Worth checking out.
  - kawfey 7y ago
    It'll take a ridiculously loooooong time for them to even say "CHINA BAD. HK GOOD. DON'T BELIEVE TV." VOA experimented successfully with using other MFSK modes that can be decoded asynchronously, quickly, and with fldigi, and its now a regular occurrence. https://voaradiogram.net/ https://voaradiogram.net/
    - SamPatt 7y ago
      That message would take about one minute to send. But it could be sent with very low power and received well below the noise floor. I'm not suggesting JS8 is the ideal communication mode for dissidents, only that it's far better than FT8 for arbitrary text.
nutcracker46 7y ago
Be aware, boys and girls, that you don't need your own radio to listen. There are plenty of WebSDR and KiwiSDR servers on the internet that can tune and stream signals to your computer or phone. Plenty are around the world, so you do not need to endure jamming from China or North Korea. Try the servers in Japan or South Korea if you want to tune HF broadcasts directed to China.

140 points by jonbaer 7y ago

The problem with these "pro-democracy" broadcasts is that they are funded by Falun Gong, whose founder thinks mixed race people from interracial marriages should be outcasts in society: "The races in the world are not allowed to be mixed up. Now, the races are mixed up and it has brought about an extraordinarily serious problem. Once races are mixed up, one does not have a corresponding relationship with the higher levels, and he has lost the root. Mixed races have lost their roots, as if nobody in the paradise will take care of them. They belong to nowhere, and no places would accept them. Therefore, you find the place where the continents of Europe and Asia meet a desert in the past and a depopulated zone. When the transportation means were not advanced, it was difficult to pass through it. With the progress of modern means, all these are broken through. Thus, races have become increasingly mixed up, which can lead to serious consequences. Of course, I will not go into details. I'm just saying that the higher levels do not recognize such a human race." [1] [1]http://en.falundafa.org/eng/lectures/1996L.html http://en.falundafa.org/eng/lectures/1996L.html

devoply 7y ago
Whataboutism. Most religions have strange unacceptable beliefs and yet in the West we do not remove their organs after killing them in prisons.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Ironically, bringing up other religions and organ theft is itself whataboutism here.
  - mamoswine 7y ago
    Indeed, whataboutism is itself just a way to shield your preferred beliefs from comparison and criticism at this point and is a form of intellectual laziness.
  - devoply 7y ago
    whoosh.
dionian 7y ago
your very directed criticism of FLG still doesnt make them sound anywhere near as bad as the CCP (the group murdering and silencing them), so...
- yorwba 7y ago
  ... so it's perfectly acceptable that they don't get any funding from the US government, but only from donations by people who presumably are okay with their various religious beliefs.
endymi0n 7y ago
[citation needed]
- Leary 7y ago
  https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06HONGKONG4115_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06HONGKONG4115_a.html
nullwasamistake 7y ago
Is there a reason why almost every single comment you've made in the entire year history of your account on a tech news website involves China politics? In fact, almost every post you've replied to has the word "China" in the title. Almost like your replies are semi automated. I'm going to guess somebody is paying you for it
- dang 7y ago
  I looked through the account's history. Your statement isn't accurate, and you've violated the site guidelines by posting this. If you're worried about abuse, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com, as they ask. Don't post accusations of astroturfing or shillage in the threads—the poison that adds to the site is much worse than whatever it's trying to combat. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - nullwasamistake 7y ago
    Thanks for looking Dang. I don't agree with you this time though. Hiding abuse out of the comment chain behind emails is a good way to make things disappear. What kind of community is this if you can't question the motives of someone with a penchant for only replying to policital threads of a certain flavor? His profile is public, it's not like I made everything up. He posts on articles with "China" in the name about 90% of the time. And basically never replies to his own comment responses or posts that don't relate to China. > Don't post accusations of astroturfing or shillage in the threads—the poison that adds to the site is much worse than whatever it's trying to combat. I don't agree at all. If I didn't say anything about the guy's post history would you have checked? I don't think so. And even though you did, it's very clearly biased towards "China" news articles and the CCP party line. I'm out. Leaving on my own this time. I appreciate the great work you and the moderators do. But if you can't admit the most obvious AstroTurf shill account I've ever seen is real, there's no point sticking around being a thorn in your side.
    - dang 7y ago
      > What kind of community is this if you can't question the motives of someone with a penchant for only replying to policital threads of a certain flavor? The kind of community where users are asked to assume good faith and not allowed to sling mud at each other. > If I didn't say anything about the guy's post history would you have checked? In this case I already had, because another user followed the guidelines and emailed us. > it's very clearly biased towards "China" news articles and the CCP party line Every account that posts on political issues is biased toward their point of view. Alas, many users, when confronted with an opposing bias, simply can't imagine that someone else sincerely disagrees with them. That's absurd, of course, but it's what underlies virtually every accusation of astroturfing/shilling/spying on political topics, including, I'm pretty sure, the one you're making here. > the most obvious AstroTurf shill account I've ever seen That is a good example of what I just described, as anyone who looks carefully at the account's public history will see. It's true that they were breaking the site guidelines by using HN primarily for political battle. But that's not evidence of astroturfing or shilling, it's evidence that they're fighting for the group they're loyal to. Such loyalty isn't hard to understand and needs no sinister explanation. It's as simple as that people come from different backgrounds. HN is a diverse international community, so many different backgrounds are represented here. As long as people follow the guidelines, they have a right to comment without being denounced or smeared.
unethical_ban 7y ago
Why is "pro democracy" in quotes? Is there any evidence the broadcasts themselves are not supportive of democratic rule of law, autonomous HK, and so on? I don't get what you're getting at. But you don't seem to reply to your posts, so oh well.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Leary 7y ago
  https://www.theepochtimes.com https://www.theepochtimes.com Read it and judge for yourself
dang 7y ago
It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and national battle, which is not what this site is for. Some political overlap is inevitable (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20political%20overlap https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), and occasionally commenting on political topics is ok, but when you cross the line into doing that primarily (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20primarily%20test https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), you're violating the intended use of the site, and we ban accounts that do that. Intellectual curiosity is not a battle emotion. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

euroclydon 7y ago

As an US citizen, I feel like China's lack of free press and due process is fundamentally at odds with my countries core values. So maybe we should ratchet down trade with them. Now if I'm China, and I'm looking at what Russia just did in the last presidential election, I'm thinking, let's just buy ourselves a pro-China candidate here in 2020. And I think our system is still vulnerable. I don't even know how China got in the WTO in the first place. There were rumors that they had some significant influence in the Clinton administration, but I guess the promise of opening up the biggest market in the world to US companies was too shiny. Bush was too busy going to war to piss anybody else off. Who know's why Obama didn't do anything...

hungryhobo 7y ago
That's a rather naive point of view. Yes free press as an ideal is great, but that rests on the premise that press' goal is for the betterment of the country. But in reality, press is effectively weaponized as a propaganda tool that's trying tirelessly to push their own agenda. I think of limited press freedom in China as a measure of protectionism, it knows it does not have the level of sophistication when it comes to pushing out their own narrative, so it blocks it off. And I have no doubt that there will be free press when the parity in sophistication is reached.
- chillwaves 7y ago
  What point are you trying to make? That state propaganda is superior to free press? I do not agree. The press has its faults but the idea of openly accepting state propaganda seems like a low value proposition.
  - hungryhobo 7y ago
    I'm saying free press can also be free propaganda, it's not a matter of which is superior because fundamentally they all have an agenda to serve. Also I'm not sure what you are referring to when you are talking about state propaganda. Do you mean BBC or abc or what?

diminoten 7y ago

I wonder why they've chosen to report on news themselves, rather than pipe in AP/Reuters or something similar. Perhaps because no one else is covering the same stories?

Mathnerd314 7y ago
"It was his response to a dearth of Chinese-language news coverage that wasn’t heavily influenced by the Chinese government." So maybe because AP/Reuters/etc. are biased? It also seems from browsing their site that most articles are summaries/commentaries of other sources.
- diminoten 7y ago
  There are hundreds of news outlets around the world covering China that aren't biased towards PRC...

jdietrich 7y ago

A majority of shortwave stations are engaged in propaganda of some form or another, beaming a message across international borders. The US has multiple operations covering the Middle East, Asia, the CIS and Central America, most of which were historically funded and controlled by the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia >The station now uses more than 100 radio antennas located in countries all around China, such as Thailand and Taiwan, which trade the signal — in effect, playing a game of keepaway with the station’s broadcasting. Shortwave broadcasters change transmitter sites and frequencies throughout the day as a matter of routine, because the atmospheric conditions that allow shortwave signals to travel beyond the horizon are constantly changing. Most modern shortwave transmitters are steerable and frequency-agile, so they can be reconfigured in a matter of seconds to provide the optimal coverage of the target area. Efforts to evade jamming are really just an extension of the normal operation of a shortwave station. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALLISS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALLISS It's surprisingly difficult to jam a shortwave station within your own borders due to a phenomenon called beam skip - at typical frequencies, there's a large gap between the line-of-sight coverage area of a transmitter and the longer-range signals that bounce off the atmosphere. It's just about viable for a country the size of China, but it would require multiple overlapping transmitter sites and would be unlikely to provide consistent jamming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_zone

criddell 7y ago
I bought a shortwave receiver a couple of years ago. I have great memories from when I was around 9 or 10 (end of the 1970's) playing with a table top radio and listening to all kinds of stuff on the shortwave bands. With my radio, all I could receive were terrible religious stations. Shortwave is dead in the US.
- swiley 7y ago
  As far as voice goes about all I can here is radio free America (US propaganda) and the religious stations. But I can hear all kinds of digital stuff. I think once I was able to decode part of a RTTY transmission from Germany. Another time I got half of an amerature Morse conversation, I think the station I heard said they from Ontario. If you listen carefully with the right space wether there’s all kinds of stuff. I think most amerature voice uses SSB which is harder to tune than AM (but I’m not totally sure) and that’s why you hear it less. Plus a lot of shortwave users like digital since a lot of it is about minimalism and there’s a limit to how small you can make a voice transmition.

Animats 7y ago

The Voice of America still has Mandarin short wave broadcasts.[1][2] Whether anybody is still listening is a big question. [1] https://www.short-wave.info/index.php https://www.short-wave.info/index.php [2] https://www.insidevoa.com/p/6440.html https://www.insidevoa.com/p/6440.html

hnnmzh 7y ago
I have listened to it many many years ago. It's filled with propaganda and misinformation to incite disorder/riot and distrust of the government. Another fun fact: The intent of the legislation in 1948 was to protect the American public from propaganda actions by their own government and to have no competition with private American companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
- pp19dd 7y ago
  Say what you will about the quality of the news reporting itself, I'll respect that as a fair criticism, but it's not propaganda. Unlike any other news agencies that I know of, VOA has an actual U.S. law in place that legally separates editorial control from any political influence or interference. It's referred to as "the firewall" internally, and VOA's journalists receive yearly training on that. The 1948 legislation you've cited has been updated number of times, with the firewall codified in 1994. The training isn't some random click here and sign this paper and we're covered thing. It's a well-developed, focused, small group training with comprehension discussions. Here's an actual video of the exact training VOA journalists get. There is no political interference in the newsrooms: https://www.insidevoa.com/a/4533468.html https://www.insidevoa.com/a/4533468.html

taf2 7y ago

I wonder if when starlink goes live globally if it will be something that allows anyone anywhere to connect to the internet without any great firewall? It would be like shortwave radio on steroids...

entropea 7y ago
Haha...thinking private corporatiom ownership will allow any sort of true freedom. Silly.
rini17 7y ago
In near future, the antennas will be too expensive to use for dissidents. Then, China and Russia already demonstrated they have means to destroy satellites. The satellites will be required either to disable service over their geographical regions, or comply to local regulations.
syedkarim 7y ago
That's not true. Existing satellites can provide internet access across the whole world, but the hardware required to access those satellites is often highly regulated or just illegal for normal citizens to own. A Starlink terminal will be just as illegal in China in the future as a BGAN/VSAT/Iridium Certus terminal is today.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
China can disrupt any above its country with lasers. It has researched this.

Mindless2112 7y ago

> Shortwave (really, AM) radio can be a powerful tool, but it can be drowned out by a more powerful signal. https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Chinese_Firedrake_Jammer https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Chinese_Firedrake_Jammer

woliveirajr 7y ago

> Shortwave (really, AM) Just bought some am/fm/sw radio yesterday. I was hopping to hear some SW radios, just like I did 30 years ago, when it was a good way to learn a bit more of other languages. I'm having trouble finding any... Does anyone still do it? Any recommendations?

floren 7y ago
There's quite a bit of Spanish-language broadcasting that you can pick up from the US. Also check out Radio Havana Cuba; they have a strong signal and are relatively close.
entropea 7y ago
I really wouldn't recommend shortwave for that. It is mostly religious nutcase stations from around the world. Make sure to go into an empty field or wood. Everyone running dimmer switches, homes full of IoT are blasting HF noise into your radio.

stevespang 7y ago

Totally Cool . . . .

weld 7y ago

It won't be long till dissidents are using FT8. Audio is dead. http://www.arrl.org/news/ft8-mode-is-latest-bright-shiny-object-in-amateur-radio-digital-world http://www.arrl.org/news/ft8-mode-is-latest-bright-shiny-obj...

SamPatt 7y ago
Probably JS8Call instead. It's an FT8 fork that allows for arbitrary text. Worth checking out.
- kawfey 7y ago
  It'll take a ridiculously loooooong time for them to even say "CHINA BAD. HK GOOD. DON'T BELIEVE TV." VOA experimented successfully with using other MFSK modes that can be decoded asynchronously, quickly, and with fldigi, and its now a regular occurrence. https://voaradiogram.net/ https://voaradiogram.net/
  - SamPatt 7y ago
    That message would take about one minute to send. But it could be sent with very low power and received well below the noise floor. I'm not suggesting JS8 is the ideal communication mode for dissidents, only that it's far better than FT8 for arbitrary text.

nutcracker46 7y ago

Be aware, boys and girls, that you don't need your own radio to listen. There are plenty of WebSDR and KiwiSDR servers on the internet that can tune and stream signals to your computer or phone. Plenty are around the world, so you do not need to endure jamming from China or North Korea. Try the servers in Japan or South Korea if you want to tune HF broadcasts directed to China.