Licensed amateur radio operators have increased form approximately 300,000 in 2970 to more than 700,000 today. Not too bad for a dying hobby. And these 'old timers', in addition to voice, are working using digital text, digital voice, EME (moon bounce), satellites (including ISS) and bands from 200 kHz to close to light to communicate.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
BBC Singapore Transmitter Site To Close
- Thread starter SomeRadioGuy
- Start date
Agreed. Hams aren't using their spectrum. Compared to 11-12 years ago, the HF ham bands are spare, even when conditions are decent. I think there are maybe 15 hams within two miles of me, according to an online ham locator map. Never heard ANY of those hams on 20, 40, 80, 12, 17, or even 80 meters -- aside from one guy, who I heard once, and he had a considerable tower in front of his house for maybe 15 years. He moved away. The tower was taken down, the base crushed to dust by the remodelling crew, the antennas gone. No idea what happened to the ham in question. I'm guessing he just moved away.
2 Meters is deadsville here compared to 1991. Even during extreme weather events, it's el-deado. The numbers of repeaters is far less than it was.
SW is still alive if you live in one of the two major target areas -- Africa and Asia -- or the signals bounce your way, which they often do.
But those 700K+ hams are not as active as they were even ten years ago. Hearing JT65 / FT8 on 7045 and 14045 24/7 is not ham radio. Sorry. A computer doing most of your contacts for you doesn't replace sitting down, keying a mic, or using a code key, and actually contacting people.
When I tuned the 20 meter band during the afternoon and evening of the 4th, a holiday, the band was amazingly spare of signals. There were 2-3 signals from Europe, and one guy vainly calling CQ from NZ, and none of those 700K+ hams in the US bothered to answer him. They couldn't be bothered, apparently, to sit in front of that expensive ham equipment and talk to other Americans or overseas people on a holiday. 20 years ago, holidays were popular times for hams to get on the air. Now? Nope.
20 years ago the 20 meter band would be packed with hams, even on a holiday, because for many of them it would be a day off with no other pressing stuff to do. I used to DX the ham bands on my SW radios and comm receivers in the 80s and 90s and 00s, and I remember what it was like on the Fourth and other holidays. Even on non-holidays it's been nothing like the 20 Meter Band sounded like 10 or 20 years ago. All those hams aren't getting on the air. Even 30 Meters, which used to have at least a handful of CW QSOs during the evenings most nights, is dead, except for the odd FT8 that shows up and wipes out several frequencies of the band.
The Solar Cycle being a relative dud compared to 20 years ago hasn't helped, obviously, but we're nearing the peak (now projected to hit this fall), and the hams from the EU and NZ I've heard on the air recently don't have the pileups that used to be standard. Nothing like pileups in 1992 or 2002. Even the CW sections of the HF bands aren't anything like they used to be, when the entire swath from 14001 to 14050 or so would be wall to wall with signals.
And even CB sideband and outband is nothing like it was in 2011-2014 or so. I used to hear half of Latin America every other afternoon on 27455 USB, or a nearby calling frequency (in the early 90s it was 27295 USB). Now? I'm lucky if I hear a few Mexicans talking to Puerto Rico. There's a guy in Costa Rica that sounds like he has marbles in his mouth. But the rest of Latin America? Either the conditions aren't good enough to deliver the signals anymore, or hams in South America are on their computer instead.
But even if the solar cycle is weak compared to the past, there still are adequate conditions for hams to got on and make QSOs. They're just not doing it like they used to. They seem to get the license, get an Icom 7300, set it on a pretty desk, and then go do other things.
As for the Original Topic: It's sad to see Kranji go the way of the dodo. I used to hear the BBC from Kranji every morning in 2003, and a whole bunch of times in 2012 or so. But property is at a premium in Singapore. The island nation is growing in population and there is nowhere to expand. Even reclaiming land from the sea is costly. So it's understandable that Kranji is going away. AM stations in the US are seeing the same issue -- their land is worth more than the broadcast operation.
And there are other SW transmitters in Southeast Asia that the BBC can probably use.
The way some hams sound like curmudgeons on the ham forums, honestly, does not help. Some of them treat SWLs like trash, for example. Some of them treat each other like trash, forgetting that a public forum reflects not just on them, but on the whole hobby.
In the 1950s and 60s I would hazard a guess that many people were attracted to ham radio because of SWLing. In the 70s-90s it was probably CBers wanting more territory to explore over the airwaves. SWLing is a niche hobby, unknown to most people, and it's the same with CB. And then you have the issue "who needs a 2 Meter handheld when you have a phone?"
I don't see a solution, really. It's like amateur astronomy. You can get a telescope and see the planet Saturn as a tiny, bright oblong disc, and vainly try to make out a nebula, if the sky is dark enough -- or you can go online and see pics taken by Voyager and other spacecraft (or Hubble) that are mindboggling in comparison. The old school way is fun. But it's not as rewarding, especially if you have such easy access to better quality results. .
SWLing on a radio, and talking to Japan via the ionosphere is the old-school way, and it is fun. But streaming audio and using your keyboard online to talk to people on other continents is more rewarding, quantity wise, and in many cases, quality wise. Tech is killing off tech.
Update: The BBC is now airing announcements about the Singapore closure. Looks like it will be gone at the end of this week (July 14.)
There may be additional transmissions from other sites that will be dropped. Still nothing about any of this on the BBCWS website.
There may be additional transmissions from other sites that will be dropped. Still nothing about any of this on the BBCWS website.
One of the issues is that people don't want to open the mic, and large numbers have moved over to very narrow-band data modes like FT8. More than once, I've tuned around what sounds like an empty ham band and figured that the propagation just isn't there, only to find the chirping and squawking of a busy data frequency on a wide-open band, because everyone's on FT8.
FT8 is kind of boring - it allows an exchange of calls and signal reports, and nothing else, no personal message, you just get a call sign appear on your screen and that's that.
The other thing people do nowadays is rely too much on the DX Cluster to tell them where to tune. Quite a few times in recent months I've tuned around, heard a rare DX station calling (NZ, Falkland Islands, Puerto Rico, Pakistan) and called back at relatively low power and immediately reached them. Minutes later, someone has stuck them on the DX Cluster and it's a mess of Euro stations all trying to overpower each other to contact the DX, and I wouldn't stand a chance with my 100W.
Some of the conduct of Euro stations in DX pile-ups leaves something to be desired, too. I'm tired of hearing frustrated hams swearing and keying over the DX just because they can't work them. Recently, I heard someone just shouting "F*** you! F*** you!" in a foreign accent on a DXpedition frequency. It makes me just turn the radio off and go and do something else.
Quite a few of those operator profiles/biographies I look at on QRZ.com include expressions of anti-FT8 anger. I now understand why those hams feel so strongly about it, but I can also understand its appeal. It gives hams looking to work all 50 states or all countries or whatever a way to do so quickly and without worrying about whether you can understand the other operators' accent or the phonetics they use to give their calls. But without a reward at the end of the QSO rainbow, what's the point of it all? It's like constantly being in contest mode, even with no contest going on, But then, the bands explode with activity on the big contest weekends, so these minimal call/report contacts must be exciting, or at least interesting, to someone.
Speaking of hams of more than passing interest, I just heard this retiree from Timonium, Maryland, on 17 meters in a small pileup working an operator in Bulgaria. The long but interesting story he links to reveals a long career with an important role in the development of HD Radio.
Just like the nearby horse racing venue - land is at a premium in small, densely-populated Singapore and the SW site is required for housing and commercial development.
Looking at the schedule for services from Kranji, only a few languages are broadcast from there: mostly English, with a small amount of Pashto and Dari (Afghan languages), some Korean and a couple of half-hours of Burmese. There are other sites the BBC can use for their Afghanistan, Korea and Myanmar services, such as Al-Seela in Oman.
The Kranji facility would have been on its way out anyway, as it was being used at less than 15% of its transmitter time capacity. The site was simply no longer needed, especially in light of recent budget cuts and changing programming priorities. The lease cancellation would have been the final, overdue nudge to close the site.
And it appears there will likely be additional cuts made to SW transmissions from sites other than Singapore. Will be interesting to monitor over the next few days as the BBC itself has not released any specifics online regarding the imminent changes.
According to The SWLing Post, the transmissions from Kranji will end on Sunday, July 16.
It is July 15 in Singapore, and I have just finished listening to the Korean-language service of the BBC World Service on 12095 kHz via KiwiSDRs in the Philippines and Japan. At the same time, the English-language service was on 12025 kHz.
BBC Kranji shortwave relay station to close July 16, 2023 (The SWLing Post)
BBC Singapore site is now off the air; final transmission was a morning English block to East and Southeast Asia from 2200 to 0000 July 15 (July 16 in the target area) on 6195 and 7465.
Several other BBCWS transmissions from other sites have also been cut, including English beams to the Middle East.
Several other BBCWS transmissions from other sites have also been cut, including English beams to the Middle East.