As an amateur amongst many endeavors to be both aware and prepared knowledgeably for what reality lays before us, this missive concerning optional frameworks and backbones for communication in an age of idiocracy parading as competently able to confront such, please accept the "Radio Free Earth" has a good solution oriented book and online presence, to assist any wisely seeking older technology for communications to deal with modern misuses of technology otherwise.
Maybe it is time for the free world to create a shortwave service to reach the American people inside their wall of censorship and criminalization of dissenting opinions.
As the former director of the division at USAGM responsible for the conceptualization, design, and implementation of all USAGM terrestrial transmission systems, I have to take serious exception to some of the points in this commentary. I'll keep it to a couple of technical ones, which is the area of my expertise. USAGM still has the same shortwave capability that it had ten or more years ago. Not only that, USAGM is in the process of a multi-million dollar expansion of SW capability at one of its stations, adding multiple antennas and transmitters. So, to say that it is unknown if USAGM even still has SW capability shows a complete lack of knowledge of the state of the current USAGM broadcasting network.
Second, FM stations only cover "line of sight" so any FM station set up on the border of a country will have very, very limited penetration across the border. Implying that FM stations on the border can provide information significantly cross border into Russia is simply false.
These two gross errors in the article are sufficient to call into question any of the other points. One can argue all day about "audience research" and the effectiveness of SW versus USB drives, but physics and the actual existence of physical, operational assets are not subject to interpretation and to differences of opinion and are easily verifiable.
Thank you for the your comment. You'll note that I specifically stated that I was not aware what USAGM's shortwave capacity is and, to the point of the article, whatever capacity there is largely irrelevant for many audiences, specifically Russian, a point I'll return to below.
Your "serious exception" lacks detail about he expansion of USAGM's shortwave capacity, which is a highly relevant detail to be an effective counter to my argument. You'll note that I did not state that shortwave was dead. In fact, the purpose of the analysis and report was to make sure we didn't shutdown a capability that was useful. And, in fact, we did identify areas where then-BBG's shortwave remained essential. If you have evidence that counters our well-researched and well-sourced inquiries of 8 years ago, it would be helpful to share that here instead of making broad unsubstantiated implications.
As for the FM stations, there was no intent of stating the FM stations would have deep penetration, but there had been interest in continuing FM transmissions and expanding FM transmissions because the radio broadcasts, unlikely shortwave, could be received by a large percentage of the nearby population and easily shared. Plus, it was inexpensive.
The FM discussion returns me to an element of the shortwave discussion I intentionally left out of the article for brevity. This is the fact of opportunity-cost and why shortwave was not considered a cost-effective platform for Russia. Sure, it can reach the rural farmer deep in the hinterland, but at what cost and for what return? Will that farmer, likely wholly captured by Moscow's tv, even listen to the radio and if so, and to be brutally blunt, what can or will he do? With the limited funds, is it better to engage others? The opportunity-cost is not insignificant and clearly I should have included it in the article.
As for "two gross errors," they aren't. As for usb devices, including credit card size that are easily carried and shared, their real value is enabling access, providing tools, not storing content. Another point alluded to and easily inferred is the problem of shortwave (and FM) being a synchronous product (listener and speaker must be engaged at the same moment) while so many other technologies are asynchronous (off-set engagement, "listener" can engage on their time) and richer.
Lastly, I'll note that you participated in the discussions and analysis that led to the report. We discussed various elements, including the so-called Seagull stations in a different part of the world. I believe we also discussed digital shortwave, or Digital Radio Mondiale, which is a very cool technology but one we determined at the time to be of no value to then-BBG's audiences. I made sure to speak to DRM in the report. I suspect we talked about DRM because of your experience with sending text via normal shortwave, a kind of poor man's DRM that made up the VOA Radiogram. But the "geek's patience" required for this, to borrow the phrase from Kim Andrew Elliott in my correspondence with him about it, is not in abundance when other technologies are available.
If you have information that shows former shortwave users are returning to shortwave or that younger audiences who never used shortwave are creating a demand for shortwave, please share, particularly in Russia as that was the focus of my article.
Just a couple of quick clarifications. The extent of my participation in the committee that you reference was an invitation to provide one briefing about the basics of shortwave broadcasting because most of the committee members had no experience with shortwave broadcasting. I was not a participant in the discussions. The "sending text via normal shortwave" is a project initiated by Kim Elliott. I assisted in the technical implementation because that was my job. The project was not mine. As for audience research, I am not an expert in that area, but I do question the validity of extrapolating research conducted during peace time to listener habits during a time of war. I am pretty certain that the number is not zero.
Finally, I want to address the cost that often gets referred to. The shortwave infrastructure exists and is operational. The incremental internal cost for an hour of shortwave is somewhere around $100 in round numbers, and much less at some facilities that can reach that target area. For two hours per day, the cost then is approximately $73,000 for an entire year of broadcasting. For an agency with an average annual budget of around $750M, that is about 0.01% of the annual budget. At that cost, why would every asset not be used in the information war, just like every asset is being utilized in the physical war, no matter how old or crude. If it impacts no one, the cost was low. If it impacts one person that can help shorten this war, the value is immeasurable.
Thank you for the quick clarifications. The extent of your participation is not at issue as your participation was voluntary. Yes, you gave a briefing but your ability to provide further comments was not limited. Further, this was not just for the benefit of the committee, but the overall project, which included input from the field (including but not limited to State Department posts in target markets), and other experts.
The issue of the audience is critical here and any failure to consider the audience may result in a severe opportunity cost when an agency has limited funds and must chose who and how to fulfill its mission while also being a good steward of tax dollars.
We were fortunate – or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it – to have several – too many, really – contemporary situation where we could look at listener habits during a crisis situation such as war. We described these in the section "Shortwave as a Crisis Platform."
I am not in a position to dispute your figure of "$100" as an "incremental internal cost for an hour of shortwave" but I wonder how well that reflects energy costs, maintenance costs, staffing costs, specific content costs (to raise another point, content that works well on shortwave is rarely the same as content that works well on other platforms), and probably some other details. (Does USAGM still have the island that require water and fuel, in addition to parts and food and everything else, to be shipped in? Does that figure into your $100 a day?) And, the capital costs are significant and also figure into the opportunity cost model that needs to be considered.
And, oh yes, everything is a paltry sum in a $750m – give or take – budget agency, except every little bit adds up. Ask the language services that had to be cut or cut back…
If the crisis audience increases from zero, to what number does that increase, is the increase in an audience that matters (there is a cold hard truth here), and what is the cost to the agency to reach this agency, which is measured in more than pure dollars but also in terms of opportunity cost.
The key issue here is whether the audience is listening, not that shortwave may work in some places, which I and the report admitted.
He is entirely correct in pointing out that the infrastructure exists anyway. USAGM still keeps the shortwave facilities of RFE/RL at Biblis and Lampertheim, although they can not be used for transmissions into most of Africa, lacking antennas for this direction. So it's some Radio Farda here, the odd hour of VOA Kurdish there and some additional long shots into Afghanistan, Xinjiang, Tibet. Less than 50 percent usage of the installed capacity now.
And still the budget request for fiscal year 2023 again includes $ 5,587,000 for the facilities in Germany. So far I believed that USAGM keeps spending this equivalent of a complete language service for all contingencies. But apparently not so, considering that no action is being taken even while experts no longer rule out the possibility of a complete shut-down of the internet routing into Russia. An action that would indeed just increase the power bill and require earlier tube replacement (the $ 100 per hour in question), because more than five millions are spend each year for maintenance and other fixed costs anyway.
There would also be no additional content costs either. RFE/RL still has continuous radio outputs that appear on the Hotbird 13B satellite as "Radio Svoboda RU ch201" and "Radio Svoboda UA ch202", respectively. They are mostly if not exclusively talk. So indeed all that would have to be done here is turning on a transmitter, and in fact third parties alread do so as an attempt to persuade USAGM from doing it iself, although I now have to contradict: "Some facilities that can reach that target area" can in fact not in a useful way if this is a paraphrase for the old Family Radio transmitters.
By the way, the FM idea from Africa would in this case be a mere outreach to a very small number of rural farmers deep in the hinterland as well. Yes, reaching Pskov should be possible, but that's about all. Sankt Petersburg is too far away from the border. Perhaps a weak residual signal could be produced there, but it would be very ease to block.
To sum it up: Even now they do not intend to restore any of the shortwave service they phased out as recently as in 2016. But they still produce the shortwave radio programming and still maintain the now badly underused transmission facilities. Frankly: What kind of strategy is this?
Your question “What kind of strategy is this?” is spot on. It feels to me a combination of “do something” and lack of confidence to commit. The word “strategy” tends to be misused and misunderstand there with measurable (or near-measurable) objectives avoided or distorted because of the accountability that follows.
Question about the tubes: way back when, around 15yrs ago, I was refurbishing an old radio. I found a vacuum tester (not an easy thing to find), tested my five tubes (the American 5, if I recall), and needed to replace two. I was told then that all tubes came from Russia. Now, the tubes for these transmitters aren’t the same, but who is making these tubes now?
As an amateur amongst many endeavors to be both aware and prepared knowledgeably for what reality lays before us, this missive concerning optional frameworks and backbones for communication in an age of idiocracy parading as competently able to confront such, please accept the "Radio Free Earth" has a good solution oriented book and online presence, to assist any wisely seeking older technology for communications to deal with modern misuses of technology otherwise.
Be wise, safe & blessed,
Maybe it is time for the free world to create a shortwave service to reach the American people inside their wall of censorship and criminalization of dissenting opinions.
As the former director of the division at USAGM responsible for the conceptualization, design, and implementation of all USAGM terrestrial transmission systems, I have to take serious exception to some of the points in this commentary. I'll keep it to a couple of technical ones, which is the area of my expertise. USAGM still has the same shortwave capability that it had ten or more years ago. Not only that, USAGM is in the process of a multi-million dollar expansion of SW capability at one of its stations, adding multiple antennas and transmitters. So, to say that it is unknown if USAGM even still has SW capability shows a complete lack of knowledge of the state of the current USAGM broadcasting network.
Second, FM stations only cover "line of sight" so any FM station set up on the border of a country will have very, very limited penetration across the border. Implying that FM stations on the border can provide information significantly cross border into Russia is simply false.
These two gross errors in the article are sufficient to call into question any of the other points. One can argue all day about "audience research" and the effectiveness of SW versus USB drives, but physics and the actual existence of physical, operational assets are not subject to interpretation and to differences of opinion and are easily verifiable.
Gerhard Straub
Thank you for the your comment. You'll note that I specifically stated that I was not aware what USAGM's shortwave capacity is and, to the point of the article, whatever capacity there is largely irrelevant for many audiences, specifically Russian, a point I'll return to below.
Your "serious exception" lacks detail about he expansion of USAGM's shortwave capacity, which is a highly relevant detail to be an effective counter to my argument. You'll note that I did not state that shortwave was dead. In fact, the purpose of the analysis and report was to make sure we didn't shutdown a capability that was useful. And, in fact, we did identify areas where then-BBG's shortwave remained essential. If you have evidence that counters our well-researched and well-sourced inquiries of 8 years ago, it would be helpful to share that here instead of making broad unsubstantiated implications.
As for the FM stations, there was no intent of stating the FM stations would have deep penetration, but there had been interest in continuing FM transmissions and expanding FM transmissions because the radio broadcasts, unlikely shortwave, could be received by a large percentage of the nearby population and easily shared. Plus, it was inexpensive.
The FM discussion returns me to an element of the shortwave discussion I intentionally left out of the article for brevity. This is the fact of opportunity-cost and why shortwave was not considered a cost-effective platform for Russia. Sure, it can reach the rural farmer deep in the hinterland, but at what cost and for what return? Will that farmer, likely wholly captured by Moscow's tv, even listen to the radio and if so, and to be brutally blunt, what can or will he do? With the limited funds, is it better to engage others? The opportunity-cost is not insignificant and clearly I should have included it in the article.
As for "two gross errors," they aren't. As for usb devices, including credit card size that are easily carried and shared, their real value is enabling access, providing tools, not storing content. Another point alluded to and easily inferred is the problem of shortwave (and FM) being a synchronous product (listener and speaker must be engaged at the same moment) while so many other technologies are asynchronous (off-set engagement, "listener" can engage on their time) and richer.
Lastly, I'll note that you participated in the discussions and analysis that led to the report. We discussed various elements, including the so-called Seagull stations in a different part of the world. I believe we also discussed digital shortwave, or Digital Radio Mondiale, which is a very cool technology but one we determined at the time to be of no value to then-BBG's audiences. I made sure to speak to DRM in the report. I suspect we talked about DRM because of your experience with sending text via normal shortwave, a kind of poor man's DRM that made up the VOA Radiogram. But the "geek's patience" required for this, to borrow the phrase from Kim Andrew Elliott in my correspondence with him about it, is not in abundance when other technologies are available.
If you have information that shows former shortwave users are returning to shortwave or that younger audiences who never used shortwave are creating a demand for shortwave, please share, particularly in Russia as that was the focus of my article.
Again, thank you for your comment.
Matt
Just a couple of quick clarifications. The extent of my participation in the committee that you reference was an invitation to provide one briefing about the basics of shortwave broadcasting because most of the committee members had no experience with shortwave broadcasting. I was not a participant in the discussions. The "sending text via normal shortwave" is a project initiated by Kim Elliott. I assisted in the technical implementation because that was my job. The project was not mine. As for audience research, I am not an expert in that area, but I do question the validity of extrapolating research conducted during peace time to listener habits during a time of war. I am pretty certain that the number is not zero.
Finally, I want to address the cost that often gets referred to. The shortwave infrastructure exists and is operational. The incremental internal cost for an hour of shortwave is somewhere around $100 in round numbers, and much less at some facilities that can reach that target area. For two hours per day, the cost then is approximately $73,000 for an entire year of broadcasting. For an agency with an average annual budget of around $750M, that is about 0.01% of the annual budget. At that cost, why would every asset not be used in the information war, just like every asset is being utilized in the physical war, no matter how old or crude. If it impacts no one, the cost was low. If it impacts one person that can help shorten this war, the value is immeasurable.
Gerhard
Thank you for the quick clarifications. The extent of your participation is not at issue as your participation was voluntary. Yes, you gave a briefing but your ability to provide further comments was not limited. Further, this was not just for the benefit of the committee, but the overall project, which included input from the field (including but not limited to State Department posts in target markets), and other experts.
The issue of the audience is critical here and any failure to consider the audience may result in a severe opportunity cost when an agency has limited funds and must chose who and how to fulfill its mission while also being a good steward of tax dollars.
We were fortunate – or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it – to have several – too many, really – contemporary situation where we could look at listener habits during a crisis situation such as war. We described these in the section "Shortwave as a Crisis Platform."
I am not in a position to dispute your figure of "$100" as an "incremental internal cost for an hour of shortwave" but I wonder how well that reflects energy costs, maintenance costs, staffing costs, specific content costs (to raise another point, content that works well on shortwave is rarely the same as content that works well on other platforms), and probably some other details. (Does USAGM still have the island that require water and fuel, in addition to parts and food and everything else, to be shipped in? Does that figure into your $100 a day?) And, the capital costs are significant and also figure into the opportunity cost model that needs to be considered.
And, oh yes, everything is a paltry sum in a $750m – give or take – budget agency, except every little bit adds up. Ask the language services that had to be cut or cut back…
If the crisis audience increases from zero, to what number does that increase, is the increase in an audience that matters (there is a cold hard truth here), and what is the cost to the agency to reach this agency, which is measured in more than pure dollars but also in terms of opportunity cost.
The key issue here is whether the audience is listening, not that shortwave may work in some places, which I and the report admitted.
Matt
External observer here...
He is entirely correct in pointing out that the infrastructure exists anyway. USAGM still keeps the shortwave facilities of RFE/RL at Biblis and Lampertheim, although they can not be used for transmissions into most of Africa, lacking antennas for this direction. So it's some Radio Farda here, the odd hour of VOA Kurdish there and some additional long shots into Afghanistan, Xinjiang, Tibet. Less than 50 percent usage of the installed capacity now.
And still the budget request for fiscal year 2023 again includes $ 5,587,000 for the facilities in Germany. So far I believed that USAGM keeps spending this equivalent of a complete language service for all contingencies. But apparently not so, considering that no action is being taken even while experts no longer rule out the possibility of a complete shut-down of the internet routing into Russia. An action that would indeed just increase the power bill and require earlier tube replacement (the $ 100 per hour in question), because more than five millions are spend each year for maintenance and other fixed costs anyway.
There would also be no additional content costs either. RFE/RL still has continuous radio outputs that appear on the Hotbird 13B satellite as "Radio Svoboda RU ch201" and "Radio Svoboda UA ch202", respectively. They are mostly if not exclusively talk. So indeed all that would have to be done here is turning on a transmitter, and in fact third parties alread do so as an attempt to persuade USAGM from doing it iself, although I now have to contradict: "Some facilities that can reach that target area" can in fact not in a useful way if this is a paraphrase for the old Family Radio transmitters.
By the way, the FM idea from Africa would in this case be a mere outreach to a very small number of rural farmers deep in the hinterland as well. Yes, reaching Pskov should be possible, but that's about all. Sankt Petersburg is too far away from the border. Perhaps a weak residual signal could be produced there, but it would be very ease to block.
To sum it up: Even now they do not intend to restore any of the shortwave service they phased out as recently as in 2016. But they still produce the shortwave radio programming and still maintain the now badly underused transmission facilities. Frankly: What kind of strategy is this?
Your question “What kind of strategy is this?” is spot on. It feels to me a combination of “do something” and lack of confidence to commit. The word “strategy” tends to be misused and misunderstand there with measurable (or near-measurable) objectives avoided or distorted because of the accountability that follows.
Question about the tubes: way back when, around 15yrs ago, I was refurbishing an old radio. I found a vacuum tester (not an easy thing to find), tested my five tubes (the American 5, if I recall), and needed to replace two. I was told then that all tubes came from Russia. Now, the tubes for these transmitters aren’t the same, but who is making these tubes now?