Talk:Shortwave listening

I would like to express a request to expand the receiver section of this article. Many pieces of information on portables are left out. For this section, please refer to the Korean-language of 'shortwave listening'. Thank you. Finefir2001 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Since Korea has been divided into two states, shortwave listening in South Korea has never had a chance to activate itself. Shortwave or shortwave receivers were the symbol of North Korean spies or pro-North Korean activists, and there were some cases in which the South Korean government confiscated shortwave receivers. Until 1993, it used to be a criminal offence for people without a ham radio operator's licence to possess a shortwave radio or listen to shortwave broadcasts. At present time, shortwave listening is usually enjoyed by some people who have a strong interest in shortwave listening.

The 1973 oil crisis brought the root of 'ethusiastic' shortwave listening to Japan. Due to the oil crisis, many Japanese broadcasters had to cease midnight programmes, therefore, a lot of listeners there began to seek shortwave listening as an alternative activity. During the 1970s and the 1980s, a large number of Japanese people, especially teenage students, were excited about shortwave, and electronics companies like Sony were interested in introducing several shortwave receivers. Some shortwave listeners would gather QSL cards from various broadcasters all over the world. After the 1980s, ethusiasm for shortwave listening in Japan began to go down. These days, most Japanese listeners are composed of certain adults who are specially interested in shortwave listening. Some of them are nostalgic of that period.

User:Finefir2001, thanks for the additions, but some references are needed for this material. Perhaps if you point us to the Korean sources, we can obtain an English translation from which to rewrite the material in a more encyclopedic style. Also needed is a better section title ("Shortwave listening in other countries"), as WP articles are intended to reflect a world view of the subject whenever possible. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

>> I have tagged citations to the South Korea section. However, I could not do it on the Japan section, because I have no idea of the relevant sources; I would ask some Japanese users on English-language Wikipedia for help. Finefir2001 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 12:29, 14 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

"I have tagged citations to the South Korea section. However, I could not do it on the Japan section, because I have no idea of the relevant sources" Sounds like what you wrote is your opinion or personal analysis. WP articles can't include opinion of the editor. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Since the main article is written according to shortwave listening activities in English-speaking countries (especially the USA), the title of the section 'shortwave listening in other countries' has been changed to 'shortwave listening outside English-speaking countries'. If you do not agree with this idea, you may bring back the original title. Finefir2001 (talk)

In addition to being referenced to a single source, the material added has multiple issues; among them, it gives undue weight to a minor aspect of US-centric shortwave listening history, it fails to make its topic clear, and it is written in the style of an essay or book review rather than an encyclopedia. I suggest removal and move to the editor's Userspace. If the book "World War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion by Lisa Spahr" meets WP:N, it might better be used to create a separate article about the book. The topic of POW monitoring during WWII may deserve a paragraph at most in the history section of this article. If so, there are a number of sources available here that could be used in addition to Ms. Spahr's book. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

The use of SW radio as a language learning tool has long since been superseded by the web, yet it is being presented as current. I imagine this is because the material added was lifted from a source more than 20 years old. Pasted amid a discussion of digital signal processing, it's not helpful or thoughtfully placed. However, I understand this is part of a class assignment, so I'll wait a bit to make needed repairs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, it isn't made clear this technique is only being used in 3rd world countries (e.g. "Ears to Our World" example.) - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for reviewing this. I changed it to "The use of the Shortwave Radio in Third World Countries". If you have any other suggestions please let me know. I am also not sure the references/footnotes are correct and the format in which I am putting the information in. Thanks again for letting us work with your article for this project. Nicocorn20 (talk) 16:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

No problem, it's not my article as no one "owns" articles, but we sometimes "adopt" an article to improve and look after. So here's my advice. Revise the material you've added a bit:

•   Done Make a separate section right after "history". Call it "Shortwave listening as an educational tool" or something like that. Write an intro sentence that makes it clear how SW listening is being used as an educational tool and where (e.g. currently, in 3rd world countries). Then go on by describing the Ears to Our World program as an example. Add to this a quick summary of some advantages/disadvantages of SW listening in the classroom from your other source. There's no need to include every last bit of info from sources. The goal is quality and readability, not sheer bulk.
•   Done The Happy Station material might better fit in the History section (I think you can find more examples of unique relationships between listeners and SW stations).
• And The North American Shortwave Association material could either be a new section about "SWL clubs", or it could be woven in to the existing "practices" section. Sources on short wave listening you might use to develop this stuff can be found here.
•   Done Compose a paragraph about "POW monitoring" (the correct term) using sources like the Radio Heroes book and the ones found here. Weave it into the "history" section where we discuss WWII.
• Add reference footnotes as best you can and I'll help format them later.

LuckyLouie (talk) 17:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I have been asked to take a look at this article and provide some advice on how to proceed further with this article. Here are a few suggestions to work on after a first look at the article:

• The lead needs to comply with WP:LEAD in that it adequately summarises the article. I would suggest that three or four paragraphs would do here. It should be able to stand on its own and summarise the main points.
• It needs a lot more references to meet our verifiability standards. The article should use a standard referencing system, reference templates are good for this.
• I have given the structure of the article a bit of a workover to make it more logical and to help it to flow a bit better.
• Some of the sections seem to be original research or a "how-to guide". The classroom section in particular are troublesome. They are disproportionately long in terms of the overall article and the relevance to the topic of the article. The classroom concept seems to be a relatively minor concept when compared to its other uses and the sections need to be reduced. The text also needs to be reworked so it is not a lift out of the JSTOR article and is in prose and not list format.
• All of the bare links in the article need to be turned into references.

All in all, it needs some work. A couple of suggestions on how to improve the prose and structure: look at existing high quality articles at featured articles and good articles. Look at technology articles for inspiration. Any questions can be left here or on my talkpage and I hope this helps. Woody (talk) 17:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

This review is transcluded from Talk:Shortwave listening/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nope, not even close to GA.

• Intro is two sentences long. That's way too short.
• Many, many, many, many unsourced paragraphs throughout.
• Just a few statements that are weaselly:
  • "Many hobbyists use even less-expensive portable receivers with good results"
  • "Under good band conditions with no adjacent channel interference, a wide bandwidth (i.e. 8 kHz or better) can produce quite pleasing shortwave audio reception."
  • "Perhaps the most widely used pure PC shortwave radio (manufactured continuously since 1998) is the American made RX-320D DSP receiver."
• There MUST NOT be external third party links within the text itself (this occurs twice in the PC controlled shortwave radio receivers section).
• I omitted an improper use of "you can" in the aforementioned section.
• "Here is a partial list" followed by a list is redundant. Also, said list could easily be made prose.
• Did I mention that almost all the paragraphs are unsourced?
• What makes this a reliable source?
• Lots of informal tone too, such as "The ramp-up of digital shortwave broadcasting..."

Overall, this article is a hot mess of weasel words, how-to advice and technical information that is far too inaccessible for the user. Half the time, I don't even know what you're talking about. It needs a near-total rewrite before it would even be B-class, much less GA.

(Also, the GAN template was never placed on the article talk page.) Reviewer: Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

One suggestion. Move the elaborate descriptions in "PC controlled shortwave radio receivers", "Shortwave radio control software" and "Software-defined radios" to Receiver (radio) as this technology applies to all radios, not just shortwave. Everything necessary can be adequately summarized in one paragraph under the "Equipment" section and sourced to PASSPORT TO WORLD BAND RADIO or similar reference work. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Comment - I've made some basic improvements to the article such as consolidating sections, relocating overly technical material, and removing well-meant but unsourced observations. I've also added a basic lead section. The article still needs thoughtful expansion (rather than frantic additions of lists or marginally relevant "filler") and citations in order to qualify for GA. However I believe I made its present state more coherent and a good foundation for future improvements to be made. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

This review is transcluded from Talk:Shortwave listening/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: North8000 (talk · contribs) 20:37, 27 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Nice article!

Regarding the degree of reliance on internal links, what I try to use as a standard is that the average reader can understand what the sentence is saying without going to another article. If not, IMO putting at lease a few words of explanation is a good idea. IMHO there are 4 places that I noted where the typical reader really can't understand the meaning of the sentence without going to the other article at the link. These 4 are at the links DXing, Medium wave, QSL cards and Digital Radio Mondiale. I may tweak these myself, but wanted to mention it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:26, 27 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Did the first three. North8000 (talk) 21:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Resolved LuckyLouie removed the 4 th one. North8000 (talk) 19:08, 28 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

In one place in the WW2 section it says "Shortwave listening hobbyists dwindled during the war years" and the lead appears to conflict saying " Shortwave listening was especially popular during times of international conflict such as World War II"..... Could you tweak to fix or clarify? North8000 (talk) 12:22, 29 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Did attempt to clarify. Basically, SWLing was largely a male dominated hobby in the 1940s populated by die hard radio experimenters and people who competed for awards for most countries heard. When most (men) enlisted or were drafted, the related technical and hobbyist magazines and clubs went dormant. But there was a surge of interest from non-hobbyists (whose home radios just happened to cover the shortwave bands) seeking war news from European stations. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Cool. Resolved North8000 (talk) 16:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the number of listeners, on one places it says according to one source it is in the millions (which makes it sound like maybe a few million, and elsewhere it says an estimate of 600,000,000 residences have receivers. Could you clarify? North8000 (talk) 19:03, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

According to the (2002) source, "The total estimated number of households worldwide with at least one shortwave set in working order is 600,000,000." How to summarize it in the lead? The editorially liberal Some estimates have placed the number of shortwave listeners worldwide at more than 600 million or the more literal A 2002 estimate placed the number households with a shortwave receiver at 600 million. LuckyLouie (talk) 19:31, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think that the 2002 context is important.....are there any sources handy with a current estimate? I imagine that the 600,000,000 has declined due to 11 internet years between then and now, but it's probably still in the 100's of millions rather than just a few million. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:30, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I was not able to find any estimates past 2002, so added date as context. LuckyLouie (talk) 22:03, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Cool. Resolved North8000 (talk) 22:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well-written

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 11:06, 3 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Factually accurate and verifiable

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 22:28, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Broad in its coverage

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 22:27, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 21:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 21:15, 27 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Illustrated, if possible, by images

• Meets this criteria. Has 5 images. There are no non-free images so no use-specific rationales are required. North8000 (talk) 20:53, 27 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

This has passed as a Wikipedia Good Article. Nice article! Congratulations! North8000 (talk) 11:08, 3 October 2013 (UTC) ReviewerReply

(This is "duplicated" here for when the review is no longer transcluded)

Congratulations, this has passed as a Wikipedia Good Article. Nice article! Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:15, 3 October 2013 (UTC) ReviewerReply

I would like to print out a list of shortwave stations broadcasting news etc in English. Here are 3 sites I found that appear to be currently updated. I might have added them to the article, but my search seems like original research, so I'm refraining:

http://www.short-wave.info/index.php?feature=instructions Apparently a search tool for a massive database

https://www.shortwaveschedule.com/index.php Apparently searches the same massive database; can set desired languages

http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/index.html Prime Time Shortwave is a listing of English shortwave broadcasts.

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