There is no denying that we are firmly planted in the digital age. Look around you in your home, at work, and even in the car or on the street, and there are signs of digital communications everywhere. Buses carry screens advising you of the next stop. Street furniture is adorned with digital adverts that change every now and then. Shops, restaurants, cafes, and bars feature digital screens and payment systems.
You can find details, for example, of some internet radios in that review and many people see Internet radio as the way forward. Yet, turn on the radio in your car, home, or workplace, and the chances are you are listening to a broadcast on FM or MW, each of which is an analog medium. Why is this? Why are we still using analog radio when it is said by some to be outdated?
The truth is that Internet radio is still in its infancy. Furthermore, many cars are equipped with FM radios and not all with the digital DAB system. We are, by and large, happy with the FM bandwidth. To get an idea of the future of analog radio – and the answer to the question in the title is yes, it very much has a future – we need to go back to where it all began.
A Brief History of Radio
The ‘invention’ of the radio is widely credited to Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian working in Britain in the early part of the 20th century. It may surprise you that radio as we know it is merely 100 years of age. In fact, radio waves – the basic core of radio itself – have always existed as part of the electromagnetic spectrum. We won’t go into detail as that will take us down another path but suffice to say that Marconi discovered a way of harnessing radio waves across different frequencies.
Initially, he used wavelengths in the longwave range. This worked, but only over short distances. Longwave required ‘a line of sight between the transmitter and receiver. Marconi was looking for a long-distance communications medium. He found it in the realms of the shortwave bandwidth.
To simplify the importance of this, understand that shortwave radio waves bounce back from the ionosphere, a highly charged layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Marconi realized that a series of repeater stations could bounce the waves across the world. This breakthrough was immensely important to the future of radio and, indeed, the world. We’ll see why shortwave is still relevant later on. So, who – besides the average person turning on their car radio – uses analog radio, and why?
Who Uses Analog Radio?
There are thousands of amateur radio enthusiasts across the world – also known as ha, radio users – who use analog radio to communicate with others and listen to various broadcasts that interest them. These people are not the only users of analog radio.
Analog is still used, for example, by security crews who use ‘walkie-talkie’ mobile radio for two-way communication. It’s the simplest method of keeping people in touch with each other and with a central base. These devices are used everywhere, from massive sports stadiums to shopping malls, and in many other instances too.
Let’s have a quick look at who still uses shortwave radio and why it shows no signs of being left behind.
Who Uses Short Wave Radio?
When Marconi found that short wave radio could be bounced back to Earth repeatedly, he cracked a problem that had been of concern to ships at sea and their operators for some time: once over the horizon and out of sight, longwave radio communication was impossible.
With short waves bouncing around the Earth, maritime companies could now keep in touch with their vessels wherever they were on the planet. Then came the age of flight, and aircraft benefited in the same way. To this day, the maritime and aviation industries still rely upon shortwaves to communicate.
Most of the world’s military organizations remain users of shortwave, as do emergency services. The reason is that not everywhere in the world has access to a digital connection. Persons living or working in remote locations may also rely on shortwave radio for keeping in touch with the rest of the world.
Then there are the ham radio users who may also broadcast on shortwave frequencies. They have been central to survival in the event of, for example, natural disasters that have wiped out broadband and cell phone signals.
But it is not merely enthusiasts and the select users we mention above who rely on shortwave broadcasts. The BBC in the UK still broadcasts its World Service on shortwave in order to allow those who do not have Internet or FM reception for listening. Some international broadcasters also still use shortwaves, notably the big radio stations in China, for example.
So, is analog radio here to stay for the duration? It is, so let’s have a quick look at the future of analog radio.
The Future of Analog Radio
That the BBC and the Chinese broadcasters continue to use shortwave analog radio says a lot about the future of the medium. There will always be remote parts of the world that simply cannot be connected to broadband and that are unable to carry a 4G or 5G signal. For people in these places, analog radio remains a vital part of their lives.
