Is shortwave radio dying? A look at station counts from South America

After being away from DXing the tropical bands for about 20 years, I re-entered in active pursuit of Latin American stations in the late 1990's. One change from my earlier days that stood out was the dramatic decline in the number of Latins in the 60 meter band. Whereas in the 1970's one could regularly find a Colombian or Venezuelan station practically every 5 kHz, today there are few stations on the air from these countries. Undoubtedly, the increase in use of FM radio and other methods of communications contributed to the drop in the number of stations on the air in South America. However, has the number of stations declined in every country? Have the total number of station broadcasting decreased?

To check this out, in 1999 I decided to do an unscientific survey of the number of stations broadcasting from South America. I consulted my collection of World Radio Handbooks, starting in 1957, and counted the number of individual stations or transmitters on the air in 1957, 1971, 1977, 1992, and 1999. Why these dates? Only because I wanted a sample that covered a number of years, and these were the books I had handy. In 2003, again in 2005, and then 2010 I updated the numbers from my original survey.

Here are the results. See for yourself how shortwave broadcasting has changed from South America over the past five decades.
 
 

Number of Stations/Transmitters in South America
listed in the World Radio Handbook
1957-2010
(includes stations listed as inactive)


Country
1957
1971
1977
1992
1999
2003
2005
2010
Argentina  10 9 15 9 9 4 55
Bolivia 12 47 63 70 77 71 6236
Brazil 109 193 154 152 166 151 151149
Chile  23 30 24 10 14 6 63
Colombia 45 61 51 36 27 16 164
Ecuador * 82 116 62 40 28 30 229
Falklands 0 1 1 0 0 0 00
Fr. Guyana ** 1 2 3 2 1 1 11
Rep. Guyana 2 2 4 1 2 2 22
Paraguay 6 8 10 6 6 9 94
Peru 43 135 103 179 187 219 8788
Surinam 2 1 0 1 1 1 11
Uruguay 13 21 22 9 14 10 1011
Venezuela 46 102 80 29 11 7 41
Total 394 728 592 544 543 527 376314
As you can see, while the station counts in countries like Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela declined dramatically, those in countries such as Bolivia and Peru had actually increased over much of this time but have also recently dropped off. Brazil, since the late 1970's, has a surprisingly large number of stations still on. Sadly, less than 1/3 of the stations in the 2010 counts from the WRTH are actually listed as still being on the air at that time (who knows if any will return?)

In conclusion, while shortwave radio is in a clear decline there are still opportunities to hear exotic stations in far-off locations. But, you should get them now while you can. Who knows what the next 50 years will bring?
 

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Last Modified: 2-10-12
Brett Saylor - N3EVB
bds2 [at] psu.edu