Dear Editor:
I am “shocked, shocked” to hear that BBC is using shortwave to get news and information into Ukraine and Russia. After abandoning shortwave as outdated and not necessary, one only has to look at the current conflict in Eastern Europe to see the value of shortwave.
We’ve all embraced the modern technologies as they come on line — but they’re fragile. Between the damage to the public internet infrastructure in the Ukraine, to Russia pulling the “plug” on citizens’ ability to access news networks outside of Russia, to the BBC trying to get people to use VPN (seriously?), it’s the antiquated, outdated shortwave that gets the message through.
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There is a lesson to be learned here: Old tech is reliable, cost effective and gets the message through when nothing else does. The same can be said of AM here in the USA.
All of those “high tech” solutions, whether they are cellphones or the public internet, are prone to failure when you really need them the most. Let’s not abandon the tried and true “outdated” modes.
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