A few years ago, the Spectrum Monitor published an article outlining the advantages of the shortwave radio. The government cannot easily monitor a shortwave radio and that is why censorship of shortwave radio is virtually impossible. The Internet has been censored recently by the government of the following African countries: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Cameroun, Rwanda, Zambia, and Uganda. Shortwave radio is the ultimate free speech medium as it has no regard for national borders, nor for whoever is in power or not in power at any moment in time. Shortwave radio is inexpensive to the listeners because radios are affordable, could be procured from just about anywhere in the world, and listened to without any subscription fee. Information going through shortwaves is at the speed of light, no buffering is required, and there is no speed difference between one area to another. Shortwave radio works everywhere on the planet earth, and the listener does not have to be within a local broadcast footprint or that of a satellite to receive broadcasts. In the most impoverished locations of the world, there are shortwave radio batteries that could be purchased and run the radio. Shortwave radio is a simple technology requiring just a dial without any learning curve or high technological training of use.
At World Christian Broadcasting, we at African pathways program have received letters from listeners in countries where the Internet is censored intermittently by their governments. We hear from people who can not write without restrictions because the government constantly monitors the press and other media regularly. Shortwave radio has survived without any opposition from the dictatorial governments of several African countries. People are listening from Somalia with over 99% Muslims and a country where Islam is the state religion for example. We had a listener a few months ago write from United Arab Emirates. Our shortwave radio directs the listeners to our website www.africanpathways.org, and the website also directs the visitors to African Pathways radio program on 2000 UTC at a frequency of 11965 kHz. The shortwave program and website complement each other. Listeners are pleased.
