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Why no shortwave band on radios?

Arran Cameron
I have lost count of the number of transistor (and IC) radios and Hi-Fis that have passed through my hands over the years. Some were high build quality but others were complete junk. What is common between them are that relatively few models have the facility to receive shortwave broadcasts. They only have LW, MW, and VHF bands.


Notable examples from the heyday of the transistor radio with a shortwave band include the Hacker Super Sovereign RP75, GEC G820, and Grundig Yacht Boy, but these were all top of the range models. Commercially available models of radios with a shortwave band at an affordable price to the average person were limited although there was the option of constructing one yourself or modifying an existing LW / MW radio.


What is the reason why so few transistor radios and Hi-Fi tuners had a shortwave band?
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    My father chose a Grundig Yacht Boy (gorgeous radio) as his 40 year long service award in 1969. He really enjoyed the fact that it had a short wave band - but in actual practice only fiddled with it occasionally, mainly I think to encourage my interest. The only bands he actually listed to properly were FM and occasionally LW (being the days when a fair few Radio 4 programmes were only on LW).


    For many years I had a wonderful R1155 which would pick up just about anything AM, but I gave it away years ago. These days it's FM (mostly on a mixture of old and new Roberts sets + the hifi), digital over the TVs' Freeview, and BBC Sounds. Oh, and one DAB radio permanently tuned to Radio 4 because we can't be bothered to work out how on earth to make it pick up anything else! But for world connections absolutely agree t'internet is much easier to use than SW.


    What I - and particularly my wife - get more worked up about is: why no decent speakers in radios? Hence the collection of old Roberts'...


    Cheers,


    Andy


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  • 0
    My father chose a Grundig Yacht Boy (gorgeous radio) as his 40 year long service award in 1969. He really enjoyed the fact that it had a short wave band - but in actual practice only fiddled with it occasionally, mainly I think to encourage my interest. The only bands he actually listed to properly were FM and occasionally LW (being the days when a fair few Radio 4 programmes were only on LW).


    For many years I had a wonderful R1155 which would pick up just about anything AM, but I gave it away years ago. These days it's FM (mostly on a mixture of old and new Roberts sets + the hifi), digital over the TVs' Freeview, and BBC Sounds. Oh, and one DAB radio permanently tuned to Radio 4 because we can't be bothered to work out how on earth to make it pick up anything else! But for world connections absolutely agree t'internet is much easier to use than SW.


    What I - and particularly my wife - get more worked up about is: why no decent speakers in radios? Hence the collection of old Roberts'...


    Cheers,


    Andy


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