Back on the international trail

For years I've enjoyed listening to the international voices of radio stations from the four corners of the globe. However with moving to London and leaving the trusty shortwave radio at home, my listening has trailed off a bit. However now that I'm in the process of reinstalling everything onto my PC, which includes putting together favourites lists of websites and audio streams, it's providing a good opportunity to rediscover some the content that's available online.

The World Radio Network is a good first stop, as there are on-demand downloads available for programmes from quite a considerable number of broadcasters. You can also listening to the live stream of WRN's North American service, although it can be a bit hit and miss as to how interesting a given programme may be. In that sense, it's not so very different from tuning through the shortwave bands and seeing what you come across.

I've generally got the impression that listeners to international stations and programming are a varied bunch, and perhaps not too easy to categorise. There are of course the hobbyists, who are interested in the process of tuning in, but with varying degrees of interest in the actual programming being broadcast. As for those who do specifically tune in to listen to these broadcasts and programmes from overseas, there reasons for doing so may well be as broad ranging as the programmes themselves.

Personally speaking, I tend to tune to stations from countries that I hold a current interest in, whether that be due to impending holidays, what's in the news, or for any multitude of other reasons. China Radio International is a favourite choice at present, as it's a country high on the "to visit" list, and China is to make its mark felt worldwide in the years and decades to come. Unfortunately it's streaming audio quality, albeit at 32kbps, sounds pretty ropey.

In terms of programme quality the likes of Radio Netherlands and Deutsche Welle make for good choices, and they both provide a greater focus on European news, events and issues than the British media would normally tackle. I've been try to listen to Radio Australia and Radio Sweden as well, but am having trouble with their audio streams. Lest I forget the BBC World Service, although in the UK this can be conveniently heard on Digital Radio, which for the moment is still far superior to the vast majority of internet streams.

Admittedly, that is a fairly Westernised list. Generally speaking it is these stations that have the resources available to produce the highest standard of programming, and for my current requirement, to stream their broadcasts online. Yet if I was to list the stations who had enticed me to tune across the shortwave bands, it wouldn't be this familiar selection so much as those stations playing exotic music, with unfamiliar cultures, even in unknown languages. While listening to internet stations removes the unpredictable element of what you might hear, there's a great wealth of small stations available. These are in most cases domestic, so unlikely to broadcast in languages you can understand, but some element of the exotic through the music and programming remains.