Sad News; the end of Passport

[ka3jjz]

This announcement originated in the AOR Yahoo group, but I saw it in the Eton E1 group, relayed by Joe;
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This was posted on the AOR-COMMUNICATIONS-RECEIVERS group:

Passport to World Band Radio has just announced on their web site that all operations, including the web site, are to be shut down by the end of this month.

Passport to World Band Radio 2009 » Receiver and Antenna News

If you are interested in reading any of their past comments, which contain a lot of good information, you will want to do it quickly.

This is the end of an era.
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Indeed it is. I think a lot of us hoped that PWBR would move into the 21st century and either publish via their website, or use an eBook PDF format, but it seems it's not to be. I just tried the website listed and couldn't connect, so don't be surprised if that happens to you.

Some distributors might still have the 09 PWBR in stock (though I suspect not for long), and while the various schedules are way out of date, the articles and reviews never age all that much.

I will work on stripping the PWBR links out of the wiki during the week.

End of an era indeed.

73 Mike

 

[elzebub]

Sad news indeed, I am a relative newcomer to world band radio, the first one I purchased was the 2009 Edition of PWBR, I am very sorry it will be the last.

 

[corbintechboy]

Sad news indeed. I have many issues dating back several years, very informative!

Makes me wonder (hope) that someone else will take the initiative and come out with something along the same lines.

The internet is a great place to do research, however nothing beats a one stop place (book) that brings everything together.

Here's to hoping!

 

[DPD1]

It seems kind of a waste to completely abandon it. I don't know all the details, but if they couldn't find a buyer... I would think there must be someone that would be willing to keep a web based version going. There could possibly be a little ad revenue in it.

 

[k9rzz]

Gone like the good old free ILG database.

 

[RadioDaze]

Could a deal be reached for RR to host its archives?

 

[raisindot]

This is very sad, but symptomatic of the dying state of world band radio in general. In ten years, the only thing that will be left is a scattering of very local, lower-power stations in third world countries, Radio China and the fundieradiologists.

Jeff

 

[brandon]

This is sad news. Although I'm not into SWL broadcast it just shows how the Internet has put the final nail into the coffins of many SWL stations.

 

[a29zuk]

That's too bad. The Passport and the WRTH are my two favorite standbys in the shack.

 

[k9rzz]

This is very sad, but symptomatic of the dying state of world band radio in general. In ten years, the only thing that will be left is a scattering of very local, lower-power stations in third world countries, Radio China and the fundieradiologists.

Jeff

I disagree. I think it's the slow demise of printed material in general.

Anyone interested in a nice set of encyclopedias? Free shipping!

Edit: In my opinion, and I know this is blasphemy around here, but I feel that scanning will die sooner than shortwave radio listening will. With public service being moved over to digital and probably encrypted on top of that, what's left to listen to? School buses and crane operators?

 

[SCPD]

Yea, regardless of the reason, it's still bad news.

 

[raisindot]

I disagree. I think it's the slow demise of printed material in general.

Anyone interested in a nice set of encyclopedias? Free shipping!

Edit: In my opinion, and I know this is blasphemy around here, but I feel that scanning will die sooner than shortwave radio listening will. With public service being moved over to digital and probably encrypted on top of that, what's left to listen to? School buses and crane operators?

Well, I'll disagree with you there. The decrease in the number of SW stations reduced the number of listeners and purchasers of SW radios. Reduced listening audience means reduced audience for Passport (Magne said that even at its peak Passport never sold more than 80,000 copies in a year). Of course, the Internet took a lot of this business away, but, given some of responses here and elsewhere, many people were still loyal annual purchasers of the Passport books up until the end. Unless you get a kick out of listening to foreign language stations (which gets old REALLY fast), investing in a radio to hear, perhaps, at most, 10-15 different non-fundie English language broadcasters no longer makes sense. It's utility and ham listening that will keep HF listening alive for the immediate future.

And, in terms of scanning, you're probably right that movement of PS to encrypted digital will end mass interest, but for now the sustained popularity of scanning is maintaining sales of printed frequency books, as evidenced by the popularity of the Scanner Master guides and availability of many other printed frequency guides, in spite of the fact that most of these same frequencies are also online.


Jeff

 

[poltergeisty]

Needed an e-book format...

krap! I just read you comment on here Passport to World Band Radio 2009 | Blog Archive » Passport to World Band Radio® in Limbo (rev. 28 Nov.)

My bad..

Actually, you mentioned it in the opening thread. My bad x2! :lol: