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Talented amateur radio enthusiasts would apply their skills and turn a pile of valves, resistors, capacitors (although we called them condensers) and transformers into a receiver or transceiver capable of picking up signals from all over the planet.

Keen shortwave listeners and ham radio operators would stay up long into the night trying to pick out interesting new broadcasts. This was primarily a night-time activity because the frequencies used propagated far more readily during the hours of darkness.

Some of the strongest signals were from the USA's Voice of America and the British BBC World Service.

Many of the shortwave listeners were the same breed of news-hounds who today spend far too many hours watching CNN via satellite, or constantly scan the world's news websites for breaking news.

And indeed, it was the arrival of the satellite and the internet that virtually spelt the end of shortwave radio as a popular activity -- which is a bit of a shame really.

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Now, instead of listening to a noisy, garbled, constantly waxing and waning signal on a radio connected to a massive aerial, we just turn on the TV or fire up our web-browser.

Unfortunately this "shrink-wrapped" access to overseas content has forever killed the thrill that used to come from "discovering" a new broadcaster or enjoying those occasional freak atmospheric conditions that allowed a whole distant country-full of radio stations to be received as if they were just next door.

Similarly, the number of hard-core ham radio enthusiasts who design and build their own transmitters and receivers from a pile of components has also dwindled significantly. These days it's just so much easier to log onto an IRC server or use one of the many VOIP applications to chat with people half a world away.

But there is an upside to all this.

Now, thanks to streaming media, you can pull in a whole new genre of radio broadcast with much improved quality when compared to the old short-wave radio.

The apparent downside however, is that that you have to stay near your computer to hear these broadcasts -- right? No, not true!

Some time ago I built up a little stereo FM transmitter from a Dick Smith kitset and plugged this into the output of my PC's sound card. Now I can wander almost anywhere around the house with my little personal radio and listen to streamed audio that originates almost anywhere in the world.

An alternative would be to use a set of wireless headphones which are available from numerous outlets (albeit at a higher price).

So I guess that shortwave radio isn't really dead -- it's just evolving, with that evolution being driven by the Net.

My question today is: do you regularly listen to streaming audio broadcasts over the net and if so, what are your favourite streams. Answers in the Aardvark Forums please.

footnote: The title of today's column (CQ CQ, CQ DX) is the ham radio call used when issuing an open call to other operators and requesting a reply, with DX being included if you were seeking a long-distance conversation. And you thought that ICQ thought up that catchy homonym didn't you?

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