The "woodpecker" was a Soviet over-the-horizon backscatter radar:
A picture, from a distance:
and up close (rotated 90 degrees, for some reason):
In popular culture, the "wall" around Chicago in the Divergent/Insurgent series of movies was modeled after it.
Great memories in your column!
I discovered my grandparents' "Silvertone" floor model and "Philco" table radio models from the 1930's, each of which had back lit dials and the "Magic Eye" (or "Cat's Eye" as others called it) green tuning tube that let you "visualize" how good your tuning signal was.
On December 16, 1972 I recall I was listening to the news reports on the Silvertone pertaining to Nixon's bombing of Hanoi on AFRTS - and I say specifically on December 16, because Deutsche Well was at the same time celebrating Beethoven's birthday!
An interesting thing about HCJB, Radio Moscow, and the broadcast of ever ticking National Bureau of Standards Time atomic clock -- in 1970 I lived in Cape May, NJ and Sunoco sold a promotional item at their gas stations for $4.99 - a "Pump radio" which was an AM embodied within the shape of a Sunoco gasoline pump. The receiving transistor radio mechanism was made in Taiwan, and at a time later at night than ~ 10 PM, you could pick up HCJB, Radio Moscow, and the Atomic Clock at places way up at the top of the dial, just around 1580 or 1590 MHz, and then just past 1600 up around 1620 - 1630 mHz. I don't know if being at the shoreline and on such a peninsula made any difference in the reception that allowed for this.
You'll doubtlessly remember that after the minute time was announced "At the sound of the tone the time will be xx:xx...." their was a distinctive hum on each striking second which lasted and gradually faded until it ended ~ 20 seconds before the next time announcement.
I eventually got a Grundig when the tubes started to burnout out of the Philco and the Silvertone and I'd used up whatever spares I had from the old TV repair man who used to come the house with his "Dr's bag" of tubes and testers. He closed his business and there was obviously no eBay back then to find what were becoming more rare "5Y4G"'s!
Thanks for allowing me to travel the world in my mind all over again!
FReegards!
I really enjoyed your nusings on SW radio.
When I was in college in the mid 60’s , I used to listen avidly to Willis Conover on the Voice of America as he played and talked (VERY KNOWLEDGABLY!!) about Jazz!
I was introduced over 5 years to various artists from Armstrong, Louis, to Zentner, Zi. What a wonderful world opened up to me! I would listen to the transmittal from Columbo, Ceylon (as it was called in those days).
If Mr Conover (I can not think of the Professor without great respect, admiration and love) featured Ella Fitzgerald, I would try and pick up the re broadcast again from Monrovia, Liberia, and then one more time from South Carolina about dawn my time in India.
Many years later I was fortunate to come to the USA, and got to see the artists I had listened to over my scratchy SW radio; Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis.
My most treasured recollections are a concert with Old Blue Eyes ( 4th row seats), and a meeting with Ella Fitzgerald after a concert in Dallas, and a phone conversation with a very gracious Mr Conover shortly before his death.
All thanks to SW radio, Mr Conover, and the VOA.
I now live close to Denton, TX, and listen to KNTU on 88.1 FM from the Univ of North Texas all day long. This is as close to heaven as I hope to get!
Thanks for re-kindling my memories!
I used to wait anxiously for the latest Popular Electronics, which had the schedules and frequencies of the Shortwave broadcasts to North America.
I discovered SW listening during the late 1960s and progressed through several better radios until buying an Allied SX-190 (http://www.dxing.com/rx/ax190.htm) from Radio Shack in 1972. I still have that radio but seldom use it - there isn’t much that is interesting to hear anymore. Sadly, the Internet has all but killed SWL. I probably logged English broadcasts from 40 foreign countries.
I enjoyed listening to the rabid communist stations, they were all pretty extreme like North Korea today. It gave me a sense of just how dangerous the outside world really was. Radio Tirana (Albania) was probably the weirdest. I have fond memories hearing the Red Chinese screaming against “American imperialists and their running dogs”. I also was thrilled to hear the heroic production figures of Pipe Factory #47, or whatever.
Before I understood how different radio frequencies affected propagation, I used to wonder why there wasn’t such a thing as SW television. At least with the Internet I can now see video from around the world.
I once built a SW crystal radio that would pull in the BBC and a couple other high powered stations. I’m a bit too deaf to do that stunt now.
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I was fortunate to have as a kid the two best hobbies for learning about the world: Stamp Collecting and Shortwave Radio.
After enlisting in the Navy in 1968, I found that I enjoyed communication, and especially cryptology. This dated back to my earlier interest in puzzle solving, especially anything where one letter or symbol was used to represent another ...kinda the basis for the Enigma Machine in WWII.
I opted not to go to cryptology school (in Pensecola, FL) and settled for radioman (San Diego, CA). Served on two aircraft carriers (USS Oriskany, USS Ranger) and did three tours off the coast of Viet Nam. Yes, I was part of the "Tonken Gulf Yacht Club," along with Jim Robinson.
When I got out of the service in 1971 I lost all interest in communication and radio (other than the AM radio in my 1968 Dodge Coronet) and moved on with my life. Then an engineer friend of mine at work in around 1975 introduced me to a 1 watt tuna can radio he had built. From Northern California we were able to listen to ham radio operators in Portland, Oregon. Remember, this was 1 watt! (the typical light bulb is 60 or 75 watts). That was a distance of about 550-600 miles. I was hooked!!
I built my own tuna can receiver, and from that humble beginning I soon owned a Kenwood TS520 transceiver. Borrowing from my Navy days, I always preferred CW (continuous wave, or better known as morse code). Few people realize that Morse Code in transmitted mostly in English, so I was able to read messages from all over the world. At one time I could send and receive about 35 words per minute, so most messages were within my ability to copy and communicate.
I listened to stations from everywhere, especially 10 meter, 15 meter, and 20 meter. I collected hundreds of QSL cards from all over the world. I always preferred seeking out the weakest, often barely audible, stations, and avoided the 50,000 watt monstronsities that bled over in both directions!!
I eventually had to sell my radio when my business failed. It broke my heart to sell it, and I actually kicked one guy out of my house when he bad-mouthed Kenwood brand in order to get me to lower the price! Ha! Talk about brand loyalty!
Anyway, its all a memory now, except when I go to the Phoenix Science museum where they have a full-blown operational ham radio station. I love to impress them with my "keying" skills, as few of them actively use morse code (evidently, no longer required for ham radio license).
Well, that's my story. Nice to share on a 4th of July holiday.
“The first was station HCJB, the Voice of the Andes in Quito, Ecuador (a Protestant missionary station). Then came the Voice of America . . . Radio Canada International . . . BBC World Service . . . and then I discovered the really exotic stuff—Radio Moscow . . . Radio Havana Cuba . . . Swiss Radio International . . . Deutsche Welle . . . Radio Nederland Wereldemroep . . . Swiss Radio International . . . “
Built my first Heathkit shortwave in 66’. When I got a QSL card from Radio Moscow my father had a serious talk with me, I believed he thought I’d become a commie. When I got the one from Radio Havana................
Radio Cairo was interesting, the first day of the war they had wiped out the IAF and were on the outskirts to Tel Aviv. The following days all they played was martial music.
Had a Heathkit SW-717 receiver, picked up many stations like Radio Prague, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Budapest, Radio Australia, HCJB (Quito, Ecuador) etc.
bflr
Bflr
CB radio is still pretty big too (of course nothing like it was in the late 60’s-80’s). There is a pretty good sized forum dedicated to it “cbradiotalk.com”. Guys and gals love talking “skip” all over the country when the conditions are right. Some even communicate with other countries and they post YouTube videos of their contacts and communications.
I live in Memphis and on my little Cobra 25 I pick up conversations all over the country (until the sun goes down). No one seems to have a stronger radio then a guy who calls himself Motormouth Maul. You can YouTube or google him- he must have thousands invested in his set up. He runs his
radio through something like protools software and along with his natural “made for radio voice) he comes across my CB sounding like an FM station. He also uses a real radio studio mic.
I have always been interested in this stuff as well as morris code. How did ships (eg Titanic) communicate via Morris Code without wires?