My Life and Shortwave Radio

Way back in the early 70s, my mother's youngest brother (who was a seasonal worker for the US Army Corps of Engineers), as was his habit, brought his car over to our house while he was away on "the boat" (as we all called it). But this time he left something else . . . an very plain-looking, ordinary radio.

Back in those days FM was still fairly exotic. AM was still king, and that's where most of the music and regular radio programming was. This little radio happened to have both AM and FM. But it had a third option--something labeled "SW."

I had no idea what this "SW" was at the time, so naturally I began listening. At first all I got was noise. Then I noticed some of the noise was decidedly atypical for radio static. There were Morse code signals, muffled voices (I found out later they were hams), things that sounded like a constant roar (we assumed these were the "motors" of ships and planes) as well as what most people know as "woodpeckers."

This was all very interesting, but it certainly didn't seem to have any entertainment value. Then before long, I noticed that at night, I started picking up stations (though nowhere near as clear as the other two bands). And what stations!

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 . . .

Yes . . . I had, quite by accident, stumbled upon the wonderful world of international broadcasting!

In those days most adults had lived through World War II and I had of course heard of Tokyo Rose. Here was the same thing! Not only did I get to listen to the government radio of exotic foreign countries, but I had a whole half a world of "bad guys" to listen to, just like the grown ups had thirty years before!

Naturally I gave names to the various Commie announcers. The two most common English language announcers on Radio Moscow I named Moscow Mildred and Leningrad Larry. Radio Havana Cuba had three: Havana Hannah, Santiago Sam, and Cuba Clyde. It was all so magical.

And there was something else as well . . . that wonderful time signal broadcast continuously from the National Bureau of Standards in Fort Collins, Colorado--an obsessive-compulsive's dream!

Then after I graduated from high school I decided I wanted a better radio. I found one in a mail order catalogue . . . a ten band beauty with two short wave bands. Homina-homina-homina!!! I enjoyed that radio so much over the decades. I kept it by my bed so I could listen to it at any time, though of course it was portable. The only problem was that two short wave bands, like the one I had access to previously, wasn't enough. It didn't have the whole spectrum. There were stations out there I couldn't get or couldn't find. Plus my beloved time signal immigrated across the band and at times disappeared completely.

I dreamed of a humongous digital receiving set that could get everything, even the broadcasts of Irish anarchists on a ship at sea whose broadcaster had to be turned off intermittently to keep it from melting down. Well, I was poor and couldn't afford the coveted Grundigs or any such thing. It was just me and my ten band for thirty years (and the old analogue dial slipped a lot and at times couldn't even access everything it should have).

Before going further, I would like to reminisce just a little bit about those stations and those broadcasts.

Voice of America was important to me because I could actually listen to exotic foreign languages I had only read of before, languages my parents had never heard spoken in their lives. There would be the "ding" at the top (or bottom) of the hour followed by a voice saying "This is the Voice of America; the following program is in [fill in the blank]." Wow.

And straight out of World War II was AFRTS, the American Forces Radio and Television Service.

Deutsche Welle was important because it represented a country that not too long ago had been an enemy, but was now an ally. I really enjoyed their 65 minute programs, especially the feature with Larry Wayne, Deutsche Welle's answer to Paul Harvey. And at the end of each of his programs he would always close by saying "with regards from Jezzy, the Cat What Am!" Unfortunately they eventually cut back to just twenty minutes and Larry Wayne and Jezzy were gone.

Sunday nights meant "Happy Station" on Radio Nederland hosted by the redoubtable Tom Meijer. "Happy Station" had begun way back in 1928 with Eddie Startz and was one of the oldest and longest-lasting programs in broadcasting history.

Albania was one of the most isolated and repressive countries on the world under the heel of the unlamented Enver Hoxha (the only country to actually make the worship of G-d a crime), but their signal came in loud and clear. I recall one time the announcer chirping that in Albania "the socialist spring is blooming with all the colors of the rainbow."

HCJB and Family Radio WYFR often carried the old gospel dramatic program "Unshackled." Does anyone else remember that? HCJB also had a program called "The Cracker Barrel" where they read viewer mail.

And of course for many years I was a regular listener (especially on Shabbat and holidays) of Qol Yisra'el, the Voice of Israel.

My QSL card collection (which I still have) is small, but I was very proud of it. I got cards from Qol Yisra'el, HCJB, Radio Nederland's "Family Radio," the Voice of Turkey, Radio Japan, Radio Australia (famous for having gone completely broke at one time), the Voice of Spain, Deutsche Welle, and various other stations (I'm sure I've forgotten several). I had two rules though: I never sent for a card to a Communist or an Arab station.

Other Communist stations I picked up other than those I have mentioned included Radio Peking (yes, that was actually its name at the time), Radio Prague, Radio Sofia, Radio Budapest, Radio Kiev, and Radio Vilnius. I never did find Radio Berlin International (the East German station). One time I actually picked up Qaddafi's Radio Jamahiriya ("the voice of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya") for a few days.

Other exotic stations I picked up were the Voice of Spain, Swiss Radio International, RAI (Italy), Radio Japan, Portugal, the Voice of Turkey, Radio Cairo, Radio RSA (South Africa from Johannesburg), the Voice of Free China (via WYFR in Okeechobee, Florida), and the Pinochet-era Voice of Chile (great music!).

In the early years of this millennium I finally achieved my dream of getting a digital short wave receiver that actually had the entire short wave spectrum on it. Unfortunately, the Internet was already cutting into international shortwave broadcasting as the medium by which governments propagandized each other.

What brought this whole post on was the fact that half a year ago I noticed that my valiant little digital radio was giving forth distorted sounds. It had been around a long time, so I guess it certainly had the right. I tried to find someone who could fix it, but the regular repairman had gone out of business and the people at the local ham club (no, I'm not a member) said that the little radio's time had come and gone. I knew I had to have another one, so I just last month ordered and received its replacement. It's the exact same model it is replacing, which is the cheapest model to cover the entire shortwave spectrum. Unfortunately, international broadcasting on shortwave is now only a shadow of its former self. Even that old stand-by HCJB closed down years ago to be replaced by a series of local AM stations.

Radio Canada International and Swiss Radio International are Internet-only. BBC and Deutsche Welle no longer broadcast to North America. Radio Moscow went out of existence twenty-three years ago. The Cold War is over everywhere except domestically. It's almost all over. I can't even find VOA on the radio any more, much less AFRTS.

A few stations remain. Radio Havana Cuba and China Radio International keep perking on. I can now pick up Radio Hanoi. I even got the Czech Republic the other night. Radio Australia, the station that became famous for going broke, is still around. I got the Voice of Turkey as well as Greece, though Greece is always in Greek.

Nowadays shortwave is primarily the home of religious stations and Alex Jones conspiracy types. The first shortwave station I picked up on my new radio was someone in a thick African (I think) accent claiming that the Jesuits run the CIA. But even so, without a shortwave receiving set available to me, my life is simply not complete. Especially since I can now pick up my beloved time signal and practically any time of the night or day, no matter where it migrates to!

Well . . . these are simply my nostalgic musings about the golden age of Cold War shortwave radio brought about by my having to get a new set. I hope maybe a few of you who had the same experience will consider sharing your experiences as well. -_-

I had one too.It was a Grundig IIRC.Didn't spend huge amounts of time with it but one thing I'd do fairly frequently was go up to our attic and tune in the news from Radio Australia.I still can hear that signature melody they'd play at the top of every hour.A couple of times I managed to get Radio Tirana (Albania).My God...THAT was funny!

Interesting read. Thanks.

I didn’t listen to shortwave very much, though we did have a shortwave radio.

But, I did listen to AM radio at night a lot when I was younger. I was fascinated by the fact that when the sun went down, you could receive AM stations from distant cities.

I grew up in the Washington, DC, area. I recall at night listening to far away stations, such as WBZ in Boston, WOWO in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And being a big baseball fan, I enjoyed tuning in distant stations to listen to the baseball games. I recall hearing Reds games on WLW from Cincinnati, WJR in Detroit to hear Tigers games, WGN in Chicago for Cubs games, and KMOX in St. Louis for Cardinals games.

The good old days of shortwave radio provided me a plethora of information before the web came along, I also watched satellite dishes when I worked in the media seeing television from distant locales in the 1980’s and 90’s.

I had a “World Radio TV Handbook” and became engrossed with local broadcasting relayed on shortwave like the stations of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, ABC in Australia and Radio New Zealand, among others.

I listened to Reshet Bet from Israel and Mayak from the USSR, picked up shortwave relays of Swedish radio (P1 and P3), listened to Radio Luxembourg in German, English and French, plus several German outlets on SW.

I had the same experience. When I was a teenager, I was really into shortwave pirates back in the heyday of the 80s and 90s. Now I have a General license and I tinker around with it occasionally.

Thanks for the flashback! I was part of our HS radio club back in the early 70’s. Bought a very used National NC-300 from a radio swap meet in Detroit. Spent many hours listening to SW stations around the world. I just wish I had kept my QSL card collection :(

Before live video feeds on cable networks, satellites and so on, not to mention the internet, my “Breaking News” go to in the USA and Canada was AM radio back in the 1970’s.

I had a Sony receiver by the late 70’s with the rotating ferrite bar antenna on top meaning daytime reception of clear channel AM stations from Boston to Chicago, including Cincinnati and Louisville.

At night KFI from LA and a host of Mexican stations including several from Mexico City came in.

Plane crash in Chicago meant dialing up WBBM on AM radio etc. etc.

My experiences are exactly the same as yours with the `golden age of shortwave’. I listened on my Dad’s Zenith Trans-Oceanic, the old vacuum tube model in the black wood case.

Radio Moscow: “Nobody in the USSR speaks English that good! He must be a turncoat!”

Radio Havana: I perfected my Spanish listening to Castro rant for hours. The Cuban cha-cha music was pretty good.

Radio Budapest: The Racokczy March intro. Radio Nederland’s intro was carillon bells pealing.

BBC: World Service reportage was the best in the world.

Nowadays, next to nothing in the ether, even out of my Hammarlund HQ180A receiver (young hams call it a `boat anchor’).

Belongs to another time. Like listening to LP records.

My father introduced me to SW in the late Sixties. I remember sitting out in the garage with him in summer evenings listening to Deutsche Welle or once in a while to nonsensical propaganda broadcasts from Radio Pyongyang.

As I child I had a Panasonic with 2 shortwave bands, then as a teen got a Zenith Transoceanic and ran an antenna wire from my second floor window to a tree in the yard. (Still have the Zenith, but the band selector isn’t working as well as it should and if you don’t jiggle it just right, you end up with static.)

But, yes, the internet seems to have killed shortwave.

What model radio do you have? I have a little Tecsun PL 600, got last year as a ‘starter’ radio. Haven’t had time to play with it a lot, but it was magical when we picked up a station in England after only turning it on a couple of times.

-JT

I love listening to shortwave radio. My Tecsun PL-880 is by my side all night, every night. It has the ‘SSB’ (Single Side Band) for HAM listening too.
Frequency Ranges:
FM: 64 – 108 MHz / 76 – 108 MHz / 87.5 – 108 MHz
MW: 522 - 1620 kHz (band step 9 kHz), 520 - 1710 kHz (band step 10 kHz)
LW: 100 kHz to 519 kHz (tuning step 1 kHz or 9 kHz)
SW: 1711 kHz to 29999 kHz (tuning step 1 kHz or 5 kHz)

I get my nightly dose of Alex Jones, TruNews, etc... along with many other programs on it. I can’t imagine being without it.

This thread for me is walk down memory lane.

I spent many hours listening to AFRTS, Radio Australia, Radio Nederland, Radio Moscow, BBC World Service....I even occasionally braved listening to Radio Tirana.

Same here .... carried a AM/FM/SW1/SW2 portable w external antennas of sorts during my entire military career..... BBC was my information haven as well as my time set for my watch...... beep...beep...beep ........beeeeeeeep.

Still listen each day at home .

That brings back great memories. Now in the Internet age no one thinks of what a big deal it was to turn on a radio and hear a radio station on another continent. I grew up around shortwave radio. My father had an old Zenith tube-type receiver that still worked. I finally got a multiband transistor radio as a Christmas present. I bought an old Hallicrafters receiver.

I often listened to the news on Radio Australia before going to school. Deutsche Welle was a regular - they continued broadcasts in German until a few years ago, then that ended. I liked the program that had the title in English although the announcer spoke in German, “Jazz Hot and Sweet.” I remember during the financial crisis on 2008, I would get the financial news from Deutsche Welle and then the same from Radio Australia. I got a glimpse of the European and Asian markets for the day. The last big even I learned about on shortwave was one morning in 2011 when I turned on Radio Australia and they announced the disastrous earthquake/tsunami in Japan. About the only thing I listen to regularly as far as shortwave broadcasts is Radio Australia.

Yes, it sounds like we are describing a time which has come and gone.

Kids today may not even know what a shortwave radio is. Some young people today don’t even listen to terrestrial radio at all. They are much more likely to listen to podcasts of programming, or satellite radio in the car.

Perhaps the way the world has changed, and with so much hi tech equipment such as computers, young people today just don’t have the same feeling many of us do about radio. The idea that we’re expressing about listening to shortwave radio from other countries, or AM radio stations from distant cities, is just lost on many young people today.

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