Posted on 07/04/2016 9:24:15 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
Probably my biggest shortwave moment was listening to Radio Beijing in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square protests. When the clampdown occurred, I heard the broadcast with the announcer saying that people were being killed. Then an hour later, the announcer was replaced with somebody repeating the government line.
I found the audio on YouTube, and I shared a thread about it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1147233/posts
When I was a teen-ager in the sixties, my granddad was in his late eighties. He retired as a federal judge, but began his career as a boy telegrapher on the Lehigh Valley railroad. In those days news traveled by telegraph he remembered relaying “San Francisco destroyed by earthquake” along his line. In his later years he was nearly blind, but he would have me sit beside him and tune a National shortwave radio onto some high speed code transmission. His mind and talent with Morse were still sharp and with a pencil and paper he would effortlessly mark down letters blazing by at 40wpm.
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I got a Radio Shack Realistic DX-150 radio in 1972. Had fun listening to shortwave from all over the world. Now you get FM quality stations on the internet from all over the world. No static, no fading.
A while back some of us at work were discussing old dial telephones, party-lines, phone numbers that began with two letters, etc.; and a young thing in our office said, “Oh, I’ve seen one of those!” ;-)
-JT
How many of these can you identify?
Shortwave Interval Signals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFRYKDF2kxs
I still have this radio today and even now it delivers the deep, rich sound that only German engineering can deliver. Once in a while I'll take it out and try to dial something good in on the SW bands but it's nothing like it used to be. The Internet just blew up shortwave radio broadcasting and as you state, it's just a shadow of itself.
But I have many happy memories of sitting at my picnic table on warm evenings, "DXing" - as we called it in the day. Sometimes I would pick up some really exotic music from some third world outpost and I'd sit out there transfixed, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, but not caring as that music was nothing like I ever heard before.
My first experience with short wave radio was in 1953 listening to a friends Hallicrafters. It peaked my interest in ham radio but it was 10 years later before I got my novice ticket as WN5JRH. Back then as novices we were restricted to code and crystal control.
I built my transmitter and purchased a crystal for the 40 meter novice band. Back in those days 40 meters was shared with foreign broadcasters. Much to my chagrin I discovered that my crystal was on the same frequency as Radio Moscow which made it impossible to work anyone during the nighttime as their signal was much stronger than mine.
I as been an active ham ever since and now hold an extra class license with call sign W5HJ.
My favorite Interval Signal probably was Radio RSA’s. I always found Radio Kiev’s also hauntingly beautiful.
And the best thing about Radio Moscow was “Moscow Nights.”
And yet if the internet crashed, it would be back to shortwave again.
Hallicrafters once featured a multiband SW radio in a floor console with the dial/knobs facing up. Placed next to the easy chair it made one an “armchair adventurer” listening to shortwave stations. The ad depicted someone in a safari jacket & sun helmet `traveling the world’ with his fingers on the tuning dial while sipping a gin & tonic.
I know exactly what you mean.
I used to listen to Radio Moscow and their pronunciation of English was so good it made me self conscious of my Boston accent, and how we Bostonians pronounce English words leaving out the Rs. -Tom
An interview with Radio Moscow’s Joe Adamov.
http://www.pbs.org/redfiles/prop/deep/interv/p_int_joe_adamov.htm
its like rainbows, helicopters or low flying planes....I still stop and watch...
wasn't it one of Maslows requirements to be "self actualized" is to take awe in little things?....
Later, I did as best as I could on a paperboy's income, which meant building my own stuff. My transmitter (which actually worked) was home brew. My receiver was an Allied Radio Knight kit. I still remember placing orders to them at 100 N. Western Ave., Chicago, and then waiting days, and days, and days for them to get there.
I, too, was a regular WWV listener to get the correct time from Fort Collins, as well as some of the other stations you mentioned.
I found, though, that my interest was building, not using the "stuff". One of my last "conversations" was with a nearby ham who was describing the mercury vapor lamp in his back yard. After a number of minutes, I gave up on trying a response and tuned away. After about a half hour, I tuned back in, and he was still talking. I figured life was too short to keep up doing that. I let my license expire after the first five year period when I would have to lie on the renewal and say I still could do 13 wpm of Morse code. I could barely repeat the alphabet. That pretty much ended my SW radio career, and I became a mechanical engineer, instead of an electrical engineer.
Interesting piece of trivia: They had no microphones at the transmission site just in case someone took it over so they wouldn't be able to broadcast. They just broadcast programs sent over the phone to them.
“Bob from Omaha writes ‘what do Soviets do for fun?”. Well Bob, Soviets do a lot of things for fun.” - Radio Moscow announcer
One guy on Radio Moscow with perfect American english was Vladimir Posner. He lived in the U.S. on and off in his early years. That’s how he got the American accent. He later appeared often on the Phil Donohuse show at the end of the Cold War.
Vladimir Posner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Posner
Your story took me back in time to when I first started my life long enjoyment of Short Wave radio. My Mom gave me an old Hallicrafters S-38 receiver and I soon figured out how to string up a wire antenna so I could monitor the Short Wave bands. This led to my getting in touch with a local Amateur Radio club and studying to get my “Novice” license. Sixty years later I am still in the hobby although I hold an Amateur “Extra Class” license now and my radio equipment has improved vastly over that S-38 receiver. I still prowl the Short Wave bands from time to time listening to far off lands but I soon return to my favorite 20 meter Amateur Radio band and take part in the Maritime Mobile Service Net or just enjoy a QSO with a fellow “Ham”. My wife is also an “Extra Class” licensed Ham operator who has 52 years in our hobby. I met her when she was 12 through Amateur Radio.
The Sony ICF-2010 was an excellent set. Even today, it will still fetch over $200 on eBay.
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