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. -_-

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.

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

Thanks for the great flashback. For a short time in the 1990s, I was a shortwave radio aficionado. For those few years, I really got into it. The holy grail for me was the Grundig Satellit 700 set (pictured below) that I acquired around the 1992-1993 timeframe. It was wicked expensive for me at the time as I was just getting started in my career and not yet making good money. Before that I had something cheap from Radio Shack and I can't even remember the model.

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.

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.

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

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

all I had was my transistor radio, which I also took to bed with me....growing up in upstate NY, I would often get channels from Canada or Detroit or Boston....still to this day if we're traveling and switching channels I marvel when I can pull in far away stations...

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?....

I think I beat you at it by about a decade. I was interested in ham radio as well as SW. My first attempt was building a transmitter in the early 50's out of a soup can and a battery, when I was in first grade. Unfortunately, it didn't work very well at all.

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.

I went to the Voice of America Museum at the old Cincinnati broadcast site about a month ago. As they build the museum they are only open one day a month so I will probably visit again this month or next.

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.

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.

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