I grew up as an AM DXer. I logged somewhere around 40 states on my little ac/dc five tube radio. Used to drive my folks crazy ‘cause I’d get up at four am to catch the midwest stations signing on.
As a teen, I got a lot of free meals from a local Jewish family. After dinner, we all had to adjourn to the living room where the father fired up the shortwave to catch up on the news from Israel.
With the end of the Morse code requirement, I became a ham radio operator, upgrading to General class a few months back. I can now operate on the various high frequency bands usually used for worldwide communications, and it’s fun to do that once in a while, but I’m now doing most of my foreign media listening and QSOing using the internet. Between online broadcast sources like Shoutcast, and the various ham radio VOIP protocols, it’s just easier to use the net. With the ham stuff, I can sit at my desk with a $150 handheld and dial up repeaters all over the world. With internet radio I can do the same thing in ‘listen only’ mode. There’s this German language disco station that’s a hoot.
Gotta admit, though, that there was a romance about cranking around on that old Zenith Trans-oceanic that’s gotten lost in the march of time.
Yes there are several Radio to VOIP relays and its great stuff.
I admit I use Internet and SW in conjunction.
What happens if Barama turns off the information highway?
He can have fun triangulating HF bouncy signals that are mobile