It recently occurred to me that I came by my geekish (and I use the term with great honor and reverance) nature naturally. My father was a B-29 mechanic in WWII. Not only did that keep him from getting killed on some south Pacific island, he was also involved in state-of-the-art technology of the time. The B-29 was a monstrously huge, powerful, beautiful airplane that required highly skilled personnel to keep flying. I'm very proud of my father for qualifying for such exalted, technically challenging, honest duty.
Dad showed his geeky side in another way as well. He was passionate about fancy radios.
Dad would play with the shortwave band from time to time. He would tune in a station from Denver that would broadcast coordinated universal time (At the tone, the time will be 9 hours, eleven minutes coordinated universal time."). My brother the Air Force pilot would give him beautiful Seiko watches in the 70's he obtained cheaply overseas. Dad reveled in knowing that his watch was accurate to the second, and knowing that 24 hours later, the amazing Seiko would only be a few seconds off.
Of course, I used the time station to set my LED watch as well. That way I could count down to the exact second the classroom bell would ring.
That was the extent of his interest in shortwave, to my knowledge. But I would borrow his big fancy radio and spend hours searching for strange radio broadcasts that were literally coming from all over the world. In fact, I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about how thrilling it was to stumble onto the BBC, Radio Moscow, the Voice of America, and weird Morse code signals.
It was pretty wild hearing the Russian side (in English) of how the Vietnam War was going.
But I had just as much fun finding stations that just broadcast electronic noise. Much of the noise, I later learned, was telex data. Telex was a precursor to the internet that allowed the transmission of typed words among businesses and government organizations. The signals would be translated by telex machines into messages. The system was fast, cheap, reliable, and decidedly cool.
The Morse code broadcasts were lots of fun, too. I would transform myself into a secret agent who was getting his encrypted instructions via shortwave from some strange, exotic place.
It was great stuff to fuel a kid's imagination, knowing that some of the signals were coming from lonely towers located in the middle of Siberia, or eastern Europe, or on an African mountain.
Shortwave radio is still around, of course, and bigger than ever. There are websites that are virtual radios, where you can tune to frequencies and listen via streaming audio. And shortwave radios have gotten cheaper and more sophisticated, like all other electronics.
However, the rise of the internet and the fall of communism has made shortwave less cutting-edge than it used to be. I remember feeling a little guilty listening to Russian shortwave! But the medium is still out there, and still heavily used.
Maybe it's time for ME to buy a fancy multiband radio . . .
Comments (5)
Attention Comrades: Theeese eeess raaahhdio
mussscowww. You capeetaleeeeste peeggs are
doomed...mother rushhia eesss the bosss...
now excuuseee me while I play theeesee kinds
scary repetitive melody as a sign-on for zee
next 2 hours, until we scare you again on zee
next broadcast...zank you velly much...
Posted by Scott | October 2, 2007 3:22 PM
Posted on October 2, 2007 15:22
I always thought it was the coolest thing to be able to hear someone speaking in my home who was half way round the world. Actually I still do.
Posted by russell | March 12, 2008 2:57 PM
Posted on March 12, 2008 14:57
My life parallels that of Shep. I was into short wave radio as a kid. Then Ham radio. Then I was in broadcasting, mainly radio. & I'm also a writer. But nowhere near as famous as he.
Posted by Hal Evans | August 17, 2008 5:42 AM
Posted on August 17, 2008 05:42
I think alot of us remember where we were on that
day. For me , in the middle of Phy Ed , with
the girls , watching a training film.
How could something like this happen ?
A few months later, to get our minds off of this tragedy, England brought us The Beatles .
I really did think that back then and still do
today .
Posted by Stephen Jeske | September 29, 2008 6:13 PM
Posted on September 29, 2008 18:13
Dad never got into SWLing...But I sure did, but it wasn't until I was an young adult! It probably all started out from the CB craze in the 70s. I was facinated with the thought of visiting a different country right from your own bedroom by listing to SW radio. I today still am a registered monitoring station that holds a callsign. KMD3HR. I listened to it all and eventually listened to all the utility and military stations. That led me to my start in Amateur radio. I have a technician plus license in Amateur radio. Morse code is almost a dinosaur these days with new technologies, but it is still used a lot in the ham comunity and for ID s for public service bands. I have many qsls and qsl card from broadcast, military and utility stations from my SWling! Every once in awhile, I will turn up the old heathkit and listen in. Funny, it used to be that amateur radio 40 meters would be interfered with in the night time hours with broadcast SW stations. That has changed now, but some of those stations would just kill us on 40 meters. I also liked listening to pirate and clandestine radio on the same freqs as SW! The Radio and Television Handbook is still available out there with the latest SWLing guides!
Posted by Rivers End | October 11, 2009 9:49 PM
Posted on October 11, 2009 21:49