Everyone needs a hobby, right? I like listening to the radio. It seems a shame that there are too few radio stations worth listening to anymore. Most stations seem to have a mediocre blend of Phil Collins tunes with pre-recorded announcements from some guy living out of state. It is a boring Even the shortwave broadcasters have eliminated almost all of their English Language broadcasts. It wasn’t always so…

When I was growing up, I used to sneak my little GE AM transistor radio to bed with me at night. I don’t think anyone knew about this, or if they did, they never said anything. While laying with my head on the pillow, the radio well hidden underneath, I would have the slightly uncomfortable little ear plug in one ear or the other. I would scan up and down the AM band and listen to the big (c)lear (c)hannel (not the same thing as the present day broadcast company of the same name) stations from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, Richmond, Chicago, Toronto, Charlotte, Nashville, Detroit and so on.

Why on earth would anyone do such a thing? It was the bigger world to a 10 year old. Something beyond rural upstate New York that called out to the imagination. There are people out there, and they are doing things, all sorts of things.  Listening to WBT (1110 kHz) in Charlotte, NC, I discovered “Dial a Date.” This was a radio program where a man (mostly) or woman (rarely) would call up and describe themselves and what they were looking for and then leave their phone number with the DJ at the end of the call. I can’t imagine such a thing today, especially on a 50,000 watt radio station that could be heard well over a thousand miles away. It was the mid 70’s and I suppose we were not as paranoid then as we are today.

Night after night, (when it would come in, which was about half the time) I would hear things between songs like “Hi! Um, my name is Hal and I’m 27 years old, I work at (lumber yard, as I recall) and I am look for a sweet girl to be my wife. I’m hard working, own my own car, don’t swear much and don’t drink too much either. Well, that’s it.”

Then the DJ would come on and say, “Well, ladies, what do you think? If you want to meet Hal, give me a call!” Then another song would play and maybe some commercials and if anyone wanted to meet Hal, you would hear from them too. Something like “Hi, I’m Susie and I am a little older than Hal, but I think he sounds like a good strong man. Could you give me his number?” And so on.

It was very entertaining.

As I got older, I became interested in shortwave radio. I even bought one of those kits that, if the directions were followed properly, the parts would be combined into a working radio. I remember hearing about the death of Pope Paul VI directly from the Vatican via shortwave on a radio I built myself, again, listening with the little ear plug. There where church bells ringing in the background.

Then there where my years on Guam. While I was stationed on Guam, the cold war was still in full effect. Tiananmen Square played out on the TV in the early days of June. Guam, and the other bases in the Western Pacific, was on the edge of the empire. looking at a map, you can easily discern the closeness of the Soviet Union or the Peoples Republic of China, the former being the greater concern. Off shore, not too far beyond the 12 mile territorial limit there were strange comings and goings of various Russian flagged fishing vessels. This, in spite of the fact that rarely, if ever were large schools of fish to be found in the vicinity.

These things, coupled with the fact that communications to state side were often irregular. Sometimes the mail was left on the tarmac in Hawaii to transport cargo of greater strategic importance which made the place feel a little bit like a garrison town. The local TV stations aired NBC nightly news at 9 AM, a very inconvenient time. Sometimes the news would not be aired at all because of satellite antenna reception problems.

On the professional side, we suffered the depredations of the Soviet jamming transmitters, making life difficult for those of us engaged in the communications business. I can imagine a Roman soldier peering over Hadrian’s wall, waiting for some wild eye Picts to come over yonder hill.

Sometime around 1988, I purchased at Kenwood R-2000 shortwave receiver at the Post Exchange. It was expensive for me at the time, around $600.00 or so, but it was well worth it. I often listened to the BBC or ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) on shortwave to get my news. It became somewhat re-assuring to hear news from other parts of the world. At the same time, you could also tune in Radio Pyongyang (North Korea) and hear about how the Great Leader was protecting the world from the Capitalist Warmonger westerners.

When the mood struck, instead of listening to the news, I twisted the dial to non-broadcast bands and listen to the various “utility” stations. These could be anything from ships at sea talking with each other or the home office to trans Pacific airline flights checking in with air traffic control in Tokyo or Honolulu. Sometimes you could hear the out lying islands in the Pacific handling their administrative traffic. It could get quite routine.

There were many unusual things too, such as the German numbers station. Every night, around midnight (Guam time) on various frequencies, a woman could be heard reading five number groups in German. These were, I have been told, spy stations. The numbers were coded messages which were decoded with one time pads, which were then destroyed. The same thing could be heard in English and in Morse code on other frequencies. Google “lincolnshire poacher” for more information on numbers stations. There were other random things, one night I heard a woman crying, then saying in Spanish “Commandante! Commandante!” (Commander! Commander!). I often wonder about that conversation. I heard Panamanian registered container ship near Hawaii that was looking for a crew member who had fallen over. They were about to give up and continue there voyage. What happened to the man in the water? Did anyone ever find him? Not very likely. There was a sailing yacht which was trying to contact somebody in San Rafael (I assume California) on what seemed to be the wrong frequency. It was far removed from any normal commercial or amateur radio bands. After several minutes of fruitless calling, the man asked “Is there anybody out there?” The reply was silence.

I occasionally listen to shortwave even today, although it is not what it used to be. Gone are the big players; The BBC, Radio Canada International, Christian Science Monitor, RFE, VOA, HCJB, and in fact most other English international broadcasts. The Shortwave stations that are still on the air in the US are limited almost exclusively to religious broadcasting. It is still fun, however, to try and catch the rare broadcasts from say Radio Vietnam, or something like that. Radio Habanna, Cuba can often be heard on 6000 kHz, presenting an interesting and sometimes entertaining spin on the news, which seems to be mostly about this country and not their own. Sure, you can listen to the BBC on the computer, but what fun is that?

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