Most kids have hobbies. Mine started when I caught a glance at page 777 in the 1991 Sears WishBook. I pointed out a small, black Magnavox shortwave radio to my mom (number 5 in the picture). It’s what I wanted for Christmas. Image: WishBook/Flickr
From ages 11 to 15, I spent hours hunched over a tiny Magnavox radio, straining to hear the world’s shortwave radio stations.
The big dogs of international broadcasting — BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Canada International, and Radio Netherlands were easy to pick up. Their signals were strong, and the cheap receiver I had would find them automatically.
Otherwise, listening to shortwave takes patience and lots of fine tuning. Signals bounce off the earth’s ionosphere, and travel further at night. Stations fade in and out. Imagine someone talking in a gigantic tin can on a beach — a hollow, static filled sound.
But through that static comes a grand, global audio bazaar.
You’ll hear Spanish-language gospel stations from Central and South America; channels of nothing but gurgly electronic noises; mysterious “numbers stations” repeating patterns of digits for spies to decipher.
It was fun to dial around and stumble across random stations. The radio came with a guidebook for what aired when, but it was flimsy and outdated. One day, in a bookstore, I discovered the “TV Guide for Shortwave”, the Passport to World Band Radio.
Not only did Passport have a detailed program guide, it also told you how to write to stations and when to expect a reply. Shortwave broadcasters love to hear from their listeners; most have some kind “mailbag” program, where they read letters received from all parts of the globe.
Reaching Out And Hearing Back
The Holy Grail for any shortwave listener is the QSL card. The term QSL comes from the shorthand used by ham radio operators. It means something like, “I acknowledge you heard my signal.” I wrote to a couple of stations every day during summer of 1993, requesting a QSL card and whatever other goodies they might have. My mother got her mail through a tiny PO Box, and it soon started to overflow with correspondence from Kiev, Tokyo, Beijing, and Oslo:
Radio Norway’s signal came in loud and clear, but it was still challenge to hear it. The station only broadcast for an hour on Sunday afternoons.
I still marvel at how my letter got from Elkin, NC to Tashkent, Uzbekistan…and the station wrote back! If you look at the envelope, you can see it has a “CCCP” postmark from the Soviet Union, even though it dissolved about two years before.
Writing to stations was always hit or miss. Big broadcasters had whole departments devoted to answering listener mail, and would respond quickly. Smaller stations would take longer, while others would require three or four letters before finally something got through. And then there was Radio Argentina, who was convinced I didn’t deserve a QSL card. They told me to write back and try again.
The letter is addressed, “Dear George.” People have confused my first and last names all my life…
A Brown Envelope From North Korea
And then, there was Radio Pyongyang.
First of all, picking up the station was tough. By this time, it was the summer of 1994. I was spending it at my grandparent’s house. They had a neighbor, and elderly gentlemen who used an large outdoor antenna to watch his tiny, black and white TV. Somehow, he was fine with me coming over and hooking my radio to the antenna.
I’d been trying to pick up Radio Pyongyang, but not for its programming (a dreadful mix of cheery Communist propaganda and “news” extolling the virtues of the country’s founder, Kim Il-Sung). I wanted to write to them, so I could get a QSL card! Ironically, I finally picked the station up on July 11…two days after North Korean officials confirmed Kim’s death. I had enough for a reception report, and quickly jotted off a postcard.
Surprisingly, a reply came a few months later:
Even more surprisingly, Radio Pyongyang kept writing to me! I got two more letters, the last arriving in July 1996. “Dear Sir or Madame, it has been long since we received your last letter,” it began. “Perhaps your busy work has kept you from listening to Radio Pyongyang. We look forward to receiving your reception reports.” I never wrote back. I was well into high school at this point, too busy to devote time to my hobby.
Shortwave is still around, and there are still lots of die hard aficionados, trying to tune in obscure stations from all points over the globe. All my QSL cards, stickers, and other oddities fill a scrapbook, sitting in my old bedroom at my parent’s home in North Carolina.
I can draw a line from shortwave to my interests in travel and international news, and, of course, radio. For that, I’m forever grateful for the 1991 Sears WishBook.
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