So many things swirling in the big world right now, but all I want to write about is radio.
It’s appropriate timing, at least, because today—Feb. 13—is World Radio Day.
I have a long-running love affair with radio, but you wonder about the medium’s future when it seems like the big debate over radio is whether it’s dead or not. In the past two years, the two largest owners of radio stations in the U.S. have filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. Meanwhile, Seattle’s commercial radio stations are flipping formats so fast I can no longer keep up as they try to chase listeners’ ears.
When I was my 11-year-old’s age, I had been taping music off the radio for a few years. I know this because I have an ancient cassette tape somewhere in my garage full of songs taped by placing a recorder next to my radio, which was tuned to KTNQ 1020, “The New 10-Q,” when it was a Top 40 station in 1970s Los Angeles.
When I’m driving the car and manically hitting the FM present buttons in search of tolerable music these days, my kids occasionally ask me to turn it up when a song catches their attention. But despite their musical leanings—they both love music and often work out songs on our rented piano—the radio isn’t where they typically find the music they like. Instead, they listen to downloaded songs on their secondhand iPods or via YouTube. I can’t blame them, as I discover most of my favorite new music via the internet as well. But it makes me wistful for times when radio seemed to matter more.
Just like my previously mentioned love for radio towers, listening to the radio brings all kinds of nostalgia into my mind. I remember my father’s parents had a beautiful tabletop Realistic radio in the guest bedroom where we stayed at their eastern Ohio house during visits in the 1980s. I’d turn that on, carefully turn the tuning knob and hear stations from the entire eastern half of the country and Canada. KDKA in Pittsburgh, WINS and WCBS from New York City, stations from Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Atlanta, Nashville … places that I couldn’t hear on the radio way out in Seattle.
My mom’s parents let me listen to their big GE radio on the kitchen table at their house in Philadelphia’s southern New Jersey suburbs. There, I’d similarly hear stations from the big cities up and down the East Coast. I still can sing, from memory, the station jingle for KYW 1060, Philly’s big news station.
My parents bought me simple RadioShack kits that I’d wire up to hear aviation chatter on VHF or to broadcast to a nearby radio. Then I discovered shortwave. I had saved up all my money for months as a young teenager and then, with a last few dollars pitched in by my parents, I bought the substantially sized Realistic Patrolman SW-60 receiver. I tuned it a bit and heard HCJB, a big religious-oriented broadcaster from Ecuador. Now I could hear radio from other countries; I was immediately hooked.
As an introverted high-school kid, that shortwave radio took up much of my time outside of school, sometimes to the detriment of homework. I wrote to stations, which sent back postcards, pennants and other swag, most of which I’ve kept. I have a particularly large collection of Radio Berlin International memorabilia, as the East German state broadcaster seemed keen to convince young listeners that its government was the best.
Then life happened: college, first jobs, getting married, having kids, more jobs. While I occasionally grabbed one of my small, older shortwave radios from a drawer and turned it on for a few minutes, it seemed like the spell was broken.
Or not. Last summer, when forest fire smoke made going outside all the time a hazardous activity to the lungs, I picked up a little shortwave radio my dad had passed along to me a couple years ago. This time, I kept listening.
A couple weeks later, I bought a pricier, brand-new shortwave radio and strung a 50-foot-long wire antenna long the backyard fence. I started keeping track of what stations I heard, just as I had 30-plus years ago. This time, however, figuring out what I’m hearing is much easier than before, thanks to a digital frequency display and websites and Facebook groups devoted to shortwave radio.
The stations on the air are different, too. Cold war stalwart Radio Moscow and many of the other big worldwide broadcasters are gone, as is HCJB, my old friend broadcasting from Ecuador. Instead, there are shadowy broadcasters targeting North Korea with broadcasts trying to bring news and music from the outside world, dozens of services from China, religious stations broadcasting from far-away nations in Africa and west Asia, and lower-powered stations from South America and Africa delivering exotic music through the static. Closer to home, I’ve heard a couple dozen illegal “pirate” stations broadcasting whatever they want. I even entered my first contest to see how many tough-to-hear stations I could log; I placed eighth in the world out of 22 entrants.
So, all these years later, it turns out that radio still captures my imagination. Digital streaming audio sounds great, and I hungrily devour crystal-clear podcasts and downloaded music all the time. But there’s something about radio waves traveling thousands of miles from a tall tower to my little radio that continues to evoke a spark of everyday magic for me.
Happy World Radio Day!
For snippets of recent shortwave broadcasts I've received, go to my YouTube channel.