Pages: [1] 2 3 4   Go Down

Author Topic: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?  (Read 1116 times)

F8WBD

  • Member
  • Posts: 164

I was most impressed with what was very close to being my first. In 1956 I was a 16 year old SWL with a Hallicrafters S38C receiver. Mid to late afternoons, after school, I did most of my  listening. I remember vividly hearing Radio Brazzaville from French Equatorial Africa for the first time. Here I was in my bedroom in NE USA with the Brazzaville English service transmission in my Trimm earphones. Thousands of miles away. I became a regular listener. Sent my SWL report and eventually received a QSL card. The photo on the card resembled something from the old National Geographic magazine...if you are old enough, you may remember what those looked like.  I found a copy on the QSL card on the internet but no way to post it here.  The memory is still thrilling.
Logged

AE0Q

  • Member
  • Posts: 414
    • AE0Q Amateur Radio
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2021, 09:09:00 AM »

I discovered jazz music by listening to the VOA Jazz Hour on my Hallicrafters S-120 in the early 60's. I played baritone sax in grade school band, so I bought a tenor sax so I could join the stage band that played jazz :-)

Glenn AE0Q
Logged
NSGA Edzell 1974-77  CTM2  GM5BKC : NSGA Rota 1972-74   ZB2WZ, SV0WY
https://radioandtravels.blogspot.com/
http://www.qsl.net/ae0q/

N2ICZ

  • Posts: 11
    • HomeURL
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2021, 09:22:07 AM »

Radio Moscow, circa 1980s on a Radio Shack DX-440.  Those were the days.  :)
Logged

KTD1735

  • Posts: 16
    • HomeURL
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2021, 12:18:25 PM »

In the 60's/70's, So much came blasting through to the Mod-Atlantic states through my Hallicrafters S120 that almost every night yielded something new......Deutsche Welle,  BBC (multiple transmitters) Voice Of Russia, Radio Netherlands.....just a ton to listen in on! Much up from the Caribbean and South America as well, Also domestic AM stations, mostly east the Mississippi.  Personal favs included WABC and "Cousin Brucie" and "Murray the K" out of New York....tune still plays in my head, "77, W-A-B-Ceeeeeeeee!!!"  Fell asleep many a grade-school evening with the headphones on....

Indeed, less to hear these days, but more capable toys (i.e., synchronous detection) and I don't need to save part of my my allowance to up my game!  Yeah..it is an addiction. :-)

M

 
Logged

W9WQA

  • Member
  • Posts: 990
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2021, 12:18:48 PM »

hcjb on  ??. had the freq penciled on my desk for years. gone now
Logged

WX7Q

  • Member
  • Posts: 150
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2021, 12:36:46 PM »

I was most impressed with what was very close to being my first. In 1956 I was a 16 year old SWL with a Hallicrafters S38C receiver. Mid to late afternoons, after school, I did most of my  listening. I remember vividly hearing Radio Brazzaville from French Equatorial Africa for the first time. Here I was in my bedroom in NE USA with the Brazzaville English service transmission in my Trimm earphones. Thousands of miles away. I became a regular listener. Sent my SWL report and eventually received a QSL card. The photo on the card resembled something from the old National Geographic magazine...if you are old enough, you may remember what those looked like.  I found a copy on the QSL card on the internet but no way to post it here.  The memory is still thrilling.

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1956-qsl-radio-brazzaville-french-1830552295

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Ham radio/SWL'ing...great hobby. Radio Havana was fun listening.

Along the same lines...I was living in Omaha, Neb early 1980's...listening to Z-92 FM. It was stormy weather. The DJ excitedly came on the air and said "I just got a call from Philadelphia, PA. They are listening to the station in full stereo."   Tropo ducting...

Jim
WX7Q
Logged

N8YX

  • Member
  • Posts: 2449
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2021, 05:14:09 PM »

Kol Yisrael, 29.750 on a DX-160. Still have the card, along with a bunch of others from SWBC stations long since QRT.
Logged

AC7CW

  • Member
  • Posts: 1789
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2021, 01:21:03 PM »

Most memorable was a BBC broadcast. The announcer signed off and he had my first and last name! I did a double take, not on what i was hearing but on reality itself!
Logged
Novice 1958, 20WPM Extra now... (and get off my lawn)

WB0FDJ

  • Member
  • Posts: 262
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2021, 02:15:25 PM »

It was the mid 60's. I had been reading the Tommy Rockford books and was getting interested in radio. My uncle bought an old war surplus National from an SK estate and hauled it into our bedroom. Three minutes after firing it up we heard Radio Australia and I just about fainted. Good days, those.

Doc WB0FDJ
Logged

N0TLD

  • Member
  • Posts: 19
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2021, 04:02:44 AM »

I don't recall precisely the very first BC SW station I ever heard in my life -- I would've been very little, as radio was a constant in our house -- but I recall vividly hearing my very first SW station on the first crystal set I ever made as a kid -- NHK Tokyo. This was the mid '70s, I was in SoCal, with a lonnnnnnng hank of wire running along the top of our backyard fence, which connected across aaalll the other backyard fences on my street (our yards abutted a wash way so I was able to just run a spool of magnet wire across a good dozen backyards on cinder block walls about 6 feet high, made a great xtal set antenna)! I was already hearing faint Japanese music once I clipped the sanded end of the magnet wire to the xtal set, but once I clipped the ground wire (going to a piece of buried rebar) the volume jumped greatly and I had to pull the earphone out, it was so loud! I took a paper Dixie cup and poked the earphone into it to make a little speaker, and at that signal strength it was plenty loud enough for everyone to hear. I listened for hours, tuning around long after the NHK programming had ended; I don't recall exactly all the stations I heard over that time (I wasn't logging anything then, just remember hearing "NHK TOKYO" loud and often enough to remember that one best), but I heard a lot of great Asian music that evening. I will never forget it. The magic of hearing far away signals on a little piece of rock and some wire has never left me. Recently I was laying out yet another loop on ground antenna experiment (I am really enjoying playing with the concept) and suddenly flashed on the summer day waaay back when I was running that green magnet wire along the top of the cinder block walls along the wash. Just like it was yesterday.

Mike
N0TLD
Logged

KA9MGC

  • Member
  • Posts: 26
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2021, 04:59:18 PM »

For me it was HCJB Quito Ecuador. I don't remember which frequency it was on, though.

It's the first one I recognized, having the latest issue of Communications World at the time. I had heard other stations on various Hallicrafters radios before that, but had no idea what and where they were.

Logged

WA2ONH

  • Member
  • Posts: 714
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2021, 07:25:11 PM »

... Personal favs included WABC and "Cousin Brucie" and "Murray the K" out of New York....tune still plays in my head, "77, W-A-B-Ceeeeeeeee!!!"  Fell asleep many a grade-school evening with the headphones on....

So, you want to go back in time to listen to WABC and Cousin Brucie again?

DONE! WABC and Brucie are both still around on Saturday Nights!  (see banner below)


The WABC 770-AM NY City station has an internet site at:
https://wabcradio.com/

Select the "Full Schedule" TAB; WABC for station and than go to "Saturday" for the
program listings.
https://wabcradio.com/show-schedule/

The show hours are 06:00 PM to 10:00 PM EDST - Eastern Time Zone.

It's broadcast over the airways via 770-AM radio or you can select the "Listen Live" button
at the bottom of the page to hear it via the Website page.

You're "older" now - is it as you remembered it?

Enjoy!
 
Logged
73 de WA2ONH  <dit dit> ... Charlie
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Never be satisfied with what you know, only with what more you can find out."
   Dr David Fairchild 1869-1954 US Scientist

N2QLT

  • Member
  • Posts: 123
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #12 on: February 10, 2021, 07:31:23 AM »

RSA South Africa on a bakelite 6 tube radio. I still remember their interval signal. I later built a Heathkit SW-717 and heard plenty more. Here's a link to a youtube playing vintage interval signals. Brings back memories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIbJgRZCzH4&ab_channel=dxermanto
Logged

W1NJC

  • Member
  • Posts: 13
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #13 on: February 10, 2021, 11:57:21 AM »

Neat thread.

I remember in the early 90's I had an Lafayette HA-600A or HA-800B that my grandfather gave me, then "upgraded" to the DAK DMR-3000!
 
Passport to World Band Radio was the bible and I routinely tuned into Deutsche Welle, Radio Moscow, Voice of Free China (Taiwan), and several others that escape me now.  I also discovered Art Bell around this time on AM BCB.  I had a whole book full of QSL cards and I remember that Voice of Free China published my letter in their newsletter.  I said that I liked their program Reflections.  I was only about 12-13 at the time; a few years before I got my ham license.  I should look around for that book of QSLs, would be neat to go through.
Logged

K3NRX

  • Member
  • Posts: 3641
    • HomeURL
Re: Do you remember your first BC SW station heard? Or a memorable one?
« Reply #14 on: February 16, 2021, 07:56:42 AM »

Summer 1981...age 15....was up late one night putzing around with a Panasonic Platinum Boom Box (remember those?) on the AM band, when around 600 khz, I heard this weird ethnic music and strange announcements where it sound like the DJ was alone in a concrete room surrounded by nothing but a microphone....They identified as RADIO MOSCOW WORLD SERVICE....I was flabbergasted.....Turns out they were relaying on the AM/MW band out of Cuba, which is why the signal was so good....The following night, an old neighbor of ours who walked his dog every night stopped by with his pup...I proceeded to tell him about my experience with the Boom Box, and he told me he had a radio that picks that stuff up all the time from all over the world....We (He, me, my dad, my brother, and the pup) went back to his house, and there was a beautiful 1950s vintage Zenith Transoceanic....we tuned into the BBC, RAI in Rome and Kol Israel that night....and from that point on, the flood gates opened up....the horse was out of the barn, never to return.....and that started it all for me regarding SWL and Ham Radio....Remember it like it was yesterday, and will never forget, either.....

V
K3NRX
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4   Go Up