eHam
eHam Forums => SWL (Shortwave Listening) => Topic started by: F8WBD on January 30, 2021, 04:38:49 AM
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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.
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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
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Radio Moscow, circa 1980s on a Radio Shack DX-440. Those were the days. :)
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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
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hcjb on ??. had the freq penciled on my desk for years. gone now
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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
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Kol Yisrael, 29.750 on a DX-160. Still have the card, along with a bunch of others from SWBC stations long since QRT.
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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!
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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
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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
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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.
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... 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)
(https://i.postimg.cc/Jnf3YJ2W/WABC-770-AM-Saturday-Night-600-1000-pm-Cousin-Brucie-s-Saturday-Rock-n-Roll-Party.png)
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!
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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
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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.
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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
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... 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)
(https://i.postimg.cc/Jnf3YJ2W/WABC-770-AM-Saturday-Night-600-1000-pm-Cousin-Brucie-s-Saturday-Rock-n-Roll-Party.png)
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!
Thx so much.......can't wait to try it out this weekend! Will advise.......(so cool....)
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The BBC in the early 1970s, on my parent's Hallicrafters S-107.
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The first Shortwave station I ever heard was Radio RSA, Johannesburg, South Africa, and is was during the afternoon on the 25 meter band on an old tube RCA console radio -- the antenna was just 7-8 feet of antenna wire, strung up near the window. I remember the interval signal, too.
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hcjb, ?around 13/14 mhz
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It was Radio Moscow around 41 meters in about 1968. Cool stuff back them on my little Hallicrafters S 120 radio.
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HCJB in 1970
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Aged about 12, and tuning around on an unknown band marked "SW" on my uncle's cheap Romanian transistor radio, I suddenly heard an English broadcast from Trans World Radio, Monaco....... that got me hooked and started a love of radio that's still as strong 47 years later! M0KED, Lincoln, U.K.
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Early 1960s (in UK), other than the unavoidable Radio Moscow, Peking, Cairo etc all S9+, it was HCJB.
On MW it was all about the Pirate Stations playing pop music, Radio London, Caroline and others. The test of a transistor radio was how well it received these stations as well as Radio Luxembourg's English service after 7pm on 208mtr. Happy days.
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1955, on a Zenith Transoceanic, Radio Moscow and about the same time UN radio. not sure witch was first. Was 14.
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hcjb on ??. had the freq penciled on my desk for years. gone now
Yep, me too- in around 1972. HCJB is in Quito Ecuador. I also used to listen to the Larry Glick show all night on the AM broadcast band.. which was in Boston I think. I was 13 at the time.
Memories :)
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SWL but initially long wave, not short. I was fascinated by NSS CW at the very low end of the AM Broadcast band on our kitchen radio.
They used to send NSS NSS NSS followed by a repeated letter. I think the letter was usually W. I knew enough Morse Code from Boy Scouts to decode it. Never did ;rstm what the "W" meant. I wonder if any others remember this?
After that it was Radio Moscow and others on my S38E.
Memories...
John, KB1NO
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HCJB, "The Voice of the Andes"
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1969, listening on my OM's Hallicrafters SX-100. First stations heard: VOA, WNYW, HCJB, RSA, Radio Moscow.
I recently purchased a Drake SW-4A receiver. At the center of the front panel it reads: "Designed Especially for Radio New York Worldwide." WNYW had a great programming mix.
I also recall hearing a lot of jamming back in those days.
Paul, W9AC
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HCJB in the mid and late 50's and Radio Budapest during the Hungarian revolution in 1956
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When I was about 12 my grandfather had a HeathKit AR-2 with a wire from the attic of his machine shed where it was on an old workbench out to a tree in his orchard. I was listening to news on the BBC and Radio Moscow. The announcers were talking about happenings in the US as if it was a foreign country. Fascinated me. Being a kid from the Great Lakes area I had never experienced any foreign influence in any way. Then a Boy Scout friend told me his dad had a radio he could talk on. One evening with him -- he had a Ranger and SX-100 -- and I was hooked. Been a ham with HF capabilities for 60+ years.
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I heard Radio Australia with a Radio Shack regenerative receiver kit.
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I heard Radio Australia with a Radio Shack regenerative receiver kit.
April 1981...worked a VK5 on 10M w/ 5w from my TS-520S into a CB ground plane and got an RST of 589. (Still have the card and the logbook.) When the ionosphere cooperates, magical things can happen with low power levels. If not, the biggest Brown-Boveri SWBC transmitter in the world (remember those?) is going to have a hard time reaching its target audience.
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I remember fondly. Mid 1970's in Tucson Arizona, Yaesu FRG-7, heard broadcast station from Papua New Guinea. It was thrilling! I submitted a report and still have their response and card around here somewhere.
W4HRL
Mike in Poquoson VA
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Radio Nederland, and their experimental Sinclair data broadcasts in the early 80's. Then, in the USAF overseas picking up WRNO "Rock of the World" which in pre-internet days was a pretty amazing thing to hear direct.
Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM
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HCJB Quito, Ecuador on a Knight kit Span Master I built back in the 60’s. It was a 2 tube regenerative circuit. My antenna was a piece of wire under the house.
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...HCJB, Quito in the early 1960's...sparked my interest in SWL and Hamming !!!
Ronnie K0XY
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Listening to Radio Moscow and Kol Israel on my "new" Hammarlund BC-779 in 1967. You could read with light from the S-meter and the audio from a 12" speaker in a simple baffle was FB.
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My first SW Broadcast station was Swiss World Radio on 9.535 Mcs. I was using the family's RCA console radio which had 3 SW bands in addition to the standard BCB. It was around 1952 & I was 12 years old. The antenna was a 25 ft. long wire running along the stairs leading up to the second floor of our row house in Philadelphia. Other stations quickly followed including the BBC, DW, Radio Brazzaville, Radio Moscow, HCJB & Radio Nederland with Eddie Startz - "Stay in touch with the Dutch". Also missionary stations 4VEH in Haiti and ELWA from Liberia. I too have "that" QSL card from Radio Brazzaville - Hi. Anyway good memories.
Tony, N6DXX
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I came late to the game. First Dx was listening to my grandpa's CB while he was finishing installing it in 76. A few days later he let me play with his short wave radio, a GE.
I don't remember whom was my first SW DX, but that instilled in me a lifelong love of radio. Made a sometimes career out of it.
Grandpa is gone now, but I kept that GE short wave radio. Miss the days of being to find a station anywhere in the world. Miss the days of it just being magic, how all those voices could make it into my little radio in California.
Miss grandpa more. But every time I turn my radio on I crack a smile thinking about him.
--Shane
WP2ASS / ex KD6VXI
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In 1960 my grandfather had a 4 tube AC/DC Heathkit AR-2 radio. And about 100 feet or wire from the attic of his garage where it was out to a tree in his orchard. I was listening to the BBC and Radio Moscow news casts and they were talking about stuff in the USA like it was a foreign country. First time I ever heard someone not from the USA. Fascinated me. Got my Novice license a year later and have been active with an HF station on the air every day since. Some chapters in life the station was minimalist -- but the bug that bit me listening to short wave back then is still in me.
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HCJB was very loud in New Orleans. Very exciting. The receiver was a Hallicrafters S-108 and the antenna was wire tossed out the window. Radio Moscow was always a hoot! I still have pile of SW QSL's from 1964/65.
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The BBC - London - in 1973 using a Hallicrafters S38C with a wire stretched across the room. Later routed a long wire outside for better reception. Received a Zenith Royal D70000Y TransOceanic as a gift in 1976. Still have the Hallicrafters and the Zenith.
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My first overseas shortwave reception was Radio RSA (Johannesburg, SA - sadly since a long time QRT) in 1976 - I was twelve years old. I still have very sentimental memories of it and of course also the QSL card. The receiver was an old Graetz Musica 4R tube radio from 1954, which I still own today (I bought this radio in 1976 at a local flea market for 20 Deutsch Marks - back then a lot of cash for a schoolboy with little money in his pocket). With great pleasure I remember back to these times, which also paved my way to HAM radio.
Thank you Radio RSA - you have turned my life in a very meaningful direction!
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From the welcome page of my website https://www.kg4lac.com
"I've enjoyed receiving distant signals since the 1960's. Began when I received my first transistor radio as a gift. I listened to the boss jocks on local KQV, but why stop there? Also, too easy watching local Pittsburgh TV. Why do so when I occasionally received exotic Altoona or Johnstown TV."
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I still get wet eyes when I hear that:
https://www.intervalsignals.org/pausenzeichen/detail.php?Audio=rsa_dt
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Lots of QSL cards, souveniers, etc at
https://www.kg4lac.com
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I remember receiving Radio Canada and some other shortwave stations, (maybe BBC) on a little Radio Shack Science Fair crystal radio kit that I built around Autumn of 1987 as a 12-year old kid. Living in central Kentucky, this was a thrill to be able to receive distant stations on a radio that I had built myself! I had the wire for the antenna strung along the wall of my upstairs bedroom, and I used one of the HVAC registers to ground the radio. Not sure how that ground worked, but it did! I remember being able to pull in some of the stronger SW stations at night, after our local AM stations (1340 WEKY, where I would later work as an announcer) would sign off for the evening. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I got a better radio that actually had the SW bands on it that I really got interested in SWLing. The ham license came when I became a senior in high school in 1992.
73,
Michael KU4UV
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I don't recall my first heard, but I do my first QSL'd. I caught the inaugural broadcast of the Radio Nederland relay in Bonaire in 1969. I was using a Ross AM/FM/SW portable at the time. That was 10 years before I got my first ham license.
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Growing up in the 1960s and listening to my Grandpa's Canadian Westinghouse floor console shortwave radio, I used to hear HCJB from Ecuador which seemed to be louder than anything else, and there was CFRX which was (still is, I think) a shortwave simulcast of CFRB 1010 AM from Toronto. There were many foreign language broadcasts in those days too.
73, Ed
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Around 1960 my uncle gave me a Hallicrafters SX 77 to use. My first station I heard was Radio Moscow, or BBC, or VOA. A long time ago. Really also enjoyed listening to the old high seas marine ship to shore radio.
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My first exposure to SW (and ham radio) was when I mother bought my dad a Sears portable AM/FM/SW portable for Christmas 1964, with a shortwave band that tuned from 6 to 18 MHz, or 49-16 meters. I don't remember THE first shortwave station I heard, but it was probably one of the usual suspects (VOA, BBC, Radio Moscow, and the other major European stations). I was 9 years old and was already hooked.
I was more impressed when I found the 20 meter ham band and heard what was probably the last hurrah for Ancient Modulation -- still quite a bit of activity amongst the "quack quack noise". No BFO on this radio, so CW and SSB were out. I got even more hooked, although it was still a few more years before I got my Novice ticket.
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Evenings listening to the world on a Hallicrafters SX-110 while in high school circa 1975. The warmth and glow of a vacuum tube receiver on winter nights. BBC, VOA, CBC, Radio Moscow, and even Tirana Albania (harsh broadcasting during the Cold War). The magical BFO switch allowed SSB eavesdropping on 75M hams and novice band code practice. All frequencies estimated at best. Life was simpler then in a wonderful way…
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Around 1964 my dad bought a Sony portable SW radio. I was about 10 or so. No BFO or anything special on it. I got a hold of it and fell in love with what I was hearing on that little radio. I think I used it more than dad did. That coming Christmas my uncle bought me a Hallicrafters S-120 radio. I ran a long piece of wire from my desk to outside and let it hang down a few feet. I could hear almost everything with that radio. I was hooked for life.
Happy moments from those simple days and lots of good clean fun.
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Fun thread I enjoyed reading. Xmas 1979 a Panasonic RF2800. Few weeks later read (some magazine with an english broadcast schedule in back) that Radio Peking (at the time) supposed be on daily 6PM Eastern time 15060. Skeptically tuned up and waited doubtfully, but when that fluttery interval signal fired up out of the silence in my dark winter bedroom I was hooked for life.
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I never got into shortwave much vs. amateur radio But Canada had simulcast of regular AM broadcast srations 540-1600 khz up on 3 mhz and 7mhz. I forget exact frequencies. For places like Canada not smart for those remote places in the country ? Regular AM BCB up on higher frequencies. Also St Pierre and Miquelon on 1375 khz I think it was. From Connecticut made an oddity to listen to. Other split frequencies etc.
Why can not listening be FUN ?