Been a listener all my life . Loved the magic of those glory days of the 50s and 60s . Built my own radios and listened on headphones while watching glowing valves . It was like a glimpse into another world . I still listen but sadly so many stations have gone . Just not the same listening online . Great video . Thanks for taking the time to make it. Regards from the UK .
Well the joys of listening to the shortwave broadcast band of the 60s 70s and 80s trying to tune in those number stations thinking what they were about listening to shortwave broadcaster in this time was golden
I used to be into Short Wave Radio big-time back in the late 60's. I joined clubs, and submitted for QSL Verification Cards from all over the world. On the weekends I would stay up late to catch broadcast signals I had never received before. Great recordings, and commentary. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
There’s something magical about listening to shortwave radio Thru all the signal fades and phase shifting of the signal as it travels around the world!
I still listen to shortwave daily. I have an SDR to do that now but the sounds are still just as awesome! I love your whole series of videos...it's stuff right up my alley. I love those sounds like those of background sounds of offices on the phone, and that old sound of electromechanical relays buzzing away. You just don't hear that any more. One cool sound I remember was the unique sound of analog cell service. Yeah it sucked getting disconnected a lot but I found the inner workings of analog service interesting.
@@punishedexistence shortwave is not dead by any means. Just throw a random wire outside and swirl that wire around your pocket shortwave radio telescopic antenna. You will hear a lot out there. I use telephone company twisted pair jumper wire. Like 22 gage. 50 to 100 feet is good. Just lay it on the roof of your house. You can get 22 gage wire at ace hardware stores. Just a recommendation.
This brings back memories of my childhood when there were lots more shortwave stations to listen to. My Dad gave me a Sears multiband radio for my birthday and I was able to pick up all sorts of stations along with the local police and fire departments, 2 meter ham radio operators, and the local airport. It was lots of fun listening in!
I had the DX-160 with matching speaker as pictured in the thumbnail here. Oddly, my shortwave interest lead to my phone fixation because I monitored some people talking on CB radio one night for around two and a half hours who explained things like loop arounds, conference lines, "jam lines" (local terminology for groups of people shouting in the open spaces of a particular numbers' busy signal), as well as other more phone phreak related stuff. I was sitting there transfixed with a notepad and was obsessed. At approximately the same time we got to tour our local central office when they changed the dial tone similar to Evan's "How I became a Phreak" series - when it became more modern. I got to see the switching machines and walk down the halls with the sounds of switching all around me and even got to see a little alcove with a little 60 watt bulb shining down on a teletype machine that was dutifully printing out on paper numbers flagged for tracing and the numbers of the incoming calls since this was pre-caller ID and it was like magic. Setting a kid at that age loose in a CO with minimal supervision was transformational!
My Heart sank when I watched all the shortwave stations around the world shut down forever and watched those beautiful radio transmission antenna towers come crashing down to the ground ....I started listening to AM radio DX in the late 50's., Eventually I acquired a Hallicrafters S-108 and I was in heaven... Short wave listening today is nothing like it used to be back in the day, sadly to say .....
I'm writing from Brazil and a non native English Language speaker. I loved your 2 records (how you was organized on tapes!). I was introduced on SW in 1980, I had listened RSA but I couldn't identifed it. I was 10. In 1981, on may, after received a Philco Transglobe Set I had spend much time listening and thinking about SW, nations, Politcs and so on. I laughed on your comments on Brazilian speaker on Big Ben and I was impressed for the schedule (1 AM GMT), BBC used to broadcast in Portuguese from 22-0015 when I have started to listened. By the way, BBC was the first letter that I received (abril, 1981- I was using a set from my sister), after VOA (that give a good packed - I loved it in spite of almost all in English). I used to checked the views, specially listening all power Radio Moscow (that I have the oportunity to visit in 1996, make contact there to the standard voice of Brazilian Service that, after, returned to Brazil, he~s 87 years and is Saint Claus!!!!!). Well, Evan I have too many things to talk in my broken English but at the end I want to say that you give me a Christmas gift for your records and keep doing your good job!
Your memories and radio recordings are just beautiful I remember listening to all these station broadcaster power houses in the 1970s on my crystal set I got from TANDY radio shack store the best receiver I ever got was the realistic DX160 really fun to use with a good outdoor antenna thanks again for all your uploads
I was really into shortwave radio in high school, but my first experience with it was when I was about 10 years old. My younger stepbrother got a ghetto blaster for his birthday, and it happened to have shortwave capabilities. My first experience hearing it, frankly, creeped me out. It sounded other-worldly, with the fading signals and content I was totally unfamiliar with. Later on, about 1989 I got a shortwave radio for my birthday. Kind of a poor one, but I could still hear stations from all over the world. Maybe a year after this, one of the first things I bought with money I had earned myself from a job (I was 16) was a Realistic DX 440. Now I could really pick up some stations and even ham broadcasts, as this radio had access to side-band. My favorite reception was of a pirate station. I meticulously wrote down everything I heard, and sent a reception report to the address given. I received a confirmation letter and a bright orange QSL card from them a few weeks later. I felt like a total badass, communicating with radio pirates and getting souvenirs to boot! I still have that card. My dad was in the army in late 1950s Germany during the Cold war as a radio man. Not only did he encourage the hobby, he helped me set up antennas and such. Didn't hurt that one of my best friends in high school was a Extra-class ham operator, either!
This is good! I first got a shortwave radio for Christmas in 1971 when I was 7, and used to hear a lot of these. It got me into dxing all different bands and ham radio.
When I was a youngster in the early 50s, my father had a butcher's shop. Times were hard in those days, just after the war, and sometimes, people would pay for their meat with their radios. Hoping to get the money later, to swop back. This didn't always happen, and we had 3 or 4 radios that stayed on the table in the room behind the shop. Can you imagine paying for your food with your computer or your colour telly?! In those days, the radio was all the people had for entertainment, or news. I would switch one of them on, and just tune around. I discovered the short-wave stations in this way, and used to listen for hours (in fact, I still do, although there is very little on now, exept for China)!
3:13 love these interval signals , what makes them so captivating is the phasing and fading ; if you'd hear them totally clear on an FM reception half of the magic would evaporate....... Shortwave was an interesting playground in my childhood days. Sometimes you could hear a dramatic drone that seemed to be the sound of the sun .
Exactly, it seems you could virtually sense the long way all those waves came along, crossing oceans and mountains, until speaking to you in different languages. Each country was having a different flair and atmosphere which conveyed the feeling of being a world traveller. The shortwave radio opened our ears to the world. No FM broadcast, much less internet radio can create this unique feeling. Sadly, most broadcasters have gone.
I was born in 1982, so I had a "pre-Internet" childhood. My niece and nephew are both pre-teens now, and I have a hard time explaining that when I was their age, my Internet was an AM/FM/shortwave radio. Lol. I had a terrific little Radio Shack Sangean receiver with a wire antenna from the radio to my bedroom window for better reception. These kids have no idea how easy they've got it nowadays. Lol. 😂
That had to have been a great time for a shortwave listening. So much to hear, and surfing the dial had to have been very rewarding and surprising. I was introduced to shortwave by an uncle in the late 70s or early 80s but never had my own until nearly 20 years ago. It was a small portable with an extendable antenna. For some reason it stopped working a few years ago and so I recycled it. Now I have an older portable, 7 bands, I picked up at a yard sale, and have learned about wire antennas and can pick up more. Being in the city and no where to place an antenna outside I hang a long wire wrapped into a loop, hung near a window. Reception is decent.
Oh the irony of this video in the context of telephony. While in high school, I had THAT shortwave radio and attached the antenna input to a satellite receiver’s baseband jack. A whole world of voices could be heard between 1 MHz and 8 MHz! It was AT&T long distance. 1/2 of the conversation was on one transponder and the other half was on an other. So cool
When I was 16 or 17 years old, I had a part time job, some evenings and weekends. I was interested in AM dxing, so I bought a brand new, made in Japan, Panasonic RF-2600. I knew nothing about the radio. It came from a department store and I thought it looked cool with it's digital readout. Man, that was a GREAT radio. I soon discovered the sw bands, and I've been fascinated with sw ever since. I wish I still had that radio, but I literally wore it out. But I got my money's worth out of it, that's for sure...
The way that I got into shortwave radio (1982-91) was very similar to Evan Doorbell’s. Only in my case I received as a gift a multi-band radio that didn’t have any shortwave bands...but there was a CB band. One day, I picked up the interval signal for Radio Canada International just beyond the edge of the CB transmissions, and like Evan, I didn’t understand why someone would be playing the same thing on a piano over and over. To this day, I still don’t know how I managed to receive it at all, but I’m guessing it was a strong 13m or 16m broadcast that managed to bleed over into my band. In any event, through a combination of trial and error (which included me picking up Voice of Free China), I discovered shortwave. After that, a lot of my listening was on a handheld Sony ICF-7600A, and then later, on a Sony ICF-2010. Perhaps the most noteworthy broadcasts I ever received was Radio Moscow and Radio Kiev’s attempts to downplay the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident.
I am reliving all the excitement of logging into shortwave stations worldwide as a kid while listening to this episode. (P.S. I thrilled at the interval signal bells and the Swiss watch sound marking the exact time when I first heard Radio Switzerland😀)
Those were the days. There was something about listening to shortwave that was adventurous, even if you were just listening to the time. Back then, the few that had mobile telephones (decades before cellular) were using a handful of local frequencies, that could be picked up on bands covered on a shortwave radio. Such calls weren't private. Even as cellular evolved, the initial bands were analog in the 800 MHz range. A decent radio scanner did let you hear pieces of phone calls.
I’m about the same age as you, Evan. Our mailman was astounded by the amount and variety of mail that I received from the USSR, China, South Africa, England, Latin America, and many other parts of the world. Sadly there is now very little to listen to today. Mainly bombastic evangelicals and survivalists are all that is left. Too bad because now I have the time and the funds to re-explore the bands.
This is the first time I've heard Evan doing shortwave. The first example I recognized immediately as the CHU Canada time signal. I've noticed how those signal pulsing reminds me of the sound effects from early science fiction movies like "This Island Earth", "Day the Earth Stood Still", and some of the early Soviet sci fi movies like Pavel Klushantsev's "Road to the Stars". Some of the trumpet "interval" pieces remind me of announcements in The Village from the '60's TV show "The Prisoner".
I am 54. Back when I was about 7-8 I use to have a multi band radio. Not only did it have "police" and "fire" and "cb" and "air" bands but shortwave too. The tuning was analogue so I had no idea what station or who was talking. Was nice hearing the police talk to each other and the crazy "ham" radio guys going back and fourth. I've been into shortwave since then, well on and off, in New York city you really cant get much at all with all the interfearince from hundreds of electronic devices a d now wifi bluetooth cell phones.
This is super interesting. Just like you were my introduction to phreaking, you're now my intro to shortwave content like this as well. Thanks for the education!
i love your video same here when i was 12 back in 1986 when i started to listening to short wave radio and the bbc was one of my favs radio berlin radio austria international and radio netherlands that was my fav intro of
Wow, the music at 16:41 has a beautiful, somewhat moving quality to it. It’s hard to describe. Same with the Radio Australia jingle. Incredible. There’s a RU-vid video of the final shutdown of RA’s shortwave signal. The uploader said the ABC were going to just shut it down mid sentence with no fanfare, but the operators at the station decided to play Waltzing Matilda. A sad moment indeed. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PKUsl7PZNr4.html
Brings back great memories from just about the same time with almost identical SW receiver. I was 14 and kept a diary in the middle of the night here in California. Your recording quality seems very familiar. And the interval signals would almost drive me crazy waiting for the stations to identify. I wrote letters to several of the same international stations and posted the QSL cards on my bedroom wall. Radio Peking sent me a copy of Maos Red Book. In the 60s the post office would withhold communist propaganda unless you approved its delivery! I also got lots of cool calendars and souvenirs. It opened my limited 14 year old world. Digjtal receivers have made it all so easier to not slowly dial through the meter bands. Really glad i found this. Do you have any more? How did you record these? Thanks!
Hi Evan :-) @2:56 it's Radio Prague's ID @3:50 it's Albanias's Radio Tirana @4:56 It's Radio Budapest from Hungary @6:26 you can here an overlap of Radio Italy's bird tweet ID and BBC's Drum ID for African languages service @7:30 it's Swiss Radio's SW service ID @12:47 Radio Sweden OK! @36:40 This BBC's ID at the time was the Morse code for "V" from Churchill's Victory sign. That's why it was used for Europe transmissions. And of course, speaking of interference that could be heard all over the bands, there was the old "Russian Woodpecker" very strong noise signal to block broadcasts from the West aimed at the Soviet Union, namely VOA or Radio Liberty or Radio Free Europe from transmitters in centre Portugal.
The "woodpecker" was that mysterious ticking that appeared over a wide range of frequencies during the 1980s. The jammers used to block Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe were not the same thing and they predated the woodpecker; THOSE sounded like a diesel locomotive going 60 mph, often with a morse code ID every 10 seconds or so.
The "Russian Woodpecker" was over-the-horizon radar as part of an intercontinental ballistic missle detection system. It was extraordinarily powerful, and was thus located right next to the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Lots of RU-vid video on it.
My first short wave was a chassis from an Atwater Kent tombstone radio. I used to listen to it in the basement where the electronic bench and drafting table was. I didn't understand spanish but listen it anyways. I was in the seventh grade at the time. I was curious so I took the electrolytic cap out wrong move. The wire which was a resister overheated. The power transformer started to stink and overheat. So the radio sat for a few years. I built a gray mark am and short wave radio. It had an amplifier setting so I made an FM radio kit. I had problems troubleshooting the power short on the b plus. That summer I took the radio apart and started over and the short was gone and the am and short wave band worked. I never installed the fm radio. When I learned how old radios worked the speaker had a choke that produced the electromagnet for the speaker and was part of the b+ as well. They made a chock that you could make a modification to the radio and use a permanent magnet speaker instead of using the old setup. less hum came out of the speaker. That radio could.pick up WWV and WWVH at the same time. The AM Picked up AM stations from all around the USA. Classical stations and other instrumental music not like the local stations. WQXR , KMOX and WCKY to name a few. WQXR was sold in 2007. I don't know the fate of the other stations except the music has changed.
@@naja-cobra4144 I know there are Apps to pick up short wave stations on the phone or computer. You can also control a ham radio station using the computer.i would join a radio amateur club in your area if you have one. You can also join one online probably the better choice with restrictions in your city or state. If you do ham radio study and take the technician class license test. There are many free how to' s on you tube.
Thank you so much for sharing this excellent piece of radio history!!!! Recall many of these interval signals,. including one from Radio Moscow that used a part of Michael Jacksons ABC after a concert he played there!!!
Great video - takes me back to being 11 when I first got into SW listening in 1972 -some strange sounds back then and weird stations - Think Radio Tirana
As a teenager I was into shortwave radio and video games. I am sure there are others out there now getting into it. It's a bit difficult due to the horrendous interference that blankets the bands these days. Whenever the topic came up I always recommended to beginners to get a good quality portable radio and take it with them on a long walk outdoors. Getting as far away from sources of noisy interference and to a lesser extent all the distractions of modern life is the best way to enjoy it.
This was when short wave bands were full and exciting. I remember when I was about 12-13 listening on my Russian built radio while in bed back in the 60’s.
First World band radio, communication receiverwas an inexpensive Realistic DX whatever around 1986. Heard many shortwave broadcasts by running a longwire in my window attached to the radio's antenna. Finally was able to buy a Sony ICF-2010 a truly fine receiver.
It's the same for me. I'm an amateur radio operator but I started listening to shortwave in the 1960s with my parents' old tube radio. And so I discovered the broadcasts from many distant lands, mostly in languages that were unfamiliar to me and that seemed both mysterious and exotic to me, and I was immediately amazed. Everything has changed a lot since then, but I keep the magic of shortwave within me. So near, so far, radio waves are a means of travel. Thank you for this video and these precious memories. Best regards from France.
@@jeanjean90 Mon père avait acheté une radio pour écouter les matches de baseball. By some fluke it had SW bands. I was amazed to be able to listen to Radio Australia, Radio Sweden. RFI, RSA, and so on. I eventually obtained my ham radio license and eventually studied in electrical engineering.
The BBC Hungary interval signal is interesting because I think it's supposed to be a reference to the movie The Third Man, where Orson Welles makes the comment about how 500 years of democracy in Switzerland only gave us the cuckoo clock. The cuckoo bird and zither music is a giveaway. But if it's to Hungary I have no idea why they'd use that reference.
Sounds more like guitar to me... Anyway that song is well known: It's Herb Alpert's "So What's New." ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5AUXd4jFkEg.html
Battery maker Mark, vacuum tube, coils + magnets were built into it long before the mid 1960's when all- transistor / solid state was introduced to radios
Yes I was fortunate to catch the tail end of the glory days of SW in the 80s and early 90s... I remember listening during the failed Soviet coup against Gorbachev in 1991...non-stop classical music on Radio Moscow interrupted by "State of Emergency" announcements.
At 36.22 the BBC to Europe interval signal ..._ (DOT DOT DOT DASH) is the morse code letter V, V for victory, used during WW2 and after for broadcastes to Europe.
Radio Australia on short wave ceased a while ago now. Sad really. Yeah you can stream it or pick it up in other ways but the charm of listening to it in analogue with all the fades and natural background sound is lost apart from these few taped examples.
Evan Doorbell your table top shortwave reciver is cool do you stail have it I wood like to bye it how much do you want for it for the shortwave receiver the table top shortwave receive. I see it now on your utube I am watching now on my cellphone I will as my cousin you can give me your e mail does the table top shortwave receiver stail work let me no as soon asap
EVAN DOOR BELL my hobbies are painting pictures and listening to shortwave and ssb I have 4 shortwave receivers iam thinking about getting my ham license
EVAN DOORBELL Now the new shortwave receivers have MW LW FM Air Band ssb but I dont like new shortwave receiver I like old shortwave receiver with a log tueing
Some of those weird “night sounds”, if I am not mistaken, are actually caused by electromagnetic radiation coming from Jupiter’s powerful magnetosphere
