Screeches In The Dark

Quite more people than one would think nowadays were bent over their radios in the 1970s and 80s, listening to screeching noise overlaid by distant voices that became clear and then disappeared again, over and over.

This was DXing - trying to find and listen to distant shortwave radio stations, usually late at night, and most likely with a headset to avoid being murdered by the rest of the family.

I got into this hobby as a 13-year old as my uncle had an amazing Grundig Satellit 2000 radio - after seeing that and carefully playing with the dials, I needed to get a shortwave radio. I scraped together my pocket money and after some negotiations for a small addition of funds by my parents I got myself a Palladium receiver that was not as fully-featured as the Grundig, but actually had excellent reception and good handling when tuning in stations.

(picture courtesy of https://www.avito.ru/petrozavodsk/kollektsionirovanie/radiopriemnik_palladium_949469_3120592080)

It is very hard to describe now, some 45 years later, how fascinating it was to listen to news broadcasts from Radio Beijing, Voice of America, or the many stations from small faraway countries that were using low-power transmitters. It often took specific weather and a lot of luck to catch a remote station late at night, when the upper atmosphere was reflecting the shortwave signals *just* so.

I do remember the moments when a station from Japan, China or Argentina was coming in with a clear signal - a triumph of patience and sleep deprivation, as I was listening to these voices from far, far away in my dark bedroom as my parents probably assumed I was sleeping.

These moments of a fragile, momentary connection to these faraway places probably was one of the seeds of my wanderlust later on in life.