Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio will air episode 2,000 this weekend.
The thirty minute World Of Radio show, which covers all things DX, debuted in 1980 on WUOT-FM in Knoxville, Tennessee, and moved to shortwave outlets two years later. Glenn Hauser has faithfully produced the show since then.
SWLing Post Executive Producer, Scott Gamble, contacted me recently and wrote:
In 1980 I was a freshman in high school when my parents gave me a shortwave radio for Christmas. This was during the heyday of international broadcasting, and it opened up an entire world of content that my teenage brain was excited to soak up. I’m not sure exactly when and where, but I soon after stumbled across Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio program immediately became a fan. Glenn’s unmistakable style and ability to jam so much news into a short broadcast provided a wealth of programming information in an era where access was nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is today. Glenn’s weekly broadcasts kept us all informed about schedules and content, and shortly after I became a subscriber to his Review of International Broadcasting publication. RIB provided a fascinating deeper dive into programming, politics and people behind the broadcasts, forever expanding my worldview and I’m sure thousands of others.
Writing about this in 2019, on the eve of the 2,000th episode of World of Radio, it is a testament to Glenn that his work has evolved so well into the digital age, and shows that even in a world where unlimited information is constantly available via the internet, curation and expert commentary are still highly valuable commodities. I still enjoy listening to WOR (as a podcast) every week. Congratulations, Glenn!
Thank you for sharing that memory with us, Scott. I also started listening to World of Radio in my youth. In the 1980s, I had no friends that were into shortwave listening and didn’t have the means to join any of the listener clubs, so World of Radio was my window into all that was DXing.
Share your WOR memories and comments to win an Eton Mini!
If you comment with a memory or positive message about World of Radio, you will be entered in a contest to win a Grundig Edition Eton Mini shortwave receiver. I will pick a commenter at random next Friday (September 27, 2019) and ship them their prize! (Congrats to Robert Graham who won our last giveaway).
This prize was donated by the good folks at Universal Radio.
The giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere in the world (although if international, you may be responsible for any duties/taxes paid in customs clearance).
Good luck and congratulations to Glenn Hauser and his World of Radio!
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I’m not sure when I first heard Glenn Hauser on the radio. It might have been when he was on Radio Nederland in the 1960s when I first got interested in shortwave radio listening and DXing as a high school student. But after I went off to university and then started my academic career, I fell away from the hobby. That is, until I went to China in the spring of 1985 to lecture. At that time, China was still somewhat cutoff from the rest of the world, so I figured it would be a good idea to take a shortwave radio with me. I had seen an add for the Sony ICF-7600D in an airline flight magazine and resolved to buy one in Hong Kong from where I would enter China. Radio Canada International did not come in very well on my new receiver but the BBC from Singapore did as did, for example, the Voice of the People of Kampuchea with English at midnight UTC on 9695 kHz.
Bringing the Sony receiver back to Canada, I once again got back into the SWLing and DXing hobby. And one of the first stations I picked up, and then listened to regularly, was WRNO Worldwide from New Orleans. And that included listening to Glenn Hauser’s “World of Radio.” I didn’t log every reception of WRNO so don’t know when I first heard the program but I did write down some DX tips from the program airing sometime between 24 June and 1 July 1986. The tips in that program included advanced notice of the Red Cross test transmissions using the transmitters of Swiss Radio International. I subsequently heard a transmission on 1 July with a good signal starting at 03:10 UTC on 6135 kHz. I likely wouldn’t have added this station to my logbooks if it hadn’t been for World of Radio. I only regret that I didn’t record this and many other stations from the golden age of shortwave radio.
Congratulations, Glenn, on your official 2000th episode of World of Radio. To learn a bit more about Glenn than what we can read in his Wikipedia entry, see this interview with him conducted by Sheldon Harvey on the occasion of the 1000th episode:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110706172348/http://www.cidx.ca/sf/SF5Hauser.php
I started listening to the radio at 7 and since then I haven’t stopped …
from my grandmother, to the island of Ponza, Italy, I used her Telefunken Domino and spent the nights with her green eye … as a young man I then bought a Grundig Satellit 2000 along with other small portable receivers and Glenn Hauser accompanied me during my youth to use the radio and have so many frequencies available from his program that I then checked …
Thanks Glenn … they have been fantastic years together with the Radio.
Giuseppe Morlè iz0gzw.
I got my first Realistic Patrolman shortwave radio as a young teen in 1983/84, and I clearly remember hearing Glenn Hauser’s program during that time. Then, sometime around college in the early 1990s, I gave up shortwave listening as I got busy with work, kids, etc.
I fell hard back into shortwave listening last year and was delighted to see Glenn’s still around. I’m a faithful listener to the podcast of his program, and I was able a few weeks back to email him an interesting log that he read on the program. It’s funny how exciting that was to middle-aged me.
Anyway, congrats to Glenn and his longtime role as one of the deans of shortwave listening.
I’ve been hooked on shortwave since the ’80s, when there was one of those great old Grundig tabletop radios occupying a corner of the shop I worked at when I was stationed in Germany. I listened to both shortwave and longwave stations (mostly Radio Luxembourg) in place of AFN, and I have been addicted to worldwide listening ever since. I have been a fan of Glenn Hauser for so many years, I now can’t even remember when it began. I do hope his show will be on the air for many years to come; so much has changed in the last 30+ years, and his is one of the few mainstays still around. It would not be the same without his contributions.
In my opinion RIB was his finest achievement. Unlike the rest of the DX/SWL hobby press, at the time, it was more interested in program content than being a list of random loggings. Of the copies that I still have they are superb insight into a world that no longer exists. If Glenn has a complete run, if he could enable us to have a re-read of a fascinating publication, that would make my year. What amazed me about GH, is that I learnt here, that for the 80,90s and a chunk of the 2000s he was just working with a FRG-7
Jim – I’m with you on RIB. I loved reading them, but sadly all of my issues from the 80s got thrown away when my parents moved after I went away to school (this included logs and QSL cards from the era as well).
I seem to remember reading somewhere on Glenn’s web site that he doesn’t have *any* of the RIB back issues remaining. I have put out the call that I’m interested if anyone has any tucked away they want to get rid of, or at least would let me borrow to scan. I’d love to re-read too.
WOR was one of the very first shows I could actually hear, and completely understand, on shortwave radio. I had just found my first portable at a garage sale, and after finding 8 D batteries it came to life… and there was Mr. Hauser. Of course, at 11 or 12 years old I didn’t know what I was hearing but I’ve been listening ever since, almost 30 years…
I was also in high school in the 1980’s when I got hooked onto shortwave radio (man we really were all super nerds for sure)! Glenn Hauser was thus a superstar to me at the time, with his weekly DX Report on Radio Canada International’s SWL Digest and of course World of Radio. So you could imagine my excitement after hearing my name mentioned by him on the air after submitting a “DX tip” to him over the telephone one week! And I too was at the summer 1983 ANARC Convention at the Roslyn, Virginia Best Western “Wespark” hotel. I still have photos taken with all my “Rock Stars” – Glenn Hauser, Joe Costello of WRNO and Franz Vossen of Belgian Radio. Thank you Glenn Hauser for all you have done for this magical hobby that has enriched so many of us for a lifetime!
Great resource to find out what’s on and when. The Audio Archive is great too. Catch up on broadcasts you missed.
I am a fan of DXLD and World of Radio from waaay back, and including Review of International Broadcasting which I enjoyed immensely. If I recall correctly, Glenn once played audio of the confusion at Radio Moscow when Mikhail Gorbachev was abducted by a coup of hardliners. I always look forward to the wry humor, and precise reporting on World of Radio.
After 2,000 programs, WoR still provides an enormous amount of information about radio communications, above all, shortwave.
Back when Glenn was doing the program on WUOT, it somehow ended up on WNYC radio in New York. I remember hearing it at least once and possibly more. However, I once mentioned this to Glenn and he denied any knowledge that it was ever carried by NPR. Perhaps it ended up on the satellite and someone at WNYC thought that it was interesting enough to air.
In 1981 or so, a DXer friend from Germany stayed with me for a week before heading on a two week Amtrak trip to New Orleans and back. Along the route, he made plans to visit with Glenn at WUOT. My German friend came back with an observation about how Glenn like to eat a glass full of ice cubes, presumably left over from a cold beverage. Years later, in correspondence, I asked Glenn whether he still ate ice cubes. He responded in typical Hauser style, “Who are you?” He must have thought I was surveilling him!
I’ve been listening to Glenn since the DX Jukebox days on Radio Nederland, when he used to produce a monthly North American DX Report. I also remember seeing a picture of him in Communications World featuring his DX post in a locker, taken when he was stationed with the USAF in Thailand.
Nowadays, I listen whenever I want by saying “Hey Google, play Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio”. It magically appears even when propagation is poor.
Here’s hoping that Glenn will be around for another sesqui-something so that we can hear the weekly standard disclaimer.
Happy 2000 Glenn and 73
hi, after quite some time and after my friends from italy telling me about world of readio, and ok reading to glenn hauser interesting articles , finaly one day , it was a monday, i finally listened to the programme , picking it up on 7290 khz . i am from malta , and for me , and with my pride and joy for a radio lover , my newest radio set in my collection, the great zenith d7000y trans oceanic , listening finally was great , a day to remember . in malta we dont have such programmes, and so to listening to wor , and others like awr wavescan dx and obiettivo dx same to awr , its great to be updated to all events and interesting things about our world in radio listening . so , great programme and great presenter , and keep it rockin glenn!!!
greetings from malta ,adrian.
I listened to WoR faithfully starting in the early 1980s, probably about 1981. I still have a handful of recordings from the 80s that I need to submit to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive when I can. I remember WoR carried on WRNO Sunday nights which aired right after some religious program. At the time I think it was the only outlet carrying the program. For some reason I enjoyed his DX news carried on RCI’s SWL Digest more than WoR. But WoR gave more in-depth coverage to the events affecting SW broadcasting.
I was at an ANARC convention I believe in 1983 or 84. We were on our way back to our hotel room and stopped to talk with a man in the hallway. We told him were were attending the ANARC convention. He mentioned that he was also attending the ANARC convention. My buddy excitedly told the man that “Glenn Hauser is supposed to be here”. The man looked at us with a strange look on his face and said “I am Glenn Hauser”. Ooops!
Well done consistent program. A treasure for sellers.
Sorry swlers not sellers
I remember the GREAT Glenn Hauser WOR program keeping me company during my early adult years.Can you imagine Glenn’s brave effort to have a daily WOR program. Wow! Was that cool!
I started listening to SW radio in the early 80s, a golden age as the Cold War was ending. I collected QSL cards from the major broadcasters of the day, belonged to the SPEEDX, ANDEX, and Radio Budapest Listener Clubs, and I remember faithfully listening to Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio broadcasts on shortwave – but to be honest, I can no longer recall which stations carried his program! Tough to get old, but I’m glad to know that Glenn is still at it – despite being even older than me!
Keep up the good work Glenn and K4SWL
& VY 73 DE AB1DQ/James