Earlier this week, I learned that my friend Volodymyr (US7IGN) published his book War Diaries: A Radio Amateur in Kyiv on Amazon.com and I immediately purchased and read it.
If you’d like to know what it’s been like for a radio listener and ham radio operator living day-to-day in Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, I highly recommend reading War Diaries.
Volodymyr (or Wlod) is a regular here on the SWLing Post and simply amazing fellow. We share a love of playing radio outdoors and were even recently featured on BBC Radio 4. Sadly, due to the nature of living in a war zone, Wlod cannot escape urban RFI/QRM by making journeys into the forest. These days, that would be a very dangerous activity.
Instead, Wlod makes the most out of the blackouts caused by Russian missile attacks: he enjoys the radio quiet conditions to listen to and DX stations across the globe from his small apartment on vintage radios that he’s repaired.
In fact, here’s a most recent longwave scan Wlod shared during a blackout with his vintage Radiotehnika Riga-104:
Since Russia’s invasion began, Wlod’s wife and children have taken refuge in Poland. Radio has been his constant companion and even a source of valuable intel.
In Wlod’s book, you’ll learn what’s it’s been like living in a world with constant air-raid sirens, artillery attacks, and blackouts. You’ll also learn how incredibly resourceful and resilient he and his fellow Ukrainians are in the face of the Putin war machine.
I highly recommend grabbing a copy of War Diaries. It’s available on Amazon.com as an eBook for $5.99 and even as a hard or soft cover print book.
Obviously, any revenue from the sales of this book are supporting Wlod and his family.
Click here to purchase on Amazon.com.
Note: All Amazon links on the SWLing Post are auto-converted to affiliate links.
Thomas, thank you for brjnging to our attention. Vlod, thank you for writing this, I’ve just sampled on Kindle and have ordered the hard copy ord. Highly recommended from the sample.
A poignant and historical commentary from an amateur’s perspective.
Richard M0RGM
Coincidentally I just bought a bookshelf for my radios and have some space left for radio literature, hard copy ordered! 🙂
Received it today, wow, a really nice hard cover book! Looking forward to read it!
Thank you, Paul!
The special charm of listening to the radio with an old reciever is to guess the exact frequency and wait for the call signs of the radio stations. Often this is not necessary and you just enjoy clear air and reception of distant stations with lightning discharges.
Thank you Thomas!
One of the goals of this book was to draw people’s attention to radio and its value in modern but very fragile world.
Book scheduled for delivery tomorrow.
This news is very interesting but the video has two errors :
1 – Indeed, France-Inter stopped broadcasting in Longwave on December 31, 2016 at 24:00. However, the transmission of the time signal generated by atomic clocks (ALS162) continues because it is essential for more than 200,000 devices deployed within French companies and state entities … / … Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Inter
However, as stated on the Twente SDR web http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ other stations are audible on this frequency due to “ionospheric crossmodulation”
As RMC – Radio Monte Carlo – no longer transmits on LW (216 kHz) since March 28, 2020 and Europe1 did the same on December 31, 2019 at 11:28 pm (182 kHz), the short French language passage attributed in the video to France Inter most certainly corresponds to RTL which transmits on 234 kHz. Note that RTL will stop its LW transmitter on December 31, 2022: RTL will cease its broadcasting in Grandes Ondes from January 1, 2023 …
https://www.rtl.fr/communication/pourquoi-rtl-va-cesser-sa-diffusion-en-grandes-ondes-a-partir-du-1er-janvier-2023-7900194357
2 – The signal attributed to the Danish Radio DR Langbølge is that of RTL (234 kHz) because the person speaks in French. The 243 kHz longwave radio is used to cover nearby seas with news and weather broadcasts. The transmissions are only 4 times daily at 05:45, 08:45, 11:45 and 17:45 local time.
It would be nice to inform Volodymyr (US7IGN) … while sending him my congratulations and the assurance of my sincere support to him and his country.