Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Ralph Perry, who shares, in his latest Substack post, a look back at how shortwave radio helped shape his life—sparking a lifelong curiosity about the wider world, influencing his career path, and ultimately leading to experiences far beyond the radio dial. As he notes, it’s his “how I got here” story and, in many ways, an ode to the power of radio to connect us with places, people, and possibilities we might never have imagined.
You can read Ralph’s full post here:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-195360796
One of my younger brothers got me interested in SWLing. I’m not sure he found out about it, unless it was in one of the educational magazines to which our parents subscribed. Those magazines got me interested in a variety of topics, but that’s another story for another day. Anyhow, my brother asked for and was gifted a small AM/FM/SW Magnavox radio in the late 1980s, and I remember sitting with him while he slowly tuned the dial, listening for music and voices. Hearing foreign languages and music was always interesting. Some of the English language stations were obvious political propaganda even to our less experienced ears. While the rest of us were sleeping, he wasn’t above waking himself up and DXing on AM and seeing what was out there on the SW bands in the middle of the night. He got more than a few cards and packages in the mail from far-flung SW stations where he wrote in and told them that he picked up their signal here in the southeastern USA.
We may have missed the peak SW years, but it’s not like there’s nothing to listen to even now. My brother carried that radio with him on several trips, and the last time I saw it, it had a very battered, well-traveled appearance. Sadly, my brother went on to his great reward a few years ago, and the little radio appears to have gotten away. They’re both gone now, but certainly not forgotten, and I have my own radios where I can now tune the dial and see what’s out there.
SWL mid 1950’s. Then radio op USAF late 1950s. TDY Pacific. Communication State Dept. Foreign Service embassies. Radio amateur. Age 86 still pounding brass.
Thanks for posting this, Thomas!
For all my radio buddies who might be wondering who this “Chet Nairene” guy is, that is the nom de plume I decided to use a decade ago upon starting to scratch my fiction-writing itch.
I didn’t want to have to hold anything back so, in order to protect REAL people out there in Asia from embarassment or concern (“Is that awful person ME?”), I tried to sever ties between my fiction and SE Asia reality by using the Chet Nairene moniker.
Backstory: It’s an homage to my parents, a construct from their names, Chet and Irene.
Cheers, 73, and keep on listening . . .
Ralph
I became actice as an SWL in the 1970s and 80s. Truly, it was amazing. Literally 100s of stations on every band. Glory time for SWLs.
I discovered shortwave radio in the 1970s through an old Philips vacuum-tube tabletop set from the sixties. While it was hardly a ‘DX beast’—lacking even a bandspread dial—it managed to pull in a bewildering multitude of voices, sounds, and perspectives across the long, medium, and shortwave bands. Those broadcasts profoundly altered my worldview; together, they formed a sonic landscape where conflicting ideologies and political aspirations collided. It’s no wonder I grew to appreciate broadcasters like the BBC and Radio Netherlands; they favored objective reporting over the loaded language and factual inaccuracies common in other parts of the world. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that for my generation, 1970s radio had an impact comparable to what the internet would have on youth three decades later.