SWLing Post reader, Troy Riedel, received a gift like no other from his son this Christmas. No, it wasn’t the fabulous Celestron telescope in the above photo.  On Christmas Eve (December 24) Troy sent the following message:

Merry Christmas, Thomas.

I have to tell you what my son gave me for Christmas a few hours ago.

He purchased 1-hour of radio time for me on WBCQ (5110) for Wednesday, 30 December at 8 P.M. EST.

I will have to pre-record approximately 50-55 minutes over the coming days (not much time to prepare).

After telling my son this is cool – I also added this is the most stressful gift I’ve ever received.

My son suggested I may want to talk about astronomy.

A cool gift, indeed.  Evidently––and even more cool–– Troy is something of a hardcore amateur astronomer. I also encouraged him to do a show on this topic; I can’t think of the last time I heard a show about astronomy on shortwave!

Troy Riedel, host of The Amateur Astronomer

So, despite the challenge of putting a show together in less than a week, Troy confirmed yesterday that he has already completed the show and WBCQ will air it at the following time/frequency:

5,110 kHz on Dec 30, 2015 at 8:00 PM EST (1:00 UTC December 31, 2015)

Troy is looking forward to reception reports and will announce the address during the broadcast.

Oh––and being the good man he is, Troy is also including a PSA for Ears To Our World. Thanks, Troy!

Looking forward to the show!