Tag Archives: SWLing Post

Hurricane Helene: An update from SWLing Post HQ

Good Morning, Friends,

As many of you know, the area where I live in western North Carolina was hit hard by catastrophic flooding and high winds, causing significant damage.

I’m happy to report that my family is safe, and we are incredibly grateful for that. However, like many others, we’ve sustained substantial damage to our property and are currently cut off from town due to numerous downed trees. My efforts over the next week will be focused on clearing the way, so updates here on the SWLing Post will be less frequent. Thank you for your understanding.

If you’d like a more detailed update, I’ve posted one on QRPer.com–click here to read it.

Thank you for all of your kind thoughts and supportive messages!

Best,

Thomas

Join Us: Become a Contributor for the SWLing Post!

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The SWLing Post has been online since 2008, and over the years, I’ve seen our readership grow into a vibrant, international community of radio enthusiasts who support each other.

From the beginning, my goal for the SWLing Post has never been to focus on me, but rather to highlight the diverse ways people enjoy radio and to share news about international broadcasting. To achieve this, I’ve invited select individuals to contribute as guest writers and provided them with accounts to post their own content.

As our community has expanded, I want to open the door even wider and invite more of you to contribute directly to the SWLing Post. This will help alleviate the bottleneck of getting timely information out, especially as I am currently in one of the busiest stages of my life.

If you’re interested in receiving a volunteer contributor account, which will allow you to create and submit posts for approval and publication by me or one of our editors, please contact me via email or leave a comment on this post.

To qualify for a contributor account, please note the following requirements:

Community Involvement: We prefer to see that you’ve been an active, long-standing member of our community by commenting on posts. If you’re new to us, we will first need to review and post your contributions before granting you an account. This is due to the high volume of spam guest post requests we receive—often dozens each week.

Comfort with WordPress: You should be comfortable creating posts in WordPress, the platform we use for the SWLing Post. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to train individuals on WordPress, but numerous tutorials are available since it’s the most popular blogging platform in the world.

We are looking for original content that reflects the genuine spirit and kindness of our community. Our goal is to ensure that contributions are not only informative and engaging but also embody the warmth and enthusiasm that characterize our shared love for radio. As long as your content is respectful, informative, and true to the spirit of radio enjoyment, it will align with our standards and be a valuable addition to the SWLing Post.

If you’re interested, please comment on this post or email me directly, and I will get back to you via email.

Thank you!

Thomas Witherspoon (K4SWL)

Thank you, friends…

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Thank you to all of the notes of support and kindness I’ve received during my mother’s Hospice care and after her passing.

Mom’s memorial service was yesterday; and while it was a somber day, it was brightened by this large, beautiful floral arrangement that arrived at the church where the service was held:

Here’s the message on the card that accompanied the arrangement:

This was truly kind and warmed all of our hearts.

Thank you so very much, friends. ~

Update from SWLing Post HQ

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Hello, Friends,

A quick update:

My mother passed away on Sunday afternoon after a long battle with cancer. The past few weeks have been hectic and fully devoted to my mother’s Hospice care. The next two week are devoted to being with family and caring for my father-in-law who is currently in the hospital.

I haven’t been checking email or comments regularly and will not for the next week or so, hence the delay in reply some of you have noticed.

With the help of some of our contributors, we will still have posts published, but fewer than normal.

Please understand if I don’t have time to reply to your emails. I receive 40-50 from readers daily, so the backlog will be more than I can handle even after I’m back “on the air.”

Also, thank you so much for your kind thoughts and messages. Those of you who follow by other radio blog, QRPer.com, knew that my mom was in Hospice care as I mentioned this in a recent field report.

I’ll be back soon and thank you so much for understanding.

Best,

Thomas (K4SWL)

Introducing the new SWLing Post Message Board!

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Friends, I’d like to share some good news with you!

The short version:

I’ve created an SWLing Post discussion board that anyone can join, free of charge, at SWLing.net.

My hope is that this will be a spot for community members to get quick answers to questions and connect with other like-minded operators.

Everyone is welcome and this board is already populated with a number of moderators who will make sure that all questions–no matter how simple–are welcome. Trolls and rude people will be weeded out.

I would encourage you to create an account and check it out: http://swling.net

The long version:

In the past, I’ve mentioned in posts that email from readers and subscribers (of both QRPer.com and the SWLing Post) has increased to a point that I can no longer keep up with them. It became very evident when I went camping in West Virginia last month and came back home to find no less than 60 messages in my inbox. These 60 messages were all ones needing some sort of reply or acknowledgement–they didn’t include notifications and SPAM.

I take pride in replying to each and every message I receive, but sadly I can no longer keep up with the volume. Sadly, I don’t have enough time especially with my busy family life.

In fact, I realized recently that replying to emails is actually taking a large bite out of the time I have to do content creation. I can’t let that happen, because that could quickly lead to burn-out. Both of my sites are pure labors of love and I enjoy them immensely. Continue reading →

Wireless Flirt episode explores shortwave radio

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I’m very honored to have been interviewed by John Walsh who produces the excellent program Wireless on Flirt FM in Ireland. John reached out to discuss the relevance of the shortwave radio medium, particularly through the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here’s the show description:

In the April 2022 edition of Wireless, we look at the part of the radio spectrum called shortwave, consider its importance in the past and continued relevance in a digital world. Founder of the SWLing blog Thomas Witherspoon discusses the historical development of shortwave, including its heyday during the Cold War, and explains how it continues to be used today, for instance to evade Russian internet censorship during the Ukrainian war. The programme also remembers Irish pirate shortwave operators of the 1980s as featured on our related site Pirate.ie.

Click here to listen to the full show at Wireless Flirt.

John is a true kindred spirit and devoted radio enthusiast. I would encourage you to subscribe to his monthly Wireless episodes via your favorite podcast player; here are links to iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

In addition, John is the one of the founders and curators of Pirate.ie which is a brilliantly documented archive of pirate radio stations in Ireland. I highly recommend checking it out!

2022: A New Year and New Hopes!

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Dear Friends,

I think we can all agree that 2021 was a more challenging year than any of us would have liked.

Here’s hoping 2022 is a turning point in the pandemic, and let’s hope the New Year brings new opportunities to appreciate our world both on the ground and over the airwaves.

Happy New Year!

Thomas

PS: I’d like to thank our friend Carlos Latuff for the brilliant artwork at the top of this page! If you’ve been following Carlos’ posts here on the SWLing Post, you’ll know that during the pandemic he’s been focusing on the world of Clandestine radio and, specifically, the conflict in Ethiopia. His frequent posts remind me that shortwave radio–even in 2022–is still a meaningful source of direct news for certain communities and the signals cannot be stopped at national borders regardless of who is in power.

Thank you, Carlos!