My real love sits glowing in the basement.
I have a house full of computers -- I enjoy them and make a living with them -- but I've never recovered from an early love affair with shortwave radio. There's a room in the basement lined with radios -- some new and computerized along with a few old ones that glow in the dark from light produced by their tubes.
Many a night I sit down there pulling voices from the static. Perhaps there's an airliner checking in with New York traffic control as it crosses the Atlantic, or a commercial shortwave broadcaster talking about a music festival in a town spelled with more consonants than vowels.
Shortwave monitoring is like fishing: You are never sure what you are going to catch. For me, that's part of the magic. And it's a direct pipeline to the news of the day. Stories that seemed distant and a bit unreal over the TV take on a new dimension. You hear the voices, the local take on things -- unfiltered by American sensibilities.
The first time I wrote a column about shortwave radio my editors were aghast. No one cares, they told me. It's old tech, not high tech. But each time I do this, I hear from nostalgic readers who want to try it again as well as from folks who almost instinctively understand the magic and want a part of it.
Luckily it's easy to try and not very expensive, either. There's no need to buy one of my old tube type monster receivers. While my huge antennas -- some are just wire strung between trees, others amount to forests of aluminum tubing -- make things better, you can take part without all that. All you need is a battery-operated receiver that uses a whip antenna. They can be had for $100 or a bit more.
Even if you try it and lose interest, the battery-powered radio will have its uses. The radios I'll mention also pick up regular AM and FM broadcasts. They'll serve you well for listening to a ballgame while outdoors, or -- even more important -- as a way to keep up with local news when some weather catastrophe knocks out the power in your home.
But I'm betting that a few of you will find these shortwave windows to the world even more interesting than the Microsoft Windows variety. Navigating the shortwave bands is so much easier these days; digital tuning helps you find stations without a bunch of searching.
I can help with the shopping. While there are hundreds of radios that would work just fine, I'll recommend a few based on price and performance. But you may also want to learn a little more -- that way you can come up with your own list of radios based on your preferences.
Here's a Web site that offers an excellent introduction to shortwave listening: www.hamuniverse.com/shortwave.html.
Now here's my short list of radios to consider:
The Sangean ATS505P sells for a few bucks more than $100 and provides a surprising array of features. Here's one merchant who sells the radio: http://tinyurl.com/d6kwj.
Receivers made by Grundig are generally top-notch. For beginners, the Grundig G5 can be a good choice. Here's a site that will tell you more and also provides a way to order the radio: http://tinyurl.com/yypd6po. I provide these links as a way to let you read about the radios in detail. Smart shoppers will Google around to find the best deal.
My favorite battery-operated shortwave receiver is no longer in production. It's the Sony 2010. But if you check eBay you're likely to find a used one. Even used you are likely to pay twice what either of the radios above cost new, but it's an amazingly good radio.
Give it a try. You'll get a little static if you do, but that's part of the magic.
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