Shortwave Greetings

When I decided to catch shortwave broadcasts from around the world at the turn of the Millennium, I knew it would be a huge undertaking.  What I didn’t know was if the old 1955 Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave radio my dad gave me would be up to the task.  I had an engineer check it out for safety reasons.  He tweaked a few things and thought it would work okay, but said I should always unplug it after use.  The tubes get hot.

I ran that receiver for hours at a time, tuning well into the night up to the big day.  I remember feeling despair at times because of all the unknowns.  It was December in Maine, and the storms could be fierce.  And because the electricity always goes out even on a clear day, a local problem could sink me. 

But there loomed the big one: that Y2K would shut everything down.  So, I started recording broadcasts of countries preparing for the world to come to a halt, in case I missed the turning of the New Year.  I recorded a somewhat dry report from Lithuania worrying about Y2K, and from Nova Scotia thinking out loud as to how it would plan for the possible shut down.

The sky did not fall, and the broadcasts came through.  Here then is the sound of the world coming through the airwaves...

I published an article on the huge task of creating this radio piece.  The article was published in The Radio Post from Dublin and in the newsletters of the Association of Independents in Radio and the New England Antique Radio Club.