The BBC has stopped broadcasting to Europe on shortwave, as listeners switch to FM, satellite radio and online delivery. As a boy and young man I used to love trolling the shortwave frequencies on a string of various shortwave sets, starting with a home-made crystal reciever and ending with a (now 20-year-old) sophisticated (for its day) Icom short wave receiver.

The Beeb was a favorite: so were the mysterious ‘numbers stations,’ thought to be encrypted messages for spies and other shady operatives. You could also  hear long-range commercial air craft over, say, the Pacific, transmitting SSB (single side band) shortwave signals when they were out of range of the high-frequency ATC network.

On clear nights when everything was working, you could hear station from thousands of miles away. It’s been awhile since I listened in: I understand there are now digital transmissions on shortwave. I had thought short wave would just go away… 

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