Quote from: xhomerx10 on August 20, 2025, 10:39:57 PM

A little interlude while we're waiting for the corn to rise again.

Ever since I was a child, radio has always fascinated me. I built my first crystal radio kit on my 9th birthday and never looked back. Being able to pull sounds out of the air without the direct use of electricity was mind-bending at the time. A few years later, I got myself one of those AM/FM/VHF/UHF/shortwave receivers and looked for stations almost nightly. I hooked a small speaker through the headphone jack and put it under my pillow so as not to wake anyone else up.

On a good night, I could get KDKA out of Pittsburgh and WBZ out of Boston (and they were quite far away), and I would listen to "Theater of the Mind" before falling asleep. I was also able to pick up the audio channels from TV stations out of the USA, and early on Saturday mornings, I would listen to Roger Ramjet before getting out of bed to watch the rest on TV. I spent many wakeful nights listening to Coast to Coast AM, especially when shift work made it impossible to sleep while others in my time zone were sleeping.

I still listen to the radio almost nightly, but now I generally use TuneIn Radio over the internet; the stations come in much clearer. Sometimes I enjoy tuning into small-town AM stations - it's a refreshing change. KWON out of Bartlesville still has a community call-in show where people can buy, sell, and trade stuff, and they even give their phone numbers over the air... so cute.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that today (August 20th) is National Radio Day in the USA. KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was the first station granted a commercial license back in 1920. WBZ got theirs in 1921.

Oh and wrt radio, this is the coolest page on the internet (imo):

https://radio.garden/

It's a world map full of little green dots representing radio stations - click on one to listen. Happy National Radio Day!

I'm not sure I can reach you with my meager station, but I am K5XXX.

I wish I could give you my real call sign, but the thing about that is..
it's pretty opsec destroying.