Local Shortwave Listeners Club Planned
In this Internet era with its proliferation of online radio stations, you could be forgiven for perhaps thinking shortwave buffs had gone the way of fans of Morse telegraphy and rotary dial telephones.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
There’s still a thriving worldwide community of enthusiasts who listen to shortwave stations and private ham operators the old fashioned way — on radio sets.
Because radio waves in the shortwave band can be bounced off the ionosphere, they can be be reflected back to Earth at great distances.
By way of contrast radio waves of higher frequencies travel in straight lines, and are limited in terms of the distance they can be received by the visual horizon.
Radios which picked up stations on the shortwave band went on sale in Bermuda decades before the first local commercial broadcaster signed on in 1946.
The sets allowed listeners on this isolated island to open a window on the wider world for the very first time.
And there are still Bermuda residents who enjoy sweeping the radio dial across the shortwave band to tune in far-flung stations and hams from around the world.
In fact a Bermuda Radio Shortwave Listening Club is now in the planning stages.
“The idea is to allow all those young and older listeners of the shortwave band to share information and experiences to keep this hobby alive,” said a spokesperson for club organisers. “Shortwave listening is still alive and well in Bermuda and there’s still lots of local activity on the bands.”
For further information please contact wendan3001@gmail.com
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I started listening to radio in 1940′s with a homemade crystal receiver. (Galena crystal with a ‘cat’s whisker’ wire and a coil wound on a cardboard tube) Never stopped. Now tuning in from ‘DC to Daylight’.