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Where it all began–photo of my father’s antique RCA 6K3.

I am a long-time fan of shortwave listening. It all started when I was a child growing up in rural North Carolina. Every Sunday morning, my father would turn on his beautiful antique 1936 RCA 6K3 radio and tune to WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado. He liked to keep his watch set to the famous voice of the atomic clock. Occasionally, we would tune around a bit more and hear voices from all over the world: this hooked me. As a young lad with a strong interest in geography, history, politics, and travel, I learned that through SWLing, I could hear unfiltered voices from across the globe. This was in the late 1970s–long before the internet, long before mobile phones.

SWLing is simplicity itself. All it takes to listen to the pulse of the globe is an inexpensive portable radio. It doesn’t matter how remotely you live on this planet, either–with a battery-powered shortwave radio, the world will come to you!  No internet required!