[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we continue our WNYC centennial series, 100 years of 100 Things. Today, thing number 97, just a few to go, the history of shortwave radio. Why this? Well, if you've been listening to On The Media lately, you know why. If not, here's a little background. Shortwave radio operates on frequencies generally between 1.6 and 30 megahertz, while long wave radio, like AM and FM, that some of you are listening to right now, operates on frequencies between 30 and 300 kilohertz. I hope I have my mega and my kilo right before hertz.

As we learn in this segment, as we will learn in this segment, that largely depends on the sun. If you have access to shortwave radio, depending on the time of day, you could potentially hear shortwave transmissions from all over the globe. It's because of this that shortwave radio was once seen as an international form of mass communication. Think of it like the internet, but way before the internet. as some of you know, our colleagues in On The Media are in the middle of season two of the Peabody-winning series, The Divided Dial, which tells the story of shortwave, thus this season two, and how much like the internet that came later on, it took a "turn for the chaotic, skewing hard toward the political right." What you may have thought was an obsolete medium, except for hobbyists, is actually much more than that in today's political world.

Season two of the series explains how the little-known battle playing out on the shortwaves today might say a lot about how we regard our public airwaves generally. Host of the Divided Dial, Katie Thornton, joins us now to walk us through some of that history, 100 years of that history. When she's not hosting On The Media's The Divided Dial series. She's an independent journalist, public historian, and a full Bright fellow. Katie, thanks for coming back on. Welcome back to the show.

Katie Thornton: So nice to be back with you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Our listeners probably know that AM radio was launched right about a hundred years ago in the 1920s. When did shortwave radio begin?

Katie Thornton: Yes, that's a really great question. Broadcasting as a medium on radio really started in the early 1920s, and it started on AM radio, broadcasting did. Prior to broadcasting, as in from one-to-many, radio was really like a one-to-one communication tool. It was used mostly by ship captains, and the military, and also by amateur radio operators, what we would call the ham radio folks, who were testing this early technology in the 19-teens and in the 1920s.

What really just started as a one-to-one communication eventually grew into this one-to-many communication tool that we know and love now, radio broadcasting. Shortwave radio broadcasting started actually after AM radio broadcasting. There was sort of a fluke of science that shortwave uses to be able to reach really, really far distances that AM and the FM radio that we know and love can't reach. It really used this fluke of science that was discovered by those amateur radio operators back in the 19-teens and early 1920s to eventually get broadcasting stations that were covering half the world around.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, I bet we have some short shortwave enthusiasts among you tuning in right now. How do you use shortwave radio, or how have you ever? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. What sort of broadcasts have you either been involved in yourself, or just have you come across when surfing the waves? Help us report this story. Give us some oral history of you or anybody else up the generations in your family as a shortwave radio operator or a listener. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

We would love to hear some of your shortwave radio anecdotes as we try to contribute listeners' oral histories to all our 100 Years of 100 Things segments to the extent that we can, or any questions that you may have for our history of radio expert, Katie Thornton, host of On The Media's Divided Dial series. If you've been listening with rapt fascination as I have to the series and say, "I really like to ask Katie this," well, of course, I don't take calls on OTM, but we do here, so you can ask Katie Thornton a question. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 call or text.

Skipping ahead, going up the timeline from the 1920s to the late 1930s, you report that almost all home radio sets had AM and shortwave settings. No country was using it to their advantage like Germany was, Nazi Germany. We're going to take a listen to a clip, folks from episode one of the Divided Dial where Katie introduces listeners to how Germany was beginning to use radio to transmit Nazi propaganda all over the world. This is an excerpt from that episode where she spoke with Michael Helms, a retired professor of media studies who has written a lot about radio, who introduced listeners to a few of the main characters who promoted Nazi propaganda through shortwave to American audiences.

Katie Thornton: You had people like Axis Sally.

Axis Sally: This is Berlin calling, and I just like to say that when Berlin calls, it pays listen.

Katie Thornton: She was an American living in Berlin. She became the first American woman to be convicted of treason after the war, but she was broadcasting into the United States on shortwave.

Axis Sally: Women of America, waiting for the one you love, thinking of a husband who is being sacrificed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Katie Thornton: You might have heard of a person called Lord Haw-Haw.

Lord Haw-Haw: The great exodus from Britain is well underway.

Katie Thornton: He was a British man named William Joyce, who was working in Germany broadcasting on their shortwave service.

Lord Haw-Haw: The rich and affluent are removing themselves from their valuables as fast as they can.

Brian Lehrer: That from the Divided Dial. Katie, beyond Jew hatred, what were the Germans trying to promote with radio characters like Axis Sally and Lord Haw-Haw?

Katie Thornton: This was the government-run radio service coming out of Germany in the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. Because the US was quite slow to join in on the war effort, they were really trying to convince a lot of Americans, in particular, that they should not join the war effort, that the US should stay out of the war effort or should join on the other side. Germany had had a shortwave broadcasting station that was broadcasting out to a lot of countries since, I believe, the early 1930s, possibly even the 1920s. They have started by playing a lot of orchestral music, building a global audience, a lot of music and other programming.

As World War II ramped up, they ended up beaming out. They chose to beam out this Nazi propaganda to, I believe, 12 different languages, bespoke, tailored to the portions of the world that they were targeting with these shortwave broadcasts. The US really was, as we heard in that clip, a prime target. They used voices of Americans, they used voices of British folks, and they were really trying to convince people that Germany was on the right side in the war.

It's interesting because at the time, this is something we covered in season one of the Divided Dial, at the time, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the US government actually made it illegal to propagandize essentially on the domestic airwaves. It made it illegal to have a political opinion, essentially briefly, for about a decade or so on the domestic airwaves, but the US federal government did not have any say over broadcasts that were emanating in from Germany and from other countries. American citizens could still hear this propaganda via shortwave.

Brian Lehrer: In response to the propaganda, journalists at CBS and NBC, your report, launched counteroffensives. Can you tell us what that sounded like? It's hard to imagine today the major networks, of course, now everything is so fractured, but even so the major networks specifically addressing shortwave broadcasts as being influential in the United States, spreading enemy propaganda,

Katie Thornton: Right, and I think it really goes to show just how influential these broadcasts were in the United States. I mean, like we said earlier, by the late 1930s, most home radio sets had AM, your typical AM, your local stations, but also a shortwave setting. What happened was that journalists at some of these networks, the big three, CBS- they started to launch these counteroffensives where they would have, what were they called, shortwave listening posts. They would listen to shortwave radio broadcasts that were coming into the US and they would record it and they would essentially debunk the enemy propaganda. They really made it entertaining. There was one show that we talked about in the series, a CBS show called Our Secret Weapon, and that was hosted by a detective novelist, a very popular detective novelist at the time named Rex Stout.

He really brought people in on what they might be hearing on shortwave radio broadcasts, and then said, "They reported that this person and this person met on this date, but we found out it's actually this date." They'll say things like, "You can't beat that for a scoop." They really made it a good investigative journalism, but also made it entertaining for people to listen to. This was going out domestically on AM stations to a lot of stations around the country, but also these big networks had shortwave stations as well, and so they were also reaching around the world.

Brian Lehrer: Staying in the 1930s and the response to Nazi propaganda via shortwave. You report in the series that that's when the US government launched Voice of America, which listeners who don't probably follow Voice of America in this country may have heard of recently, because in March of this year, President Trump moved to defund that program. That's for America and American broadcasters to give legitimate news to people around the world. Same with the BBC launching the World Service right at that time. Of course, that survives to this day, the program that precedes this program is an hour of the BBC World Service. Those things were also kind of in response. You tell me how directly in response to Nazi propaganda being around being beamed around the world on shortwave.

Katie Thornton: Yes, very directly in response. The Voice of America was started during World War II, and it had dual purposes. It sought to connect troops abroad to their families and to listeners at home and vice versa, but it also sought to bring relevant and accurate news of the war to people on the home front but also to people overseas. Before shortwave radio, it took a long time to get information about what was happening overseas.

Phones weren't very easily accessible. It was very costly to make a long-distance phone call. Letters took a very, very long time. Shortwave radio is an instantaneous global medium, and so people were able to get up-to-date and accurate news from around the world in a way that really hadn't been possible in something like World War I, for example. It really changed how people understood war, and it also changed completely how we reported on war.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a caller relevant to the World War II era. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're in 100 Years of 100 Things series, thing number 97, 100 years of shortwave radio with Katie Thornton, who's reporting this amazing history and current use, largely by the political right of shortwave radio history and current analysis. We're lucky to have Katie joining us today on loan from On The Media for this segment, putting it in our 100-year frame, and taking oral histories from you that are relevant at 212-433-WNYC. Sharon in Nyack with the World War II era call, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sharon. Thank you for calling in.

Sharon: Hi. Yes, my dad served in the South Pacific in World War II in the Signal Corps. When I was young, he was a shortwave enthusiast. He actually died when I was young, so I never got a chance to really ask him about the Signal Corps. His records were lost. Military records were lost in DC, so anything Katie can tell me about that, I'd appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Sharon, thank you. Katie, is this up your alley enough?

Katie Thornton: Yes. Thanks so much. A lot of what we focus on in this series has to do more with broadcasting, the sort of from one-to-many medium, rather than the individuals who were using this technology as more of a one-to-one, really necessary, really vital military communication. While I can't say too much about the Signal Corps, specifically, what I will say is that what I've found from a lot of the reporting that I have done, there's a lot of overlap between folks who worked in the one-to-one communications and folks who are just interested in the technology of radio, right?

I mean, it takes a very specific kind of mind and curiosity to dive into this technology, especially at that time when it was still quite a new technology and things were being discovered about its use all the time. I think there was a lot of overlap between folks who were using this technology to aid with the military, and also people who were just listening and curious to hear what they could pick up from around the world.

Like Sharon said, a lot of people who ended up using this technology and working with this technology during their military service, a lot of them remained active as amateur radio operators or as what folks referred to as broadcast listeners, folks who are listening to these stations that are emanating out from from around the world. One of the most moving parts of this whole series, for me, which I spent a lot of time listening to old archival broadcasts and to old recordings, there was a recording that I found that we were able to include some of the audio in episode one. There was a recording of a man who sent a message to his mom while he was fighting overseas in World War II.

He sent a message to his mom out via shortwave for his mom to receive in the US. This was on one of the US government-sponsored broadcasts. He was really opening up. It was like a very personal letter that he was willing to share. It was intended for his mom, but he was sharing it with this wide audience, and it really gave all the listeners on the home front a view into what the war was like and the loneliness that he was experiencing. I'm so grateful for those archival recordings. There were so many that I got to hear, and some that we got to include in this series. That really just brings to life that history in a way that I feel very grateful to be able to have heard.

Brian Lehrer: I really have to say for people who haven't been listening to the series themselves, that the audio archival research that you did and the clips that you've pulled from a hundred years of shortwave radio, and we're playing a few, we have a few to go yet in this segment, but what you did for this on the media series, I mean, it must have taken years of research. Then the way you weave it all together in a narrative history, I can't even find the words for how much praise I have for you for this. Listeners, their series isn't done yet. You've done three out of the four episodes so far on On The Media, right, Katie?

Katie Thornton: Yes, that's right. The fourth is coming out tomorrow via streaming, and then it'll go out over the airwaves this weekend on On The Media.

Brian Lehrer: Now moving up the timeline, following World War II, we moved into the Cold War era as you did. In the 1950s, Radio Free Europe launched to combat anti-communist propaganda in response to the USSR broadcasting Radio Moscow. Let's take a listen to about 50 seconds of some of what that moment on shortwave sounded like. This starts with an archival audio clip from Radio Moscow. Then you'll hear Radio Free Europe.

Radio Moscow: America hit a new high in crime. According to FBI reports to the president, nearly half of the criminals were young people. The causes of this menacing situation are well-known. The pornographic pictures distributed among adolescents and the exhibitions of abstract paintings and statues that say nothing to either the heart or the mind.

Katie Thornton: The BBC and the VOA were expanding too, sending more and more coverage over the Iron Curtain, but the United States government wanted to reach people in Eastern Europe with messages that weren't so obviously propaganda as the literal voice of America, so they lied.

Radio Free Europe: Radio Free Europe gets through with the truth every day.

Katie Thornton: Debuting in 1950, Radio Free Europe was a flame-throwing anti-communist shortwave network.

Radio Free Europe: Into the closed communist countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, go the facts, the people are not allowed to hear.

Brian Lehrer: Clips of Radio Moscow and of Radio Free Europe with some of Katie Thornton's narration in between there. Just as a kind of footnote, Radio Moscow is going after abstract art as a way to hurt the United States and the West. Did you hear that in the clip? Did we lose Katie? Oh, yes, we lost you for a second. You're back.

Katie Thornton: Okay, great. Thanks for playing that clip. I really love those clips. As you heard in those clips, they're really going after on both the US side and the USSR side, they're really going after hearts and minds, and really seeking to define popular culture in a lot of ways. I mean, shortwave radio, if people are familiar with shortwave broadcast radio at all, they probably know it as the Cold War medium. Even though it really started during World War II or really took off during World War II as a global medium, it really found its sea legs during the Cold War. It was really one of the most ferocious battles of the Cold War, whether it was reporting tinged with a little bit of propaganda or straight propaganda that was disguised as reporting. There you had all of that coming out from all sides.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call relevant to that era. Rich in Morrisville, Vermont, remembers listening to Radio Moscow in the 1960s. Do I have that right, Rich? Hi, you're on WNYC.

Rich: Hi. Yes, I originally had a pilot radio that had AM, FM, and shortwave settings. I got into it in the late '50s and started listening to Radio Moscow and everything else because it was a way to bring the world into my bedroom in Fresh Meadows, Queens. [chuckles] It was really quite a thrill to be able to hear all these stations from all over the world. I later became an amateur radio operator and got my license there. Then it became more. Radio Moscow became a nuisance because there is an amateur radio band at 7 Megahertz, and that's [unintelligible 00:21:29] was blasting through and interfering. It was a blessing and a curse.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you to pluck your memory here. Is there any moment from hearing Radio Moscow or even anything else you were listening to at that time that just sticks in your brain? "Oh, I remember the time when I heard--" do you have anything like that?

Rich: No, to tell you the truth, I don't because it was more a question of just listening to them. I remember listening to, hearing, "This is Radio Moscow," [chuckles] and hearing it [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, just that, just the ID. Yes. Are you still involved in ham radio or shortwave radio? Just to jump to the present for a second, are you hearing it used for contemporary political propaganda?

Rich: No, I don't listen anymore to shortwave radio. I am sporadically on the air up here, where I have my-- I still have my amateur license, and I do get on the air every once in a while. The main thing that I think that killed the allure of shortwave radio for me is the internet, because it's no big deal to talk to somebody around the world.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Rich, thank you for your call. We really appreciate your oral history there. Moving on to the 1970s Katie report, the CIA's secretive role at Radio Free Europe was revealed. What was the public's response? Did it get discredited either here or abroad?

Katie Thornton: No, it didn't. It didn't get discredited. I think it was 1971. It was the early '70s that it came out officially that the CIA was funding Radio Free Europe. You know, Radio Free Europe had positioned itself as a shortwave network that was run by exiles and emigrés, and it absolutely did employ those folks. It was funded by the CCIA a so it had a very, very clear mission.

By that point in the '70s, shortwave radio had become so vital to the Cold War effort that there wasn't really a question that it would keep going, as Rich mentioned. This is before the internet and so this shortwave radio was the way to get this news from around the world. It was seen as very important to the US government to continue to spread, to use this soft power tool to spread the goals of the US around the world. Similarly, to other governments around the world, it was, it was seen as an important tool for them to continue to use.

Within the US when the CIA's role came out, there wasn't a lot of controversy around it. At that point, it had almost sort of been a bit of an open secret, and instead, it was given an official congressional appropriation, and its funding was increased. It played news, it played propaganda, but also both the Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, which was still going strong, played a lot of music as well, which I think is really fascinating. You really see that it's really this battle for the culture as well. A lot of jazz, especially in the mid-century. Then in the '70s and '80s, there was a lot of rock music, hair metal, things like this on our publicly supported, government-supported airwaves.

Brian Lehrer: Would you say, do you have a take on whether to counteract Russian or Soviet propaganda, which was clearly propaganda, you'd clearly label it as propaganda, that we were putting out propaganda of our own that deserves that label or we're putting out legit news as a way of using soft power by being credible and sticking to the facts more or less and that was one of the differences? You know what I'm asking?

Katie Thornton: Yes, absolutely, I do. I think to answer your question, was it news, or was it propaganda? The answer is that it was both. I think you can look to the American government for this answer because, at the time, the American government actually made it such that Voice of America could not primarily broadcast to Americans. There was a law that was put in during the 1900s that was against propagandizing to your own people, to the American people. For that reason, the Voice of America was not until sometime in the 2000s very available to Americans. It is clear that they did see this as propaganda, the Americans did, but the idea, if not always perfectly executed, the idea was that the free press would be the best promotion, the best advertisement for America that you could have. In some ways, they really succeeded with that. In some ways, it was imperfectly executed.

I think something that I want to acknowledge as well is that the Russian stations, for example, also there were Cuban stations that were broadcasting as well, they certainly were broadcasting propaganda, but they were also sometimes reporting factual news coverage about things like segregation within the United States. That's something that they were really focused on, rightfully so, in their broadcasts. There's this show that we were able to include a little snippet of from the 1960s from Radio Havana, the Cuban station that was broadcast into the United States.

They gave a platform for Black American activists who weren't given a platform or weren't given access to the mainstream airwaves within the US. They were very, very quick to point out, rightfully so, the ironies of racism in America versus what was being broadcast over things like the VOA and Radio Free Europe. They responded by giving some Americans a voice on their station as well, and allowing American listeners to hear it via something like Radio Havana.

Brian Lehrer: Moving up the timeline, Rachel in Croton-on-Hudson is going to represent the '90s. Rachel, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Rachel: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I was just wanted to chime in that I was in the Peace Corps in Cameroon from 1992 to 1994. I lived in a very rural village. I had a shortwave radio, and that was my only source for news or entertainment. I can remember listening to it. I was surrounded around my radio, with my students. I was teaching English, and we were listening to the election results of Bill Clinton winning the election, and the whole village just erupted and celebrated. I don't know what I would've done without my shortwave

Brian Lehrer: Good oral history contribution. Rachel, thank you very much. All right. After a break, Katie's going to bring us up to the present. We may have time for a few more of your oral history calls on Shortwave radio, but Katie's going to bring us up to the present, which I think was the impetus for doing this series in the first place, the role of shortwave radio on today's political right. Stay with us for that.

[MUSIC - Soulive: Solid]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. A few more minutes with Katie Thornton, who's been doing that amazing The Divided Dial series on shortwave radio on On The Media episode four in this coming weekends OTM if you listen to it on the radio. I think it drops tomorrow online. Katie said the episode four out of four, so that'll wrap it up. To bring it to the present in this 100 Years of 100 Things context you want to set up this last clip that we pulled. This is of Mark Koernke, if I'm saying that right, known as Mark from Michigan, on something called Radio Free America. Maybe give us some context for this, for how shortwave radio is becoming a thing for today's political right.

Katie Thornton: Yes, so this is actually going to be a clip from back in the '90s. We spend episode three talking about how shortwave radio really became a tool for the far right militia movement, burgeoning militia movement in the 1990s, and ended up playing a role in the Oklahoma City bombing. In the 1990s, the US is kind of unusual in that we allow private citizens to own and operate shortwave stations. That's not the case in a lot of countries. In the 1990s, as you'll hear in episode three, a lot of people on the far right started to buy up airtime on US shortwave stations. They were broadcasting to us audience, but also to a global audience. This clip is from that, and then we can talk, after we hear that, we can talk a little bit about how that evolved into the present and how they took some of this messaging and brought it to the early internet as well.

Brian Lehrer: All right, so the first voice you'll hear in this clip is Mark Koernke, known as Mark from Michigan on Radio Free America in the '90s.

Mark Koernke: Now, I did some basic math the other day, not new world order math, and I found that using the old style math, you can get about 4 politicians for 120-foot rope. Always try and find a willow tree. The entertainment will last longer.

JR Lind: He had wild theories that the UN had stationed thousands of Gurkhas, who were these specialized British soldiers from Nepal and Burma, in Michigan to take over the US.

Katie Thornton: This is JR Lind. Years ago, he wrote a story for Nashville's Alt Weekly about WWCR and its reputation for having a wide-open door when it came to who could get on the air.

JR Lind: That attracted some more conspiracists, if for no other reason than this was a place where they could broadcast, right? They weren't going on CBS News.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Katie, that was pretty direct, where he seemed to be calling to get rope to hang politicians. Connect that to today.

Katie Thornton: Yes, sure. As I mentioned in the '90s, there were a lot of very far-right anti-government militia leaders who started taking to the airwaves on shortwave. Shortwave is a very difficult medium. Shortwave broadcasting is very difficult medium to make pay. Advertising doesn't really work on shortwave. Who are you going to advertise to when your audience is global, especially in an era before the internet? The model of shortwave broadcasting, privately owned shortwave stations, is to have people pay for airtime. Often, that airtime is really cheap.

In the '90s, people on the far right started buying up airtime and broadcasting this message using it as a recruiting tool. They really got a lot of practice building a far-reaching audience and spreading a message of hate and using this medium, this instantaneous global medium to recruit, and really honed a practice that they ended up bringing to the early internet. A lot of far-right leaders who had shows on shortwave in the '90s ended up having a following on the early internet. They took their lessons and brought it to early message boards.

In the internet era it's changed quite a bit. As mentioned earlier, the internet, I think in a lot of people's eyes, has gotten rid of the need for shortwave radio. I don't think that's entirely true. It's a different technology. It's very magical in a lot of ways to pick up broadcasts from around the world. There are still quite a bit of interesting and not hateful broadcasts on the shortwave today. You do also hear that there are a handful of very, very loud voices, very prominent voices on shortwave, people who buy airtime in bulk, sometimes 24 hours a day on some frequencies for things like very far right preaching conspiracy theories.

In episode three, I actually was able to visit a station with a very powerful antenna that can reach every continent on the planet. Pumping out of that antenna is 24/7 preaching from a flat-earth ministry. In episode three, we tell the story of how it came to be that one of the most powerful privately owned broadcasting facilities on earth is a 24/7 flat earth preaching.

Brian Lehrer: Does anybody listen to shortwave radio enough that it makes a difference in this era of the internet?

Katie Thornton: You know, people do still listen to shortwave radio, but one thing that I want to point out is that oftentimes the loudest voices on shortwave are not necessarily representative of what the people who love the medium really want to hear. We did an experiment where we have actually been broadcasting On The Media, the weekly show on shortwave, every week for almost a year now. We've been soliciting responses from listeners around the world, and we got a lot of voice memos and messages from listeners in North America in particular. A lot of them said that they don't necessarily like to hear the hateful rhetoric, the conspiracy theories, the preaching. They like the act of picking up that broadcast, but don't necessarily love the content. They were very excited to hear something like On The Media on the shortwaves today.

Brian Lehrer: Katie, can't wait to hear the final episode in the series this week. Thanks so much for giving us some time today.

Katie Thornton: Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for listening. It's really been a joy to report this.

Brian Lehrer: Katie had to go a few minutes before the end of the show. We're going to take another oral history or two. Ray in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ray.

Ray: Hi, Brian. Nice to speak with you. I wanted to tell you about my building super, who showed me his elaborate ham radio setup at one point, which took up a whole wall of his office, like a column of what looked like radio receivers to me, or just stereo receivers. I had never-- I don't know ham radio from shortwave or how this is possible, but he showed me that he collects, like there's a system that he uses to show what countries he's made contact with and who he's been able to talk to. He showed me that he had a badge from Estonia, a badge from Lithuania, Russia, these countries that were increasingly far away, and that he would get a sort of award badge when he'd contacted, for being a 50-country contactor, 100-country--

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Amazing.

Ray: He told me that he has a competitive relationship with his brother, who also is a ham radio enthusiast who contacted the moon supposedly. I'm not sure what they engage with on those contacts, but he had one-upped him recently by contacting the International Space Station.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] That's hilarious. Does your super tell you any stories of what he learns from these countries or is he just collecting badges to say, "Look how many countries I've contacted?"

Ray: It really feels like it's about the badges for him, Brian. It's like a Neopets [unintelligible 00:37:20] acquisition because, again, I think with the language barrier, I'm not sure what they would be exchanging, but I think they're brief, but--

Brian Lehrer: It is fascinating that you could do that, that you could have sort of penpals, but if you can get past the language barrier, conversation pals in all kinds of corners of the world. Thank you very much. Here's another one, Suzanne in Philadelphia. You're on WNYC. Hi, Suzanne.

Suzanne: Hi. Hi, Brian. This story takes me back to early 1981 when I was dating my husband. He lived on Staten Island. He was at Cooper Union, so he was a math, science, and engineering guy. From the time he was young, he had this interest in shortwave radio. He had to take Morse code, and he had to learn certain-- He had to get up to a certain speed. He shared all this with me.

The interesting part was though there was a group of amateur radio people on Staten Island. We were just dating, so he took me to meet these people. I was amazed at how much older the men were. Many of them had been veterans and many either in World War II, the oldest was, and then the youngest, I think, had maybe been in, I guess, there was the Korean War and Vietnam. There was this wide swath of people, and there's this young guy, but they basically did it for communication. They kept logs of who they communicated with, and when they met, they would share who they had met with.

They did exchange, and they did have badges. When we married and moved to Queens, he brought all of his stuff. Then, when we moved to Maplewood, New Jersey, he also brought it all, and then eventually he said he's never going to use it again. It was a big part of his life growing up, and I think it was a testament to finding ways to communicate with the rest of the world.

Brian Lehrer: Nicely said, Suzanne. Thank you very much. Good place to leave it for the latest installment of our 100 Years of 100 Things centennial series, thing number 97, the history of shortwave radio. Again, we thank Katie Thornton, host of The Divided Dial, the series on WNYC's On The Media. The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Serna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our Daily Politics Podcast. Our intern this term is Henry Serringer. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio, and that was Shayna Sengstock and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls today. Stay tuned for Alison.

 

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.