A short wave radio geek

With internet streaming from Tunin Radio the whole planet is opened up at the touch of a button.

I remember in the "old days" tuning in with my faithful Nordmende Globetrotter  short wave receiver to programs from across the world. With ever so fine tuning the short wave spectrum was spread across a number of bands as you tweeked the tuning knob just a little to find the signal. Lots of static, lots of noise and whistles and then out of the either there she was the signal and the voice you were looking for. The imagination flew to the country or the city the broadcast was being sent from, this was especially true if it was music. Strange to our ears, the sound of Chinese music discordant but mystical or the beautiful  melodious voices calling the faithful to prayer from Tehran, seeped in the sands of time, a call as regular as the BBC pips.
Crouched over the tuning dial the world was your oyster as you sought to escape or get into contact. The familiar strains of the BBCs signature tune meant you were in London, back home amongst the wet busy streets, close by on the dial  the sound of an Aussie in Alice swotting flies, or the husky sophistication of a deep throated American voice announcing the next play of a modern jazz theme. South American music or the improvisation of a Congolese station were all there to pull you away and excite the imagination.
Today it's too clinical, too easy. The fun of the find has been taken out of your hands by technology. The Crystal clear signal comes as if from next door, it has been neutered of distance and mystique, the flies and the sand have been removed. The traditional garb the smells of the cooking pot transformed into an antiseptic studio with a white shirted announcer perched in front of a microphone, much the recent global content of uniformity. Certainly a far cry from the fetish of a seasoned shortwave receiver geek with his Ariel strung across the garden, a specialised computation of length to the wave spectrum designed for optimum signal strength. Late at night when the atmospherics were best and the reflective layers in the ionosphere worked towards good propagation one listened, mesmerised to a world going about its business, a world so rich in variance, so different to ones own patch, a place to visit and explore.
Today the Aussie farmer is bemoaning the drought or the price he is getting for his wool,
a whole different compartment in the train leading us to the same destination. The forest fires or the flooding are dreadful in their local content but no less down to earth is to hear a local station in Louisiana talk of the disintegration of their suburban environment or the excited chatter between two people in Brazil discussing their music and a festival soon to take place.
The world going about its business puts a perspective on our own lives and the norms we carry around in our heads.
We are blessed with Radio 4 and so much of the BBCs output. The impact of the tight broadcasting format has produced professionalism and when I listen to the gibberish that often takes the place of serious discussion on perhaps 702 in South Africa I must stop and remind myself that Radio reflects so much else than the spoken word and a nation evolving with a people who for the first time have a voice is indeed a wonderful thing.