But for me, radio retains the magic it must have held for those who depended upon & marveled at it decades ago. As a teenager, I got a portable radio that could recieve "shortwave" stations from all over the world. That did it. Take a piece of wire, string it across the ceiling or out in the yard, or extend that telescopic whip antenna, & it captures voices & music & data from any spot on the earth where somebody else bothered to hook another piece of wire to a transmitter. A simple piece of wire, snagging all those invisible signals. Ever since then, my interest in radio has been expanding & evolving. Finally, in February of 1999, I decided that just listening to the signals wasn't enough & I obtained an amateur radio license. Now I can send those signals right back. It used to be kind of a geeky, nerdy hobby. These days, the computer gurus have taken over the geeky nerdy turf, & ham radio is seen as more of a quaint old pastime, pursued mostly by old guys with lots of spare time. But man, I love it! There are lot of ways to enjoy radio. What I like is monitoring the AM broadcast band, shortwave listening, scanning, & of course hamming. Hams like to read about other hams' "stuff" & what we do with it, so here:
The Shack:
Main Rig: Yaesu FT-847 (HF & 6 meters, 100 watts; 2 meters & 70 centimeters, 50 watts). But I also spend a lot of time on a 20+ year-old Kenwood TS-820S with a Shure 444 microphone on HF. I think the Kenwood gives me a bit more "punch" on transmit (more power through vacuum tube finals), but the Yaesu definitely has better ears. I do need to install better filters, though; the 847 has trouble with AGC pumping with strong adjacent signals. Also on hand is a Rexon 2 meter handheld. For CW, a Bencher iambic paddles are hooked up to the Yaesu (it has an internal keyer) & a really really cheap straight key goes to the Kenwood.
Antenna: Approximately 135 feet of wire horizontal doublet strung between some trees about 35 feet high. It's the best I can manage here. I feed it with 300 ohm twinlead through an MFJ antenna tuner. Works like a charm on all bands.
That's it! Very simple & spartan compared to some shacks I see & hear, but I've worked all the states & several countries in Europe, South America, & the Carribbean as well as Japan & Anarctica with no trouble.