My Interest in Shortwave Radio

The first time I explored a shortwave radio was in 1987 when I was 11 years old. My father, a doctor in the Indian Air Force was posted in Mumbai and was serving at the Naval Hospital. We had recently moved into our quarters in a lovely colony for naval personnel called Navy Nagar.



I had some friends at school but very few in our colony so I started spending time with our radio which was a Philips model called Philettina. It had MW and SW options but I was amazed by the different stations from far away countries that I could hear on SW and stuck to it. Soon my favourite station became BBC Worldservice mainly because its reception was clear and it covered news which was becoming my passion to follow not just everyday but every hour. I listened to it so much that I could recognise the names of the broadcasters after hearing their first few words. I kept the radio at my study table and it was on all the time I that was there which was about 2 to 3 hours on weekdays and more than 6 hours on holidays. I also listened to other stations like Deutsche Welle, Radio Moscow, Voice of America, Radio Netherlands, Radio Australia, Radio Sweden, Radio Canada, Radio Japan, Radio France International and ORF from Austria.

I continued with listening to shortwave radio right until I got married in June 2003. From then on I have been listening to my dear wife !! During the years I moved from the Philettina to Philips DL-821 to Sony ICF-SW30 and then finally to my dream radio Sony ICF-SW7600G with AN-LP1 Active Antenna.


A sticker which I received from Radio Sweden