As a kid and later in the pre-internet era, I used to love all things shortwave. I used to listen to the numbers stations, the time stations, broadcasts in any language. It was all so mysterious and hypnotic. There are 2 shortwave radios within 10 feet of me right now, very rarely used nowadays. Sometimes I think I ought to turn off the damn computer and listen in again.

I went through a period of fascination with shortwave, too, during my college years. I remember many late nights spent slowly turning that dial, listening for broadcasts.

I just found a numbers station on Wednesday morning, in Spanish. It's been a long time since I found one, so I was very excited. Dos, cinco, seis, dos! Ocho, dos, tres, cinco!

What radios do you have, DarkForest? I got a Sony ICF760GR for Christmas to replace an old Grundig that gave up the ghost, so I'm very into shortwave right now.

I enjoyed shortwave in college, where they had one in the 24-hour study lounge. If I had one now I'd be obsessed.

I have a Sony ICF-2010, bought in the late 80s, still going fine except the volume control has gotten noisy. That one's upstairs right now, only rarely used. It has good reception, but the audio (speaker) isn't quite as good as my Panasonic RF-3100. It has really good FM reception, so that one's here in my den, on top of my stereo. I use it to pick up the CBC, when I'm in the mood for something different from NPR.

Also nearby is a little battery portable Sangean SG-789. Yeah, analog, baby! It has very good sensitivity and audio when used with earphones.

There's also an old radio, packed away in the garage, maybe a GE. It was the radio of my teenage years.

Nice to know there are some shortwave enthusiasts here.

Recently on the blue.

Back when I contributed to the nascent Conet Project in 1995, I never could have imagined how pervasive it would eventually become. (Of course, I might have also said the same thing about the Internet.)

Wow, you contributed to the Conet project? That is very cool.

You never know WHO you're gonna meet around here. :)

JanetLand (and others), post some of your shortwave findings here sometime! Maybe it will motivate me to try to duplicate your findings.

DarkForest: here are mine.

I have two, haven't had a listening session in awhile though. I purposely got this Grundig because it has audio outs, in order to sample. It is good fun, and you get more of an immediate sense of this big crazy world, as opposed to the Internet.

I just saw The Lives of Others last week, and hadn't thought about what strangeness was happening in East Germany not even 20 years ago, before David Hasselhoff tore down the wall.

And wow, so many great links in this thread.

Oh, yeah. I didn't realize you were shortwavemusic. I've been there before, that's a cool blog. How do you do your recording - straight to computer? I find having the computer on generates too much rf noise to use shortwave, but then, I've never invested in an outdoor antenna.

I don't have a shortwave radio, but I read about numbers stations in Big Secrets many years ago and found them absolutely fascinating.

DF: I've been experimenting with different digital recorders, trying to figure out which ones spew the least RF on the bands, to mixed success. Over the years, I've recorded to cassette, Mini Disc, DAT, and hard drive, but I'm still exploring the various palm-sized units. I do all of my recording out in the field, so I'm not fussed by household or man-made noise. Living in Los Angeles as I do, that'd be rather impossible to circumvent, I'm afraid.