My personal "Golden Age" of shortwave radio was a little earlier but memorable
and a subset of the Cold War. All my most memorable events happened between
the early 1950's and early 1960's.
The first was the slow agonizing death rattle of Joe Stalin as his medical
condition in the final days was the subject of Radio Moscow's news of his
vital signs at the end of each day. This must have gone on for a week or so.
Blood pressure, temperature, pulse rate, etc. were freely shared with the
world. Of course today such medical data will only be shared with next of kin
at least here in the politically correct land of privacy. This went on so long
that many in the USA speculated that he was already dead and the Politboro was
simply trying to figure out a line of succession before they released the news.
The second was the bone-chilling announcement that the USSR had launched an
artificial satellite in October 1957. Radio Moscow gave predict times when you
could tune in to hear it beeping its way around the world. I was in college in
Indiana at the time. They announced when it would be over Chicago the
following Sunday afternoon. I was able to use the old NC-240D receiver in the
residence hall radio club room to tape record Sputnik 1 on 20.005 MHz. Goose
bumps galore.
The third was Radio Moscow's newscast about the downing of Frances Gary Powers
and his U2 spy plane. The US Government explained it away as a scientific
weather resarch flight where the pilot had lost his way. This charade went on
for a day or two and until Kruschev showed pictures on TV of the downed
aircraft and the very sophisticated camera carried by the U2. I wss visiting a
friend in Santa Barbara CA at the time and they just happened to have a nice
Hallicrafters radio enabling us to get the story first hand from the USSR.
The most memorable event in my space-nut opinion was the launch of Yuri Gagarin
for the first orbit of the earth by a human. He described what he was seeing
in Russian while a cross-fade brought the voice of an English speaking woman up
who did a voice-over narration of what he was saying.
Soon after that Relay and Syncom Satellites compressed the world by showing
live TV pictures from across the oceans. SW took only a little more than 5
decades to slowly fade away like that old soldier General MacArthur referred to
in his swan-song retirement speech to the Congress, "Old soldiers never die;
they just fade away. And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my
military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as
God gave him the light to see that duty."
And like that Old Soldier, shortwave radio did its duty by giving us a
first-hand window on the Cold War and likely playing a major role in preventing
it from becoming the Hot War. Like that old soldier, SW radio now fades away
having done its duty. Maybe sombody will someday write of Radio Moscow, Radio
Tirana, VOA, etc. as Churchill might have said, "This was their finest hour."
RIP
Joe Buch
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