h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In 1993 I spent a little over two months in America - a couple of weeks in New York, six weeks in LA, then another week in NY (with a weekend in Atlanta thrown in for good measure).

I stayed with a couple of friends in NY - they lived in a basement apartment near Oyster Bay, and the landlords (a youngish professional couple) lived upstairs. They were good friends with the couple, who often came down, and whilst I was there the husband, John, noticed the short wave radio I'd brought with me to listen to the BBC World Service. Although he didn't know it was mine, he saw it and twigged that it was and why I had it. He said that his family was originally from central Europe, and he remembered as a kid that there was always a short wave radio in the house so that the old folks - the ones who originally moved to America - could listen to news from home via their country's overseas broadcasts.

Ten years down the line I'm living in America and I don't need a short wave radio to listen to the World Service - I can listen to almost any BBC broadcast over the web via live streaming. It's great being able to listen to all the stuff I used to listen to, and with the same kind of quality as a decent FM receiver.

I think I might still get myself a little SW radio though because the internet takes away the fun of wandering up and down the dial, never knowing what you're going to find. Whilst in London I managed to pull in broadcasts from China, and even Vietnam. But getting the stations from behind the Iron Curtain was always exciting, purely because those countries were so inaccessible by any other means and so different, being under the yoke of the Soviet Union. Even though they were mostly less than a thousand miles away, they may as well have been on the other side of the Moon for all that I knew of them.

When I was young and abiding by a regular bedtime, I would have my head under the covers with my ear resting on the SW radio speaker. Listening and imagining far off places, I learned more spanish listening to it than in class!(dials with a green glow)

Now that you mention it, it's when my BBC listening started. The BBC is always in our old movies too. I have certainly been aware of it since elementary school.

*sounds like a BBC commercial--who says you can't go home again ?*

I've got a small SW radio, a Morphy Richards one I picked up for £15. It's great being able to listen to the football on the World Service at my girlfriend's parents house in Italy...

I've always fancied the little Roberts one though (I think it's called the Sportsman) - it's even got 'BBC World Service' printed on it.

As a kid I used to listen to some very fine propoganda broadcasts coming out of Bulgaria and the like, telling me how great their agricultural and steel production had been for the last year. Wonderful stuff

Now I have no idea what waveband this was broadcast on. I think it might have been medium wave plus weird atmospheric distortions. Certainly the radio was no great shakes. It was tiny little beat up transistor job - with a black leatherette case as I recall.

When I lived in North Wales, Radio 4 Long Wave would often suffer interference from Radio Moscow. Thus Brian Perkins reading the news would often be preceded not just by the Greenwich pips or Big Ben, but also, quite audibly, by the Kremlin Chimes.

It's been years since I've heard anything
about Bulgaria. Does it still exist?

I've no idea, I broke the radio 15 years ago now

Would that affect the existance of Bulgaria?

Apparently the existence of fall of countries around the world depends on who listens to them on SW radio.