A few years ago, I did a video on my YouTube channel called "Radio As a Witness to History". Many of us were at our listening posts or watching TV when a number of events in our world happened. Now, how many recall the first major event in history we had our shortwave receivers for?
I bought my first shortwave receiver in October 1981 when I was a freshman in high school. The first world event I remember having a shortwave receiver for was the crackdown by the Communist government then in place in Poland on the Solidarity trade union during the Christmas season that year. Some of an older generation might have had a shortwave receiver when the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated on November 22, 1963. David Von Pein's JFK Channel on YouTube features coverage from the Voice of America, Radio New York Worldwide, Alistair Cooke's commentary on the BBC along with reports from various United States radio and TV stations and networks. Many of us who were in the hobby in the late 1980s and early 1990s would likely had their radios on during the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, the Tien-an-Men Square demonstrations or the fall of the Soviet Union. Some might have had their shortwave radios on during Operation Desert Storm or when the United States was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Another example: when the United States and Cuba announced the normalization of relations in December 2014, I heard the American side of the story from the American media. I was recording the Cuban side of the story on the computer off Radio Havana Cuba on 6000 kHz that same evening.
I've also had the fortune of owning VHF/UHF scanner equipment. I can still clearly recall the riots in Ferguson, MO in August and November of 2014. Back then, Saint Louis County first responders were on high band VHF. I spent many nights during the riots monitoring the radio traffic coming out of Ferguson and recording it for posterity. Since the Ferguson riots, Saint Louis County first responders have moved radio traffic to the Saint Louis Area Trunked Emergency Radio (SLATER) digital system, which covers Saint Louis, Saint Charles and Jefferson Counties. Most police radio traffic is now encrypted in the Saint Louis area.
Regardless of whether you have the capabilities of receiving the broadcast or public service bands, our radios can be a witness to the history that's unfolding before our ears.
