I ran across this great story about how HAM radio operaters are coming to the rescue to those flooded in Northwestern US. What is ironic about all of this is, that with all of our "state of the art" tech, in the end everything comes down to what is a technology that was born in the first half of the 1800's.
For those of you who are not aware, HAM / Shortwave radio was the web, long before the internet arrived (global communications, broadcasts, data transfers). My older brother received one for a gift on his 10th birthday. I remember listening to late night and anonymous conversations taking place somewhere in space - halfway around the world. We would fall asleep to global station ids, insane appalachian preachers, data transfers and space noise. we'd tune in to eastern bloc/communist radio stations and wonder how it was that they could be so "evil & misguided" (please keep in mind, I was a child and the "Cold War" was alive and kicking.
When I was a teenager, I learned how to play "Stairway to Heaven" by turning knobs (BFO Pitch). While I wasn't a techie with it, my experience has been very memorable.
Years later, I dug it out the attic and and hooked it up to some effects processors and ran it thru a dj mixer with some foot pedals. Beyond providing otherworldly broadcasts it produced sweeps that were so ridulously thick and warm. It actually has made it one a couple of our recordings over the years.
The sad thing is that with it being on the road so much over the years, it definitely needs a bit of TLC.
Sorry if this post bored you ... but this was probably the only time that I could ever write about HAM radio. So take that one off of the list.
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