The personal web site of Rick Koshko (married name Rick Wiegmann Koshko).
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My compendium of links to useful, interesting, and cool web sites.


RADIO LINKS
Radio listening hobby
Shortwave intro
Shortwave news sources
SINPO code
Pri kurtonda radio

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Click here for the email form.


I've always had a passion for radio listening. Not just hearing popular songs on the local hit station. I like tuning all over the dial (radios of antiquity actually had dials) hearing stations from all over the planet. When I was growing up, one of the local newspapers published weekly a list of radio stations, frequencies, and formats. I got the idea to make my own list--all the stations I could hear.

Part of the desire was to find out what all those formats were. I wasn't sure what "disco" meant, but I knew it was a fairly popular kind of music. I knew "rock" and "classical" music when I heard them. I was less certain about calling something "jazz" and I held no concept of "soul". I don't remember what I thought about "country".

And part of my desire was like a hungry person's desire to eat. Making that list of radio stations was something I just knew I had to do. And when I started, I was like the hungry person tasting the finest cuisine. I had to have more. For a few years, I thought I was the only person in the world who enjoys this sort of diversion. Finally, as a teenager, I found Glenn Hauser's "World of Radio" program on shortwave. It was a half hour of news and radio listening tips put together just for people like me.

I learned that some radio buffs build their own specially designed antennas to trap distant signals. And I learned that I wasn't the only one sometimes listening to one barely audible station for hours at a time just to hear a call sign and write it down. There was no reason not to think of it as a respectable hobby. But you're either into this or you're not. You either have the bug and understand exactly what I'm talking about or you think I ought to just download RealAudio and get on with my life.