I recently had a customer come into the store who was looking to buy a shortwave radio. I was immediately stumped. Shortwave? Isn’t that the same as AM and FM radio I asked myself.

Nope and no are the answers to this question.

The lady continued while my mind congested, a congestion that was a direct result of a lack of self confidence that any new sales person, who has found themselves out of their depths has sure to have had experienced more than once in their careers. “I used to travel to the Phillipines and Japan and I could listen to the BBC in England and I could also listen to radio stations in New York”. I was stumped, either this lady was bonkers or I didn’t know what she was talking about. Everyone knows that AM and FM radio stations are hard to get at the best of times, there’s simply no way of hearing a live broadcast on the other side rod the world, or so I thought. Turns out it was my lack of knowledge, the lady was correct, shortwave radio used to be a popular format that would allow listeners to hear broadcasts from all over the world? So what happened? Why did this format largely vanish from the earth? Well, the truth is, this format hasn’t vanished. In fact all major international radio broadcasters still broadcast in shortwave radio formats. The only problem being is that you need a special type of receiver to be able to listen to them and for that you will need to know where to buy them from. You see, they are hard to get, but not impossible. I found that if you’re r looking to buy in store today, that Jay-car in Australia was one of the better options for acquiring this mysterious device. Radio shack in the United States is another. They are decently valued as well, one set in Australia was selling for $34.95. Now that’s a bargain! The quality of the product is probably something left to be desired but at least they sell them. There are other options as well. Tecsunradios.com has perhaps the best variety of Shortwave radios available as does Amazon and if all else fails there’s always EBay.

Taking the time to learn this new information lead me down a rabbit hole into the spooky world of something called number stations. Number stations are short wave broadcasts that sometimes contain a segment of music followed by a series of numbers. These numbers are said to represent something of value to the receiver whom the broadcast was designed for. In other words these broadcasts are for people you would prefer to remain anonymous, who would prefer to transmit encrypted data thousands of miles anonymously. In other words, these are spy broadcasts that anyone can listen to provided you stumble upon the broadcast frequency itself and than they vanish. Just like the spies who sent them in first place.

Turns out I may need to get my hands on one to learn more. Shortwave radio is simply fascinating and as a matter of fact, so are number stations.