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Another Short Wave Radio Story

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col1948
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Another Short Wave Radio Story

Post by col1948 »

This is going back many years, I was painting in the hallway and I had the radio on listening to a talk show, a man came on and talked about something I knew a bit about, short wave radio.

Hi story was about his son who when he was younger used to listen to the short wave and pick up far away stations, I'm not sure they still do this but you could get a handbook with all or most of the radio station frequencies and addresses, I had one it was very good.
What you could do is if you picked up a distant station you listened to the subject and reported it back to them and how strong the signal was and what frequency etc, they sent you a nice post card with the radio logo on these were called QSL cards and a lot of short wave listeners collected them, also a lot of these stations broadcast in English too by the way.

So this young lad grew up and was passed his exams and got qualifications that put him in good stead to be an aircraft engineer or a least learn to be one. He applied for a job working on military aircraft but he got turned down, he found out another lad got the job with only half the qualifications he had so he enquired why he was turned down.

They told him he got a black mark against his mane when they checked his records, again he was puzzled, what black mark?
The story goes on a bit but to cut it short he got a councillor or somebody involved and it turned out the black mark was years ago he had received letters/post from eastern block countries, yes you guessed... This was when he was younger and writing to the radio stations for the QSL cards.

So my point and the point the man on the radio talk show was making was, your post is vetted or it was, I often wonder if this has changed, with all the stuff we read nowadays about phones being tapped I wouldn't be surprised if it is still going on.

The end result was after explaining the situation and showing them proof of the eastern block letters he did get the job.
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VulcanDriver
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Re: Another Short Wave Radio Story

Post by VulcanDriver »

Speaking as an ex postman in the 1980s I can tell the story of one of my customers who had a Russian penpal. Although his mail was posted on different dates and times in Russia they always arrived together in a bundle for delivery from Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant sorting office had a dept run by special branch that opened and read all post from the Eastern Bloc.
John

"That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The A-bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." - Admiral William Leahy
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col1948
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Re: Another Short Wave Radio Story

Post by col1948 »

Hi John, Thats interesting to know thanks mate.

Another related story on these lines, I worked at Manchester Airport for just over 33 years, I remember a lad who collected airline badges and other odd bits, we used to get a few Russian airlines coming in and he got in to a bit of a trade with them.
He used to give them chocolate and other items in exchange for the airline badges, he got some rare ones too.
They used to get them for him in Russia or countries they flew in to and save them for him, then one day he got taken in by Special Branch for questioning.
It seems his activities were being noted, they saw him go on board with a package then come off with a different one, he was in there for a good while answering the questions, any way it frightened him off and he never went near them again.
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