The Listening Post

What sort of radio do you listen to? If you're in the US.the answer is likely FM. Many others in this country listen to AM. But much of the rest of the world listens to shortwave radio.

Shortwave signals have a tremendous amount of "bounce" built into them. That means earth's ionosphere reflects them back towards the surface. What that means for the shortwave listener is that he or she can hear signals from far around the globe on their inexpensive radios.

My dad always had a radio that was capable of picking up shortwave signals. But alas, I don't have one. But I do have a computer that is connected to the internet. That allows me to tune in via today's FamilyFirst pick: The Listening Post.

The Listening Post is a web browser-controlled shortwave reciever. It's pretty cool!

What is most appealing to me is that it was built back in the mid 90's and apparently forgotten. It seems to load via a 56k modem. Its interface looks like my first site back in 1995.

But it works! And it works pretty darned well. You can get 10 second or 60 second snippets of shortwave radio signals.

Have fun, and remember when we were connecting to the web via our own squeling modems and Windows 95.

http://www.chilton.com/scripts/radio/R8-receiver

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