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WTWW off the Air - Printable Version

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WTWW off the Air - Marvin VE3VCG - 2022-11-13

I haven't been a shortwave listener for years. But I am aware that WTWW was a legendary shortwave transmitter. In this video the station is remembered and memorialized by someone who was a real fan and a genuine radio enthusiast.

55 years ago shortwave radio kept me company while doing homework in the wee hours of the morning while I was in college. Hearing stations from thousands of miles away offering news and views that were not local was a wonderful experience that expanded my world view. It made me aware that there were other people living, laughing and loving somewhere over the horizon.

For me radio offered a unique way to gain some understanding how we are all different and yet the same. It was and is a kind of electronic magic carpet that offered a limited but important cross cultural experience that was also a kind of time machine. Radio signals were not restricted by time zones or boundaries on map. They could leap over oceans and ignore mountain ranges carrying with them a limited but valuable connection to others and transcending the limiting factors that isolate and separate.

The very non-technical human aspect of radio which I think is to often not given its proper due. There is no formula to calculate how these boxes called radios resonate on such a powerful emotional level. This video really does express the emotional potency radio can and does have in the lives of millions, or to this author.

If you like me have a connection to shortwave listening you will appreciate the sentiments expressed in the video, enjoy




RE: WTWW off the Air - Ve3nbj - 2022-11-13

Interesting post Marvin...5085 is silent...I do hear wtww running music on 9940 a.m. this sunday afternoon...maybe they will be on 9940 for listening for a while...


73 Norm
Ve3nbj

Update: no transmission on 9940 after 3 pm today.


RE: WTWW off the Air - VE3WI Dave - 2022-11-14

Another one bites the dust.  Seems like the only things on SW these days are OTH radars ... and those preachers.

Back around 1990 I was on the Shift Supervisor course at Bruce A.  Four years with nose to grindstone.  To drown out the world when studying at home, I listened to rock music on SW with headphones.  My favorite was KUSW in Salt Lake City.  They QSYed several times each evening so I had to chase them down the bands.  Unfortunately long gone.  Another good one was WRNO "The Rock of the World" in New Orleans.  They are apparently still on the air intermittently, with religious content.

I was always in awe of the CBC International Service transmitter site outside Sackville NB.  Drove past it many times.  Very impressive antenna farm.  Never got inside but they had nine transmitters ranging from 100 kW to 300 kW.  We decided Canada couldn't afford such a world class installation so it all got shut down in 2012.  The property is now in the hands of an indigenous group.

But, CFRX is still rebroadcasting CFRB on 6070.

73
Dave, VE3WI


RE: WTWW off the Air - VE3WI Dave - 2022-11-14

Further on Radio Canada International (AKA CBC International Service) Sackville NB transmitter complex.  Here's a great website full of photos and information on the installation as it was before being torn down:

http://j-hawkins.com/rci1.shtml

73
Dave, VE3WI