My Favorite Radio

-- photo courtesy Universal Radio

This is my favorite radio ever. It is the Hammarlund HQ-140-X shortwave receiver. It was made between 1953 and 1955, one year before I was born. When I was about thirteen I received one of these radios as part of my ham-radio pursuits of the time.

I remember listening to Canadian, South American, English and European broadcasts on it late at night when the reception, "on the skip" was good due to ionospheric conditions. I heard Al Green on the AM, telegraph coding, both manual and automated and strange warbling signals that are quite memorable. I have always wondered if these were pulsars or binary stars, but perhaps that is a bit fanciful.