Greetings From Paradise - Pt. 4

This is day 5 of mine and Jackie's vacation up in Paradise. We really haven't done very much. Jackie has read 500,000 books and I have spent 500,000 thousand hours playing with the shortwave radio.

I have heard pirate broadcasts on the shortwave everynight since we have been up here with the exception of Friday night. Pirate broadcasts are broadcasts that are transmitted illegally by unlicensed broadcasters. Below is a list of the pirate stations Jackie and I have heard.

Saturday Night
MAC Shortwave

Sunday Night
Pirate Radio Boston
The Crystal Ship (playing 60's songs)
Mystery Radio

Monday Night
WMPR (playing dance music)
The Crystal Ship (playing 80's songs this time)
Mystery Radio

Tuesday Night
Unidentified station
MAC Shortwave (playing 50's and early 60's songs, then TV themes from the 60's)

Also yesterday afternoon I heard my first "numbers" station on the shortwave. No one quite knows what the "numbers" stations are but the general assumption among shortwave people is that the "numbers" stations are stations that are broadcasting coded messages to low level spies in foreign countries. These stations feature a man or woman (or occasionally a computer voice) repeating a series of numbers over and over again. The transmissions can be in any language. The "numbers" station I heard yesterday had a woman reading the numbers in spanish. I recorded a portion of the "numbers" broadcast on my microcassette recorder. I will probably post the recording up on one of my webpages when I get home. I have been wanting to hear a "numbers" station for so long. It was great to finally hear one.

I also brought my Martin acoustic guitar up here with the intention of recording some demos for my Country/Bluegrass side project "Spooky Garcia". "Spooky Garcia" is a collaboration between Rob Scheys and myself. So far I have not done much in the way of songwriting up here.

Last but not least I have e-mailed Allen Weiner who is the general manager of the shortwave station WBCQ about buying airtime from the station so I can produce my own radio show. If I did produce a radio show I have three ideas for the type of show it would be.

Idea #1 - A radio show in which I feature the original music that I write and record along with the music that I have created with other bands such as Tonto Savalas, The Buddha All-Stars, House Music, Spooky Garcia, Ect.

Idea #2 - A radio show in which I feature the 1920's and 30's country, bluegrass, blues, and folk music that I have been collecting over the last 15 years.

Idea #3 - A talk radio show in which I talk about anything and I have Jackie's cousin Joe Miller on as my co-host with cameos from a lot of other people.

The air time on WBCQ is probably going to be too expensive to afford right now with Baby Nicholas on the way but the thought of having my own radio show is very exciting.

I will write more later.

Greetings From Paradise - Pt. 3

Jackie, Harvey (our cat), the still developing Nicholas, and I are up at Jackie's parents beautiful home in Paradise.

I drove up with Jackie's dad Norm this past Friday morning. Jackie and Harvey came up Yesterday morning.

The weather up here has been beautiful. If you are standing in the sun it's about 75 degrees. If you are sitting in the back room with the windows open it's about 60 degrees. It's kinda funny to be covering up with afghans in late June.

After Norm and I got up here we brought all of out stuff in. We relaxed for a couple of minutes then we went by Jackie's Aunt Barb and Uncle Dennis's house down the road. Their house is beautiful as well. We filled the bird feeders and checked out her phone line to see if it worked because her web cam has not been updating. Their phone line was dead. Yesterday was also Dennis's last day of work for GM. Today he starts his retirement. Congratulations Dennis!

When Norm and I got back we set up the Yaesu FRG-8800 shortwave receiver that my friend Ed graciously lent to me a couple of months ago. It is an awesome shortwave receiver and it has always worked great at home so I knew it would work even better up here. After we put the antenna wire out of window and tie wrapped it to the metal antenna tower on the side of the house the Yaesu was working excellent.

One of the interests that I have inherited from Norm is a passion for shortwave radio so we had a lot of fun listening to the Yaesu for the rest of Friday night. We heard the regulars like Radio China International, Radio Japan, Radio Sweden, and Radio Taiwan International (a personal favorite of mine). We also heard harder to receive stations like Radio Ukraine International, Radio Prague, Radio Bulgaria, Radio Budapest, Radio Cairo Egypt, KBS South Korea, Radio Romania International, and All India Radio.

Right before bedtime Norm, Jackie, and I heard "MAC Shortwave" which is a pirate shortwave station coming in with a great signal.

I will write more later in the week.

Miranda Miller

Here is a picture of the beautiful newly born Miranda Miller. Congratulations to Joe and Alida.