For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in radio. My earliest experiences were nighttime AM radio adventures, listening to far-off stations like WLS in Chicago. WLS was a 50,000-watt “clear channel” station Many nights I listened to WLS or WHO in Des Moines, hearing programs like the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, hosted by E.G. Marshall.

I was absolutely amazed by the idea that I could hear radio stations from so far away.

There was a period of time, when I was about 15, when I would stay up late at night to watch television stations sign off, with something like, “We now conclude our broadcast day,” and maybe the National Anthem. If the atmosphere was behaving right, when channel 6 in Wichita Falls signed off, I could see and hear the much weaker signal from channel 6 in Tulsa. It seemed like magic.

I am pretty good on the radio, too. I have been a pilot since 1993 and an amateur radio operator since 1996, and have always been comfortable with those forms of radio communications.

That brings us to today, an odd and strangely unappealing time in human history in which we have become addicted to, and dependent upon, the internet, so it is refreshing when I can listen to shortwave radio. It has an analog harmony about it, and engages different parts of my curiosity than websites and apps.

For me, the appeal of analog engagement is powerful. That’s why I often prefer pencil and paper over screens and keyboards, and radio stations and signals over content streamed to our phones.

It’s easy to write off shortwave radio since it is shrinking bit by bit into the past, but in some ways, that makes shortwave, medium wave, even longwave listening all that much more interesting.

And one of the weirdest and most intriguing signals in the ether are “numbers stations.” These broadcasts peaked during the cold war, and were probably used to communicate with individuals in far-off places. But some of these stations are still around. They aren’t entertainment in the same way a tv program is, but more like a complex puzzle to solve, or almost like reading a spy novel. Many people believe that these stations, which broadcast human voices reciting numbers, were and maybe still are sending instructions to spies across the globe.

The fun of turning on and tuning in to these transmissions isn’t in listening to the numbers, but finding them in the first place. It is one of my favorite intellectual puzzles to solve.

Maybe you have an old shortwave radio, or maybe you’ve seen them at garage sales and estate sales, so if you get a chance to find one, clean it up, and make it work, I think you will be amazed at what is still finding its way into the atmosphere.