Tuned In, Checked Out: Confessions of a Radio Enthusiast

When I catch sight of my black Tecsun PL-680—hulking, angular, unapologetically retro—I freeze like a Victorian child glimpsing a forbidden mechanical marvel through a shop window. My eyes widen, my breath catches. It’s the same reverence I once felt, age six, face pressed against the glass of a toy store, transfixed by the GI Joe helicopter with working rotors and the implied promise of war-zone adventure. Only now the battleground is a cluttered kitchen table, and the artillery is AM talk radio, jazz on shortwave, the solemn murmur of world news drifting in from another hemisphere.

The desire to switch it on and be swallowed by its frequencies is so intense, it borders on insanity. I feel embarrassed by the depth of this longing, but not enough to stop. My smaller Tecsun PL-330 elicits the same pulse of joy—compact, stealthy, and with an antenna that telescopes like it’s reaching for God. These machines are not just radios; they’re sanctuaries. Each one is a cozy cockpit where I can retreat from reality and tune in to something more orderly, more measured, more mine.

“On the spectrum,” my wife jokes, watching me cradle a shortwave receiver like it’s a newborn or a detonator. I laugh, but I know she’s not wrong. The way I look at these devices—mouth slightly open, posture slack, eyes glazed with devotion—is not what you’d call neurotypical. It’s the gaze of a man who has found something he understands in a world that too often makes no sense.

I have no interest in being cured. Therapy doesn’t come with a frequency dial. Meditation never once pulled in Radio Romania International. And no mindfulness app can match the primal, analog thrill of catching a faint station through the hiss of the void.

These radios are my proof—of eccentricity, yes, but also of what keeps me sane. They hum. They glow. They speak in languages I don’t understand but need to hear. And if that’s madness, I’m fine with it. I’ll be here with my Tecsun, smiling at static, laughing at myself, and tuning in to everything that doesn’t ask me to explain why.