It’s not just radio – it’s real radio

Sometimes a radio story begins thousands of kilometers away from the transmitter — at a listening desk, with a receiver, an antenna, and a curious mind.

Brian, callsign OZ4EA, recently sent us a wonderful message along with recordings and photos of his listening setup. From his station he tuned in to Radio Delta AM on both 12.005 kHz and 6.040 kHz, carefully recording what he heard and sharing his experience with us.

What made his message extra special was not just the technical detail, but the feeling behind it. “It’s not just radio – it’s real radio.” That one sentence says it all.

Brian listens with a Xiegu G90 and an EFHW 40-meter horizontal antenna. His photos show a clean, practical setup the kind of station many shortwave listeners will instantly recognize. No glamour, no automation, just real radio equipment doing what it’s meant to do: pulling voices and music out of the noise.

He also asked us a question that many listeners noticed around the same time:  Why were we sometimes only on one frequency?

The answer lies outside our studio. During the first days of January, Elburg and the surrounding area were hit by heavy snowfall and severe winter conditions. Snow, ice, and wind are beautiful to look at but they are not friendly to antennas, feeders, and transmitters. For safety encouraging reasons, we sometimes had to limit transmissions to a single frequency, or even pause completely. Protecting equipment means protecting future broadcasts.

That, too, is part of real radio. Shortwave is not a button you press it’s a balance between technology, weather, propagation, and people who care enough to make it work.

What touched us most in Brian’s message was his trust: “A true feel-good radio experience, that I can rely on.”

That is exactly what Radio Delta AM aims to be. Not perfect. Not automated. But present, human, and alive.

Listeners like Brian remind us why we keep going  through snowstorms, fading signals, and changing bands.