Fishing In The Night

The Divided Dial is a podcast series about the history of radio from WNYC’s On the Media and longtime 99PI contributor, Katie Thornton. In season 1, Katie explored the rise of right wing talk radio in the United States. The newest season of The Divided Dial is all about shortwave. Across four episodes, Katie dives into the often failed promise of a medium that was once ubiquitous—connecting people around the world long before the internet ever did. But like the internet, shortwave also took a turn for the chaotic, becoming a propaganda tool for governments, extremists, and cults.

Roman and Katie also discuss a beautiful artifact of the shortwave era, the QSL card.