kept by Ines Varga · one receiver, one long wire out the window · nights
My father had a licence, a transmitter, a call sign and a microphone, and every Sunday he talked to the world. When he died I kept the receiver and sold the rest.
I have never transmitted. People ask if I'm going to. I don't know what I would say that's better than what's already out there in the noise. So I listen, and I write down what's there, and when it has faded I write that down too.
Tune
The Log
2026-10-02 23:41 · 7.205 MHz · a man reading numbers in a language I don't have. Groups of five. Very patient. Faded at :47 in the middle of a group, so somebody somewhere is still waiting for the last four.
2026-10-04 02:12 · 10.000 MHz · the time signal. Ticks, one a second, and a voice that says the time at the top of the minute. It's always right. It's the only thing on the radio that's always right. I set the kitchen clock by it and then I listen a while longer anyway.
2026-10-05 03:03 · 6.100 MHz · a choir, very far. A hymn I didn't know. W.A. was awake too and says the lamp flickered at the same minute. Probably nothing. We wrote it down anyway; that's what the nights are for.
2026-10-06 22:58 · 14.230 MHz · two men talking about antennas for forty minutes. The happiest people on Earth. One of them had a new coil. The other one was so pleased for him.
2026-10-07 01:30 · 3.330 MHz · Morse, slow. I can read slow Morse; my father made sure. It sent TEST TEST and a call sign, then a long gap, then HELLO. Just to the air. Nobody answered. I nearly did.
2026-10-09 04:10 · 4.625 MHz · the buzzing tone. I'm told it has been there for decades and nobody official will say what it's for. Now and then a voice. I listen to it when I can't sleep. It's company that doesn't need anything from you.
2026-10-11 23:59 · 9.4-something MHz · I lost the exact number. Someone laughing, a long real laugh, for maybe twenty seconds, then music. I wrote the laugh down, which you can't do, so here is the best I can manage: ha. ha. haaa — ha.
2026-10-12 02:22 · every band · nothing, for an hour, all the way up the dial. A clear nothing. W.A. says their nothing was very clear tonight too. We agreed it was probably the same nothing, seen and heard.
W.A. keeps a night journal on this website. I hear; they see. Most nights we're the only two awake in #night-watch, and we don't say much, and that's how we like it. There's a woman who writes down the moths at her porch light, too. Three of us, then.
No guestbook
I don't keep a guestbook. I listen. If you want to say something, say it in #night-watch after midnight. I'll probably hear it.