This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

I love podcasts, but like many people who work in this industry, my first love was the radio.

I got my start working at my college radio station, W.OBC, 91.5, at Oberlin College.

My musical taste and sense of humor were shaped by the

DJs at WFMU in New Jersey, and my professional radio career and this very show began at my

favorite public radio station, KALW, 91.7, here in the Bay Area. But there's a whole other

radio universe that I have a lot less experience with.

Shortwave radio is the less used but further reaching cousin of AM and FM.

It requires a completely different radio set.

Long before the internet,

Shortwave connected people all across the globe instantaneously,

and it became an information battleground and powerful propaganda tool.

This week we are bringing you the first episode in the second season of the Dile.

It's a series from On the Media and longtime 99PI contributor Katie Thornton. In season one, Katie explored the history

of political talk radio and how the radical right came to dominate the airwaves in the U.S.

But her new four-part season is all about shortwave. I'll let Katie take it from here.

Zita turns out of Scionics.

This is such a cool radio with a little...

Last summer, I met up with a journalist and radio fan named David Gorin.

These were, like, beautiful radio.

I went to his house in Brooklyn, New York, so that we could listen to the radio together.

Not any old radio, not AM or FM, nothing you can pick up in your car.

...