Twilight of the Shortwave Listener--Column from 1971!

[n2avh]

Talk about a very prolonged twilight--and the guy who wrote it knew his stuff. Perry Ferrell, founder of Gilfer Associates which was the go-to mail-order source for the newer-generation shortwave receivers of the later 1970s into the 1980s like the FRG-7 and before that, the XCR-30.  https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Poptronics/70s/1971/Poptronics-1971-03.pdf see page 7. 

[Molvania Poacher]

Interesting that he remarks on the phenomenon of teenagers being interested in SWL'ing, and then drifting away from it, with some returning in their 50s.

[n2avh]

I was fortunate to get into it as a pre-teenager, so not as jaded, and I stuck with it until I was 30 or so when it was derailed by the usual enemies of work and family.

[Treehouse SWL]

I spent most of 1971 at the age of 1-11 months, so this goes back a ways!

As for his passage about teenagers getting interested, drifting away, and coming back ... That was roughly my story. I got into it at age 12 in late 1983, listened pretty regularly through high school and during my college breaks well into the 1990s, drifted away after that as we started a family, and then returned in 2018 at age 47.

[n2avh]

I just found my name on the list of new members of NASWA in the November 1978 FRENDX, thanks to the collection at worldradiohistory.com!  14 years old at the time.