Pre-computer pastimes that I enjoyed included shortwave radio listening, AM broadcast band
DX-ing, stereo equipment, and 35mm photography.
 

I recorded many cassettes of music off FM radio and some of live events in the late 70's and early 80's when I was in high school and college.

What is frustrating is the lengths to which I went to only record the music and exclude commercials and DJ talk. Music on old cassettes is worthless, but commercials and DJ talk, which seemed worthless at the time, are the treasures today. What is somewhat unsettling is how often I remember what song will come up next on many of these tapes that are pushing 30 years old!

Audio clips: Radio, TV, and the sounds of "old school" audio equipment

Shortwave listening and AM broadcast DX-ing (listening to and logging as many distant stations as possible) took up countless hours of my time. Conditions were normally best at night, so this entailed staying up late and often being very sleepy in my high school classes the next day. Shortwave radio was the closest thing there was to surfing the Net in the pre-PC days, and a hobby that attracts fewer and fewer new participants due to the availability of computers and the Internet. One can make that case that it is pointless to use a shortwave radio to listen to foreign broadcasts when they can easily be heard on a Webcast, and it is hard to argue with that. What is more difficult to explain is the satisfaction that comes from pulling signals out of "thin air".  Any of you radio amateurs out there will understand this.

An interesting aspect of DX-ing was the writing of reception reports in exchange for QSL cards, which were essentially postcards from radio stations acknowledging that you received their signals. Both domestic AM and international shortwave stations offered them. The process took a few weeks by "snail mail", and when I came home from high school each day, the first question I asked was "What came in the mail?". My mother became so tired of this that she placed a wood box just inside the back door that held any mail I got that day. Many of the letters showed signs of being pre-opened and inspected, especially ones from Communist countries like Cuba, the Soviet Union, and North Vietnam. Shortwave listening was a non-political hobby where the only thing that mattered was the distant location, but the Cold War-era authorities had to make sure. Letters kept arriving at my parent's home from places like Radio Havana Cuba for many years after I had left the hobby and left home!

QSL card gallery                       1975 Communications world magazine

The DX-ing hobby pretty much ended when I went to college, as it was not practical to set up elaborate antennas in a dormitory environment, and the World War II-vintage radios that I used were too heavy and fragile to haul around. The college years would see intensification of my audio and later photography hobby's.

As much as I enjoy computers, the Internet, and operating this site, I miss those more simple radio days!

I experimented with electricity from high-voltage sources like TV fly-back and neon sign transformers. At times the basement of my childhood home was a virtual Frankenstein's lab:

Early photography galleries ranging from the late 60's to early 80's:

In many ways, these scans surpass many of today's digital cameras in terms of resolution and color quality.