The "World Radio
Television Handbook", an encyclopedia of shortwave radio lovers, concludes
its 76-year journey with this 2022 year edition, sad news for radio enthusiasts
and researchers like us.
Of the 76-year books,
I have the version for most years except a few. The five cartons containing all
of those books have become the talk of the family, each time moving to the
rented house.
For the 15 years we
have been publishing Sarvadesa Vaanoli (International Radio) magazine, for 16 years we
have been publishing Quarterly Magazine called Dxers Guide,
54 weeks we produced Vaanoli Ulagam (World Radios) for External Service of All India Radio, my first Tamil book, Ulaga Vaanoligal (World Radios) were also published because of The WRTH
(World Radio TV Handbook).
I got my first WRTH
for myself, and when Mr. Adrian Peterson came to Erode for the AWR listeners meet in 1999, they handed over the 2000
edition directly. The scent of that first book still lingers in the memories.
Every WRTH book I have
has a story. At the moment it is worth noting that most of the books were
obtained while working as the Technical Monitor of the German public service broadcaster, Deutsch Welle (DW).
I have to thank Mr. Arasu
(VU2UR) for helping me to collect 30 years of WRTH. Mr. Shanmuga Sundaram
(VU2FOT), Mr. Ilampuranan, Mr. Jose Jacob (VU2JOS), Mr. Alokesh Gupta (VU3BSE),
Mr. Sandiban Basu were among those who built the bridge between me and WRTH.
Radios like AWR, BBC,
CRI, DW, RN, RV, RVA, SLBC, RTI, RFA, VOA, NHK and TWR have somehow helped to
get WRTH.
Survived the rain
floods of Chennai and is still one of my treasures today. The book that carried
so much information said it would never come out again, just like a close
friend leave us in the middle of sea!