One of my biggest thrills was having a letter I had sent to Radio Nederland read on the air. And of course the excitement of receiving QSL cards in the mail. Although, looking back, I’m sure I was on some CIA list for sending reception reports to Radio Moscow and Radio Havana. ;)
That must have been a surprise to hear your own letter read on the air. Listening to the crude propaganda broadcasts from the East Block countries was one of my ideas of entertainment. I used to also listen to a lot of English broadcasts from Radio Nederland. One program I miss was this American Big-Band music program that the Deutsche Welle used to have. One of the more unusal things I listened to was news reports on Radio Australia about the de-orbit of Skylab (This was in 1979 and big parts of Skylab crashed in Australia). Just two years ago I listened to Kol Israel announce rocket attacks. I do not understand Hebrew but periodically programming would be interrupted by this beep-beep-beep alarm sound and the announcer would mention the name of a city that was in danger. A lot of broadcasters are cutting back on shortwave and you can listen on the Internet, but it is not the same thing.