It Started Like Any Other...

I was mostly on autopilot, just getting ready for another day of uni. I only really found out about the blackout on the radio right as it started. Soon after, I witnessed a train departure board full of "Canceled" signs. I just went straight home, accepting my fate that the day was going to be a (slightly worrying) nothingburger.

Radio Ga Ga 👏👏 Radio Gu Gu 👏👏

Thankfully, my town's cell towers had enough backup power for me to message my Brazilian friends, letting them know I was alive and well and telling them to keep an eye on the news.

But shortly after, the network went completely dead.

No internet or TV... spooky 😱

Or at least, it would have been if I didn't have a few rechargeable radios on hand. My AliExpress radio got a lot of love that day, along with a few top-ups, as my laptop became a giant, inefficient power bank for everything with a battery.

Understandably, the only stations left on the air were news and talk radio, with the sole exception being the classical music station (which, if I remember correctly, is the designated one for national emergencies).

After a while, the constant, repetitive news bulletins got old. I decided to turn on my ham radio walkie-talkie and tune in to the nearest repeaters, and just like that, my entertainment for the day was set. Listening to a bunch of elmers discuss the blackout, debate its causes, and share reports on where the power was coming back online became the soundtrack of my day. I even started recording the conversations after a bit by putting my phone next to the walkie.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. At 22h, the electricity was back online in my town, and life just resumed as usual.

A little extra

I made all of the recordings i made of the repeater available on the Internet Archive.

While most normal people would probably edit out the dead air between conversations, I decided to just let it be. In my previous attempts to edit these things, the recordings always ended up sounding a bit soulless without the background noise of cars driving by and those sudden, loud, echoey bursts of conversation happening on the street.