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So you want do get away from it all and take up residence on a desert island? Sip sundowners and watch the palms swaying in the breeze? Forget about the Eurozone crisis, the US debt ceiling and Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz? After all, Paul Gaugin had a whale of a time out in Tahiti. Sounds good, only it's not as safe as you think. On Kiribati (the old Gilbert Islands) in the Pacific they are negotiating with Fiji to buy land as their own set of atolls is threatened by rising sea levels. The island group with a population of 100,000 averages just 2 metres above sea level and storms are eroding the coastline. Fresh water supplies and crops are suffering from salination. The idyllic island aura was devastated by some of the bloodiest fighting in World War 2 when the Americans attacked Japanese positions on the Tarawa atoll. The QSL is from Radio Kiribati, Tarawa heard in Johannesburg in 1989. The frequency given on the card is 846 kHz medium wave, which would have been a prodigious feat over nearly 15000 km - virtually impossible unless you're near the coast. I actually heard it on 14918 kHz on shortwave. At the time it used to come in every morning around 0745 Joburg time, 10 hours behind Kiribati. So I used to listen in just before driving into work with the strange feeling of knowing that their day was already over.
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So you want do get away from it all and take up residence on a desert island? Sip sundowners and watch the palms swaying in the breeze? Forget about the Eurozone crisis, the US debt ceiling and Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz? After all, Paul Gaugin had a whale of a time out in Tahiti. Sounds good, only it's not as safe as you think. On Kiribati (the old Gilbert Islands) in the Pacific they are negotiating with Fiji to buy land as their own set of atolls is threatened by rising sea levels. The island group with a population of 100,000 averages just 2 metres above sea level and storms are eroding the coastline. Fresh water supplies and crops are suffering from salination. The idyllic island aura was devastated by some of the bloodiest fighting in World War 2 when the Americans attacked Japanese positions on the Tarawa atoll. The QSL is from Radio Kiribati, Tarawa heard in Johannesburg in 1989. The frequency given on the card is 846 kHz medium wave, which would have been a prodigious feat over nearly 15000 km - virtually impossible unless you're near the coast. I actually heard it on 14918 kHz on shortwave. At the time it used to come in every morning around 0745 Joburg time, 10 hours behind Kiribati. So I used to listen in just before driving into work with the strange feeling of knowing that their day was already over.
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