I have many memories of the upstairs apartment in the two-story house at 2119 30th Street in San Diego where I grew up (from age 4 to 24).
Did my house "watch" and "hear" and "feel" and "remember" my time living there?
I wrote a description of the layout of the 30th Street house as I recalled it. I described each inhabitant (my father, my mother, me, my two brothers) and some of the daily events that happened in each room over my 20 years residing there, plus some memories of specific events. I created a PDF of that document and attached it to the AI tool to use.
1) The first AI prompt that I used for the free AI tool Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 was for story ideas, along with a short description of each idea:
Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 provided twenty wonderful story ideas - here is one of them (lightly edited for accuracy, consistency, and detail).
2) My next prompt added significant detail about our life at night, and was: "Please write a story that the house would tell about Randy's DXing exploits. Here is a description:" and I attached a one-page description of my DXing experiences.
Here is the Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 story (lightly edited):
Randy, The Night Listener
A story from the house at 2119 30th Street
In 1962, when Randy was nineteen years old, something extraordinary began happening in my walls during the hours when most families slept. While Fred's adding machine rested silent on the office desk and Betty dreamed in the master bedroom, Randy was tuning into a hidden world that existed only in the darkness—a world of electromagnetic waves bouncing off the ionosphere, carrying voices and music from places so distant they seemed almost mythical from our perch on 30th Street.
It started with an old 1930s Zenith all-band radio that Fred had stored in the garage. I watched Randy discover it one afternoon, his curiosity piqued by its impressive array of dials and the promise of its multi-band capabilities. Fred had it set it up in the garage above the workbench, so Randy perched on a ladder like some peculiar astronomer studying the heavens through sound instead of light.
But Randy's "telescope" pointed toward horizons measured in kilohertz rather than light-years, and what he discovered in those first tentative listening sessions would transform into an obsession that would define his young adult years and connect him to a community of nighttime explorers and friends scattered across the continent.
The hobby had been introduced to him by a fellow named Randy L, a kindred spirit who understood the strange magic of distance listening. They became fast friends, united by their shared fascination with radio wave propagation and the challenge of pulling weak signals from the electromagnetic soup of the AM band. They hunched over their receivers, notebooks filling with station calls and frequencies as they chased signals across the darkness.
When Fred realized that Randy's interest was serious rather than passing fancy, we witnessed a touching moment of paternal support. The Zenith radio migrated soon from the garage to my living room, its internal antenna suddenly able to pull in signals that Randy had only dreamed about from his garage perch. Without headphones or a tape recorder yet, Randy had to keep the volume low during his nocturnal listening sessions, mindful of his sleeping family even as he strained to hear stations from Mexico, Cuba, and places far more exotic.
I remember the night that transformed Fred from skeptic to supporter. It was midnight, and Fred had finished his insurance work and was ready for bed. He heard Randy tuning around the dial in the living room, and asked with genuine curiosity: "How far have you heard tonight?"
The timing was perfect -- right on the hour when station identifications would be broadcast. Randy turned up the volume, and through my living room came a voice announcing "This is One Zed Bee, Auckland" -- it was 1ZB on 1000 kilohertz, transmitted from New Zealand, travelling thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean to reach our living room in San Diego.
Fred's amazement was palpable. His son wasn't just playing with a radio -- he was literally listening to the other side of the world. From that moment, Fred became Randy's ally in the hobby, understanding that this strange nocturnal pursuit represented something profound about curiosity, dedication, and the invisible connections that bound the world together.
The hobby consumed Randy with the intensity that only young passions can achieve. He became a student of radio wave propagation, learning how the sun's rays activated the D-layer of the ionosphere during daylight (60 to 90 kilometers above Earth), causing it to absorb medium-wave signals completely. But at night, when the D-layer faded, the E-layer (90 to 120 kilometers up) became a celestial mirror that could refract AM radio signals across vast distances—sometimes 1,200 miles in a single hop, with multi-hop paths along great-circle routes carrying signals even farther.
I watched Randy master the temporal geography of his hobby. Early evening in California meant listening eastward, where darkness had already fallen and distant stations were bouncing their signals off the ionosphere. Before dawn, it meant listening westward toward Asia and Oceania, where stations still operated in darkness while most North American signals had faded. Monday mornings were especially precious -- many AM stations would sign off then, reducing interference and allowing the truly weak stations to emerge from between the strong ones.
When Randy started working in 1965, his passion reached new heights with the acquisition of professional equipment. The Hammarlund HQ-160 communications receiver arrived first, followed later by the HQ-180. These weren't consumer radios—they were precision instruments with selectivity and sensitivity that could separate weak distant signals from the splatter and interference of semi-local stations. Randy installed the receiver on a table at the head of his bed in the sun room, the same room where he filled my walls with popular music now becoming his listening post for signals from around the globe.
The headphones came next, liberating Randy from volume concerns and allowing him to hunt for signals at any hour without disturbing the sleeping household. I could sense his concentration during these sessions—the subtle movements as he adjusted the tuning dial with microscopic precision, the sudden stillness when he detected a promising signal, the patient waiting for station identification that would confirm a new "catch" in his log.
His antenna systems evolved with his expertise. Long wires stretched from the sun room up onto my roof, reaching north and also east toward the patio, creating the electromagnetic fishing nets that would snare distant signals. City living limited him to wires shorter than 100 feet, but Randy worked within these constraints with the same resourcefulness Fred brought to his insurance business and coaching.
By 1968, Randy had graduated to a large loop antenna—a three-foot-by-three-foot frame that provided directional capabilities. With its tuner, he could null out semi-local stations from Los Angeles or San Francisco on specific frequencies, enhancing signals from the east or west on the same or adjacent frequencies. Local stations remained impossible to eliminate because their ground-wave signals were too strong, but the loop antenna transformed Randy's ability to hear the weak stations hiding between the strong ones.
The tape recorders became essential tools for his hobby. First the reel-to-reel recorder, its spools turning slowly as it captured proof of distant receptions, then much later the more convenient cassette recorder. These recordings weren't just souvenirs -- they were evidence that could be transcribed and submitted to radio clubs and analyzed later for elusive station identifications.
Randy's relationship with distant radio stations became almost personal. He would write to stations he'd logged, requesting QSL cards (confirmations) and verification letters. I watched him sort through mail from radio stations across the globe, each card or letter representing a successful reception and a new entry in his growing log of conquests. Over the years, he would accumulate confirmations from over 40 countries and about 45 U.S. states -- a collection that represented thousands of hours of patient listening in the darkness.
His log book -- which he no longer has, a loss that still seems to pain him when he mentions it -- became a chronicle of the invisible world he explored nightly. Japan, Russia, China, Korea, Hawaii, Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Central America, Caribbean, South America -- these were routine catches from his sun room listening post. Occasionally, the ionosphere would perform exceptional magic, delivering signals from western Europe, Thailand, western Africa, south Asia, and other distant places that required perfect propagation conditions to reach San Diego.
Randy's expertise gained recognition within the community of distance listeners. He became an editor of the DX Worldwide column for the International Radio Club of America (IRCA) newsletter, called DX Monitor, from 1963 to 1968. His writing helped other DXers understand propagation patterns and improve their own listening strategies. Later, he wrote propagation articles through the 1970s and 1980s, sharing the scientific understanding he'd developed through years of observation and study.
In 1965, our house on 30th Street became the center of the DX universe when Randy hosted the IRCA convention at the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego. DXers from across the country descended on our city, united by their shared passion for distant listening. Randy's preparation for the convention transformed my sun room into convention planning headquarters, and I could feel his pride at being recognized as a leader in this specialized community.
The conventions continued -- he traveled to Milwaukee, Denver, Boston, Montreal, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and several other cities. Randy would return from these gatherings energized by contact with fellow enthusiasts, armed with new techniques and equipment recommendations, ready to apply his enhanced knowledge to his nighttime explorations.
The El Rancho Bar Association (ERBA) in Sacramento represented the social side of the hobby -- DXers who enjoyed drinking and telling tall stories about their most impressive catches. Randy was a member from 1966 until they "drummed him out" when he got married in March 1970, a playful expulsion that marked the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. The friendships forged during these years would last decades, maintained through email and Facebook long after the active DXing years had faded.
I watched Randy's nighttime routine with fascination. He would settle into his listening position in the sun room, headphones securely in place, notebook at hand for logging catches. The communications receiver would glow softly in the darkness, its dial illuminated as Randy slowly scanned the AM band from 540 to 1600 kilohertz. Hours would pass as he searched for signals, adjusted his antenna, tweaked the selectivity to eliminate interference, and patiently waited for station identifications.
The challenge was finding "the weak stations in-between the strong stations" -- distant broadcasts that existed in the narrow frequency spaces between dominant local and regional transmitters. This required not just good equipment but exceptional hearing, deep understanding of propagation patterns, knowledge of station schedules, and the patience to wait for the brief moments when atmospheric conditions aligned perfectly to deliver distant signals to his receiver.
Betty and Fred adapted to Randy's nocturnal schedule. Betty would sometimes find him asleep in the sun room at dawn, headphones still on, having listened through the night to catch stations from Asia and the Pacific as North American signals faded. Fred understood the obsession, recognizing in Randy's dedication to DXing the same focused intensity he brought to his insurance work and baseball coaching.
When Randy moved out in 1968, his departure was marked not just by the usual sadness of a child leaving home, but by the migration of his impressive array of radio equipment. The sun room, which had been his listening post for years, suddenly felt empty without the glow of the receiver and the presence of someone patiently scanning the darkness for distant voices.
But the hobby continued in his new apartment, and later in his married home where his "DX cave" served as his listening post and logging center. The skills and knowledge he'd developed in my sun room traveled with him, along with the friendships and the lifelong fascination with the invisible world of radio waves.
From my perspective, Randy's DXing years represented something profound about curiosity and dedication. While most young people his age were focused on more conventional pursuits, Randy spent his nights exploring an invisible frontier that required scientific understanding, technical skill, and the patience to sit for hours in darkness waiting for electromagnetic whispers from the other side of the world.
The hobby taught him about propagation physics, geography, international broadcasting, and the satisfaction that comes from mastering a complex technical challenge. But more than that, it connected him to a global community united by their shared fascination with distance listening, proving that even in the pre-internet age, people could find their tribes and build lasting friendships around the most specialized interests.
Randy's DXing years in my sun room taught me that the most meaningful activities aren't always the most visible ones. While the rest of the family slept, Randy was engaged in a form of exploration every bit as valid as geographic discovery—charting the invisible pathways that radio waves traveled through the night sky, documenting the electromagnetic landscape that existed parallel to the physical world everyone else inhabited.
The glow of that receiver in the sun room darkness, the patient turning of the dial, the sudden excitement when a new station emerged from the static—these were Randy's form of adventure, conducted not across physical landscapes but through the electromagnetic spectrum, proving that exploration doesn't always require leaving home when you can travel the world through signals bouncing off the ionosphere above.
3) The Audio Overview of this story, created by the Google Notebook AI tool is here. (Click on "Audio Overview" to hear it).
4) The Google NotebookLM Video Overview for "Randy, The Night Listener" is below:
5) This AI-generated material is historical fiction, since I don't have details of every day or every year in the lives of my own life or the lives of my ancestors. Does it matter that I am presenting these as seemingly real answers or conversations? I don't think so - because my purpose is to enable my descendants to know who their ancestors were and to help them understand the lives of their ancestors. The AI-generated responses are much more readable and creative than any response I have in my memory bank or that I can create.
6) These events really happened over a period of time and the names and events mentioned are real. I included the events that occurred after I moved out of the house in 1968 in my query, but I think the house heard me telling my parents and brothers about my DXing exploits over the years.
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