A new chapter is coming to this feed. Aaron shares why 7 Minute Stories will become Shortwave Stories in January 2027, what’s changing, and why listeners can stay right here for a new story every week.
Then, hear “The Secret Antenna,” a story about the childhood dream behind it all. Previously aired on public radio, it makes its debut in this feed as a preview of what’s coming in January.
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The Team:
Story Created & Performed by: Aaron Calafato
Original Scores & Sound Design by Echo Finch
Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional Vocals: Cori Calafato
In Partnership with WYSU 88.5FM
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TRANSCRIPT
A New Chapter for 7 Minute Stories + “The Secret Antenna”
Before we get to today’s story, stick with me. Don’t skip past this important update about what’s happening this January on this feed and with this podcast. It’s all good news. That’s the headline.
Season 7 of 7 Minute Stories, the one we’re in right now, will continue through December 31, 2026. I think that means about 18 episodes, about half the normal length of the seasons I run.
That’s because in January 2027, this coming new year, this feed will become Shortwave Stories.
I’ll get to the story behind that and why this is such a good thing. But the most important thing for you to know is that you don’t have to do anything new. Stay right where you are in this feed.
If you haven’t followed by now, just make sure you’re tapping the Follow button wherever you’re hearing my voice. But the point is, you don’t have to go anywhere new. You’ll still get a story from me every week, every Thursday. And most importantly, the entire 7 Minute Stories archive, all seven seasons, will still be here in your podcast feed.
The name will change from 7 Minute Stories to Shortwave Stories, and the stories you hear every week will be maybe a minute or so shorter. But it’ll still be me telling the kinds of stories we’ve shared for seven seasons.
And I’m bringing on another storyteller, except he does it with sound and music. His name is Adam, also known as Echo Finch. He’ll be linked in the description, and he’s going to bring an original sonic score to many of the stories you’ll hear as Shortwave Stories in January.
Ken Wendt will still be here putting the final polish on the episodes. And my beautiful wife, of course, Cori, will still be welcoming you in.
So why the change?
This summer, I talked with several public radio stations and formed a founding partnership with a wonderful station, WYSU out of Youngstown. They’re actually one of the first NPR charter stations.
The team over there and I started talking, and we were like, “What would it be like to have these stories that you’re hearing every week on public radio?”
So I put together a pilot. I called it Shortwave Stories, and then it turned into a series. It got some love from Glynn Washington, the executive producer and creator of Snap Judgment, and many stations run Shortwave Stories as a lead-in to Snap Judgment on the weekends. That’s been pretty cool.
Plus, they run it during different openings in their weekday news programming.
The crazy thing is that we started it this summer, and it’s already grown to 14 stations. I’ve got regional and national syndication in my sights.
Since those stories people hear on the radio come from what we’ve been doing here for so many years, it felt right to bring everything under one name, whether you’re listening on the podcast feed, streaming a radio station, or listening on terrestrial radio.
For me, this is a childhood dream coming full circle. In fact, the reason I started this podcast in the first place was that I wanted to tell my stories on the radio.
For a while, I couldn’t find a spot. But now I have, and you have helped make that possible.
I cannot begin to tell you. You’ve helped make that possible by tuning in every week, by binging these episodes, by following the podcast, by helping it get ranked on Apple, by sharing it with your friends, by telling people, and by texting them a link to your favorite episode.
Thank you.
Today, I wanted to give you a little preview with a story about where this dream began. This is a Shortwave Stories edition that has already aired on public radio, but this is its first appearance here on our feed.
Enjoy this origin story, the story that really started it all, titled “The Secret Antenna.”
The Secret Antenna
Could a toy microphone from 1990 be the reason I’m talking to you right now?
Let’s find out.
I’m sitting in the back seat of my dad’s car, looking out the window, and everything feels unfamiliar. The trees look weird, the road signs look weird, even the houses look weird. And I remember feeling scared.
I was seven, and my parents had just gotten divorced. My dad was driving my brother and me to his new apartment.
Now, the apartment wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t great. It was just different. And I think when you’re seven years old, different can be pretty scary. You know what I mean?
My dad pulls up, takes my brother and me inside, and gives us this little tour of where we’re going to live. Eventually, he shows us the room we’re going to share.
There was nothing in this room except, on the carpeting, this brightly colored red, blue, and yellow Fisher-Price karaoke toy.
It had an AM/FM radio. You could put a cassette tape in and listen to your favorite artists. It had a microphone so you could sing along with their songs.
But then my dad showed me something else.
He said, “You know you can record your own voice on this, right?”
What?
He said, “Yeah,” and he puts this blank cassette in and shows me how to press the big Play and Record buttons at the same time.
I grab the microphone, and I say something probably profound like, “Hello?”
Then I stop the tape, rewind, press Play, and suddenly I hear my voice.
“Hello.”
And here’s the thing: it absolutely blew my mind.
I had an appreciation for all the advancements that were made in recording technology in a way that I never had before. And in that moment, something clicks. It’s this new passion, and I can’t stop recording.
My brother, Alex, and I started our own radio show on this thing. We called it Aaron and Alex Radio.
Yep, a pretty innovative name.
But it was so fun. We would have sports segments. We recorded jokes, fake commercials, and eventually I just ended up taking over and telling stories on this thing.
It should have just been called Aaron Radio because I was a tyrannical program manager.
But the point is, I had found something.
I would make these cassette tapes of my stories, and I started handing them out to different members of my family. I’m sure they loved that.
Somewhere along the way, I realized this act was filling something in me that had felt empty, something I couldn’t quite yet describe.
Every night I was at my dad’s, I’d lie in the top bunk with this little radio cassette player, telling stories on it under the blankets. And I started to imagine something in my seven-year-old brain.
I wondered if maybe there was a secret antenna hidden somewhere inside that thing.
I knew some of my favorite people on the radio had that power, but I didn’t have that technology. I didn’t have that ability.
But maybe, somehow, it didn’t just stay on the cassette. It went out into the air. And somewhere, with the power of the secret antenna, somebody I didn’t know might pick up one of my stories on their radio.
Maybe they’d hear it, and they’d laugh or they’d feel something.
But of course, that’s ridiculous. That’s just seven-year-old imagination stuff. And giving up on that idea was a bit of a letdown.
I thought maybe this imagination stuff was just a hoax, a false remedy to make me feel better about what was actually going on.
But it felt wrong to stop doing this thing that I loved, even if it meant nobody would hear it.
So I just kept telling these stories, like I’m punching at the wind, through all the stages of my life, no matter what was going on. Growing up, adolescence, college, starting a career, losing jobs, getting a divorce, starting a relationship, starting a family.
Through all the ups and downs, the one constant was just telling these little stories.
And now, here I am talking to you on the radio.
Because you are listening to Shortwave Stories on one of the first stations in the