Uganda Diaspora P10 Radio: February 18, 2016

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Live, off-air, 30-minute recording of the clandestine station Uganda Diaspora P10 Radio on 18 February 2016 beginning at 16:30 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 15405 kHz. The daily broadcast is believed to come from a transmitter site brokered by Media Broadcast GmbH*. 

The station is an outlet of Uganda Diaspora P10, an organization working for political change in Uganda and which supports the opposition politician Dr. Kizza Besigye. "P10" refers to the organizational power of each person enlisting 10 other people ("power to the power 10"). The recorded broadcast, in English, was on election day in Uganda and included voter instructions. 

The broadcast was received by the Web-interface wideband software-defined radio at the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, with a "Mini-Whip" antenna in AM mode with 5.09 kHz RF filtering. Reception was generally good.

* Added 2 March 2016: Media Broadcast GmbH has confirmed that this broadcast was transmitted from Issoudun, France, using a 250 kW transmitter with an antenna beam direction of 140°.


One winters evening - Winter 1975 - Halifax, Nova Scotia

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40 years ago during the Winter of 1975 I was a member of the IRCA and exchanging "DX Cassettes" with a couple of very successful DXers in North America. Before the days of the internet and e-mail, all we had were cassettes and snail mail and the occasional local phone call when DX was happening. This extremely rare live recording from Halifax, Canada features DXer and Ham, Michael Dunn during one of his busier evenings capturing armchair reception of European stations on the medium-wave dial. This recording is in stereo no less! Michael used an HQ180 with a random wire antenna. He was in one of the most ideal locations in North America for Transatlantic reception. To the best of my knowledge this is the only recording of its kind from the mid-70's! Enjoy.

Voice of Turkey: February 18, 2016

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Voice of Turkey recorded in London, UK on February 18, 2016 at 0900 UTC, on the frequency of 15350 kHz using a Lowe HF-150 radio with Lowe PR-150 preselector and a Wellbrook ALA1530S+ antenna. The transmitter is located in Emirler, Turkey and has a power rating of 500 kW.

All India Radio on 31-meters November 13th, 2006

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Here on the West Coast of Canada or as we affectionately call it, The Wet Coast, India is one of the hardest countries to hear - largely because it is the farthest away - literally on the opposite side of the planet. In the "old days" as in the 1970's I could hope to hear India on my DX150B once at the equinoxes - nowadays, with better receiving gear and arguably better signals from the source, it is somewhat easier - in fact, at any given day of the year at sunrise or sunset it is possible to hear India... conditions being reasonably favourable that is. Here is an example of good conditions from the Point no Point cabins near Jordan River on Vancouver Island.

Bonus Track - 52 years ago today - Beatles arrive in Miami Florida

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So much as been written about the Beatles, the 60's in general and the importance of AM radio at the time. If not for massive air play of a lot of these artists it is arguable that they ever would have been as huge as they were. Here is a 2 minute snapshot of the raw excitement of a British pop band arriving on our shores and the immediacy of the action... on WQAM Radio 560 Khz in Miami, Florida. February 14th, 1964 - from a private audio collection.

1975 A moment in time on the SW bands.

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1975 was a good year for Shortwave listening - It would, arguably, be years before the Shortwave medium reached its peak (in the 80's) and start its slow decline we are experiencing today.

In these 3 audio snippets we give you a sense of what the bands sounded like then and how they have and haven't changed. See if you can guess which one sounds exactly the same. Check out some things that were happening or popular in 1975!

  • Mood Rings, Rubik’s Cubes, Pet Rocks, Hip-huggers, bellbottoms, leisure suits, 8-Tracks and  Disco were popular that year.

  • Song of the Year was Captain and Tennille,
    with “Love Will Keep Us Together” The album of the Year: Paul Simon, “Still Crazy After All These Years” 

  • A couple of popular movies that year were “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and “Jaws,”

  • The TV show “Saturday Night Live”
    premiered on NBC in 1975 with George Carlin hosting the first show. 

  • “All in the Family” was America’s top television show for the fifth straight year. 

  • The U.S. President was Gerald R. Ford and Nelson A. Rockefeller was his Vice-President.

     

In the recording of Radio Pyongyang below we demonstrate how some things never change.

China Radio International, The Beijing Hour: February 8, 2016

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Live, off-air, one-hour recording of the Chinese (Lunar) New Year's Day 7 p.m. edition of "The Beijing Hour" from China Radio International on 8 February 2016 beginning at 19:00 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 7295 kHz. According to the filing with the High Frequency Co-ordination Conference, this broadcast came from a 500 kW transmitter in Urumqi, Xinjiang, in western China, with an antenna beam azimuth of 270°, targeting North Africa and the Middle East. A recording made simultaneously on the parallel frequency of 9440 kHz is also available on request.

"The Beijing Hour" is produced by Beijing 1008 AM, Discover Plus Radio, a division of China Radio International, and is identified as such at the beginning of the recording. "The Beijing Hour" includes the segment "People in the Know" in the second half of the program, beginning around the 29-minute mark. In addition to reports on New Year's celebrations, the program includes a discussion of future Chinese space missions, while the "People in the Know" segment is on the growth model of the Chinese economy. Following station identification for "News Plus Radio" and promos at minute 54, the recording ends with a "Chinese Studio" Chinese language lesson.

The broadcast was received by the Web-interface wideband software-defined radio at the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, with a "Mini-Whip" antenna in AM mode with 5.09 kHz RF filtering. Reception quality was generally quite good with some minimal interference from one or more stations occasionally noted.

Radio Uganda - 15325 Khz - 0320 UTC - October 1, 1979

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Living on the West Coast of Canada, catching Africa on any band was always a bit tricky - Getting India or Pakistan was generally a once a year event (which has changed with better listening techniques and antennas - but that is another story!) RSA in South Africa was pretty much a daily reception but apart from the there was not a lot to pick from. Occasionally there would be a good mid-afternoon opening on 60 or 49 meters to West Africa and that was always a treat. In the Fall of 1979 I had enrolled in the first of a series of college courses in Electronics that would shape the career of my working life (which I am still benefiting from today!). And at the time, even though I was buried in textbooks, I still found some time for radio listening. Enjoy this high quality reception as received on my venerable DX150B and inverted-L untuned antenna.


Bonus Friday Track - Green River Radio May 26 1980 7350 Khz

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The 80's (and late 70's) were kind of the the beginning for really active pirate radio operations in North America. One may wonder what took them so long but they were not generally received with open arms... by a long shot - by active SWL's or the Federal government. Either way, it was an interesting time. Here is a snippet of a not-so-well run operation - Green River Radio. Note the crappy audio quality and overall polish. The above graphic I cooked up with "GIMP" as I was lacking a more suitable anchor photo. Enjoy!


CFAX 1070 Victoria May 18, 1980 1700 UTC

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Nobody could have expected Mt. St. Helens to explode in the fashion that it did in the Spring of 1980 - although scientific analysis and research certainly pointed in that direction. This radio clip was taken on the first news hour after the explosion which was heard in Victoria B.C. as a series of loud thuds, booms accompanied by window rattles. The devastation at the site and fall-out to the Northeast and in central Washington state would prove to be problematic - and despite the tragic loss of life, this event helped us better understand the nature of semi dormant volcanos in the region.

Bonus Track - Here is a sample of some 80 meter ham traffic within 1 hour of the initial series of blasts.

Bonus Track - WARG Pirate Radio 1980

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1980 was a red hot year for Pirate radio in North America - it was something of a new phenomenon for many listeners - many of whom did not appreciate the newcomer to the highly organized SW spectrum. The likes of Voice of the Voyager, KVHF and the Voice of Clipperton (RX4M) ruffled many a feather. Here is a sample of a short lived pirate on 6960 Khz in AM Mode - soon to be over run by sideband operators.

This one was received on my DX150B on April the 20th, 1980.
 

San Francisco - October 17, 1989 at 5:04 p.m.

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The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred in Northern California on October 17 at 5:04 p.m. local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park approximately 10 mi (16 km) northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of the San Andreas Fault System and was named for the nearby Loma Prieta peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. With a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), the shock was responsible for 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The Loma Prieta segment of the San Andreas Fault System had been relatively inactive since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (to the degree that it was designated a seismic gap) until two moderate foreshocks occurred in June 1988 and again in August 1989.

Like many people I was watching the game but quickly started tuning the amateur radio bands and KGO San Francisco on 810 Khz the moment the sun started to sink on the horizon. I have about 1/2 hour or more of live audio from KGO that evening and the following evening. Here is some of the most breath taking audio from shortly after the quake.

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The Voice of Chile - 1979 - received in Victoria B.C. Canada

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The 70's were a tumultuous time in Chile but one of the more positive things to come out of that era was a powerful and professional sounding National voice under the Pinochet regime. The Voice of Chile was a byproduct of that era and I was blessed to find a very clean recording of them from the Spring of 1979. Received on the west coast on my DX150B and a simple inverted-L antenna - recorded on an old mono cassette recorder from Sears that was bought in 1971!

Radio Korea from July the 3rd 1977

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Living here on the West coast, I have always been fascinated by Asia - particularly the coastal Asian countries of Korea, Japan, Vietnam and China - in part because we are only separated by a vast salt water ocean between us.

And countries like Korea fascinate me even more because of the intricate, complicated and often globally impactful instabilities that occur in the region on a regular basis. In this recording I capture the essence of the Korean broadcasting centre in Seoul, Korea. Professionally produced, the media out of Korea during the late 70's was on a par with any other broadcaster on the World stage - in stark contrast to what was coming out of Pyongyang to the North (featured in future recordings!)

Enjoy this snippet recorded on a 1973 DX150B receiver attached to an inverted-L antenna in my backyard - in a quieter time where the only interference was from an old TV set or a furnace motor!

 

Ian McFarland on NHK Tokyo in 1995

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Ian McFarland (who is retired and living on Vancouver Island) had a long and illustrious career with Radio Canada - but wrapped up his career in international broadcasting with NHK in Japan.

On September 11, 1995 Canadian DXer, Dr. Walter Salmaniw, caught this media broadcast on NHK with Ian interviewing program developer and budget director, James Atherton from the Voice of America. The program is Media Round-up which Ian was responsible for. This snippet starts a little rough but improves significantly during the edit. Ironically, the subject of the interview was the decline of shortwave broadcasting budgets!

The rare 5 day existence of DXCR on 2654 Khz: September 11th, 1975

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Hello! I am Colin Newell, the new editorial assistant to Thomas Witherspoon of SWLing.com.

I have been DXing and SWLing since 1971 and have amassed something of an unusual audio archive going back to around 1975. In the upcoming months I will be sharing many of these snippets with our readers. Enjoy!

On September 11th, 1975 while tuning around for Papua New Guinea stations on my DX150B, I discovered a loud signal on 2654 Khz - playing bouncy big band and instrumental music. Much to my amazement, many station ID's would soon pop out of the noise. This would turn out to be one of the shortest lived shortwave broadcasters ever!

I believe I phoned a few DXer's out west to report this station but this is one of the only known recordings of this 2 X harmonic of a Philippines religious station (that had only been on the air 2 or 3 years. The 2nd harmonic on the "120 meter band" would live for another couple of days and be gone forever. One of the joys of Short-wave listening that has captivated me all these years is the pure randomness and unpredictability of the experience.

Like a box of chocolates... you never know what you are going to get!

Radio Sultanate of Oman: February 5, 2016

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Live, off-air, approximately one-hour recording of the Radio Sultanate of Oman English Service on 5 February 2016 beginning at 13:59:36 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 15140 kHz. This service is a relay of the domestic English service on 90.4 MHz in Muscat and is broadcast from a 100 kW transmitter in Thumrait, western Oman, with an antenna beam azimuth of 315°.

The recording begins with music in progress for about 30 seconds or so and then a station identification: "Oman Radio, 90.4 FM." This is followed by the call to evening prayer, using nature-sound music, specifically the track "The Runoff" from Dan Gibson's Solitudes "Rocky Mountain Suite" album. There is no muezzin; just an announcement. Then follows the "6 p.m. News Bulletin." This, in turn, is followed by the program "Jazz Café." The transmission ends abruptly in mid-song at about 15:04:30 UTC. Normally, there would be a switch to Arabic programming at this time but the carrier stayed on without any audio for a number of hours.        

The broadcast was received by the Web-interface wideband software-defined radio at the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, with a "Mini-Whip" antenna in AM mode with initially 5.09 kHz RF filtering but this was changed after a few seconds to 8.09 kHz. Reception quality was excellent with almost full quieting during audio pauses.

Voice of Korea: January 17, 2016

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Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jordan Heyburn, who submits this SoundCloud recording of the Voice of Korea. This broadcast was recorded on January 17, 2016, on 12,015 kHz starting at 15:30 UTC. 

Jordan recorded this broadcast from his home in Armagh, Northern Ireland with his Kenwood R1000 and dipole antenna.  Jordan notes that his reception, unfortunately, does include some heavy RFI (noise/interference).

Voice of Korea heard in English to Northern Ireland using a Kenwood R1000 with a Dipole.