Image: Universal Radio
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Nigel Thornbury, who shares the following recording and notes:
Broadcaster: Voice of the Malayan Revolution
Date of recording: 1979
Starting time: 0930
Frequency: 15.790
RX location: Singapore
Receiver and antenna: Sony ICF-5900W, random wire
Mode: AM
If SRAA subscribers can ID the exact date of this recording, please comment.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Stephen Spicer, who shares the following recording and notes:
Reception location: Melbourne, Australia
Receiver and antenna: AWA CR6A with end feed antenna
Notes: A broadcast by Apollo 8 of the first views of the moon in 1968. The broadcast was transmitted by the Voice of America, and received in Melbourne, Australia on an AWA CR6A communications receiver. The transmission frequency and exact time are unknown.
BAS Rothera Research Station is located on Adelaide Island, west of the Antarctic Peninsula (BAS PHOTO)
A live, off-air, half-hour recording of the BBC World Service special Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast on 21 June 2020 beginning at 21:30 UTC. The broadcast, hosted by Cerys Matthews, featured messages and music for the staff of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) overwintering in Antarctica. In addition to personal messages from family and friends, there were special messages from BAS personnel and others including one from Sir David Attenborough. The broadcast was preceded by an approximately 1100-Hz test tone.
The recording is of the transmission on a frequency of 7360 kHz from the BBC's Woofferton, England, transmitting station (300 kW rated transmitter power, antenna beam 182 degrees). The transmission was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with a Tecsun AN-03L 7-metre wire antenna outdoors in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada, in AM mode with 2.3 kHz RF filtering. Reception was fairly good with little noise and fading but signal strength was not very strong although much better than that on the parallel frequencies of 5790 kHz from Woofferton and 9580 kHz from Ascension Island.
The following recording of the Voice of America French language service to Africa was recorded on June 17, 2020 at 21:00 UTC on 9740 kHz at a remote KiwiSDR site in the arctic region of Finland.
Photo by Ingo Schulz on Unsplash
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Williams, who shares the following recording and notes:
Recorded by Short Wave Listener WPE9JEL from Crown Point during the 1960s. Receiver: Hallicrafters SX-110, Antenna: Random Wire. There are some duplicates that were not edited out - sorry about that.
Source: DX Archive
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Radio Sweden Saturday Show hosted by Roger Wallis. This is another studio recording from March 1978. The show featured satirical sketches, often political and sometimes controversial, and Swedish rock and pop music, especially the Swedish progressive music or alternative music scene. Topics for this show included a discussion on the neutron bomb, how to make a fortune in Sweden legally but not morally, and an interview with Georg Wadenius from Blood Sweat and Tears.
Source: DX Archive
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who share the following recording and notes:
Radio Sweden Saturday Show hosted by Roger Wallis. This is a studio recording from March 1978. The show featured satirical sketches, often political and sometimes controversial, and Swedish rock and pop music, especially the Swedish progressive music or alternative music scene.
Date of recording: 3/4/1978
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Radio Clarin (Dominican Republic) with This is Santo Domingo with Rudy Espinal broadcast in 1978. This English language broadcast includes music from the Dominican Republic, talk about a recent power outage, SPEEDX (Society for the Preservation of the Engrossing Enjoyment of DXing) magazine, ANARC (Association of North American Radio Clubs) convention at Radio Canada International in Montreal, and a NASWA (North American Shortwave Association) DX Report with Glenn Hauser.
Date of recording: 12/12/1978
Starting time: 0300 UTC
Frequency: 11.700 MHz
Recption location: Plymouth, Minnesota
Receiver and antenna: Hammarlund HQ-180, longwire
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Radio Moscow World Service English language broadcast including Moscow Newsreel about the third anniversary of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, newscasts, music from Moldova, and Soviet Panorama.
Starting time: 0720 UTC
Frequency: Unknown
Reception location: Plymouth, Minnesota
Receiver and antenna: Hammarlund HQ-180, longwire
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Recording of Radio Kuwait during the start of the invasion by Iraq. My understanding is that the broadcast originated from the Radio Kuwait transmitter site, which had not yet been occupied by Iraqi forces. Transmission consisted of music and announcements in Arabic. If anyone can translate/summarize some of the announcements, it would be appreciated.
Reception location: Minnetonka, MN
Receiver: ICOM R71A
Photo by Sébastien Goldberg on Unsplash
Many thanks to SRAA contributor Tom Laskowski who shares the following recording and notes:
Here is a nice recording of the sign-on and programming of Myanmar Radio, the National Radio Service of Myanmar, broadcasting from Yangon. I was using the Web-based SDR at the University of Twente for this recording. I have been trying for years to add this country to my shortwave logbook but it still eludes me to this day. The best I have been able to get from this station is a very weak carrier but no audio on 5.985 MHz at their sign-on time. This recording lasts about 1h 16m. This may be one of the most exotic countries still left on shortwave.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Andy Robins, who shares the following recording and notes:
A recording of European pirate station Borderhunter Radio as heard in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on 21.455 MHz from 1617 UTC on 27 December 2013. The station is located on the border of the Netherlands and Belgium. This was a special "Global Pirate Weekend" test transmission for the benefit of shortwave radio listeners in North America. The station's operator varied the transmitter power from a high of 300 watts to a low of one-half watt (500 milliwatts). Audio was detectable even at that extremely low power.
Receiver and antenna: Icom R-75 with a PA0RDT active "miniwhip" antenna
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, for the following recording and note:
The Voice of Vietnam, broadcast over Radio Havana Cuba, announcing the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam war.
Reception location: Plymouth, Minnesota
Receiver and antenna: Hammarlund HQ-180, longwire
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Andy Robins, who share the following recording and notes:
U.S. pirate station Radio Clandestine broadcast recorded on 11.835 MHz (25-meter band) from 1720 to 1742 hours UTC on 23 November 1980 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Radio Clandestine, hosted by DJ "R.F. Burns," was a legendary parody pirate station of the late 1970's into the 1980's and beyond. Its programs are still occasionally rebroadcast by other pirate stations decades later. Radio Clandestine was known for using frequencies inside the regular shortwave broadcasting bands, unlike other pirates that tended to use frequencies just above or below the 40-meter amateur radio band. In this case, 11.835 MHz was a main frequency for legal station 4VEH in Haiti during this time.
Receiver and antenna: Panasonic RF-2900 portable with built-in whip
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Radio Moscow coverage of the end of the coup attempt. Per Wikipedia: The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, was an attempt made by members of the government of the Soviet Union to take control of the country from Soviet President and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup leaders were hard-line members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) who were opposed to Gorbachev's reform program and the new union treaty that he had negotiated, which decentralized much of the central government's power to the republics. They were opposed, mainly in Moscow, by a short but effective campaign of civil resistance led by Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who had been both an ally and critic of Gorbachev. Although the coup collapsed in only two days and Gorbachev returned to power, the event destabilized the USSR and is widely considered to have contributed to both the demise of the CPSU and the dissolution of the USSR.
Date of recording: 8/22/1991
Starting time: 0300 UTC
Frequency: Unknown
Reception location: Minnetonka, MN
Receiver and antenna: ICOM R71A
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Andy Robins, who shares the following recording and notes:
U.S. pirate radio station KVHF recorded on 6.420 MHz (42-meter band) beginning at 0615 UTC on 9 November 1980 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Only a few minutes of the recording could be recovered because of the poor physical condition of the original cassette tape. This station was later "busted" by the Federal Communication Commission, at which time its location was revealed to have been in California. This made KVHF one of only a relative handful of "free radio" stations that have operated on shortwave from the U.S. West Coast.
Receiver and antenna: Collins R390A and random end-fed wire antenna
Thanks to SRAA contributor Dan Robinson for these notes and audio of Radio Kahuzi
Radio Kahuzi, a U.S.-funded religious station located in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo has been heard by DX’ers in a number of countries since the mid-2000’s and had been in operation since the 1990s. It was founded by U.S. evangelist Richard McDonald and his wife Kathleen, and was most easily heard via Europe-based SDRs, signing off at anywhere between 1800 and 1830 UTC.
In 2019, the station began to be heard more frequently on its 6,210.20 khz frequency — but was impacted by frequent power outages in the national electricity company of the DRC. In 2020, Radio Kahuzi was still being heard by DX’ers using European SDR sites, with certain locations such as Switzerland, UK, and Sweden bringing the best signals. I did a number of comparison videos showing reception of Kahuzi at these various locations. Interestingly, propagation conditions were such that Kahuzi’s signal had a very rapid rise from about 1700 UTC through to its sign off time around 1800 to 1830 UTC, and was often mistaken by some listeners as a European pirate signal in the 48 meter band.
In February 2020, Richard McDonald reported that power had been increased from 500 to 750 watts with reception in Bukavu 1/4 to 1/2 stronger, adding that they hoped the 750 watt level could be maintained “unless problems develop.” He also said the station had just installed a new digital studio.
In April 2020, McDonald reported problems with lightning strikes in the area with intermittent power issues. McDonald noted that the station had been hoping to begin distance education as the COVID-19 situation was beginning to have impacts: “We are the only radio that can reach all the 8 territories and local schools.”
As of mid-May 2020, Radio Kahuzi remained off the air as DX’ers held out hope that Kahuzi would return to the air. In an email, Richard McDonald reported “complications” regarding the power schedule of the regional power company saying he was hoping RK can get back on the air “between 8 AM to 7 PM”. Here is one of the best recordings of Radio Kahuzi, which took place using the SDR site in Ticino, Switzerland — the station has a unique sign off, playing an instrumental version of a Bluegrass song.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
A studio recorded tape of the Voice of Colombia featuring “Colombia Today” with news, weather, listener letters, music and more.
Starting time: 0100 UTC
April, 1979
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following recording and notes on Radio Rwanda
For decades, shortwave listeners were able to hear Rwanda, located in central/southern Africa via the Deutsche Welle relay site at Kigali, the capital. This article by Deutsche Welle itself told the long history of the station which went on the air in 1965 and off the air some 50 years later. SWLing Post also had this article on the closure. Here’s an excellent Wavescan piece. For those decades on the air, listeners the world over were able to hear DW, which provided a special QSL showing the Kigali site — it’s a card that is cherished in many a collection to this day. But in addition to the powerful DW voice from Kigali, Radio Rwanda was always a separate but equally sought after DX catch. The station broadcast on 6,055 khz and started at 10 kw, going up to 50 kw. Rwanda was also heard on the 90 meter frequency of 3,330 khz which was extremely difficult to hear given the interference from CHU, the Canadian time signal station, and other Latin American and African stations in that same frequency range. The QSL pictured above was for my reception of Radio Rwanda on 3,330 khz heard in Pennsylvania. At one point, I was vacationing in Boca Raton, Florida — using a Panasonic RF-B65 portable receiver on the beach just before 2000 UTC I was amazed to hear the following beautiful clear signal from Radio Rwanda on 6,055 khz.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Andy Robins, who shares the following recording and notes:
North American pirate Radio Confusion recorded on 13.992 MHz (20-meter band) beginning at 0100 GMT on 20 October 1980 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Unfortunately, the complete recording could not be recovered because of the poor physical condition of the original cassette tape. Radio Confusion was among the first North American pirates to routinely use frequencies above 7.5 MHz, as I recall.
Receiver: Collins R390A
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