Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Ian Pillar,
New low power station 5 KW out of central Victoria keeping everyone very excited in Australia on all the message boards . Run by David Stuart VK3ASE
Broadcaster: Shortwave Australia
Date of recording: 7/7/2022
Starting time: 0750 UTC
Frequency: 4835 kHz
Receiver location: NSW Australia
Receiver and antenna: KiwiSDR Loop Antenna
The Shepparton transmitter site of ABC/Radio Australia
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Bob Purse, curator of the excellent Inches Per Second audio archive and blog. Bob kindly shares the following recording originally made on reel to reel tape. All of Bob’s recordings are lost and found sound, so the only information he has for each recording are the notes included on tape labels and boxes. If you can identify the date or any other information about this recording, please comment.
Bob notes the following about this found piece:
[…]I found yet another Shortwave broadcast in my collection to pass along. In this case, it is again Australian Shortwave, from Spring of 1968. An I will acknowledge right off the bat that the recording quality is abysmal. It starts poorly and gets worse and worse as it goes along. This is actually why I hadn't shared it before. But I thought the time was right to offer it up, terrible quality and all.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares the following recording and notes:
Here is a recording of Radio Australia's DX program called Spectrum from August 15, 1982. I believe this was recorded around 0200 UT on 17795 kHz when Australia used to come in well in the evenings here.
Some of the program highlights are:
A roundup of DX news from Bob Padula and Peter Bunn (sp) from the Australina Radio DX Club and interviews with some of the broadcasters gathered at the 1982 ANARC Convention in Montreal. Over-the-phone audio in those days was not too great so the audio is poor in this segment.
Broadcaster: Radio Australia
Date of recording: 8/15/1982
Starting time: 0200 approx.
Frequency: 17.795 MHz
RX location: South Bend, Indiana
Receiver and antenna: Sony ICF-2001 and longwire
A picture taken by the ESSA-8 satellite that shows Cyclone Tracy on December 25, 1974 (Source: Wikipedia via NASA)
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Paul Rawdon, who shares the following recording and notes:
Announcement explaining the reason for a reduced signal strength. Cyclone Tracy put the Darwin transmitter site off air. News bulletin plus other selected items that were broadcast relating to the evacuation of Darwin. Because the local 8DR MW transmitter was damaged a microwave link was set up between Darwin and Shepparton with the programme transmitted back to Darwin on shortwave.
Date of recording: 12/25/1974
Starting time: 2100 UTC
Frequency: 9.58 MHz
Your location: Lower Hutt, New Zealand, 26 December NZDT
Receiver and antenna: Trio 9R59DSM communications receiver with a random length long wire
37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Notes: Radio Australia shortwave broadcast with coverage of President Nixon's resignation speech on August 8, 1974.
RX location: Plymouth, Minnesota
Receiver and antenna: Hammarlund HQ-180, longwire
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Ray Briem Show on DXing and Shortwave Listening aired on the ABC Talk Radio Network. The show features many shortwave recordings/interval signals plus interviews with Stewart MacKenzie (American Shortwave Listener's Club), Dr. Richard E. Wood (well known DX-er), Tom Meijer (Radio Netherland’s Happy Station program), Arthur T. Cushen (well known blind DX-er), Glenn Hauser (Review of International Broadcasting/World of Radio), Ian McFarland (Radio Canada International’s Shortwave Listener’s Digest), H. D. Norman (NDXE Radio which never made it on the air), Joe Costello (Owner of WRNO Worldwide) and callers. The recording has popping sounds that were not able to be fully filtered out.
Many thanks to all of the SRAA contributors who have shared their recordings of the final moments of Radio Australia. Below, you'll find a number of recordings from around the world.
If you have a recording you would like to share, please submit it to us and we'll add your recording.
The first SRAA contributor, Mark Fahey, lives near Sydney, Australia. Mark recorded the shortwave service and RA satellite feed simultaneously. Mark shares the following recordings and notes:
Recording 1
This is RA’s final few minutes on shortwave – it was recorded on 17840kHz.
The file picks up the regular program ending, then into a Promo for RA “Pacific Beat” (a Pacific current affairs program), then the classic RA Interval Signal then the transmitter clicks off and the void is heard.
Recording 2
The file starts at exactly the same time as the first file, but in this example we are monitoring the Network Feed from Intelsat 18 at 180.0 degrees east (above the equator right on the international date line). This satellite feed is the way Radio Australia gets to the network of FM Transmitters they have scatted around the Pacific Region (which is why they feel they don’t need shortwave anymore for – most populated areas of Radio Australia’s target area now is covered by a network of Radio Australia FM transmitters).
Ian P notes:
Recorded from A Global Tuner in Broome, WA, Australia
Receiver: Icom PCR-1000 Antenna: Discone
Last 30 Minutes Of Radio Australia On Short Wave
Phil Brennan writes:
I managed to catch the last 45 seconds of the NT ABC broadcast on 5025 kHz. Unfortunately it's from my phone and not of great quality, but it may be the only recording of it given the time of day and propagation conditions.
Click here to view on YouTube.
Dan Hawkins writes:
I set up the 909X (also my favorite travel radio) on a chair in a backyard and ran the little ANT-60 reel-up antenna up to a pear tree. This is a recording of Radio Australia Pacific Service on 17840 kHz that includes the last top of the hour newscast at midnight, 1-31-2017 UTC. It includes promos, an ID and a news story on the shortwave closure. Less than a hour later there was no more RA on shortwave. RA came in very well for northern California on several frequencies. Conditions were fantastic for this one considering the 7,800 mile transmission distance. Birds and traffic are also heard in this hand-held field recording. I didn’t bring the tripod. I’ll miss Radio Australia, but I still have excellent reception of RNZI.
Image: Bureau of Meteorology
This morning, I made a short recording of Radio Australia as they reported on the power outages that affected an entire territory in the wake of the worst storms southern Australia has seen in decades.
This recording begins around 12:59 UTC on September 28, 2016 and runs only for a few minutes. This was recorded from 9,580 kHz in western North Carolina:
This morning, I was very curious about the results of the Brexit vote, so I turned to one of the only stations that is strong enough to punch through the noise here at our vacation condo: Radio Australia.
The following recording starts a few minutes prior to the top of the hour ABC news headlines at 12:00 UTC on 9580 kHz on June 24, 2016 (the morning after the Brexit vote and the resignation announcement of Prime Minister David Cameron.
The recording is rather poor as propagation was dismal and the level of RFI significant. Still, this is such an important event, I wanted it in the shortwave archive. Receiver used was the Sony ICF-SW55 in Beaupré, Québec, Canada:
One of four WWV time code generators in late August, 2014 (Photo: Thomas Witherspoon)
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares the following recordings he has transferred from audio cassette. Tom includes the following notes:
I combined several audio files of some of the common time signal stations available back in 1981 and 1982 into one clip. These were made using a DX-302 which had poor image rejection and you can hear some stations behind WWV which shouldn't be there, such as RCI's interval signal at one point.
00:00 - VNG, Australia - August 16, 1981 on 12.000 MHz at ???? UTC
03:02 - LOL, Argentina - October 15, 1981 on 15.000 MHz at 2349 UTC
07:27 - BPM, China - January 16, 1982 on 10.000 MHz at 1255 UTC
08:38 - ZUO, South Africa - December 18, 1982 on 5.000 MHz at 0329 UTC
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Julie, for this recording of Radio Thailand's English language service.
Julie recorded this broadcast in Sydney, Australia on November 8, 2014 at 1155 UTC on 4.835 MHz. Julie notes:
"This frequency booms every night here, unlike the other two NT stations on 2325 and 2485, which the DE1121 cannot record as it only covers 3 to 29.999 MHz. I hear them well sometimes, other times not at all, but 8AL sounds like Alice is next door when it's almost 3 thousand miles away..."
"Australia Day" by Phil Whitehouse from London, United Kingdom, aka Phillie Casablanca on Flickr - Australia Day. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
For your listening pleasure: three hours of Radio Australia's English language service.
This recording was made on October 2, 2014 starting at 10:57 UTC on 9,580 kHz. The news, of course, that tops the day are the peaceful protests currently taking place in Hong Kong (a.k.a. the "Umbrella Revolution").
Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below. Please subscribe to our podcast to receive future recordings automatically.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Yesterday–New Year's Eve, 2014–I spent some time listening to a few broadcasters as the new year passed through their time zones. While I missed hearing Radio New Zealand International (the first to welcome the New Year on the air), I did manage to catch Radio Australia, and the New Year was celebrated with no fanfare; one program merely ran into the next, and there was a brief mention of 2014's arrival in the headline news.
Oh, but it wasn't that way when we moved into the year 2000...
Back in December of 1999, before setting off to visit family for the New Year, I had a sudden notion: I decided it would be fun–and a bit novel–to record radio broadcasters as each moved into the new millennium. As we were packing the car to travel, I changed my mind about using my Grundig Yacht Boy 400 to accomplish this fairly ambitious, round-the-world listening/recording endeavor; instead, I grabbed my ham radio transceiver, an Icom IC-735, and packed it, along with a hefty 12-volt power supply. While my IC-735 lacked AM filters (at the time) it had much better sensitivity than the YB400, especially when hooked up to a decent antenna. I also had the foresight to take along a few odds and ends, including a mechanical antenna tuner and a spool of long wire.
To record the broadcast, I used my trusty Aiwa AM F70 MiniDisk recorder–remember those? Upon arrival at our extended family's home, they kindly permitted me to erect a long wire antenna in a sloping configuration in their yard. It did a fine job netting the airwaves. The MiniDisk recorder recorded brilliantly, allowing me to monitor levels and even edit afterward.
As a result, I spent New Year's Eve 2000 recording station after station as the earth turned. It was great fun, and meanwhile had very little impact on our family celebrations as I simply left the recorder running for long periods of time.
While I have yet to dissect the many hours of recordings, if memory serves, I think I managed to record Radio New Zealand International, Voice of Russia, Radio France International, NHK, Voice of America, and Radio Canada International as each rang in 2000. The IC-735 performed quite well, save a lack of bandwidth filters, as I only really had two–very wide, and very narrow.
So, for your New Year's Day listening pleasure: I hope you'll enjoy, as much as I did, listening to Radio Australia ring in the new millennium yet again. In the news items, you'll hear that Russian President Boris Yeltson has handed the reigns over to Vladimir Putin, and remarks about the (lack of) problems resulting from the infamous Y2K threat.
Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen below:
Sydney Opera House (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Many thanks to SWAA contributor, Frank, for this recording of Radio Australia's English language service.
Recorded in Europe on November 10, 2013, on 12,085 kHz, starting at 13:00 UTC.
Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:
The Shortwave Radio Audio Archive (SRAA) is a collection of shortwave radio recordings that you can download or listen to as a podcast. The collection grows every day and includes both historic recordings and current recordings from the shortwave radio spectrum.
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