WTWW (The Voice of Freedom): April 25, 2022

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Bryce Belcher, who shares the following recording and notes:

Broadcaster: WTWW “The Voice of Freedom”

Date of recording: 4/25/2022

Starting time: 23:13 UTC

Frequency: 5.085 MHz

Reception location: Columbus Ohio

Receiver and antenna: My Tecsun PL880 with just the telescopic antenna

Notes: My recording of WTWW, the voice of freedom on 5085 MHz from April 25, 2022. The reception was pretty good here in Columbus in this recording. With just the telescopic antenna the station comes in pretty good.

KSKO Paul Walker's Christmas Special: December 23, 2022

The following recording of Paul Walker's Christmas Special on KSKO was recorded on a live relay from Space Line Bulgaria on 5900 kHz on Friday, December 24, 2022 starting around 00:10 UTC.

This recording was made on the U Twente WebSDR in the Netherlands.

Wolverine Radio (Shortwave Pirate) Clip: December 25, 2021

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Matt Todd, who shares the following recording and notes:

Audio recording of Shortwave Pirate going by Wolverine Radio. This was recorded December 25, 2021 at 0056UTC on 6969khz in Hugo, MN. The broadcast consists of a few minutes of the Barenaked Ladies song Testing One Two Three being play and then a male voice announcing a frequency change.

Broadcaster: Wolverine Radio (Pirate)

Date of recording: 12/25/2021

Starting time: 0056 UTC

Frequency: 6.96 MHz

Your location: Hugo, MN

Receiver and antenna: SDRPlay with a wire loop antenna around the perimeter of the attic

Mode: Single Side Band

Radio Canada International "Music Shop" clip: circa 1981

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Pete Polanyk, who shares the following short clip and notes:

A very spooky thing happened to me earlier. I was going through some old punk cassettes […] and on the B side of one of them was some shortwave recording from 1981! I haven't been through it all in any detail yet but here's a couple of minutes of Radio Canada International from 1981:

KUSW Worldwide Radio: December 26, 1987

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the folowing recording and notes:

KUSW Shortwave from Salt Lake City, Utah recorded on December 26, 1987 received at 2040 UTC on 17715 kHz. Includes rock music, national commercials, newscast, frequency schedule and announcements by John Florence. Ends with something similar to an interval signal. Music and commercials are scoped.

Broadcaster: WUSW Worldwide Radio

Date of recording: 12/26/1987

Starting time: 2040 UTC

Frequency: 17.715 MHz

RX location: Minnetonka, MN

Receiver and antenna: ICOM R71A with longwire

Radio Moscow: December 3, 1978

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

Borderhunter Radio: December 27, 2013

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

KVHF: November 9, 1980

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

Radio Confusion: October 20, 1980

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

Jolly Roger Radio: November 9, 1980

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Andy Robins, who shares the following recording and notes:

This is a recording of U.S. pirate radio station "Jolly Roger Radio" from my location in Kalamazoo, Michigan, beginning at 2300 UTC on 9 November 1980. At that time I was using a Collins R390A receiver and a random-length, end-fed wire antenna. The station was about the only U.S. pirate at that time that specialized in Bluegrass, folk, and Americana music. This was part of a marathon, multi-hour broadcast that led directly to the FCC "busting" the station and putting it off the air. It was revealed that Jolly Roger Radio operated from Bloomington, Indiana, with a transmitter power of around 50 watts.

Super Rock KYOI: March 11, 1986

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Mark Nelson, who shares the following recording and notes:

Super Rock KYOI was a short-wave radio station located at Saipan island in the Pacific region from 1982 to 1989. The station broadcast rock and pop music to China, Japan, USSR, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. This recording includes rock music, IDs, and address. It was originally recorded to cassette tape using a Sony ICF6500W receiver. My location was Minot, North Dakota.

Starting time: 1425

Frequency: 11.900

Receiver location: Minot, North Dakota, USA

Receiver and antenna: Sony ICF6500W with random wire

Alt Universe Top 40 (via Channel 292): June 29, 2019

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, John McMullan, who shares the following recording and notes:

Shortwave aircheck of ALT UNIVERSE TOP 40, recorded from its broadcast on Channel 292, 7440 kHz on June 29, 2019.

Date of recording: 6/29/2019

Starting time: 11:00 UTC

Frequency: 7.440

Your location: USA

Receiver and antenna: WEBsdr (The Netherlands)

Notes: Mild static from the beginning and throughout. Fades and digital skips periodically.

CFZM: July 28, 2019

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares the following recording and notes:

Last night I took advantage of a clear Saturday night to head out to my favorite "dark sky" astronomy site south of Bourbon, Indiana to do some stargazing. I took my 5" telescope along with my favorite "accessory", my newly cleaned, aligned and recapped RF-2200. While waiting for sunset and darkness I recorded one hour of The Mighty KBC's Giant Jukebox and followed that up with a recording of three hours of Toronto's CFZM "Zoomer Radio and their weekly program Saturday Night Bandstand. While not SWBC, listening to Zoomer is a great way to spend a Saturday night under the stars. There is some fading and a strange growling noise which I believe was caused by having my digital recorder too close to the radio. Also some thunderstorm static can be heard from storms which popped up near the end of the recording. Both recordings were made with either the RF-2200's whip antenna for KBC or the internal ferrite swivel antenna for CFZM. Enjoy!

Broadcaster: CFZM

Date of recording: 7/28/2019

Starting time: 0210

Frequency: 740 kHz

Location: Bourbon, IN

The Mighty KBC: July 28, 2019

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares the following recording and notes:

Last night I took advantage of a clear Saturday night to head out to my favorite "dark sky" astronomy site south of Bourbon, Indiana to do some stargazing. I took my 5" telescope along with my favorite "accessory", my newly cleaned, aligned and recapped RF-2200. While waiting for sunset and darkness I recorded one hour of The Mighty KBC's Giant Jukebox and followed that up with a recording of three hours of Toronto's CFZM "Zoomer Radio and their weekly program Saturday Night Bandstand. While not SWBC, listening to Zoomer is a great way to spend a Saturday night under the stars. There is some fading and a strange growling noise which I believe was caused by having my digital recorder too close to the radio. Also some thunderstorm static can be heard from storms which popped up near the end of the recording. Both recordings were made with either the RF-2200's whip antenna for KBC or the internal ferrite swivel antenna for CFZM. Enjoy!

Broadcaster: The Mighty KBC

Date of recording: 7/28/2019

Starting time: 0100

Frequency: 9.925

Location: Bourbon, IN

Radio Educación XEPPM-OC (Cultura México Señal Internacional): April 6, 2019

Mexico City, Mexico (Photo by Jezael Melgoza @jezael)

For your listening pleasure: Radio Educación (XEPPM) from Mexico City. This recording was made on April 6, 2019 starting around 0058 UTC on 6,185 kHz. The receiver used was a WinRadio Excalibur hooked to a large horizontal delta loop antenna—the recording was made in North Carolina, USA.

This recording includes music and news—all in Spanish. Enjoy:

Radio Educación XEPPM-OC (Cultura México Señal Internacional): April 1, 2019

For your listening pleasure: Radio Educación (XEPPM) from Mexico City. This recording was made on April 1, 2019 starting around 0125 UTC on 6185 kHz. The receiver used was a WinRadio Excalibur hooked to a large horizontal delta loop antenna—the recording was made in North Carolina, USA.

Although XEPPM’s 1,000 watt signal often makes it into North America, it’s rare that it’s so clear and conditions are so quiet. Their jazz selection on this date was excellent. Enjoy:

Radio Tahiti (music): unknown date

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Mark Pettifor, who writes:

One of the great things about DXing and SWLing is the variety of music one can hear. One of my favorite stations to listen to on shortwave for “exotic music” was Radio Tahiti, Papeete, French Polynesia, when they were still on shortwave.

If my memory serves me correctly, I believe something happened to the transmitter, and they never got back on SW. They were on mediumwave through December of 2016 (738 kHz); now they are on FM only. (Maybe us hobbyists should start a funding website to put them back on shortwave!)

Many a Saturday night I would turn on the DX-160 (my first SW rig) and let it warm up for a while, before tuning in 15170 to see how band conditions were. If the band was good, I’d get ready to record through the air. Once I started recording, I’d often leave the room and shut the door, because having three brothers around meant the possibilities were high for having “extraneous interference” on my recordings.

Saturday evenings were a good time to tune in, because of a music program that aired with a good selection of island music. The program had an announcer who spoke in the island vernacular (Tahitian?), and when that program ended they switched to French.

Here is a 30-min recording of Radio Tahiti on 15170 kHz from a while ago, most likely around one of the solar maxima of either 1980 or 1991. I’m leaning toward the 1980 cycle. My apologies for not being able to be more specific than that. I kept terrible records of my recordings. This would be recorded either with the DX-160 or a DX-302. Apologies too for the jump in volume at around the 2:37 mark.

So close your eyes, imagine you are lying in a hammock on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific, with a warm breeze off the ocean and your favorite cooled beverage nearby, listening to some of the best island music anywhere.

The Report of the Week via WRMI: February 11, 2018

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Troy Riedel, who shares the following recording of The Report of the Week via WRMI:

Date of recording: 2/11/2018

Starting time: 2100 UTC

Frequency: 9.395 MHz

Reception location: Toano, VA

Receiver and antenna: Sony ICF-SW7600GR with Slinky Antenna

Notes: The Report of the Week (by VORW), entire show for the broadcast week Thu 02/08/2018 - Sun 02/11/2018.

All India Radio: January 8, 2018

The following recording of All India Radio was made on January 8, 2018 starting around  22:10 UTC on 7,550 kHz. This short recording was made with a WinRadio Excalibur hooked to a large skyloop antenna in North Carolina, USA.

Canadian Shortwave Pirate TNFM: June 2, 1986.

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Scott Nelson, who shares this 1986 recording of the Canadian pirate radio station, TNFM and notes:

Date of recording: 6/2/1986

Starting time: 0520

Frequency: 7.415

Receiver location: Minot, North Dakota

Receiver: Sony ICF-6500W

Notes: Canadian pirate station TNFM recorded June 2, 1986 from my location in Minot, North Dakota. IDs, music, and talk - playing listener requests and dedications.