WWV: December 8, 1991

WWV Station sign at WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Myke Dodge Weiskopf, who shares the following recording and notes:

BROADCASTER: WWV

DATE OF RECORDING: December 08, 1991

STARTING TIME: 0218

FREQUENCY: 5000 kHz

RECEPTION LOCATION: Rockford, Illinois, USA

RECEIVER AND ANTENNA: Unidentified boombox

NOTES:

NIST Radio Station WWV as it sounded on 8 December 1991 at 0218 UTC.

Due to the high cost of maintaining the aging drum-based voice announcement machines, NIST implemented a digital voice announcement system in 1991. The new male voice, belonging to Eric Smith, started at WWV on 13 August. The voice of WWVH belonged to Johanna Stahl. The voices were sorely lacking in high EQ at first, but were sharpened with an audio filter on 27 August. The modification did not help, and after months of equipment failures and complaints about the poor quality, NIST retired both voices on 11 August 1992.

An excerpted version of this recording is found on "At the Tone: A Little History of NIST Radio Stations WWV & WWVH." This unedited version is being shared by special arrangement for the Shortwave Archive.

NIST Radio Station WWVH as it sounded in the 1980s

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Myke Dodge Weiskopf, who shares the following recording and notes:

NIST Radio Station WWVH as it sounded in the 1980s. To contrast with other recordings of the WWVH station ID, note that announcer Jane Barbe does not say (her now-famous) “Aloha!” at the end of this version.

This recording was found at WWVH in 2015 on an undated cassette labeled “JB on Old Audichron TCG” (which stands for Time Code Generator, the device which reconstructs and plays back Jane’s voice over the air). As such, the precise broadcast year is not known, but it is consistent with the voice and broadcast format of the 1980s, until the introduction of the short-lived digital voice in 1991.

An excerpted version of this recording is found on "At the Tone: A Little History of NIST Radio Stations WWV & WWVH." This unedited version is being shared by special arrangement for the Shortwave Archive.

Myke shares 2012 season of ShortWaveMusic

Myke, over at ShortWaveMusic, has made his entire 2012 season of ShortWaveMusic freely downloadable on SoundCloud. This series was recorded from December 31, 2011 – January 16, 2012 throughout the West African country of Mali. The series contains some remarkable field recordings taken from both the shortwave and medium wave bands.

Note that Myke's ShortWaveMusic series and travels are supported by Kickstarter donors. I don't know where Myke's travels will take him next year, but when the time comes we will post an announcement along with a link for supporters.

Now put on your headphones, close your eyes and you will be transported to Mali:

For full SoundCloud features, click here for the 2012 series on SoundCloud.