Studio Recording: beHAVior Night's Christmas Special

Last Friday, I tried to catch beHAVior Night's Christmas special on 7,490 kHz at 22:00 UTC. Unfortunately, WBCQ was having transmitter problems and the show never aired.

Thankfully, beHAVior Night's "Sir Scratchy" has kindly given me permission to post his studio recording of the entire show. You can listen to the recording below. Please note: this show will be repeated Friday, December 27, 2013 on 7,490 kHz at 22:00 UTC (17:00 EST)--I will attempt to record the broadcast and post it here as well.

BeHAVior Night (WBCQ): November 22, 2013

Source: Sir Scratchy Facebook

For your listening pleasure: beHAVior Night, a shortwave radio show, relayed by WBCQ, dedicated to showcasing music from the first four decades of the 20th Century.

If you’re as nostalgic as I am, you’ll love the sonic combination of early records with the shortwave ether hosted by the inimitable “Sir Scratchy.” Relax, close your eyes, and indulge in a little radio time travel…

You can tune in beHAVior Night on Fridays at 17:00 EST or 22:00 UTC on 7,490 kHZ.

Though I could not find an official website for beHAVior Night, I would encourage you to “like” both Sir Scratchy and the beHAVior Night Facebook pages where show updates are often posted.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Marion's Attic - WBCQ: November 10, 2013

Marion Webster

If you’ve never heard Marion’s Attic on WBCQ, you don’t know what you’ve been missing–especially if you love early music recordings. Marion’s Attic describes the show as:

“[A] unique radio program, broadcasted on WBCQ, The Planet, [7.49] MHz (Shortwave Radio) every Sunday at 5 PM Eastern time. Hosted by Marion Webster & Kristina, and with occasional special guests.”

“Marion’s Attic is an eclectic radio program which plays original cylinder and disc records from the late 1890’s to the mid 1930’s. Having a library containing thousands of standard size cylinder records, dozens of 5 inch Concert Cylinders and an unknown amount of 78’s allows us to share unusual and forgotten music that you cannot hear anywhere else. What makes this special radio program unique is I play original records on the original phonographs when possible; many of which are over 100 years old. The theme varies from week to week; a show may feature popular songs from the early 1900’s one week, wild dance music from the roaring 20’s the next week.”

Marion’s Attic has been on WBCQ since September 21st, 1999 and is certainly one of their most popular shows. It’s quirky and authentic. I love it.

Mary tells us that each episode is recorded in her attic using simple recording equipment and original phonographs including:

• 1898 Edison Home phonograph for brown wax cylinders
• 1900 Columbia Graphophone AG for Concert Cylinders
• 1908 Edison Standard Model D phonograph for 2 & 4 minute wax cylinders
• 1913 Edison Amberola V phonograph for Blue Amberol cylinders
• 1923 Edison London Upright phonograph for Diamond Discs
• 1965 Gerrard electronic turntable for 78 rpm records

Yesterday afternoon, at 16:59 EST (21:59 UTC), I tuned toMarion’s Attic on 7,490 kHz and started recording. You’ll hear about one minute of WBCQ’s interval signal and station ID, then straight into Marion’s Attic. Click here to download the show as an MP3 or simply listen via the embedded player below:

If you missed Marion’s Attic yesterday, you can catch it again tonight on WBCQ–check out the full broadcast schedule below:

• Sundays:  7,490 kHz, 05:00PM – 06:00PM ET (22:00 – 23:00 UTC)
• Mondays: 5,110 kHz, 09:00PM – 10:00PM ET (02:00 – 03:00 UTC)

WBCQ is easily heard in North, Central and South America–also in Europe.

Marion and Kristine often give shout outs to their listeners. You can contact them at marionweb@aol.com or:

Marion’s Attic

P.O. Box 583

Coventry, CT 06238

Radio Australia's "Club Forum" 1973

 (Source: Rob Wagner)

Rob Wagner, VK3BVW, shares this historic recording of Radio Australia's Club Forum, from February 4th, 1973.

Below is Bob's description, taken from his blog the Mount Evelyn DX Report, with recording following:

Here's something I found a few days ago! An old cassette tape of part of Radio Australia's Club Forum program, hosted by the legendary Keith Glover. The program went to air on February 4th, 1973 (over 40 years ago). It's only the first 6 minutes of the show, with Keith reporting on the Australian Radio DX Club'sConvention '73, held in Melbourne.

Keith had been invited to the convention as a guest speaker, delivering a wonderful talk on Radio Australia's devoted listeners around the world and the role that the station played in presenting an Australian Voice internationally. For many years, the station was very popular, particularly in Asia.

Keith's Club Forum report on his visit to the convention mentions many names of enthusiastic Melbourne and Sydney DXers from that era. Keith's programs were always well-prepared, but he was able to communicate with listeners with a relaxed and very personal style......with a feeling that he was almost face-to-face with you in the same room! You can hear that style come out in this recording. Indeed for many years, Keith was one of the best-known voices on shortwave. He died in 2006.

Club Forum was a weekly program, connected to the Radio Australia Listeners Club. A special listeners certificate was available, each individual certificate having it's own membership number.

I'm making this recording public after all these years because:

1)  It may bring back memories to the "Old Folks" amongst us, of a fascinating era when the DX hobby and shortwave listening was blooming, and

2)  Just this last month, Radio Australia discontinued their Mandarin and Indonesian shortwave services - what were formerly their two biggest audiences with literally millions of listeners.

How times have changed!!

I hope you enjoy this brief glimpse into the Radio Australia of a bygone age.

Rob Wagner VK3BVW

BBC World Service's broadcast to the 2013 British Antarctic Survey

Halley VI: The British Antarctic Survey's new base (Source: BBC)

Every year, the BBC broadcasts a special program to the forty one scientists and support staff in the British Antarctic Survey Team; the show containsmusic requests and, most notably, personal messages from back home to the team of forty one. 

The British Antarctic Survey celebrates today (their longest, darkest winter day) with the same enthusiasm as Christmas. The BBC noted:

The base commanders rise early to cook breakfast for their staff, presents are exchanged, there are sports and even, weather permitting, a mad streak in the snow! Feasting continues before they gather round a shortwave set to listen to the traditional broadcast packed with greetings from their family and friends back home together with music requests and messages from the British Antarctic Survey and a few celebrities. Finally the Antarctic horror movie The Thing is screened. For those who know the plot, perhaps it is just as well there are no longer sledge dogs in Antarctica...

Here is the recording of the BBC World Service's thirty minute broadcast to the British Antarctic Survey. I was able to receive a relatively strong signal at 21:30 UTC on 9,890 kHz from the World Service's Wooferton transmission site.

Click here to download the full recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below: 

The Voice of Greece returns

On Tuesday, June 11, 2013, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called for the complete closure of the Greek National TV and Radio broadcaster, ERT.

The Voice of Greece went off the air, just like its national radio and TV counterparts, well before the announced midnight deadline. But around 22:44 UTC, the VoG came back on the air–at first with a few audio/technical glitches–and broadcast ERT protest coverage throughout the night.

The following recording was made on June 11, 2013 on 9.42 MHz, around 22:44 UTC, the moment when the Voice of Greece began transmitting audio again. Here’s a four hour recording beginning only a few seconds beforehand:

The Voice of Turkey's lack of protest coverage

Gezi protest in Kızılay Square, Ankara  (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Turkey has been in the world headlines now for well over a week. In case you're not up-to-date, here's a summary of what has happened:

On May 28, 2013,  about fifty environmentalists led a small protest in Istanbul to oppose the replacement of Taksim Gezi Park with a reconstruction of the Taksim Military Barracks.  The protests escalated when the group occupying the park was attacked with water cannons and tear gas by the Turkish police. This event led to riots, which were soon widespread; the protests, meanwhile, broadened their scope into full-fledged anti-government demonstrations across the country and even into the Turkish diaspora across the globe.

Yesterday, I turned to the Voice of Turkey on shortwave radio to hear about the active protests currently ongoing throughout the country...

But what did I hear? The only mention I heard of the Gezi Park protests in the Voice of Turkey's English language service were in a passing Turkish press report on the reaction to the protests by the US Secretary of State, John Kerry. The item, moreover, was completely buried in their broadcast and certainly not something upon which they elaborated in the least (listen, beginning at 12:50 below).

I've always loved listening to the Voice of Turkey, but events like this remind me of the simple fact that many international broadcasters are still very much the mouthpieces of their governments. 

Of course, Turkey certainly would not win an award for press freedom; not even close. Reporters Without Borders list Turkey as a country with a "Difficult Situation" with regards to press freedoms, ranking them 154th out of 179 countries in their 2013 Press Freedom Index. To put this in perspective, Finland and the Netherlands occupy the top two spots as models of press freedom, the USA is number 32, and North Korea and Eritrea occupy the bottom spots (numbers 178 and 179, respectively) obviously countries without press freedoms.

I'd like to think that the news readers at the Voice of Turkey would rather give this news the attention it deserves, or at least offer the Turkish government's perspective on the demonstrations. Instead, what we heard was...nothing.  And we heard that loud and clear.

Indeed, the world is paying attention to the lack of news coming out of Turkey right now. Time Magazine posted this article article yesterday, which begins:

As epic clashes between anti-government protesters and riot police turned downtown Istanbul into a battle zone last weekend, the country’s two main news channels had, well, not much to report. One ran a documentary on penguins. The other, a cooking show. To many Turks, their silence was symptomatic of the self-censorship Turkey’s media have practiced under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s tightfisted 10-year rule. Penguin T-shirts, penguin jokes and penguin costumes now abound — the bird has become a symbol of protesters’ frustration with the mainstream media.

One of the most amazing things about shortwave radio is that by really listening, you can hear the unfiltered voices of regional broadcasters, the clandestine organizations, and the media representatives of their respective countries.

If this story had broken twenty years ago, moreover, I would have heard it as a headline from every respected international broadcaster. Then, upon turning to the in-country "news source," as I attempted to do yesterday when I tuned in the Voice of Turkey and was subjected to a total lack of news, I would therefore be instantly made aware of what the Turkish government didn't want me to hear.

Unfortunately I feel we've lost a bit of this comparative news consumption, not just because of the exodus of many trusted radio broadcasters from the field, but because we've been trained to consume news in (palatable) bites. Our attention spans and interest seem to have diminished to the point that we now often rely on our news sources to interpret for us.  A sad fact...especially considering politically-evolving countries like Turkey still need our attention, interest, and thoughtful support.

Listen to the same Voice of Turkey broadcast I heard yesterday, by downloading the off-air recording or by listening via the embedded player below:

Vatican Radio: breaking news broken?

A few moments ago, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected Pope, becoming the first pontiff from the Americas, and taking the name Pope Francis I. When breaking news like this is happens, I often turn to shortwave radio to hear it "from the source;" what better station for news about the Papal elections than Vatican Radio? Right?

Hm. When I turned to Vatican Radio on 13.765 MHZ at 20:00 UTC today, here is what I heard:

After a little music and announcement confusion--including what sounds like at least three audio feeds coming in at once--Vatican Radio settles on an announcement program which states, in several languages, "Vatican Radio's programming schedule is currently being modified to cover the election of the new Pope."

It wasn't until thirty minutes later (20:30 UTC), when the Vatican Radio service to Africa started in French on 11.625 MHz, that I heard any substantive news about the new Pope:

Of course, I can find information about the new Pope from any one of two million different online sources, but it did surprise me that Vatican Radio wasn't better prepared for this event.  I even wondered if there was a different broadcast running on a consecutive frequency, so I checked; all were identical, however.

Still, the radio archivist in me can't help but experience some appreciation of the confusion on the airwaves. After all, this is a genuine piece of radio history and a fascinating thirty minutes of audio in the wake of a big decision.

In my mind, I envision the Vatican Radio staff frantically stirring to assemble news--for which they had no advance notice--regarding the new Pope. No doubt, the CNNs, BBCs, and Al Jazeeras of the world had pre-prepared material on each of the papal candidates. When the white plume of smoke announcing the election was first spotted, these broadcasters were likely more than ready to pull out the appropriate material and publish.

Perhaps this is not how Vatican Radio usually operates. Indeed, I suspect their live feed of events experienced a technical difficulty which they have, no doubt, since resolved. And for what it's worth, their website was appropriately up-to-date.

History:  sometimes bumpy, but always fascinating.  Especially on the airwaves.

Trevor Baylis in the Vintage Vault

Earlier this week, I posted an article about wind-up (clockwork) radio inventor, Trevor Baylis. I recently discovered a 1995 episode of RNW's Media Network, which featured Baylis--and the clockwork radio--in the context of inventions that would carry us beyond the new millenium:

(Source: Media Network Vintage Vault)

Remember Trevor Baylis and the wind-up radio? I organised a conference for Radio Netherlands at the International Broadcasting Convention IBC between September 11-14th 1995. We decided to celebrate the fact that we were 5 years away from a new Millennium by looking at the technologies that would carry us forward. That included a look at different codings for DAB, a reality check on radio by Sri Lankan broadcaster Victor Goonetilleke and a special performance about the Clockwork Radio from Trevor Baylis, the British inventor who turned up in Amsterdam and charmed the audience with his frank, funny and brilliant introduction to the concept of wind-up radios. A few weeks after the conference we produced a special CD for those who took part. This is a copy for those who missed it. It's double the length of a normal Media Network, just over an hour.

You can download this archive episode of Media Network on the Vintage Vault website.

By the way, Jonathan Mark's Media Network Vintage Vault has many, many audio treasures from the radio past. Certainly worth bookmarking!

Radio Netherlands says farewell in style

Thursday night, by the light of an oil lamp, I tuned my trusty Sony portable shortwave to 6,165 kHz. At 2:00 UTC, I was rewarded with a rich, full signal from Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s transmission site in Bonaire. Here in this off-grid cabin, on sixty rural acres, I bask in the freedom from electrical noise that might otherwise interfere with my shortwave radio listening—at least in this respect, this is the perfect DXpedition cabin. The signal coming out of Bonaire, however, would have overcome any interference: Radio Netherlands, my dear friend of some 32 years, had opened a special frequency for those of us in eastern North America…in order to say their good-byes to the airwaves.

I can only describe the experience of listening as radio bliss…pure radio bliss…marred only by the bittersweet realization that these were RNW’s final days on the air. The experience harkened back to the day when the big broadcasters had booming signals directed toward us.

But, alas. All too brief.

The broadcast was simply entitled Farewell and Thank You. You can hear it just as I heard it—through my recording--here (actual broadcast starts at 1:15):

Then, all day Friday, for nearly 24 hours straight, RNW bid good-bye and farewell to various parts of the world via shortwave, satellite and the internet. I was lucky enough to catch two more broadcasts.

This time of day (19:00 UTC), however, I needed bigger ears than the Sony could provide. I was listening to broadcasts targeting west and east Africa, not North America. Having already charged my laptop battery, I plugged in the Bonito Radiojet (an SDR that I’m currently reviewing) and, just before 1900 UTC, directed her towards 17,605 kHz. Though my Sony found the signal barely audible, the RadioJet produced beautiful fidelity.

This RNW broadcast, entitled The First 50 Years, took listeners through the highlights and history of the Dutch radio service. Here’s the recording I made with the RadioJet:

A final sign-off

RNW headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands (photo coutesty: RNW)

At 20:00 UTC, RNW broadcast their very final show—a repeat of Farewell and Thank You (above) appropriately targeting Africa once more. I tuned the dial to 11615 kHz and listened again to the full broadcast. This time, however, as the program drew to its close, the broadcast crew added a personal message.

Jonathan Groubert, the talented host of The State We’re In, broadcasted live from Hilversum’s Studio 4 for a deeply touching adieu. Tears were shed, and I’m not ashamed to confess that I, too, listened through a haze of them as these capable and dedicated journalists, whom I’ve grown to trust, signed off the RNW airwaves for the last time.

But listen for yourself:

Jonathan Marks, RNW’s host of MediaNetwork, also featured in the farewell broadcast, recorded the final sign-off from within Studio 4. You can listen to this and read the description on his excellent website.

Dank je wel, Radio Nederland

RNW--my dear radio friends—I’m going to miss you. Your personalities--and the collective personality of RNW itself--your award-winning content, news, reporting, and your integrity stood out amongst all those Cold War broadcasters I listened to growing up—who, as you so well put it, were merely mouthpieces for their respective governments.

Radio Nederland, I loved your broadcasting because you were fearless: you marched to the beat of your own drummer, were not afraid to turn a critical eye even upon yourself, and as a result--in a world of sham journalism, of compromise and hypocrisy—you earned my trust. You had nothing to hide, and you had so many stories to tell.

RNW: I listened.

I wish you (and your intrepid creators) the very best in all that you do. I trust your new incarnation(s), whatever form they take, will do much good in this world which so sorely needs it, and sincerely believe that your integrity will live on.

Recording Radio History: The Queen's Diamond Jubilee via BBC World Service

Ten years ago, my wife--then fiancée--and I lived in the UK, and were fortunate enough to attend The Queen's Golden Jubilee celebration on the vast lawn at Buckingham Palace. It was without doubt the largest party I've ever attended, packed to the gills with the British public--a thoroughly amazing event, featuring a who's who of past-and-present British musicians and personalities, encouraging attendees to join them in their bit of fun--and, of course, God save the Queen.

Yesterday, I re-lived the energy of that party as I heard (and recorded) the follow-up event these ten years later--The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, on the BBC World Service--as heard from remote Ascension Island.

When hearing live events like this on shortwave--especially ones like this that celebrate national heritage--I know I'm listening to history in the making. The crowds applauding and cheering in a live broadcast over shortwave reminds me of a former era when British Expats across the globe relied on the BBC World Service to connect them with ol' Blighty.

I recorded these broadcasts from my home in the southeastern US, hearing the BBC World Service relay station on the tiny, isolated Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. The broadcast was heard at first on 15,400 kHz, then moved to 9,915 kHz coinciding with their normal broadcast schedule. The broadcast, while completely intelligible, is weak in the beginning, but gains considerable strength by the end. There are summer static crashes heard as storms moved through the southeast US. I divided the broadcast into two parts, coinciding with my shift from one frequency to the other.

I also included a BBC WS news broadcast in Part 2 which followed the end of the show.

Either use the embedded audio player below, or simply click here to download the mp3 files for Part 1 and Part 2.

I used the WinRadio Excalibur to record both of these segments. Its synchronous detection helped deal with fading (QSB) present at the beginning of the recording.

Once again, history is made...and archived on shortwave radio.  Enjoy!