Radio Spaceshuttle International: September 20, 2015

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Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, who notes:

Live hour-long recording of the "last" Radio Spaceshuttle International broadcast on 20 September 2015 beginning at 19:00 UTC on a frequency of 13600 kHz. The broadcast was from the Kostinbrod (near Sofia), Bulgaria, transmitter site. The transmitter power announced during the broadcast was 100 kW. This is consistent with the HFCC (High Frequency Coordination Conference) registration of the 13600 kHz frequency by Spaceline, Ltd., the airtime broker for shortwave transmissions from Kostinbrod, between 10:00 and 20:00 UTC. The registered antenna beam direction is 195 degrees.
Reception was poor to fair with some interference from Radio Martí on 13605 kHz and the Cuban jammer aimed at it. The broadcast, compered by "Dick Spacewalker" and originating in Finland, consisted of pop music and acknowledgements of listeners' reports. The language used is mostly English with some Finnish and Japanese announcements. The broadcast begins anomalously at 19:00:11 UTC with a sign-on announcement from the Overcomer Ministry (also a user of the Kostinbrod facility) and a wrong announced frequency. The Radio Spaceshuttle International program begins about 1m:20s later. 
The broadcast 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 3.5 kHz RF filtering. 

The Mighty KBC: September 26, 2015

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Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, who notes:

Live hour-long recording of a test transmission from the The Mighty KBC on 26 September 2015 beginning at 23:00 UTC on a frequency of 7395 kHz, likely from a transmitter site in Europe. The Mighty KBC uses a transmitter at Nauen, Germany, operating at 125 kW for its regular Sunday UTC broadcast.
Reception was very good with negligible interference and only slight fading. The program ("The Giant Jukebox"), produced and announced by Eric van Willegen ("Uncle Eric") originated from Ede, The Netherlands, and consisted of pop music and announcements including requests for reception reports.
The broadcast was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with its built-in telescopic whip antenna indoors in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada, in AM mode with 5.0 kHz RF filtering. 

KCBS Pyongyang: September 17, 2015

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Korean Central Broadcasting Station, Pyongyang recorded in London, UK on September 17, 2015 at 1605 UTC, on the frequency of 9665 kHz using SDRPlay with SDR# software and a 2 x 6m long wire dipole. The non-directional transmitter has a power rating of 50 kW and is located in Kanggye, DPRK. From NorthKoreaTech:

The Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) (Korean: 조선중앙방송, Chinese: 朝鲜中央放送, Japanese: 朝鮮中央放送) is the main domestic radio network in the DPRK. It sits under the Central Broadcasting Committee of the DPRK (called the Radio and Television Committee of the DPRK until 2009).
KCBS broadcasts from 5am to 3am local time via a network of mediumwave and shortwave transmitters that cover the nation. The powerful transmissions can easily be heard in neighboring countries, including South Korea where some of its frequencies are jammed.
A central program is broadcast from Pyongyang on most transmitters through the entire broadcast day, but some are reported to carry regional programming between 2pm and 3pm.
All programming is in Korean and includes music, talk and news.

The station appears to be a difficult catch in Europe because of the relatively low power and the non-directional mode of the transmission, and because of frequency clashes with China Radio International, Radio Cairo and Radio Voz Missionaria of Brazil. Indeed this recording was made in the small time window between CRI's Pashto and Hausa broadcasts, the latter of which can be heard starting at the end of the recording.

Furusato No Kaze: September 17, 2015

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Furusato No Kaze recorded in London, UK on September 17, 2015 at 1600 UTC, on the frequency of 9960 kHz using SDRPlay with SDR# software and a 2 x 6m long wire dipole. The transmitter has a power rating of 100 kW and is located in Palau. From NorthKoreaTech:

Shortwave radio remains a vitally important way to reach into North Korea because of the total lack of international communications offered to its citizens. 
Furusato no Kaze (ふるさとの風, Hometown Wind) is run by the Japanese government and targets any Japanese citizens that were abducted by North Korea and remain alive in the country. There are two programs: Furusato no Kaze in Japanese and Nippon no Kaze (il bon ue baram, Japan Wind) in Korean. The first and last broadcasts of each day come from transmitters in Taiwan while the rest are from Palau.

You can also hear what appear to be North Korean jamming attempts in the background.

RCI, VOA, and BBC: 1979 and 1981

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

A few snippets from my old shortwave tapes that were too short to upload individually. These were made using a GE portable multi band that had poor selectivity, hence the annoying ute during the BBC clip.
Times of individual clips are:
00:00 - 01:59: 1979, July 19 - RCI, frequency announcements in English and french.
01:59 - 09:51: 1979, July 20 - BBC, newscast, bothered by an annoying utility station.
09:51 - 11:38: 1981, August 28 - VOA, science news item about Voyager 2
11:38 - 14:52: 1981, August 29 - VOA, science news item about Voyager 2

Radio Spaceshuttle International: September 20, 2015

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SRAA contributor, Jim Clary (ND9M/VQ9JC), recorded the following final broadcast of Radio Spaceshuttle International while on board a US Navy ship off the coast of Spain. Jim notes:

I was packing up to leave my ship and return to the USA this week when the latest SWLing Post e-mail showed up with info about SSR's final broadcast literally seven minutes before he was to come on the air. I'd already broken down the receiving gear, but it came back together in record time, and I was able to get the recorder going with a minute before the transmission started.
 
SSR's signal was a solid S9, which wasn't all that surprising since he's only a few hundred miles from here. 

Deutsche Welle in English, satellite recording: July 4, 1996

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This recording is not exactly shortwave broadcast, but was made in Europe from the satellite transmission of Deutsche Welle in English broadcast on 4 July 1996 at 2000 GMT. During that time DW was offering extensive service for Europe with many interesting entries. Programmes were also transmitted over the shortwave (by the way: it is interesting that the frequency announced with regard to 41mb is now, in 2015, beyond the allowed band)

Radio Saudi Internationale in French: September 17, 2015

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Radio Saudi Internationale in French recorded in Europe at 1400 GMT on September 17, 2015 off the shortwave frequency of 17660 kHz (transmitter site: Riyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; transmitter power: 500 kW, beamed towards West Africa). Recording starts with around 1-minute constant sound tone, followed by station's interval signal (bird songs) and station's ID

Radio Tirana: September 17, 2015

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For your listening pleasure: Radio Tirana's English language service.

This recording was made on September 16, 2015 at 01:30 UTC on 9580 kHz. The receiver used was an Elad FDM-S2 hooked up to a large horizontal delta loop antenna in the southeast USA. The Tirana signal is weak--and conditions quite noisy--but still quite audible.

Radio Biafra: September 4, 2015

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On September 4, 2015, I received a tip from SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson: Radio Biafra, a new clandestine station, was audible on 15,560 kHz via the Universite Twente Web SDR.

Despite miserable propagation conditions, I tuned my receiver to 15,560 kHz and was surprised to hear a weak signal from Radio Biafra, here in the eastern US. I recorded a few minutes before conditions changed and Biafra’s signal began to fade.

This was the first time I had logged Radio Biafra, so I was amazed to have copy clear enough to understand.

Wikipedia has a short entry for Radio Biafra:

Radio Biafra also known as Voice of Biafra, is a radio station that was originally founded by the government of the Republic of Biafra but is currently operated by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Believed to have had its first transmission before the Nigeria-Biafra war, the radio station was instrumental in the broadcast of speeches and propaganda by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu to the people of the Republic of Biafra.

[…]Radio Biafra currently transmits via the internet and shortwave broadcast targeted majorly around Eastern Nigeria. Radio Biafra claims to be broadcasting the ideology of Biafra –”Freedom of the Biafra people”.

[…]Radio Biafra has been met with mixed reactions. While some critics have criticized the station for “inciting war” through its programmes and “preaching hate messages” against Nigeria which it refers to as a “zoo”, an editor for Sahara Reporters wrote in defence of the radio station after he compared Radio Biafra with the British Broadcasting Corporation Hausa service.

On 14 July 2015, it was reported in the media that the radio station had been jammed because it did not have a broadcast license from the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission. However, the radio station in a swift reaction labelled such claims as “lies” and went on to release its new frequency details to the public.

Note that the Wikipedia entry for Radio Biafra is rather new, having only been created in August, 2015.

The following short recording was made using my WinRadio Excalibur hooked up to a large skyloop antenna:

This two hour recording, by Dan Robinson, was made via the Universite Twente Web SDR in the Netherlands:

Radio Reloj: August 30, 2015

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Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, who notes:

Live recording of Radio Reloj (CMBD), Havana, Cuba, on 30 August 2015 beginning at about 15:55 UTC on a frequency of 950 kHz. The signal originates from a 10 kW transmitter at Arroyo Arenas / San Augustin, near Havana, using the Centros Transmisores de Ondas Medias 1 (CTOM1) non-directional antenna facility.

(Radio Reloj can be heard on various frequencies in the AM and FM bands in Cuba and live on the Internet at http://media.enet.cu/radioreloj.) 

The recording, in Spanish, is a typical Radio Reloj broadcast with two announcers alternately reading news bulletins accompanied by time signals. The announcers identify the station and verbally give the local time each minute. In addition to the verbal station identification, each minute either the letters RR in morse code (using 1800 Hz tones) are transmitted or five-note chimes (D4, G4, B4, D5, B4) are played. The chimes sound like those of a dinner chime or even some door bells and are reminiscent of the U.S. National Broadcasting Company (NBC) chimes. On a couple of occasions in this recording, during a particular minute, neither the morse code nor the chimes are used and sometimes, during a particular minute, both are used. In this recording, we can also hear at some minutes pairs of tones being played going up and down the scale as news headlines are read. On other occasions, three- and four-note chimes in various sequences have been heard (perhaps at the announcers' whim).

Different tones identify each second, minute, and five-minute epochs. Based on measurements, each second is marked with a "seconds tick" consisting 10 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.01 seconds duration). Minutes, except for multiples of 5 minutes, are marked by 172 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.172 seconds duration). Every 5 minutes, the marker is extended to 672 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.672 seconds duration). The minute and 5-minute markers are preceded by 5 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone, followed by 0.013 seconds of silence.

The time signals in this particular broadcast were well within one second of the time given by a computer's clock synchronized to the U.S. time standard using Network Time Protocol. 

The broadcast was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with its built-in loop antenna in Key West, Florida, using an RF bandwidth of 5 kHz. The receiver was oriented for maximum signal strength. Signal quality is generally good. However, there are repeated static crashes (QRN) from thunderstorms in the region.

Richard also notes that he was located in Key West, Florida, using  a "Tecsun PL-880 receiver with built-in loop antenna using an RF bandwidth of 5 kHz. The receiver was oriented for maximum signal strength." 

Shortwave Radio Audio Archive featured in The Wire Magazine

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We're absolutely chuffed to learn that our Shortwave Radio Audio Archive (SRAA) has made the pages of the October 2015 issue of the British alt music magazine, The Wire.  Following are two excerpts from the brief but powerful column by Richard Thomas:

Thomas continues in this vein, his descriptions of the varied content inviting readers to immerse themselves in the SRAA's static-infused depths.

The Wire
October 2015 (Issue 380)
Page 17

Finally, Thomas concludes by describing in terms no less than lyrical exactly why he responds–as so many do, myself included–to the recordings found in the archive:

The Wire
October 2015 (Issue 380)
Page 17

Wow...what a testament to the power of sound!  Thanks, Richard and The Wire–we're humbly grateful that someone shares our passion for this growing project.

A special thanks goes out to all of our contributors who make this archive project possible!

If you would like to contribute to the SRAA, check out this page, or contact us with your questions.

1981 & 1982: Various International Time Signal Stations

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One of four WWV time code generators in late August, 2014 (Photo: Thomas Witherspoon)

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

Voice of America: July 20, 1979

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Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares this recording of the Voice of America from July 20, 1979 at 0500 UTC on the 31 meter band. Tom notes:

The first 4:30 is from a VOA newscast that aired before the main part of the program. The main recording was presented on the 10th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I enjoy listening to this every year on the landing anniversary.