Brezhnev greets Gerald Ford upon his arrival at Vozdvizhenka for the Vladivostok Summit on 23 November 1974.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jack Widner, for the following recording. Jack notes:
R. Tashkent announcing the death of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev during the 1200 UTC English broadcast on 5985 kHz on November 11, 1982 (Brezhnev died Nov 10). After funeral music there was regular programming (approx. 8:09).
The Duke of Windsor in 1945
Many thanks to SRAA contributor Ian Holder for the following recording. Ian notes that this recording features the BBC World Service news bulletin which reports on the death of the Duke of Windsor.
This recording was made on May 28, 1972 around 13:00 GMT on 11.75 MHz:
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Mark Hist, who notes the following:
Thanks for alerting shortwave listeners to the British Antarctic Survey broadcast. It felt very poignant listening to a broadcast aimed at such a small number of people, with the voices of their loved ones being launched around the world.
I was able to record the broadcast from only 100 miles away from the Woofferton transmitter, so needless to say the quality and strength was very good. I imagine hearing that broadcast buried in the noise from far away with those happy birthday songs and best wishes must have been very emotional for its intended audience.
I enclose a short segment from my 30 minute recording, plus a photo (above) taken the next day of my set up (it was dark at the time of the recording).
I also recorded the broadcast from Saint-Anne-de-Beaupré, Québec, Canada. I wrote a post about this on the SWLing Post (click here to read). The following is my recording from 7360 kHz. Reception was not nearly as strong as that of Mark, above:
Note that we collected over 30 recordings--from accross the globe. You can listen to and browse them on the SWLing Post by clicking here.
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:
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jack Widner, who notes:
The announcement by Radio Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, of the death of Leonid Brezhnev. It includes funerary music between two annoiuncements of the passing of Brezhnev, followed by an English news broadcast, and a commentary later.
This broadcast started around 1200 UTC on 5,985 kHz on November 11, 1982. It was recorded in Indianapolis, IN USA with a Hammarlund HQ-180 connected to a 100 ft v-shaped longwire.
Last night, my buddy John Figliozzi shared the following tip regarding Rádio Nacional da Amazônia:
Both frequencies active tonight — 6180 and 11780 — with lots of discussion as well as excerpts from speeches in the Brazilian Senate on the impeachment of the President. All in Portuguese of course. ID around 0155 with announcement of shortwave frequencies. Excellent armchair quality signal on 6180; audible with considerable QRN on 11780.
After reading John's message, I immediately tuned to 6180 kHz where Rádio Nacional da Amazônia was quite strong. I recorded almost two hours of their broadcast which includes news about the impeachment and music as well. This recording was made in North Carolina using a WinRadio Excalibur receiver and a Pixel Loop Pro magnetic loop antenna, starting around 02:20 UTC on May 12, 2016:
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jim Jordan, who shares this three part recording of Radio Polonia and notes:
After the declaration of martial law in Poland on December 13, 1981 Radio Polonia ceased broadcasting. Broadcasts in English instead continued from a military base near Warsaw Airport. The staff of Radio Polonia returned to the air soon afterwards and here are three broadcasts from that period in Poland's history. Of some of the presenters that you will hear, Konrad Gocman is in retirement and works as a translator. However Benny Ludkiewicz (aka "Bengt Scotland") unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago. Anyone who is interested in the old North American service from Warsaw may like to read have a read of this. The writer used to work with the late Sol Flapan and his wife Anna, who used to deal with the English section's correspondence right up until the 1990s http://www.tc.umn.edu/~marqu002/Chap10.pdf
Jim made the following recording in South Shields, UK, using a National Panasonic RF2200 and a random long wire on 6.135 MHz:
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jim Jordan, who shares this three part recording of Radio Polonia and notes:
After the declaration of martial law in Poland on December 13, 1981 Radio Polonia ceased broadcasting. Broadcasts in English instead continued from a military base near Warsaw Airport. The staff of Radio Polonia returned to the air soon afterwards and here are three broadcasts from that period in Poland's history. Of some of the presenters that you will hear, Konrad Gocman is in retirement and works as a translator. However Benny Ludkiewicz (aka "Bengt Scotland") unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago. Anyone who is interested in the old North American service from Warsaw may like to read have a read of this. The writer used to work with the late Sol Flapan and his wife Anna, who used to deal with the English section's correspondence right up until the 1990s http://www.tc.umn.edu/~marqu002/Chap10.pdf
Jim made the following recording in South Shields, UK, using a National Panasonic RF2200 and a random long wire on 6.135 MHz:
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jack Widner, who shares this third (and final) recording which includes coverage of the August 19, 1991 Soviet Coup Attempt from the BBC. Jack shares the following recording notes:
BBC news & reports. Starts with battle at Parliament building (known as the White House)
03:32 Kevin Connaly's on the scene report after the battle started
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jack Widner, who shares this second recording which includes coverage of the August 19, 1991 Soviet Coup Attempt from the BBC. Jack shares the following recording notes:
BBC reports
03:35 plays R. Moscow reading TASS bulletin of Gorbachev unable to fulfill duties
43:00 comments from Frank Gaffney; Gaffney was an ardent supporter of SDI under Weinberger & as late as 1996 was attempting to get new House leader Gingrich to get it going again.
43:45 a clip about Gorbachev's (?) attempt to quash Lithuanian independence (report says it was not clear that Gorbachev authorised this).
The majority of this audio assumes Gorbachev will be replaced
Poster of the putsch of August 1991. The confrontation between the Republican Russian Government and the Union State Government the USSR (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Jack Widner, who shares this recording that includes coverage of the August 19, 1991 Soviet Coup Attempt. Jack shares the following recording notes:
Reports from BBC, radio Moscow, and a snip at the end of Czech Radio announcing the end of the state of emergency
Radio Moscow--Slight interruption at 5:15-30
BBC 05:30 - 12:46
Radio Moscow 12:47 -- note the news item on Yugoslavia of Slovenia's independence moves 18:25. This was the beginning of the dissolution of Yugoslavia
BBC 20:08
Radio Moscow 26:16 "News & Views"
BBC 27:10
Radio Moscow World service 28:11
Their interval signal at 38:03 the news that Gorbachev is back in control
BBC 40:24
Moscow 46:33
Radio Prague (?) 46:56 announces end of state of emergency
The following off-air recording of Radio Havana Cuba was made on March 21, 2016, starting a couple of minutes prior to 1800 UTC on 11,670 kHz (at an AM bandwidth of 12.5 kHz). This was a historic event: the first time a US president has visited Cuba in over 8 decades. The following recording includes the live coverage of the Obama/Casto press conference, followed by one hour of RHC's English language service and a part of RHC's French language service.
The receiver used was a WinRadio Excalibur connected to a Pixel Loop Pro magnetic loop antenna. Location received was North Carolina.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Sarah Boucher, who submits this final sign-off of Radio St. Helena on 1548 kHz and notes:
Closedown begins with the last few seconds of love is everywhere by caught in the act (1995).
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Neil Howard, for sharing the following recording and notes:
The Sydney to Hobart Yacht race of 1998 was tragic as huge seas & storms decimated the fleet, leaving 6 people dead and 5 boats sunk.
HOW this was obtained
This recording of the SSB HF transmissions from 1998 was recorded by me from Queensland, using a newfangled unattended recoding program on the PC and a very ordinary Sangean ATS-803a receiver using a random long wire Antenna - from memory this was on the 8 Mhz Marine band, and is the co-ordination of the search and rescue from the 28th Dec 1998 and covers from around 8:30PM till 10PM - The automated recorded stopped recording when the signal noise dropped below a certain level and thus some was lost.
The recording goes for 30 mins, as that was the limit that was set to save disk space, but there is a lot of empty noise.
I present this recording as it was recorded, warts and all for your education *** I dedicate this to those lost at sea ****
HIGHLIGHTS
(Times are approximate)
4:11 "Rescue 253" 9A helicopter) locates a life-raft
6:00 "Air force Sydney" is looking for a position of a yacht " Solo Global Challenge"
6:50 "RCC Canberra" (Who is co-ordinating) has a "hot mic" and is explaining the situation to someone locally
8:35 "Rescue 253" has sighted 2 POB on the life-raft - RTC wants to know if they are from "Winston Churchill"
9:39 Another "hot mic" in Canberra
11:56 "Tiger75" (A Navy Helicopter, I think) has the survivors on board, but still awaiting info on who they are
13:04 13:44 confirmation that there are 2 survivors of the "Winston Churchill" from the life raft, but the tragic news that 3 others had "rolled out" of the raft and are lost (Historical note- these three were listed as drowned)
14:46 Discussion about where the survivors are to be taken by Tiger 75
15:20 Info of the survivors is passed though, along with the news that the life raft they were "in" had no bottom.
16:33 Rescue 253 Says it has heard a beacon & is proceeding to the location
20:00 Another aircraft has gone to the search site from Merimbula (A town in New South Wales)
25:38 Rescue 253 updates beacon location
26;30 Rescue 253 Locates a boat at the beacon site that has been dis-masted & is in serious trouble.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Brian Smith, who notes:
Beginning in 1990, Radio St. Helena was known for transmitting an international shortwave radio broadcast only once a year -- and sometimes not even that -- on a frequency of 11092.5 kHz USB. I managed to hear its 2006 broadcast to North America for about an hour on Nov. 4 and 5 UTC (straddling the 0000 hour).
Because of its relatively low power, it was never an easy catch in the American Midwest. That's why this recording, which lasts just over an hour -- I spliced together both sides of a cassette -- captures a signal quality that is merely fair at best. But that was typical of Radio St. Helena, whose 1 kw signal in 2006 (it was 1.5 kw in the 1990s) seldom packed much of a punch.
I was listening on the borrowed rig of a now-deceased friend, Mike Koss, W9SU, and have long since forgotten the type of radio (probably a ham rig) he let me use. However, if memory serves, it was attached to a Beverage antenna that stretched across his 10-acre property in the heart of Indianapolis.
Mike deserves the lion's share of the credit for the creation of this recording.
Thanks for sharing such a rare recording, Brian!
SRAA contributor, Richard Langley notes:
Live three-hour recording of the 2015 Pacific Games coverage of the National Broadcasting Corporation, the Voice of Papua New Guinea (PNG), via a transmitter in Australia on 10 July 2015 beginning at 07:01:21 UTC on a frequency of 12025 kHz. At the time of the uploading of this sound file, it is not clear if the signal originated from the former Australian Broadcasting Corporation's lower-power facility at Brandon (as registered with the High Frequency Co-ordination Conference (HFCC) organization; 25 kW beamed 80°) or their higher-power Shepparton site with 100 kW transmitters.
The recording, mostly in English with some Tok Pisin, includes commentary on the games being held in Port Moresby, music, news bulletins, public service announcements, and the NBC's drum, flute and bird call interval signal near the top of some of the hours. Note that PNG time is 10 hours ahead of UTC.
The broadcast was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with its built-in telescopic whip antenna in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada. Signal quality is generally good and gets better towards the end of the recording as propagation conditions improved.
OOne of four WWV time code generators in late August, 2014
Yesterday, I posted a brief article about the leap second that occurred between 23:59:59 June 30, 2015 and 00:00:00 UTC July 01, 2015.
I decided to record the leap second on as many shortwave time station frequencies as possible. The only viable options for me--based on time of day and my reception location--were the WWV frequencies 10, 15, 20, and 25 MHz, and CHU frequencies 7,850 and 14,670 kHz.
I was able to monitor four different time station frequencies simultaneously on the TitanSDR Pro. (click to enlarge)
Unfortunately, HF propagation was very poor yesterday, so the higher WWV frequencies--20 and 25 MHz--were completely inaudible, as was CHU on 14,670 kHz. There were numerous thunderstorms in our area, so static crashes were prevalent.
Still, since this was a first attempt to record a "leap second," I didn't want to take any chances. I had the Titan SDR Pro monitoring and recording two CHU and two WWV frequencies [screenshot], the Elad FDM-S2 recording WWV on 15 MHz [screenshot], and the WinRadio Excalibur on WWV's 10 MHz frequency, as well as recording the whole 31 meter band spectrum [screenshot].
In the end, the strongest frequencies I captured were CHU on 7,850 kHz and WWV on 15,000 kHz. WWV on 10,000 kHz was much weaker than normal and the band was quite noisy--still, it's readable, so I included this recording, too. Recordings follow...
The sign above WWV's primary 10 MHz transmitter (2014).
All of the recordings start just before the announcement of 23:59 UTC.
WWV added the extra second and higher tone, then continued with their top of the hour announcements, including a note about leap second (which begins after the 00:04 announcement). CHU's adjustment included a long second tone and period of silence.
WWV on 15,000 kHz using the Elad FDM-S2:
CHU on 7,850 kHz using the TitanSDR Pro:
WWV on 10,000 kHz using the WinRadio Excalibur:
One interesting note about the 10 MHz WWV recording above: I believe I may be hearing BPM China in the background. I'm curious if anyone can confirm this because I don't know BPM's cadence/pattern well enough to ID it.
Many thanks to Sakae Obara and David Goren for sharing their recordings of the Shortwave Shindig rebroadcast via WRMI 7570 kHz on March 7, 2015 starting at 0300Z.
30 January 1991, 23:00 UTC, 7400 kHz
Strong signal. The recording begins with a few seconds of music from the previous transmission on this frequency. Then, after about one minute (there was no IS), the Radio Vilnius transmission starts with the beginning of the patriotic song “Lietuvninkai Mes Esam Gim?” (Lithuanians We Are Born) and an introduction stating that the broadcast is coming “from the capital of the independent Republic of Lithuania.” This is followed by “News About Lithuania” including items on further acts of violence by Soviet troops and severe winter weather. Then, there are reports on Lithuanian-Polish relations and the work of the commission on Soviet aggression. Next is an eye-witness report on the attack on the TV tower on the night of 13 January, a report on the current feelings of Lithuanians under occupation, and how music and the arts keep the people going. During the recording, the receiver was briefly tuned to other Radio Vilnius frequencies to check on signal quality. In addition to 7400 kHz, only 9750 and 17690 kHz could be heard.
13 January 1991, 23:00 UTC, 9750 kHz
Strong signal on this and other frequencies usually received except 17690 kHz; only background noise on that frequency. However, there was no Radio Vilnius transmission on any frequency. It had been replaced by light classical and contemporary orchestral music. No IS or announcement of any kind. Music was faded out at 29m:03s before ending. During the recording, the receiver was briefly tuned to other Radio Vilnius frequencies to check on signal quality.
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