Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Liam Spencer, who shares the following recording and notes:
Broadcaster: Radio Romania International DX Mailbag Show
Date of recording: January 22, 2024
Starting time: 01:42 UTC
Frequency: 7.325 MHz
RX location: KiwiSDR in Massachusetts
Receiver and antenna: MAG LOOP 80M DIPOLE
Notes: This is the DX Mailbag show for the week of 22nd of January, 2024. I used a KiwiSDR in Massachusetts.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:
Broadcaster: Trans World Radio Bonaire "The DX Special" circa 1974
Frequency: 11.815 MHz
Reception location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Realistic DX-150A with a long wire antenna
Notes: Trans World Radio from the island of Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles broadcast on shortwave from 1964 to 1993. They used to put a strong signal into my receiver location in southern Ontario, Canada. The station also used to air a program called "The DX Special", hosted by Al Stewart, which appears to have been produced in their Monte Carlo studio. I recently came across a short recording I made circa 1974, where I happened to catch the end of one of these programs.
Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa on February 11th, 1990. At the time, Radio RSA was still broadcasting to the world on shortwave radio, and provided live coverage of the event which was heard by many shortwave listeners. It will be recalled that Radio RSA had one of the most powerful shortwave transmission systems of any country for many years — with its familiar interval signal it was a regular for SWLs.
This recording of Radio RSA was made on a SONY ICF-2010 receiver in Silver Spring, Maryland. The first recording is of the full Radio RSA coverage, and the second is the Mandela speech itself, a portion that begins at about the 1 hour 10 mark. Mandela said: “A democratic and non-racial South Africa is the only way to peace and racial harmony.” Radio RSA was so strong, in fact, that it could be heard on my SONY AM-FM-SW Cassette Deck using only a short piece of wire as an antenna. At end end of the Mandela speech recording, can be heard a VOA newscast from the previous day covering the announcement by then President DeKlerk that Mandela would be released.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares the following recording and notes:
Here is a recording of Radio Australia's DX program called Spectrum from August 15, 1982. I believe this was recorded around 0200 UT on 17795 kHz when Australia used to come in well in the evenings here.
Some of the program highlights are:
A roundup of DX news from Bob Padula and Peter Bunn (sp) from the Australina Radio DX Club and interviews with some of the broadcasters gathered at the 1982 ANARC Convention in Montreal. Over-the-phone audio in those days was not too great so the audio is poor in this segment.
Broadcaster: Radio Australia
Date of recording: 8/15/1982
Starting time: 0200 approx.
Frequency: 17.795 MHz
RX location: South Bend, Indiana
Receiver and antenna: Sony ICF-2001 and longwire
Old QSL from Radio Tawantinsuyo, Cuzco, Peru
Thanks to SRAA contributor Dan Robinson for these notes and audio of Radio Tawantinsuyo, Cuzco, Peru
Rising early in the morning was a regular activity of DX’ers who wanted to hear the more difficult stations from Latin America that used to fill the shortwave bands. One of those was Radio Tawantinsuyo, located in Cuzco, Peru. The station was on 6,175 khz in the 49 meter band but was more often heard on variable frequencies as low as 6,173 khz. This recording of the station sign on brings back so many memories for DX’ers who focused on South America.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:
Radio Clarin (Dominican Republic) with This is Santo Domingo with Rudy Espinal broadcast in 1978. This English language broadcast includes music from the Dominican Republic, talk about a recent power outage, SPEEDX (Society for the Preservation of the Engrossing Enjoyment of DXing) magazine, ANARC (Association of North American Radio Clubs) convention at Radio Canada International in Montreal, and a NASWA (North American Shortwave Association) DX Report with Glenn Hauser.
Date of recording: 12/12/1978
Starting time: 0300 UTC
Frequency: 11.700 MHz
Recption location: Plymouth, Minnesota
Receiver and antenna: Hammarlund HQ-180, longwire
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following recordings and notes on Radio Lesotho
Ranked in terms of difficulty, a few stations on shortwave from Africa topped the most challenging list. One was Radio Lesotho on 4,800 khz, a frequency that suffered from extreme interference from Latin American stations using the 60 meter band. But this small southern African country could nonetheless be heard in the evening on the east coast of North America and other locations at and just after its sign on. I was able to hear the station from Pennsylvania, using a Hammarlund HQ-180 receiver, but also had the opportunity to hear it like a local when I lived in Swaziland for 3 months in the 1970’s. Following is a recording made locally in Swaziland, and one recording made in Pennsylvania.
WRNO was the U.S. shortwave station founded by Joseph Costello III as described here and went on the air in February 1982 as a commercial international broadcaster. Another recording can be found in the archive but this is one of the earliest recordings of the station after it first went on the air.
As described by Wikipedia, WRNO was the first privately owned shortwave station licensed in several years at the time of its approval by the FCC: “Before Costello's efforts, there were only three non-governmental American shortwave broadcasters on the air; by the end of the decade, that number had increased to sixteen.[2] WRNO shortwave had a rock music format, branded as the "World Rock of New Orleans" and operating from noon to midnight (GMT-6) daily. Originally a separate broadcast from the FM station, eventually WRNO turned to simulcasting WRNO-FM, which also had a rock music format. During the early 1990s WRNO turned to leasing airtime to religious and political commentators (for a time, it was the shortwave home of Rush Limbaugh's program) until a damaged transmitter forced the station off the air for several years.” In 2001 the station was purchased by Good News World Outreach, a non-profit religious broadcaster.” This article in SWLing Post shows the transmitter of WRNO as of 2009.
A bit of shortwave trivia not widely known — Joseph Costello appeared in the first pilot of “Communications World” the VOA program for shortwave listeners originated by Dan Robinson, who went on to be a foreign correspondent, congressional reporter, and chief White House correspondent for VOA through the 1980’s, 1990s and 2000s.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Adam C. Smith, who shares the following recording which includes his name being mentioned on HCJB. Adam notes:
This is an off the air recording of HCJB: 9745kHz, 8/12/01, 0434 UTC. Recorded off air on a DX-398 and 100’ longwire.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dave Zantow, who shares the following recording and notes:
One of Glenn Hauser’s more interesting “extra” programs to me over the years was his radio 1981 summer vacation recordings to South Dakota (near the Nebraska border).
Attached is the entire WRNO recording of that program (which aired on Sep 8, 1984). This was before he “air numbered” the programs.
Station KINI web site (station active today) : https://www.rosebudmedianetwork.com/
Stream : http://listen.streamon.fm/kini
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Bruce Atchison, for sharing the following recording and notes:
This portion of Glenn Hauser's World of Radio show was taped in August of 1987 with my Sony ICF7600 receiver on 9850 kHz. It was on at 0200 UTC but I can't remember the station it was on. Perhaps it was WRNO.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Marcel Strücker, for the following recording and notes:
The inaugural programme on XVRB Europe was heard on Sunday 21st of August 2011. The XVRB Europe programs were broadcast on a monthly basis, each one hour long. The project was meant to entertain shortwave radio enthusiasts. Dutch radio host Mike Wilson was the originator of the project which lasted until April 2013 when XVRB Europe ran out of money.
The show was well received. Swiss, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, British, Belgian, Greek and Dutch shortwave listeners e-mailed their reception reports. One British shortwave veteran even sent Wilson money 'to keep up the good work'.
The one hour shows were produced in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and sent to the German transmission site in Wertachtal. After closure of this site, the XVRB programmes came from Nauen, near the city of Berlin.
Both transmission sites produced a 150 kW signal, wich was picked up all over Europe.
The grounds of radio station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador (Source: Mschaa)
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Greg Shoom, who has shared this recording of the program DX Partyline on HCJB, Quito, Ecuador.
This recording was made in Kingston, Ontario, Canada on Dec. 7, 1976 between 0230-0300 UTC, on 6095 kHz.
Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:
The Shortwave Radio Audio Archive (SRAA) is a collection of shortwave radio recordings that you can download or listen to as a podcast. The collection grows every day and includes both historic recordings and current recordings from the shortwave radio spectrum.
The goal of this site is for shortwave radio enthusiast to have a place to store, archive and share their radio recordings with the world.
Click here to learn how to contribute and archive recordings.
Subscribe to the archive on iTunes,
You can subscribe to the archive with any podcasting application by subscribing to our RSS feed. Simply right click and copy this RSS feed url, then paste it into your podcasting application's subscribe box.
