Voice of the Revolution/Guinea - Funeral Observances for Kwame Nkrumah: 1972

by Dan Robinson

In 1972, the Voice of the Revolution, Guinea’s national radio carried the funeral ceremony for Francis Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president after independence. Quoting from the history: “Nkrumah was born in the Gold Coast (later Ghana) in 1909 and was educated there before going to the United States in 1935 where he attended Lincoln University and later, the University of Pennsylvania. Nkrumah spent 10 years in the U.S., and later went to England to study at the London School of Economics. At the same time, he intensified his political activities for the independence of his homeland, which he led to full nationhood on March 6,1957. He was toppled in 1966 in a coup by army officers and remained in exile in neighboring Guinea until his death in April 1972 in Bucharest, Romania, where he had gone for medical treatment.

As reported by AFP from Accra: “The body of Kwame Nkrumah was flown back here today in a special Guinean Air Force plane. The military government or declared all flags to be flown at half‐staff until the former President is buried in Nkroful, a village 190 miles southwest of here where he was born on Sept. 1, 1909.

Return of the pan‐African leader's body to Ghana marks the culmination of protracted negotiations between the governing National Redemption Council here and President Sékou Touré of Guinea. Mr. Nkrumah died on April 27 in Rumania, where he was receiving medical treatment, and his body was taken to Guinea.

At first, President Touré refused Ghanaian requests for the body and gave Mr. Nkrumah a state funeral in Conakry, the Guinean capital. The Ghanaian had spent most of the years of his exile in Conakry, following his overthrow in 1966 in Ghana's first military coup. He was given the symbolic title of Co‐President of Guinea by President Touré.

Radio Conakry, also known as The Voice of the Revolution, was frequently heard by listeners around the world, usually on its shortwave frequencies including 9,650 kHz and 7,125 kHz. Nkrumah had used the station to make speeches from Guinea to the people of Ghana in 1966.

In this recording, made in Pennsylvania in 1972, you hear part of what appears to be a funeral observance held in Conakry, mostly in French but some English. Radio Conakry remained on shortwave into the 2000s, but later was intermittent. After repairs to its transmitter, it returned to shortwave in 2016 and was still being heard as of early 2021, though at weaker levels than before, and mostly in European locations.

Emisora da Guine Portuguesa (Portuguese Guinea - Guinea Bissau): 1972

This was the classic aerogram style QSL received by many DX’ers who heard Emisora da Guinea (or Guine as it was spelled by the station) Portuguesa. One of the hardest DX catches for North American listeners, the station’s main frequency was, as this verification notes, 5,041 khz. But for a brief period in 1972, DX’ers were amazed to find that this rare African station was putting out a harmonic and being heard at strong levels on 5041 x 2 = 10,082 khz. Some of us were pinching ourselves to make sure we weren’t dreaming, but yes, this was Portuguese Guinea. What’s more, the station was actually one of the more consistent verifiers of reception reports, and sent out this beautiful folding QSL complete with fantastic local stamps.

You may notice that no mention is made by the station of its harmonic frequency that allowed so many of us to hear this small country in the west of Africa. Here’s the recording, Emisora da Guinea Bissau, made on a HQ-180 in Pennsylvania, on the frequency of 10,082 khz a harmonic of 5,041 khz, the station’s main frequency. You will hear in this recording a variety of other interesting sounds, including interference from a local amateur radio operator whose signal was coming in at 10 mHz, the sound of an old dial-up phone, and the clunk of the HQ-180’s selectivity switch as I changed bandwidths from time to time.

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following recording

Radio Guinée: May 30, 2018

Live, off-air, approximately one-and-a-half-hour recording of Radio Guinée, an outlet of the government broadcaster Radio Télévision Guinéenne, broadcasting from Conakry, Guinea, on 30 May 2018 beginning at about 17:34 UTC. The broadcast was on a shortwave frequency of 9650 kHz using a transmitter at Sonfonia, a suburb of Conakry, with a reported power of 50 kW and with an omnidirectional antenna.

The transmission was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with a Tecsun AN-03L 7-metre wire antenna in Meloneras, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, in AM mode with 5 kHz RF filtering. Reception was quite good initially although interference from what is believed to be Saudi Arabian jamming (siren style) directed against an Iranian broadcast in Arabic earlier on the same frequency can be faintly heard. The jamming signal ends at about 18:26 UTC but adjacent channel interference begins a couple of minutes later and continues at varying levels through to the end of the recording.

The recording starts with a program of indigenous Guinean music in progress. Station identification at 17:58 UTC is followed by a news bulletin and then a sports program discussing mostly football. This was followed by a talk program. The spoken-word programs are primarily in French with some indigenous language segments.

The Radio Guinée shortwave transmission is a relay of the Radio Guinée Conakry FM station on 88.5 MHz.
 

Radio Guinea: February 21, 2018

The following recording of Radio Guinea was made on February 21, 2018 starting around 23:00 UTC on 9,650 kHz. The receiver was an AirSpy HF+ SDR using the SDR application SDR-Console. The antenna was a horizontal delta loop. Reception location was North Carolina.

Radio Guinea (French): January 29, 2018

For your listening pleasure: Fifty minutes of Radio Guinea recorded on January 29, 2018 on 9650 kHz starting around 2130 UTC. This recording was made with a WinRadio Excalibur attached to a large horizontal delta loop wire antenna in the eastern US.

This recording has a little music and a lot of clips of various politicians making public statements. Always a treat to hear Radio Guinea on the air.