Radio Prague Interval Signals: Circa 1970 and 1999

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recordings and notes:

Broadcaster: Radio Prague: 1970 and 1999

Frequency: 7.345 MHz

Reception location: Ancaster and Thamesford, Ontario, Canada

Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 and Drake SW-8 using a longwire antenna

Notes:

Here is a brief recording of Radio Prague in Czechoslovakia circa 1970. They are heard with their interval signal and announcement in English. The frequency was 7345 kHz.

The second recording was made June 22, 1999 at 1727 hours UTC on 21745 kHz, with their interval signal and multi-lingual ID's, as the external service of Czech Radio.

In 1970, I received a beautiful cloth bookmark from Radio Prague, and I gave it to my mother as she liked to read, and I felt it would be a way to include her in my newfound hobby of shortwave listening. She used it for the next 46 years, and I recovered it in 2016 after her passing, still in amazingly good condition.

Radio Prague International 85th Anniversary: August 31, 2021

QSL card for reception of a transmission from Radio Prague on 7 May 1964. ORL is the transmitter call sign.

Live, off-air, recording of the broadcast of two special sequential half-hour programs of Radio Prague International celebrating its 85th anniversary. The programs were broadcast via WRMI, Radio Miami International, using a transmitter at Okeechobee, Florida, on 31 August 2021 from 21:00 to 22:00 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 15770 kHz. The listed transmitter power is 100 kW with an antenna beam azimuth of 44°. The recording includes WRMI station identifications.

Czech Radio officially began its international service on 31 August 1936. Eventually, the service became known as Radio Prague, then for a brief time in the 1990s as Radio Czechoslovakia International and most recently as Radio Prague International. Radio Prague International is mostly an on-line service now with its own transmitters having been shut down on 31 January 2011. It continued to broadcast over the single WRMI transmitter in Miami and currently relays its daily programs in English, French, and Spanish using the WRMI transmitter complex in Okeechobee.

The special anniversary programs include archival recordings, interviews, and comments from listeners. The first half-hour program is in English followed by a second half-hour program in French.

The broadcast via WRMI was received outdoors on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver in AM mode with 2.3 kHz filtering and a Tecsun AN-03L 7-metre wire antenna strung to a nearby tree in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada. Reception was mostly quite good.

Recording 1 -The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt (BBC/Radio Moscow): August 19, 1991

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