Tag Archives: Papua New Guinea

Keith discovers a Radio Bougainville recording on the Shortwave Archive: “A 50-year old tape takes me back”

We’ve published thousands of off-air recordings on Shortwave Radio Audio Archive over the past decade. They’re freely available for everyone to search and download.

For those of us who work on the archive, it’s a pure labor of love. We are not compensated for the time and effort we put into running and curating it, although we use Patreon and Coffee Fund contributions to help pay for the site and online archives.

Quite frequently, our recordings are discovered and are intensely meaningful to individuals. Listening to radio recordings has an amazing ability to summon up memories and moments in time.

We recently discovered the following article on the blog PNG Attitude written by Keith Jackon. Keith has kindly given us permission to post it in its entirety here on the SWLing Post. Thank you, Keith, and we’re pleased this recording was so relevant to you:


A 50-year old tape takes me back

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – It had dropped into my Twitter feed via @Laselki, the account of the Lebanon-based Arab Amateur Radio Network, and @Stret_Pasin, a valued supporter and one of my 8,700 Twitter followers.

It had originated in Ontario, Canada, from the historic village of Ancaster close by the US border and Niagara Falls.

It was a fleeting recording of a shortwave broadcast.

Map showing location of Ancaster, Canada

A broadcast from Radio Bougainville transmitted 51 years ago on 21 October 1971, which had travelled 13,300 km to Ancaster and been recorded.

Then saved on a cassette tape until, for some reason, recently retrieved and shared.

“Sound is a bit crackly,” wrote @Stret_Pasin, “but this will bring back memories of Radio Bougainville.”

Truer words never were tweeted.

When you link to the brief recording here (scroll down to the black audio bar), you will pick up in rapid succession the sound of chanting to the famous Bougainville kaur flute, then an announcer’s voice and finally a snatch of Bougainville string band music.

Click here to listen on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.

I thought I recognised this sequence as the pre-recorded station identification put to air each time the station’s transmitters were fired up at Toniva, just south of Kieta, from a switch in the main studio down a ladder beside my house.

But the more I listen to it, the less convinced I am of its provenance.

All I can say for sure is that anything the captured snatch of radio was broadcast at about 12 noon on Bougainville on 22 October 1971.

This was at a time when Radio Bougainville usually broadcast for 11 hours a day in three separate sessions: 6 am – 9 am, 12 noon – 2 pm and 4 pm – 10pm.

In a small town in Canada it was late morning the day before, and a young Dan Greenall was tuning his Hallicrafters shortwave radio seeking out distant stations he would register as finding in the ether.

Even in our modern digital age, there are shortwave junkies who ferret out remote radio stations and seek QSL cards: written proof of reception. (One issued by Radio Bougainville in 2016 is pictured here.)

QSL reception confirmation from NBC Bougainville, 2016

’I heard this at such time on your station; tell me it is true.” And we’d check the log and return a QSL postcard. Yes, you had indeed heard our station.

Collecting these cards became popular with radio listeners 100 years ago and continues to this day

Dan had been doing just that 51 years ago when he happened upon a distant signal struggling through heavy interference to be captured by his outdoor copper wire aerial and delivered to the sturdy Hallicrafters S-52 receiver.

Keith’s appointment to manage Radio Bougainville was greeted by this headline in the Bougainville News

Dan has written for the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive:

“The morning of 21 October 1971 provided some of the best reception of Papua New Guinea stations in the 90 metre band that I ever experienced.

“These stations were rare visitors to my headphones but I was able to make a couple of short recordings of two PNG stations that morning, and they have survived to this day on that same audio cassette (now 51 years old).

“This one of Radio Bougainville begins with a local chant followed by announcement on the hour. The station ran 2.5 kw and their signal made it over 13,300 km to my receiver that day.

“Audio quality is passable considering the recording was made using an open mic to the speaker of the Hallicrafters S-52.”

Technical data:

Broadcaster: Radio Bougainville
Date of recording: 21/10/1971
Starting time: 1100
Frequency: 3.322.5 MHz
Receiver location: Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Receiver and antenna: Hallicrafters S-52 using a longwire antenna

When I linked to the thin signal that had managed to land so far away so long ago, I was momentarily overcome with emotion.

I had known those sounds so well from too many early mornings wondering whether the breakfast announcer would arrive in time to open the station.

A recording something like that told me he’d arrived, fired up the transmitter and was ready to begin proceedings.

Through the static of 51 years – two-thirds of my life – came a once-familiar sequence of bamboo flute / announcer / stringband, transporting me back to a time when I was young and in my first management job which, bad bits and all, I was enjoying as if born to it.

Keith Jackson at the time of his appointment to Radio Bougainville

They were tough years for the people of Bougainville, especially in the villages around Kieta and its hinterland.

Bougainville Copper had started to dig the ore that produced great quantities of copper, gold and silver on alienated land amidst an alienated people.

Despite the volatile social and political climate, I had enjoyed the challenge of Bougainville.

I felt I’d been made for it and that it was making me.

And I enjoyed working with talented station staff, most from Bougainville, like Tom Kathoa, Sam Bena, Perpetua Tanuku, Justin Kili, Aloysius Sahoto, Aloysius Nase and Aloysius Rumina – most now gone from our midst. That’s what 51 years does.

And that simple recording – made so long ago and so far away – brought it all rushing back.

You can read more about my Bougainville years here in Brink of Secession.

So thanks to Dan Greenall, the Arab Amateur Radio Network and @Stret_Pasin for giving me a free ticket to fly back more than half a century. I really enjoyed the trip.

Read this full article and check out Keith’s website PNG Attitude here.

Also, a very special thanks to Dan Greenall and all of our contributors on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. 

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Representative from Nuku, PNG asks NBC to reintroduce shortwave

(Source: PNG Post Courier via Michael Bird)

Member for Nuku Joseph Sungi has called in the National Broadcasting Corporation to reintroduce the short wave band to reach the rural people.

Mr Sungi in a series of questions to Minister for Communication and Information Technology Sam Basil said in the late 1980s, the NBC at the time through the provincial radio stations was using the shortwave band.

He said Radio Sandaun in West Sepik could reach districts like Nuku and parts of Telefomin but that was not the case anymore.

“Does the minister and the department have any plans to make sure that same service under short wave band can be replaced by a new one or improvement can be made so that provincial radio stations can be revived and broadcasted straight so that remote parts of PNG can use to get news and update on what is happening around the country?” Mr Sungi said.

Mr Basil, who is also responsible for Energy, said a lot of people in the rural areas were asking the same question because they could no longer have access to NBC radio.

[…]“I have had discussions with the managing director of NBC and I told them that we want that service to return. We are now moving the system at NBC from analogue to digital so I asked them how we can fit in the short wave system when we do the migration.

“They came up with a few ideas. For some places like Bougainville shortwave is available.

“But I asked them how can we asked the shops to start selling shortwave 1 and 2 transistor radios that receive this wireless signal, a lot of shops are not selling, In places like Bougainville we want to import some radios to distribute so that they carry out the awareness.”

“We are now talking about bringing back these services and improvement.

“We will start in Port Moresby first and roll out to provinces, We are trying our very best to bring the service back because most of our people are in rural areas, A lot of our radio stations now invest into FM band which signals of often blocked by barriers like mountains that is why we want to bring back the shortwave band,” Mr Basil said.

Click here to read the full article at the Post Courier.

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PNG: Bougainville considering a return to shortwave and FM expansion

(Source: Radio New Zealand via Mike, K8RAT and Joey, KE4DRJ)

The Papua New Guinea government is contemplating restoring short wave radio services to Bougainville, after they were shut down during the civil war.

[…]The Bougainville regional member in the PNG parliament, Joe Lera, has raised concerns that the region’s mostly rural population lacks access to information.

He said in the absence of other media these people can be won over by groups like former combatants pushing just one view – that of independence.

Mr Lera said the Minister of Communications, Sam Basil, will take a team from the national broadcaster to Bougainville later this month.

“His thinking is two options. One, national government to immediately buy two shortwave transmitters and bring Radio Bougainville back to where it was before the crisis, and two, we want to keep FM. He is also talking national government paying for two FM transmitters.”

Click here to read the full story at RNZ.

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PNG extends public radio network, restores shortwave

(Source: Radio New Zealand via Mike Hansgen)

Papua New Guinea’s communications minister, Sam Basil, says he plans to grow radio services in PNG.

He marked this week’s World Radio Day by saying radio is a medium that reaches the widest audience, including vulnerable communities in remote parts of the country.

Mr Basil has announced the medium and shortwave services of the state broadcaster, NBC, will be restored, and that the corporation will migrate from analog to digital technology.

He said new stations will be opened in Jiwaka and Hela and that a new NBC headquarters will be built.

Click here to read this article at Radio New Zealand.

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PNG Minister for Communication wants to invest in shortwave

(Source: The Post Courier via Bill Lee)

Minister for Communication, Information Technology and Energy Sam Basil wants all 22 provinces to have short wave frequency radio stations.

He said this during the Central Province assembly induction program last week Friday in Port Moresby.

“My role as the minister is to make sure that we go back to all the 22 provinces to make sure that we revive the radio stations,” Mr Basil said.

He said most of the radio stations currently using frequency modulation (FM) face the problem of signal loose in the rural settings as it is only powered by repeater and could not be able to penetrate when it meets obstacles.

“This is to ensure that people are kept informed and in tuned with the government of the day,” Mr Basil said.

[…]“I want to go short wave and we want to bring back to all the provinces capital in Papua New Guinea through National Broadcasting Corporation so that people in the mountains can have excess to communication,” Mr Basil said.

Click here to read the full article at The Post Courier.

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Shortwave Radio Recordings: Pacific Games, July 10, 2015

mascotSRAA contributor, Richard Langley, recently shared the following recording of the 2015 Pacific Games coverage of the National Broadcasting Corporation on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. Richard 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.

Many thanks, Richard!

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Please subscribe to the SRAA podcast to receive future shortwave recordings automatically.

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Papua New Guinea broadcasting 15th Pacific Games via shortwave

PacificGamesSWLing Post contributor, Rob Wagner, has shared the following update on his blog:

It’s quite difficult to hear Papua New Guinea these days now that nearly all their shortwave transmitters have closed and moved to FM. BUT….In the last day or so, PNG’s National Broadcasting Corporation has been transmitting on shortwave with two new outlets. NBC is the host broadcaster of the 15th Pacific Games, being held in the capital Port Moresby. The games begins tomorrow July 4 and runs through till July 18. The following schedule was noted from on-air announcements as follows:

6075 kHz – 1900 to 2159 UTC
9860 kHz – 2200 to 0959 UTC
6075 kHz – 1000 to 1400 UTC
12025 kHz – 2200 to 1000 UTC (to Pacific Island communities)

Many thanks for sharing this news, Rob!

Nigel Holmes also sent an update confirming that the transmitter site is Brandon and that the transmitter can run a 20 kW carrier. Nigel notes:

The aerials are HR 2/2/ 6-12 MHz arrays so about -6 dB cf. the arrays at Shepparton.

[…]The broadcasts have a power of 20 kW AM up from 10 kW when the site carried Radio Australia programming.

As of time of posting, I can hear the games here in the eastern US on 6,075 kHz, but the signal is very weak and the propagation window will close soon. I will also listen on 12,025 and 9,860 kHz.

Check out the Mount Evelyn DX Report for more details.

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