Space Flight: Colin’s collection of Radio Moscow recordings on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive

One of the joys of running the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive (SRAA) is that, over time, more and more people have become aware of it and submit recordings they’ve had in their private collections for decades.

Quite often, SRAA off-air recordings were originally made on reel-to-reel or cassette tapes which degrade with time. When SRAA contributors take the time to digitize these recordings, and share them via the SRAA, they put these collections in the hands of hundreds of archivists. We’re grateful each time we receive one of these shortwave or mediumwave/AM recordings.

You can imagine my excitement when I received the following message from one of our newest contributors, Colin Anderton:

“As a space flight nut, I have many recordings from the 1970s from Radio Moscow. They used to broadcast on the medium wave, and I used to record the news bulletins during some of the space flights. In particular, there was a period between December 1977 and March 1978 when Soviet cosmonauts first lived aboard the Salyut 6 space station.  I recorded each days’ news reports on the flights, and also some additional items about them.”

Colin’s recordings are amazing. Here’s a sample from December 10, 1977:

We’ve started publishing Colin’s recordings on the archive at regular intervals.

Click here to listen to Colin’s recordings on the SRAA.

Interestingly, I discovered that Colin also has a website dedicated to NASA highlight recordings from the space age.  Several months ago, he spent a considerable amount of time making the public domain series more listenable–removing voice-actuated recorder noises, tape clicks, etc.

Colin has made his collection of re-engineered NASA recordings free to download on his website. If you download and enjoy his recordings, consider dropping him a donation. If you’re into spaceflight like I am, you’ll certainly enjoy this collection:

apolloaudiohighlights.com

Colin, once again, thanks so much for adding your off-air recordings to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive!

Indeed, thanks to the many contributors who make the archive such a treasure trove of broadcast recordings! Click here to browse the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.

Spread the radio love

6 thoughts on “Space Flight: Colin’s collection of Radio Moscow recordings on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive

  1. Colin Anderton

    Glad to have come across this site again. I wipe my computer regularly to get rid of junk, and I lost the way back here.
    I am the contributor who forwarded these Radio Moscow recordings from 1977-78, and I had hoped that the remainder of this three-flight project had survived, but it seems they haven’t. (Haven’t given up entirely, though!)
    The Soyuz 26 crew landed in the Soyuz 27 spacecraft on 16 March 1978.

    Can I just mention that the web address given for Apollo tapes is now defunct, but I do have a page on the Internet Archive, where you can hear some very rare material, from the early Space Age.
    This can be found at: https://archive.org/details/spaceflightarchive_201910

    Reply
  2. Rob

    Hi Colin ,

    I just sent you another email but it bounced back so wondering if you could please drop me a quick line with your new email.

    Thanks,
    Rob

    Reply

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