Many thanks to Dan Greenall, one of our dedicated Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributors, who writes:
Hi Thomas
I was going over a few of my old cassettes today and discovered what seems to be an interval signal, but I cannot seem to place it.
Recording:
Unfortunately, all I can tell you is that it was made sometime in 1971.
I’ve done a little checking with Interval Signals Online but no luck so far. The recording is right at the end of a cassette and you can hear the tape run out abruptly, so no ID, language or frequency info is available.
[…]Any ideas about the mystery IS?
73
Readers: If you can help Dan positively identify this interval signal, please comment!
Certainly ELWA. (http://www.kawamura-photo.sakura.ne.jp/bcl/sound/liberia.mp3)
73 Horacio, CX3BZ
I know this is unrelated to the post, but I’ve been trying to send Thomas some info on a new (to me) online shortwave schedule website. The “Contact Us” link directs me to an older blog entry for some reason rather than a proper “contact’ page.
Thomas – if you do see this, the website I wanted to share is https://shortwave.live/
I have not seen it before just a few weeks ago.
Darn, I definitely have heard the second half of the tape’s IS. The first half was not recognizable. It would help to know where Dan was located when this was taped. I’m suspecting this is a domestic USSR IS, but don’t bet the bank on it!
Thanks, Walt. The signal was received and recorded in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.
Dan, I should have asked the time as well, if that’s available! (probably not…I, too, have boxes of old cassettes full of juicy SW programs from that era.
That is ELWA, the religious station in Monrovia, Liberia.
Yes that is correct. I have a small private collection of interval signal recordings from the 70s and I just checked – it’s definitely ELWA Monrovia.
Many thanks, Phillip! It concurs with the 1975 version on Interval Signals Online. I would never have guessed that one.
I recognized I had heard it before back in the 1980s while DX’ing and during the first segment of the recording, I too was first convinced it was probably a Soviet regional station — they loved using celeste interval signals. But when I heard the second round I knew it was African missionary station ELWA. Ironically, they used “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” as their opening song but not as their tuning signal. FEBA in Seychelles used that song for their IS.
Phillip, I also wondered about FEBA, but it wasn’t them. Glad the mystery was solved! ELWA it is. I knew I recognized it from somewhere!
Wow, Phillip, that’s impressive!!