Greetings all SWLing Post community, here’s what Imaginary Stations crew will sending up into the atmosphere next week. There’ll be another telephone tribute via shortwaveradio.de called Skybird Telegraph & Telephone Co. 2 on Saturday 1st November 2025 at 1200 hrs UTC and then again on Sunday 2nd November 2025 at 1000/1400/2200 hrs UTC on 3975 kHz and 6160 kHz.
Expect all sort of phone related tunes, an interview with a telephone answering machine, a report about the furthest tin can telephone call ever, dialing tones from all around the world and the all-time top 10 of missed calls, all subject to availability of course and if there’s any snow on those telegraph wires.
Fab fact: By the way do you know why the telephone is sometimes known as “The blower”? Early telephone handsets and local exchange apparatus used to produce audible “blowing” noises (clicks and hums and the suction-like sound of magneto generators). Wonderful!
Get connected and tune in for more telegraph and telephone madness!
On Wednesday 5th November 2025 at 0300 UTC via WRMI we bring you another KBIN. The show is some recycled radio including mixes from some of our Imaginary Stations favourite shows so tune in and catch yourself another great value for money transmission.
More on Skybird Telegraph & Telephone Co. below:
For more information on all our shows, please write to us at [email protected] and check out our old shows at our Mixcloud page here.
FastRadioBurst23
I always thought the telephone was called ‘the blower’ because it followed on from the old ‘speaking tube’, which was just a tube connecting two places. You spoke into one end of the tube and the person at the other end could hear you, and it worked in both directions of course. To ‘ring’ the other end the caller would blow into the tube which caused a whistle to blow.