by Dan Greenall
A half-century ago, long before the internet, e-mail, and SDRs, I was fortunate to visit the islands of Bermuda. In addition to meeting up with a fellow amateur radio operator, whom I had contacted from my home QTH in Ontario, Canada, I was able to do some listening on the AM broadcast band, as well as FM, on an inexpensive portable receiver from Radio Shack that I had brought along with me. To this day, I still have the recordings of a few medium wave “catches” that I made, a few from the Caribbean, and a few from the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada.
You can hear them by following this link to the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/bcb-dx-from-bermuda-1975
As well, I recorded station ID’s of all the AM (3) and FM (2) local radio stations in Bermuda.
According to the 1975 World Radio TV Handbook, there were only 4 FM outlets, as the 94.9 FM outlet is not listed. Here is the link to these on the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/bermuda-radio-airchecks-1975
Today, I can DX from another country without leaving home (through the use of various worldwide SDR’s), though I have to admit that some of the magic is missing.
Ah! 1975. I was living in Pembroke parish not far from ZFB and ZBM. ZBM FM was a 24/7 robot station which ran from tapes made in the USA. ‘Splicing’ in local ID and adverts automatically. Jim Sayer VP9BY looked after that and many other things at ZBM. Quinten Edness was also a ham. When not studying at Bermuda College or on the air myself, ZBM FM was running in the background. When I hear a song that played on ZBM, these days I instantly remember it as a 1975 or earlier song. Happy, happy days.
Ah, 75th!