RNW headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands (photo coutesty: RNW)
Media Network, which covered international broadcasting developments at Radio Netherlands, recently ended a 30-year run on RNW. In a series of four articles, Andy Sennitt mentions some of the highlights, and then looks ahead to how international broadcasting might develop in the next ten years.
Part 1 is now available on RNW’s website. Part 2 will be published on May 1st 2012. This read is definitely worth your time.
BBC World Service - Bush House
(Source: BBC World Service)
BBC World Service brings you a special day of programming on 29 February to celebrate 80 years of international radio broadcasting.
We’ll begin the day with a live broadcast of the daily news meeting– which usually takes place behind closed doors – a meeting of all the language service and English news heads who decide the day’s news agenda.
Other highlights include an audience with naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough; writer VS Naipaul will be talking about his time at BBC World Service with the Caribbean service and music producer William Orbit will be guest editing our arts programme, The Strand.
Listen out for topics such as entrepreneurship in Africa, the future of international broadcasting, and the amazing abilities of an athlete’s body.
Throughout the day, you’ll be able to watch video clips of guests and staff around our current headquarters, Bush House.
We’ll also be asking you to put questions to guests and BBC World Service staff via clickFacebook, so join us if you can.
clickFor full details of Bush House Inside Out, check out the schedule.
Ian McFarland (photo courtesy: DXer.ca)
Want to do something good for yourself, your knowledge of SWL–and, in the process, help others? Let me tell you how…
Ian McFarland has made available his excellent shortwave radio CD series for download on DXer.ca (an already excellent site, if you haven’t yet visited). This CD set includes a series on interval signals, foreign language recognition, a look back at shortwave history, the state of international broadcasting today, and even a bonus antenna series. I purchased these the moment I heard that they had become available as MP3 downloads in December.
And how, exactly, are you helping someone else by enjoying these programs? Fully 100% of the proceeds benefit Ian’s favorite charity, a food bank and soup kitchen in Duncan, British Columbia.
It’s a win-win, and you need to be one of those winners! What are you waiting for? Click here to go to the DXer.ca online store!
That series featured over 100 identification and interval signals from SW stations around the world. Many of the ident signals heard in that long-running series are no longer on the air. If you feel nostalgic about the “good old days” of SWLing, you’ll be interested to know that this unique series is now available in an autographed two-CD set.
Series 2 – CD#1: The Foreign Language recognition course + A bonus CD of classic McFarland.
Ever feel like you could do better with radio listening on the SW, MW and LW bands if you could only identify the language? Help has arrived with the release of Ian McFarland’s foreign language-recognition course. CD One of this series contains 55 language samples analyzed by noted linguist, the late Dr. Richard E. Wood. You’ll be pinning down DX faster than ever with this concise and complete audio series CD. A second bonus CD contains three flashback shows in their entirety from the Ian McFarland catalog of classics.
Series 3 – Yesterday and Today: 20 Years of SW Broadcasting. In what they feel is their “finest work ever,” Ian McFarland joins Bob Zanotti, Kim Eilliot of VOA, Jef White of WRMI, and a cast of listeners from the 20th Anniversary Kulpsville, PA, SWLing Winterfest in 2007. They combine a 2009 live forum with a flashback to 1989 – The joint SWL Digest-Swiss SW Merry-go-round program devoted to the International Radio Days conference in West Berlin in 1989.
Bonus Download Series A – The Ian McFarland Antenna Series – A must-listen for SWL’s, DXers, and radio enthusiasts at all levels, this 11-part study series covers all things made of solid and stranded copper wire. From the most basic random wire to the windom and the beverage antennas, Ian discusses the most common types of radio antennas, protecting your antennas and equipment with lightning arrestors, and some antenna book references. The McFarland Antenna series was first aired in the seventies, and this is the first time in almost twenty-five years that these recordings have been available in a high quality MP3 download. Two dollars provides one hour of interesting and informative listening on the subject.
If you haven’t gotten your fill of Cold War shortwave yet, you’ll love these recordings posted on YouTube–Radio Moscow and the Western Hemisphere 1961 by Cook Labs. There are four separate recordings representing two LP’s, both side A and B. Here are direct links to YouTube:
Kudos to Mike Barraclough for bringing this video/audio to my attention. According to Mike, this audio montage was featured in an edition of Communications World in October 2000. It’s an amazing mixture of Cold War era audio recorded entirely on the shortwave spectrum. Enjoy via embedded video below, or click here to view directly on YouTube.
(Source: Paul Dougherty)
Cold War Shortwave was created in 1989 using off-air recordings made while I was traveling in Europe circa 1985. This was a time when propaganda was harsh, before the Gorbachev inspired thaw. The collage was done with Soundwave from Impulse, my first experience with non-linear, random access editing.
Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes) and Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson)
Like many shortwave radio listeners, I’m all about nostalgia–perhaps that’s why I enjoy the holiday season so much.
This year, I would like to share with you a radio play featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Night Before Christmas. If this doesn’t make you feel nostalgic, nothing will.
This radio play was originally aired in 1945–this particular copy was downloaded courtesy of OTR (Old Time Radio).
Click here to download and play your copy, courtesy of OTR.
Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
(Source: Delmarva Now)
A fat and sassy black cat purrs in John Allen’s lap. Relaxing in his favorite chair, Allen’s fingers vanished into the silky fur as he stroked his cat while listening to the Big Band sounds coming through a 1930s radio.
With its warm wood finish and the soft yellow glow of light from the dial, the vintage radio is as soothing as the thin shadows in the room.
[…]Stacked neatly in his living room are a dozen or so radios from the past. The sets are piled several deep. Other are stored in his shop, tucked tightly on shelves.
[…]”Maybe if you count the regular radios, the military radios, and the spy radios, I might have a little more than 200,” he said.
That’s right, he said “spy radios.”
Click hear to read the full story on Delmarva Now. If you like this sort of article, you have to check out the BBC radio documentary on Gerry Wells.