Category Archives: Radio History

Radio Waves: Enigma Event, Oldest US Ham, RTI Celebrates 95 Years, Bridge Built Station, and Yosemite Sam Mystery Solved

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors David Iurescia, Paul, and Andrew for the following tips:

Enigma Reloaded International Event (Enigma Reloaded)

Click here to read about this international radio event that takes place between September 29 – October 7, 2023.

Meet the Gaston County man who is the oldest living ham radio operator in the U.S. (Ham Radio World)

Gaston County resident Oscar Norris, also known by his call sign W4OXH, is turning 106 on Sept. 25.

Norris is not only the oldest living amateur radio operator in North Carolina, but according to information from the American Radio Relay League he is also the oldest living operator in the United States.

The Gaston County Amateur Radio Society and the Gaston Radio Club, both of which Norris is a long-time member, have come together to host a special airwave event for him from Sept. 20 – Oct. 1.

This event will honor Norris and his life, and will be hosted by operators in three different states, according to Gaston County Amateur Radio Society president Tony Jones.

Both on and off the air, Norris “is one of the most gentle and kind people,” a person could encounter in life, according to fellow amateur radio operator and friend, Mike Harvey. [Continue reading…]

Rti celebrates 95th anniversary with event featuring speech by President Tsai (Rti)

Radio Taiwan International (Rti) celebrated its 95th anniversary with an event featuring remarks by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday. Additional speakers included Legislative Speaker You Si-kun, Ambassador of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Taiwan Andrea Bowman, and Rti Chairperson Cheryl Lai.

In her speech, President Tsai said that Rti has witnessed important events in the development of Taiwan’s democracy over its 95-year history. Tsai says Rti has carried out its responsibilities from then until now by continuing to cover Taiwan’s growing engagement with the world. Tsai also said Taiwan’s ability to connect people all over the world was demonstrated by the many postcards received in various languages on display at the event. She thanked Rti for its past work and says she hopes Rti will continue to bring the voices of Taiwan to the world.

Rti Chairperson Cheryl Lai also gave remarks at the event. Lai says Rti is Taiwan’s only public media company to broadcast in 20 languages across multiple platforms. Lai says Rti has been an important channel for people in Southeast Asian countries to understand Taiwan. She says the Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Thai language services have a long history at Rti, and are important resources for Taiwan’s new immigrants and migrant workers. Lai says that Taiwan also began a Ukrainian language social media service following the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Lai concluded by saying that as Taiwan grows more vibrant and diverse, Rti will continue to spread Taiwan’s voices to all corners of the world.

Ambassador Bowman said in her speech that reaching 95 years of service is not an easy accomplishment to achieve. She says Rti represents an excellent model for how to spread the message of democracy and peace across the globe. [Read this article on the Rti website…]

The Radio Station That Bridge Built (Nuts And Volts)

It was 1923, and radio was the phenomenon of the day. Over 600 broadcast stations were on the air, and Americans bought 100,000 receivers that year. (Sales would jump to 1,500,000 in 1924.)

This new instant mass medium flashed news of important events around the country in minutes instead of days. In addition to news, tens of thousands tuned in to hear music and learn from lecturers holding forth on their areas of expertise. A few tried to make sense of broadcast guitar or swimming lessons.

Those without radios gathered in taverns and restaurants to listen to election returns and descriptions of baseball games.

New radio owners everywhere strung wire across their rooftops to make aerials, and then puzzled out how to connect a loudspeaker to the set, along with the A, B, and C batteries the setup required. (Soon enough, “house-current” radios would come along; most of the early ones were designed to draw power from fittings screwed into lamp sockets.)

Once the radios were set up, many owners hosted “radio parties” and danced to the latest jazz music with their friends.

At the same time, the game of Bridge was sweeping the country. It had been brought to New York from England in 1893. Here, as across the Atlantic, Bridge replaced the popular game of Whist as a top pastime, and quickly spread across the nation. [Continue reading…]

I Solved One Of Shortwave Radio’s BIGGEST Mysteries! (YouTube)

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Radio Waves: Fans Mourn Fading Longwave, “Prodigal” RadioShack, and Titanic’s Wireless Recovery

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Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Ron Chester and Dennis Dura for the following tips:

Long wave radio fans mourn fading frequencies (BBC News)

As he turned the dial gently but purposefully, the sound of people speaking in foreign languages and the lilt of unfamiliar music burst through a haze of crackle and buzz.

Clint Gouveia was only about seven years old at the time, listening to long wave radio in bed, late at night.

“I could hear all these voices from far away,” he recalls. “It inspired me to want to see the world when I got older, to travel, which eventually I did.”

Back then, in the late 1970s, there were dozens of long wave stations broadcasting. Now, only a handful are left. Among them are those in Denmark and Iceland – but they are due to shut by the end of 2023 and during 2024, respectively.

The BBC still broadcasts Radio 4 on long wave as well as on digital radio, FM, and online. However, separate scheduling of BBC radio programmes on long wave will end in March next year – for example Test Match Special will not be available on long wave. The long-term future of the BBC’s long wave output is far from certain.

The only other remaining broadcasters in the world using the long wave band are those in Romania, Poland, Algeria, Morocco and Mongolia.

“The band is basically almost dead,” says Mr Gouveia, who enjoys listening to radio stations from his home in Oxford. “It all feels a bit sad, really.” He adds that, when a long wave station shuts, he makes an effort to record its last moments. [Continue reading…]

The Return of the Prodigal Shack? (Sound and Vision)

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was consulting for a car company and I needed to A/B two tweeters. I dashed over to the nearest RadioShack and picked up a speaker-switching box. Crazy to think about it now – a brick-and-mortar store selling something like that. Of course, RadioShack is just a distant memory now. Or is it? Is RadioShack making a comeback?
Founded in 1921 to sell amateur radio gear, RadioShack grew to achieve genuine ubiquity. In its prime, there were over 5,000 stores in the U.S. and another 3,000 in other countries. The company boasted that it was the biggest seller of consumer telecommunications in the world. But times change. The internet came along, the company declined, and in 2015 it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Aside from a few stalwart independently owned stores, the brand disappeared in the U.S. The company was sold, bounced around with various owners and their revitalization plans, and generally went nowhere. Few noticed that an outfit called Unicomer Group, based in El Salvador, had bought the brand’s exclusive use in Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Price? $5 million.

Unicomer had been a franchisee of RadioShack since 1998 and by 2015 it had expanded to 57 physical stores in four countries. After its purchase from the bankruptcy court, things got even better. They added company-owned stores and picked up existing franchises in other countries. In fact, under its new management, RadioShack is doing pretty well.

Now here’s the really interesting part: In May of this year, Unicomer acquired the RadioShack brand in about 70 more countries – including the U.S., Canada, Europe and China. With a 25-year proven track record of successful retail management, could Unicomer bring RadioShack back to its brick-and-mortar global glory? [Continue reading…]

Future Salvaging Missions to the Titanic Are at Risk After the U.S. Government Blocked the Recovery of a Historic Artifact From the Wreck (Art Net)

The federal government has filed a motion to block a proposed mission to salvage the ship’s wireless telegraph.

The wreck of the Titanic has been a source of ongoing fascination since it was first discovered in 1985. As it continues to decompose, there has been a race against time to capture and preserve the ship and its contents, whether through high-tech scans or by salvaging artifacts.

Many fascinating items have been successfully recovered, including one passenger’s alligator purse, jewelry, vials of perfume, a bowler hat, sheet music, and a logometer. Their retrieval has been controversial because the wreck is not only a site of historical significance but also the resting place of over 1,500 passengers that sunk with the ship on April 15, 1912.

Now, the U.S. government is aiming to block a proposed mission to rescue the Marconi wireless telegraph. This important machine was used to transmit a distress call when the ship was sinking and helped save the 700 people who made it onto lifeboats. It has been located on the wreck and will eventually disintegrate if not salvaged, but its removal risks damaging the boat’s hull.

The recovery would be carried out by RMS. Titanic, Inc., a company based in Atlanta, Georgia that was handed exclusive salvaging rights to the wreck by a federal court in Norfolk, Virginia in 1994. Prior to this, U.S. Congress had discouraged disturbing or salvaging the wreck, but no formal, legally-enforced agreement had materialized. [Continue reading…]

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Japan’s Longest Day: August 15, 1945

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Fred Waterer, who writes:

At Noon on August 15, 1945, Emporer Hirohito spoke to his nation by radio for the first time, ever. The intrigue surrounding the recording of his speech and the effort to get it on the air would be worthy of a Hollywood film. When word started getting out that the broadcast would be made, fanatics who wanted to keep fighting staged an attempted coup. An NHK (Japan Radio Corporation) engineer had a gun to his head as an officer attempted to hijack the station at 5am. His coolness under pressure saved his life. He also temporarily severed the line to the transmitter, just in case the officer changed his mind about killing him.

Meanwhile at the palace, the NHK recording engineers had recorded two versions of the speech. The recordings (and the engineers) were hidden overnight, as was the Emporer, in the labyrinth of the palace. Coup leaders searching for the disks to destroy them failed. Eventually troops loyal to the Emporer took control of the situation, with many of the coup plotters killing themselves. At noon, the recordings were in the NHK studios and were broadcast as scheduled.

The actual broadcast:

In 1967 a film about these events was made in Japan, called Japan’s Longest Day and starring the great Toshiro Mifune.

The recording scene:

Looks like quite a film!

Thank you for sharing this, Fred.

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (Part One)

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Radio Reloj, Costa Rica (1990)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (part one)

by Don Moore

Costa Rica is one of the most visited countries in Latin America. I only visited there once, for three weeks in May-June 1990 when the country was just beginning to become a major international eco-tourism destination. Visitors were few and prices very affordable. Except for a short trip to the Monteverde cloud forest, we spent all our time in the central valley, staying in San José and nearby Heredia. Rather than nature, our visit focused on cultural and historical sites … and a lot of radio stations.

Since the 19th century, Costa Rica has been one of the most literate and educated countries in Latin America. That quality is reflected in its radio broadcasting industry, which has always been very professional. Curiously that’s even reflected in station verifications. Almost every Costa Rican shortwave station that I’ve verified had a professionally printed QSL card.

Despite being one of the smallest countries in Latin America, Costa Rica had a lot of shortwave radio stations. I have fifteen in my logbooks and some of the most famous ones were already off the air when I started DXing. Unfortunately, shortwave broadcasting from Costa Rica ended almost twenty years ago so there’s no more to be had. It is still possible to log Costa Rica on medium wave but it’s not as easy as it once was. When I started DXing in the early 1970s, stations in the San José were spaced twenty-five kilohertz apart. That meant that every other station, such as Radio Sonora on 675 kHz and Radio Columbia on 725 kHz, was on a split frequency that fell between the normally assigned 10 kHz channels. I logged nine Tico stations on medium wave while DXing from Pennsylvania in 1972-1981 and only one of those, Radio Reloj on 700 kHz, was on an even channel. Those split channels were eliminated in the 1980s so logging Costa Rica on medium wave is no longer a slam-dunk.

I visited a lot of radio stations and took a lot of photos on my one long-ago trip to Costa Rica. I’m going to focus on just five shortwave broadcasters in this first look at Costa Rica. The others will be featured in two or three future columns.

In the 1970s the first Costa Rican station most shortwave DXers heard was Faro del Caribe, or Lighthouse of the Caribbean. This religious station used two kilowatts on 9645 and 6175 kHz and got out surprisingly well as long as there wasn’t a more powerful international broadcaster also using the same frequency. In the late 1970s they added 5055 kHz in the sixty-meter band.

When I visited in 1990 the antennas were located right next to the studio building. The site was outside the city of San José when the station was founded but gradually a residential area built up around it.

Engineer checking one of Faro Del Caribe’s shortwave transmitters.

Fortieth Anniversary pennant from 1988. When Faro del Caribe began broadcasting on February 23, 1948, it was the first Evangelical Protestant radio station in Central America.

For DXers, Radio Reloj was one of Costa Rica’s best known radio voices for several decades. The station was founded as Radio Cristal by Roger Barahona in 1945. The shortwave frequency of 6006 kHz was added in the early 1950s. In 1958 the station was renamed to Radio Reloj when the format changed to focus on news and community announcements with very frequent time checks. (Radio Reloj means Radio Clock.) Roger’s brothers Isaac and Francisco had joined the broadcasting company and Radio Reloj was assigned the callsign TIHB for Hermanos Barahona (Barahona Brothers). Continue reading →

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Radio Waves: FCC Issues FM Pirate Warnings, Shortwave Modernization Petition Comments, Morse Code Love, and The Art of Listening with BBC Monitoring

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Caversham Park (Photo source: BBC)

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to John Smith and Chris Greenway for the following tips.

FCC Issues Nine Warnings To Miami Area Landowners And Property Managers For Illegal Radio Broadcasts (FCC Press Release)

The PIRATE Act Prohibits Landowners and Property Managers from Aiding Pirate
Radio Operations
—
WASHINGTON, July 21, 2023—The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau today issued nine warnings to landowners and property managers in the Miami area for apparently allowing illegal broadcasting from their properties. The FCC may issue a fine exceeding $2 million if it determines that a party continues to permit any individual or entity to engage in pirate radio broadcasting from any property that they own or manage.

“Providing a safe haven for pirate radio operations that can interfere with licensed broadcast signals and fail to provide emergency alert system notifications can have serious consequences for landowners and property managers that allow this conduct to occur on their properties,” said Loyaan A. Egal, Chief of the Enforcement Bureau. “I want to thank our field agents for their continued efforts to ensure compliance with federal law in this area.”

The Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting sent today target properties identified by
Enforcement Bureau field agents as sources of pirate radio transmissions. These notices formally notify landowners and property managers of the illegal broadcasting activity occurring on their property; inform landowners and property managers of their potential liability for permitting such activity to occur on their property; demand proof that the illegal broadcasting has ceased on the property; and request identification of the individual(s) engaged in the illegal broadcasting.

The PIRATE Act provides the FCC with additional enforcement authority, including higher
penalties against pirate radio broadcasters of up to inflation-adjusted amounts of $115,802 per day with a maximum of $2,316,034. In addition to tougher fines on violators, the law requires the FCC to conduct periodic enforcement sweeps and grants the Commission authority to take enforcement action against landlords and property owners that willfully and knowingly permit pirate radio broadcasting on their properties.

The Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting are available at:
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-warnings-allowing-illegal-radio-broadcasts.

Shortwave Modernization Petition Comments (FCC)

Readers note that the number of comments on the Shortwave Modernization Petition have surpassed well over 600 at time of posting. No doubt, this particular petition is getting more visibility and notice than expected.

Click here to view comments.

Falling in love by morse code (ABC Radio)

You may know someone who met the love of their life through writing letters, and these days you’d be hard pressed to NOT know people who’ve met online… but have you ever come across someone who’s met her husband in Morse code?

Ulla Knox-Little knew that getting to do an expedition to Antarctica as the radio room operator would be a life-changing experience, but she never expected it to lead to her meeting the love of her life.

Hosted and produced by Helen Shield.

Click here to listen to this short radio piece.

The Art of Listening: BBC Monitoring and the Historical Significance of the Transatlantic Open Source Intelligence Relationship [VIDEO] (Readex)

Last month, Readex welcomed librarians to a special breakfast presentation at this year’s ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, IL. Dr. Alban Webb, lecturer of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, captivated the audience in attendance with his talk on “The Art of Listening: BBC Monitoring and the Historical Significance of the Transatlantic Open Source Intelligence Relationship”

Dr. Webb—a noted historian of BBC World Service—gave a fascinating and informative overview of the history of open-source intelligence (OSINT) and the role of BBC Monitoring, highlighting perspectives these newly digitized archives represent for the study of the 20th century history. Click here to read the full article.

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Radio Botswana barnyard sounds mystery

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Many thanks to SWLing Post and SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following off-air shortwave radio recording and writes:

In all of the recordings of Radio Botswana’s famous barnyard interval signal I can find, the barnyard sounds are accompanied by the sound of cowbells. There is usually a rooster crowing and cows mooing too.

Today, while revisiting some raw tape from an old cassette dated 1973, I came across a short [off-air] recording of some similar barnyard sounds, chickens clucking and cows mooing. No sign of the cow bells here, but perhaps they started up farther into the interval signal?

If this recording is from Radio Botswana, perhaps they were only using the animal sounds in 1973? Maybe someone out there can help with this? Sorry but I have no other info. Many thanks!

Dan Greenall

London, Ontario Canada

Thanks for sharing this, Dan.

If you can shed some light on this recording and if Radio Botswana’s interval signal has changed over the years, please comment with details! Thank you!

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:

A Coruña coast

Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

by Don Moore

Some of my favorite sites to visit while traveling are historical, marine, and military museums. I’ve always been interested in those subjects and sometimes those kinds of museums have a few old radios on display. That makes a nice bonus to the visit. Last year, I spent May and June traveling all over Spain (with some short excursions into neighboring countries). One of my favorite regions was Galicia, where I stayed for five nights in the capital of A Coruña and six days in a rural village to the east. And the museums of Galicia had some of the most interesting radio-themed items I’ve ever seen.

Galicia is that small region of northwestern Spain directly north of Portugal. It was part of the Celtic world (along with Brittany in France and the British Isles) and the coastline was home to Phoenician and Greek settlements. It later came under Roman rule along with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula.

A Coruña Fishing Boats

A Coruña Fish Market

Spanish is spoken everywhere but the people are proud of their native language, Galician or Gallego. The language looks and sounds like Portuguese with a lot of Spanish influence but is actually older than either of those. Some linguists believe that Portuguese was derived from Galician.

The rugged Galician coast is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen with its numerous bays, estuaries, steep hillsides, and rocky shore. Most of Spain is arid but Galicia is one of the rainiest parts of Europe so the countryside is green and lush. And because of the neighboring cold Atlantic Ocean, temperatures remain comfortable even when the rest of Spain (and places further north) are baking in the summer heat.

A Coruña City Hall

MOON RADIO

One of the first places I visited in A Coruña was the Museo Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnología on the west side of the harbor. The very first display in the museum is a piece of radio history like no other. In the 1960s NASA set up a network of communication stations around the world to maintain constant contact with the Apollo moon missions. The primary stations were located in rural California, near Canberra in Australia, and in the little village of Fresnedillas outside Madrid. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969 Madrid was facing towards them and received the first radio transmissions from the surface of the moon. This museum has one of several redundant radio racks that were used to receive that historic broadcast.

After visiting the museum I wandered uphill to Monte de San Pedro Park, the best place in A Coruña to view the city and harbor. Those heights were also once vital to the city’s defenses and the park contains several mothballed gun turrets built in the 1930s. Continue reading →

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