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Many thanks to SWLing Post and SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, who has recently uploaded an off-air recording of the Voice of Peace to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. This is a fascinating recording that I thought I would re-post here on the Post.
Richard notes:
Live, off-air, approximately twenty-minute recording of the Voice of Peace from Baghdad on 29 December 1990 beginning at 21:40 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 11860 kHz. This broadcast originated from a transmitter either in Iraq or Kuwait.
Iraq’s Voice of Peace was established in August 1990 to beam programs to American servicemen stationed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait at the beginning of the month. Programming consisted of music, initially easy-listening music but subsequently changing to a “Top 40” mix, news and commentary in a failed effort to try to demoralize the American troops. Beginning in September 1990, the broadcasts used a female announcer dubbed “Baghdad Betty” by the Americans. Reportedly, Baghdad Betty was replaced by a team of announcers sometime in December 1990. The recording is an example of the news and music programming. It is not known if the female announcer is the famous Baghdad Betty or someone else.
Reception of the broadcast was poor to fair with slight interference and fading. At 21:58 UTC, there is interference splash from WYFR starting up on 11855 kHz. The initial frequency recorded may have been 21675 kHz before switching after a minute or so to 11860 kHz as the radio teletype interference abruptly stops at this point. The recording includes frequent station identifications such as “You are tuned to the Voice of Peace from Baghdad.”
The broadcast was received in Hanwell, New Brunswick, Canada, using a Sony ICF-7600D receiver and supplied wire antenna draped around the listening room.
Many thanks to Jonathan Marks–former host of RNW’s Media Network and curator of the Media Network Vintage Vault–who kindly shares the following videos from Radio Netherlands.
The first video is from the 1960s and promotes RNW’s move to the Witte Kruislaan building. The second video highlights the Radio Netherlands Flevo Transmitter Site and also includes a lot of “B roll” material (without audio) that Jonathan commissioned.
Check out the videos and Jonathan’s descriptions below:
When Radio Netherlands moved into their new building in Witte Kruislaan in 1961, they asked Pete van der Kleut to make a film to help in promotion. He shot it in a couple of days on zero budget and a few rolls of film- it was pure theatre with people in various departments doing all sort of things on cue. Everybody is incredibly busy discussing things, the head of the newsroom is correcting copy before it is broadcast, and the poor guy in the newsroom doesn’t know which phone to answer first. Women play only support roles, tidying up, typing and organizing things, The problem was that until the mid nineties this was the only footage of Radio Netherlands in the national sound archive. And when cuts came that were reported on the NOS Journaal, the same 60’s footage was often repeated – confirming the picture that RNW was stuck in the past. Again, the be fair, the sound has been changed on this version. The original over the top commentary was in Dutch.
Radio Netherlands Flevo Transmitter Site and B roll material
During my time as Programme Director at Radio Netherlands I commissioned various video clips to make sure we had current video material of the building, newsroom, continuity, and documentation. This was just raw footage done one day in July 2001 and 2002. This sequence starts with video from the Flevoland transmitter site when it was fully operational. Transmitters have since been removed and the site is silent.
Thanks so much for sharing these videos, Jonathan! As I’ve mentioned many times before, you’re doing such an amazing service to the community by curating, archiving and sharing all of this RNW media. Thank you.
John Norman writes in the East Anglia Daily Times about the Foxhall transmission site just outside Ipswich which played a key role in WW2 and the Cold War
Getting a coded signal back to the States, both during the Second World War and the Cold War, proved incredibly difficult. The solution was Operation Tea Bag: a scheme to connect telephone switching stations from across Europe, as far south as Italy, to Foxhall for forward transmission across the Atlantic.
Many attempts have been made to tell the story of the Bulgarian National Radio but usually, in an effort to present a concise version, we fail to mention some curious details that would sparkle the interest of anyone keen on the history of this country. Over the course of its existence, the Bulgarian National Radio has resisted many changes that transformed Bulgaria over the past eight decades.
What is considered to be the official start of radio broadcasting in Bulgaria? It happened in the remote 1929 and consisted in the construction of a 60-watt radio transmitter by a group of engineers. The desire of the enthusiastic members of the radio amateurs club called Rodno Radio (Native Radio) to create a radio program was supported by the state authorities, which allowed them to use a small building on the corner of the central Sofia streets Moskovska and Benkovski.
Soon, however, it became clear that the available equipment was insufficient to reach a larger audience, and a team of local engineers took up the challenging task to build a more powerful transmitter. Another problem arose as the people working on the radio programs increased and the building soon turned out to be too small to accommodate all. Therefore, with the permission of the state, the amateurs moved and occupied an entire floor of a building on 19 Moskovska Street. After radio broadcasting was made a state monopoly with the decree of Tsar Boris III in 1935, the Bulgarian radio began developing at a rapid pace. In addition to the Bulgarian language broadcasts, the year 1936 saw the start of overseas emissions – first in Esperanto, and several months later, also in French, German, English and Italian, the foreign service department of the radio known today as Radio Bulgaria. […]
Radio Bulgaria reaches users in more than 150 countries through its internet pages in Bulgarian and nine foreign languages, which is an excellent achievement, Boyko Stankushev who works as analysts at the Programme Department of the Bulgarian National Radio pointed out.
Highest number of people using Radio Bulgaria’s web sites is registered in Germany. The users in North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hessen are most active. In the United Kingdom highest number of users is registered in London, followed by Manchester-apparently the people living in these two British cities show specific interest in the information published on the web sites of Radio Bulgaria’s foreign language sections. When it comes to Bulgaria’s neighboring countries Turkey is the undisputed leader in terms of the number of visitors in Radio Bulgaria’s site. I would underline that many people in this country visit the Bulgarian pages of the Bulgarian National Radio, including the Bulgarian web page of Radio Bulgaria. Istanbul is the leader in this ranking, followed by Ankara, Bursa and Izmir. Radio Bulgaria has users in some smaller Turkish towns such as Mu?la and Tekirda?. I believe that the Bulgarians studying at the local universities are regular users of Radio Bulgaria’s content and read both in Bulgarian and Turkish.
In 2018 the interest in Radio Bulgaria’s content by US users increased. The number of visits in publications in English was very high, followed by visits in Radio Bulgaria’s Greek and Spanish page from North and Latin America. In the USA the highest number of visits was registered in Illinois, which is not surprising, because of the huge Bulgarian community living in Chicago. In California huge internet activity was registered in areas with large technological parks and highly-educated people, i.e. we are talking in this case about a very high-quality audience.[…]
Your message prompted me to find a recording I made of the final Radio Bulgaria broadcast on shortwave which, coincidentally, happened seven years ago today!
SWLing Post community: perhaps you can help with an inquiry I recently received. Radio historian, Alejandra Bronfman, writes:
Dear Thomas;
I’m a historian of radio in the Caribbean, and David Goren suggested I contact you with a question about some 1959 broadcasts I’m trying to track down. These were produced by Haitian dissidents Daniel Fignolé and Louis Dejoie; one in Brooklyn, one in Havana, for broadcast over Havana’s Radio Progreso. They started in January 1959 and ended a few months later. I’m not sure whether they were in shortwave format, though I would guess that they were if they were aimed at Haiti as well as the eastern part of Cuba. I’m looking for any sources at all that might help me fill in the story, which I have mostly from some contemporary accounts, newspapers and US-based official sources.
Anyway, please excuse the intrusion and the out-of-the-blue nature of my query. I’m trying to hunt down all possible clues that may lead to more source material.
thanks so much;
Alejandra
Alejandra Bronfman
Associate Professor
Department of Latin American, Caribbean and US Latino Studies
If you have any information or leads that could help Professor Bronjman, please comment! Thank you!
Former RCI transmitter site – slow transformation
By Marc Montgomery
The former RCI transmitter site near Sackville New Brunswick, sold to a First Nations group, is now in the process of being absorbed into native reserve land and some as yet undetermined use.
During the Second World War as Canada was working towards creating a shortwave service, an ideal site for the transmission of radio signals was found in New Brunswick. Located on the Tantramar marshes, it was ideal ground for propagation of signals from the complex array of antenna wires and towers.
The service was ended over six decades later as a result of severe budget cuts in 2012. The site was later purchased by Mi’kmaq First Nations in 2017 and plans are slowly taking shape to transform the 90 acre site into reserve land. That process involves consultations with neighbouring municipalities, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the New Brunswick provincial government and other indigenous communities. It’s expected to take two years, during which time the Mi’kmaq will decide the use for the land, whether cultural or economic or a combination.[…]
