Category Archives: Radio Memories

The 90 metre band – Then and Now

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who shares the following guest post:

The 90 metre band – Then and Now

by Dan Greenall

A few decades ago, the 90 metre shortwave broadcast band used to be full of interesting and challenging-to-hear DX signals. In the 1974 edition of The Complete Shortwave Listener’s Handbook, author Hank Bennett reports on what you might expect to hear on these frequencies. There is a copy of this book on the Internet Archive.  Here is a link to that specific page.

Also, this sample page from White’s Radio Log in the 1972 Communications World magazine shows a number of stations that could be logged in 90 metre band.

Here are a few links to recordings from my personal collection that have survived through the many years.  These were all made between 3200 and 3400 kHz from my listening post in southern Ontario, Canada.

[Note: Click on each broadcast link to open the associated Internet Archive page with more info.]

Radio Bougainville, PNG 1971

Radio Rabaul, PNG  1971

Radio Santiago, Dominican Republic 1971

Radio Libertad, Santiago, Dominican Republic  1971

Action Radio, Guyana Broadcasting Service  1972

Radio Christian Voice, Zambia  1996

Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC)  1997

Radio Maya TGBA, Guatemala  early 1970’s

Radio Exitos, Dominican Republic  1971

Today, it seems that only a handful of stations can be found broadcasting in the 90 metre band.  These would include WWCR in Nashville, the Voice of Indonesia, KCBS Pyongyang and Radio Mosoj Chaski in Cochabamba, Bolivia.  As well, the Canadian time signal station CHU still continues to use 3330 kHz.

A recent recording of Mosoj Chaski Radio, a Christian broadcaster logged using a remote SDR in Lima, Peru, is presented here.

Although not in English, listen carefully and you can hear them give their frequency of 3310 kHz in the 90 metre band as well as their location of Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Preserving Radio History in Your Community

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who writes:

I have lived in southern Ontario, Canada my entire life, have been DXing since the late 1960’s and have held the amateur radio call sign VE3HLC for over 50 years.  Most of this area’s AM broadcast stations had been considered “pests” over the years as I searched for more distant targets, until recently, when many of these began quietly slipping from the airwaves.  While this opened up some new frequencies to DX, I soon began to feel that I had lost some old friends, many that I had known since childhood.

When I retired in 2018, I decided to spend a little time trying to preserve some radio history of stations in southern Ontario communities that have played a part in my life. This might include audio clips, QSLs, station booklets, and other types of ephemera, and I would try to place this information where it could be easily accessed by future historians or anyone else who is interested.  In the end, I chose to use the Internet Archive (archive.org), where most uploaded information can be viewed (or heard) and downloaded for free.

CFPL, London, Ontario   980 kHz (still on the air)

“Communications in the Community” is a hardcover limited edition (2000 copies) souvenir book printed in 1966 by the Special Printing Unit of The London Free Press in London, Ontario, Canada.  It includes historical information about the London Free Press (newspaper) and CFPL radio and television.  I was lucky to find this item at a church rummage sale nearly 20 years ago.

CFPL began its life as CJGC in 1922. I acquired one of their QSL cards from 1925 through an eBay purchase a few years ago.

The above and more can be found by clicking on this link.

https://archive.org/details/page-16

CKOC, Hamilton, Ontario 1150 kHz (still on the air)

CKOC radio in Hamilton also started up in 1922.  My parents met while working at the station in the late 1940’s.  My brother and I (both radio amateurs), along with a few friends were given permission to operate on “Field Day” weekend in 1985 from their old abandoned transmitter site at Elfrida, Ontario.

This area has long since been developed to build homes and shopping areas.

“This is Hamilton, Ontario and the story of broadcasting station CKOC” is an undated booklet (I am guessing circa 1950) that I was able to purchase on eBay.  Also found on eBay were two verifications, one from 1931 and the other from 1983.

You can find these scans and more by following this link.

https://archive.org/details/page-13_202209

CKNX, Wingham, Ontario 920 kHz (still on the air)

This station began in 1926 using the unusual call sign 10BP.  It would remain that way until 1935.  I managed to secure this QSL from 1932 through eBay, signed by its founder W.T. “Doc” Cruickshank.

Interesting stories of how the station began can be found at this link.

https://www.communitystories.ca/v1/pm_v2.php?id=story_line&lg=English&fl=0&ex=386&sl=2541&pos=1&pf=1

CKCR, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario 1510 kHz  (no longer on the air)

In 1924, this station began briefly in nearby Brantford, Ontario. It quickly moved to Kitchener-Waterloo and existed until 1965 when it became CKGL.  The CKCR call sign was picked up later in 1965 by a station in Revelstoke, BC.

Another eBay purchase, I found this QSL with a not-to-scale map of southern Ontario from 1934.

More Ontario QSL’s can be found in my broadcast band gallery at this link: https://archive.org/details/ckoc-hamilton-on-1983

I would encourage others to save parts of the local radio history in their city, state, province or country and give back to the hobby that we have enjoyed for so many years.   I would also be happy to hear about any efforts you have made!

Bob’s Radio Corner: Uncle Clayton and His National NC-188

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National NC-188

As recalled by Bob Colegrove

Uncle Clayton was my very first SWLing buddy.  In the late ‘50s there was no Internet – very few ways for SWLs to interact with one another.  There were clubs that published mimeograph bulletins every month or so.  These were mailed to SWLs across the country and around the world.  To come across a fellow SWL in your own town was rare.  As chance would have it, Uncle Clayton and I quite independently discovered our interest in SWLing about the same time, and then only after knowing one another for several years.

Uncle Clayton was not my real uncle.  He and his wife, Evelyn, were dear friends of my mother and father.  You see, there was a social decorum at that time which frowned upon members of the younger generation from referring to members of an older generation by their first name.  At the same time, “Mr. Smith” and “Mrs. Smith” (not their real surname) were regarded as unnecessarily formal; so, for this situation “Uncle Clayton” and “Aunt Evelyn” became the accepted form of address.

My story begins with television, not radio.  By mid-1950 both the Smiths and the Colegroves had acquired their first black and white TV “sets,” theirs a 12-inch RCA and ours a 12-inch Arvin.  Each of these occupied 8 to 12 cubic feet of space and required two well-fit individuals to move them.  Ironically, they were termed “portable” in that they required a low table or stand for proper positioning.  This contrasted with “console” models which incorporated the stand and the TV in a single cabinet.

One must understand that television at that time was what computers would become a generation later.  The nation was on the cusp of a TV frenzy.  My dad and Uncle Clayton jumped into it with both feet.  They couldn’t let the darn things alone.  Antennas were the most obvious source of tinkering.  “Rabbit ears” were the customary solution but adjusting them was a skill rivaling that of playing a cello.  Later, attic designs were fabricated for the new channel in Bloomington, Indiana.

Vaccum tubes, both necessarily and unnecessarily, became questionable components, and Uncle Clayton and my dad developed well-stocked arsenals of spares.  In retrospect the pair were, well…a couple of hacks, and I say that lovingly.  Picture two large, middle-aged men behind the RCA with the back cover off alternately trying to get a 9-pin peanut tube aligned and reinserted into its socket in the very front of the chassis – all this while trying to avoid the high-voltage discharge from the picture tube.  I still recall the looks of frustration and muffled puffs of blue air.  After some time, Aunt Evelyn appeared, looked over the dilemma, grabbed the tube, and jabbed it into the socket on the first try.

SWLing came along several years later.  I discovered it in the fall of 1958 while idly tinkering with the Howard Radio Co. Model 308 radio-phonograph console, which by that time had been relegated to the basement.  After moving it to my room and stringing up a long wire I was forever captivated.  The single SW band covered 5.5 MHz through 18 MHz across a dial a mere four inches long.  I milked that old radio relentlessly finally coming up with about 20 or 30 SW broadcast stations, all in English.

I have no recollection of how Uncle Clayton and I discovered we were going down the same path.  He had already purchased his National NC-188 with a matching speaker and set up his shack in an unused upstairs bedroom.  How I envied him.  His NC-188 was everything I envisioned in a SW radio. I was still earning my way towards purchasing a Hallicrafters S-38E.

National NTS-1 Speaker for the NC-188 and NC-109.
Better radios had separate external speakers, the claim being that there was insufficient space in such feature-packed units

Uncle Clayton’s NC-188 was my first encounter with a bandspread – a term which has virtually gone out of existence.  I immediately knew what it did, but it would take me a while to understand just how it worked.  On my old Howard console, the dial pointer travelling less than a 16th inch could cover 100 kHz or more, conceivably containing 10 or 20 stations.  Furthermore, this range was traversed by a nearly imperceptible rotation of a small knob.  Conversely, the NC-188 might cover the same tuning range over a space two inches long and require four full rotations of a 2-in diameter knob.  That was an incredible mechanical advantage.

For SWLs, there was a restriction on the use of the bandspread.  Most receivers had scales neatly calibrated for the 10-, 15-,20-, 40-, and 80-meter ham bands.  This provided reasonable frequency readout – not the precision we have with today’s digital radios, but close enough.  For international broadcast bands, the listener had to rely on a 0 to 100 linear logging scale which bore no relation to frequency.  This required the listener to generate several lists or graphs translating log readings to frequency.

The NC-188 and -109 had 4.5” bandspreads, not as long as some, but the 2” knob required 9 full rotations to traverse end-to-end.

Everything I have described so far depended on the position of the main tuning dial.  The bandspread operated electronically in parallel with the main tuning.  In short, the main tuning dial had to be positioned precisely at the high end of the tuned band for the bandspread to produce the same results.  Within these restrictions, a bandspread was still a marvelous device.

Uncle Clayton and I were still in our formative SWLing period when our family would visit him and Aunt Evelyn.  I remember him patiently tuning across portions of the SW spectrum oblivious of the international band boundaries slowly rotating the main tuning dial and stopping at points that interested him.  When my turn at the helm came, I would often seek out the General Overseas Service of the BBC and listen to the football scores or Victor Sylvester and his Ballroom Orchestra.

Victor Silvester conducting his Ballroom Orchestra in 1938. His orchestra was still a fixture on the BBC in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Source:  Victor Silvester and His Orchestra – You’re Dancing on My Heart

Neither Uncle Clayton nor I set the bar very high in terms of DXing prowess.  We had fun and made a lot of interesting discoveries.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Some years ago, I had the opportunity to buy a fairly clean National NC-109.  The -109 is an upscale version of the -188.  It has a crystal filter, an early SSB product detector and a voltage regulator.  Otherwise, the two radios are virtually identical.  I did all the usual things, cleaned it up, performed an alignment, and restrung the main tuning and bandspread dial cords.  Later I found a matching speaker.  When I was finished, I had what I regard as a museum-quality radio.  It occupies a prominent corner of the shack, but I don’t operate it that much.  Sometimes I just sit in front of it, spin the dials and remember Uncle Clayton and how it all started.

National NC-109

Bob’s Radio Corner: The Last Radio I Really Needed

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My original PL-660 has high mileage but still
has its original kick stand and whip antenna.

The Last Radio I Really Needed

By Bob Colegrove

Like most folks, I have a favorite radio.  My favorite radio is the one I happen to be listening to at the time.  Each radio has its own attractions.  The fact that one particular radio is turned on indicates that, at least for the moment, it is my favorite.

I also have a special radio.  It is special because, ever since I bought it, there has never been a compelling reason to buy another radio.  That said, there is no accounting for irrational behavior which has subsequently caused me to buy several more radios, always with the hope that the next radio would somehow provide better performance than my special radio.

My longstanding experience has been with vacuum tube radios.  I have used multiband radio consoles.  I have used everything from a Hallicrafters S-38 to a Collins R-390A and most everything in between.  I tried a couple of analog, multiband, solid-state portables in the 1960s and ‘70s.  I bought a Sony ICF-2010 early on and still have two of them fully functional.  For many years, the -2010s were my go-to radios.

Then, I happened to read the review of the Tecsun PL-660 in the 2012 WRTH.  The price seemed reasonable, and I decided to buy one.  From the very beginning, I was not disappointed.  Selectable sidebands and synchronous detection – not a Sony, but very good.  Further, the -660 was notably smaller and packed quite easily.  I could include a pair of earphones, a length of wire and this radio, set up away from the shack, and operate.

So why is this radio special?  It is not perfect.  But for LW, MW, SW, and FM, there is nothing I can hear on any of my radios that I can’t hear on the Tecsun PL-660.  Reception seems to be especially sensitive and clear.

I must qualify the claim above.  Normally I use external antennas.  External antennas are the great equalizers.  Properly matched they make a radio perform at its best.  Radio reviews and comparisons will often include judgements about sensitivity.  Unfortunately, many reviewers do not specify the conditions under which they tested the radio.  The reader must assume that these judgements are based on the use of stock internal antennas — most often the LW and MW ferrite loop and the SW and FM whip.  For portable radios this makes sense, as internal antennas are paramount to the radio’s transportable versatility.

Not Perfect

I will spare everyone yet another review of a radio now in its adolescent years.  I merely focus on a couple of picks I have with the PL-660.  There are others which are well documented.

Birdies

Probably the worst fault with the -660 is birdies.  There are a few along the LW spectrum but the worst by far is one which generally appears between 950 kHz and 1000 kHz in the MW band.  I have read where this is traceable to the DC-DC converter but have never found a remedy.  This nasty signal is very rich in harmonics and will replicate through the entire SW spectrum.  Further, the fundamental birdie and its harmonics tend to slowly drift upward for about an hour after the radio is turned on.  The drift accelerates with multiples of harmonics.  For example, while the fundamental birdie is creeping up 1 kHz, the second harmonic will travel 2 kHz, the third 3 kHz, and so forth.  There are many harmonics where no harm is done; however, the 4th harmonic will blaze a trail squarely through the 80-meter ham band.  Wait a while and it will drift onward but ultimately stop at some equally inconvenient location.

Poor Encoder

The PL-660 tuning encoder, as with its cousins in the -600 and the -680, is … well, very poor.  From the get-go it will jump erratically forward or backward.  This becomes worse over time, particularly with any prolonged periods of disuse.  I have not determined whether this is dirt, poor contact, or just poor design.  I have found that vigorous exercise forward and backward with the tuning knob is the best temporary remedy.  This will generally bring the encoder back to tolerable performance.

Replacement encoders are available at modest cost.  I went this route as a last resort but managed to lay up my -660 for several months having failed to make the replacement work at all on the first attempt.  A few months later with renewed determination, followed by a series of deep cleansing breaths, I reopened the radio and discovered that my mistake was just a solder bridge between two of the encoder pins.  Note to self: For the future, this surgery should only be performed by people with good vision and steady hands.  After several months of storage there was unbounded joy when the 12-year-old -660 came alive and began to tune perfectly – well as perfectly as it could.

My Mods

One of the reasons why the Tecsun PL-660 is special to me is that it is a tangible link to my tinkering past.  In former times, much satisfaction was obtained by aligning RF and IF stages, restringing dial cords, and replacing leaky capacitors.  For most tinkers, the advent of large-scale, solid-state integration and surface-mounted components has made tinkering virtually impossible.  Detailed data are scarce, parts much more specialized, and soldering skills more demanding.

The PL-660 came along at a point where vacuum tube tinkering was still within recent memory and the skills for maintaining and modifying high-tech radios had not become so intimidating.  To summarize, with just a few exceptions, today’s radios are for all practical purposes unrepairable, unmodifiable, and therefore more readily disposable.  What a pity.  The term “parted out” has entered our vocabulary, whereby a defective radio is cannibalized to provide its serviceable vital organs to its remaining siblings.

Dynamic Squelch

Briefly, the Tecsun PL-660 dynamic squelch function automatically adjusts the signal threshold based on its strength.  Ostensibly, this helps prevent the radio from being overwhelmed by noise when no signal is present while still allowing strong signals to be heard.  The “dynamic” part of the term refers to the feature turning itself on or off as the situation demands.  The downside is twofold:  a) weak signals may be totally blocked with squelch engaged; and b) the feature may oscillate on an off as a signal fades and then gets stronger.  There are several demonstrations of this on YouTube.

In 2012, a Russian radiofile managed to identify the transistor that switched the feature on and off.  By the simple expedient of grounding one of its leads, it could be permanently turned off, eliminating its drawbacks.  An optional further modification provided for the tone control switch to be repurposed to manually enable or disable the basic modification.

The relatively simple concept turned out to be rather involved surgery requiring a large metal circuit shield to be unsoldered and removed to access the transistor.  The old Yahoo PL-660 Group was abuzz with interest at the time.  Many folks were doing the modification.  Had it not been discussed so widely, I would likely have ignored it.  But being a wild, impulsive 70-year-old at the time, I had to give it a go and fortunately was successful.

Disablement of the dynamic squelch required removal of a shield on PCB

External LW and MW antennas

I do not like to be limited by the lack of an external LW/MW antenna connection.  The PL-660 has no means to switch one on.  You can easily inductively couple an AN-100/200 or Terk Advantage loop and get good results, but I wanted more.  I took the classic approach of winding a 5-turn transfer coil around the ferrite bar.  Initially I simply connected this to a twisted pair which ran out the unused hole for the wrist strap.  The twisted pair was connected to a phone jack and dangled out of the radio like a pig tail.

Pigtail used the hole in the case vacated by the wrist strap.

Sometime after my mod, Geir Laastad, LA6LU, published a paper with a much more elegant solution.  He discovered that the PL-880 used a stereo external antenna jack, the center (ring) terminal was not used, and the cumbersome pigtail could be eliminated by connecting the added transfer coil between this center terminal on the jack and the radio ground.  This necessitated use of a stereo plug to mate with the jack for connection of a LW/MW external antenna, but the jack could otherwise be used normally for SW.  I found that Tecsun used the same stereo jack approach on the -600, -660, and -680, and was able to connect the transfer coil to each radio the same way.  Geir’s paper is at https://groups.io/g/Tecsun-PL-880/files/_Tecsun_PL-880_LW_&_MW_Antenna_Mod.pdf, but you may have to request membership in the group to download it.

Enlarged fine tuning knob

One of the weak features of the -600, -660 and -680 is the fine-tuning pot.  Zero-beating a signal is a bit touchy.  The problem is exacerbated by a mechanical detent in the control’s center of rotation, that is, the point where zero beat is likely to be encountered.  I found a foam, doughnut-shaped packing spacer from a spindle of CDs had just the right internal and external diameters to slip over the fine-tuning knob and provide some added gear reduction.  By pressing the foam against the case, the effects of the detent could be mitigated.

Well, unfortunately, CDs are going the way of cassette tapes these days, so the availability of the packing spacers may not be so good.  It may be within the realm of possibility to fabricate one.

Wrist Strap

My final alteration is not so much a modification as it is a simple omission.  On the first disassembly of the -660 I omitted reinstalling the wrist strap.  IMHO, this piece of ribbon is no more useful than fender skirts on a ’57 Chevy.  Besides, it’s usually in the way.  Sometime in the murky past, this appendage made its appearance on a small portable radio.  Since then, nearly every manufacturer has felt compelled to include one.  I envision someone grabbing the radio by the strap and sashaying down the street with it dangling precariously by one’s side.  I have tried to imagine how its purpose might be inverted into a safety feature – perhaps first looping the strap around the wrist and then grabbing the radio with the hand.  But somehow, I can’t imagine anyone going to that trouble.  Maybe I’m missing something.

The wrist strap on this Realistic 12-714 AM/FM pocket radio from 1984 is hard to ignore.

The reader may be aware of other modifications to the PL-660, but mine are limited to those described above.

Epilogue

The old -660 has never been coddled.  Neither has it been subjected to the same vicissitudes as a soccer ball.  It remains a relatively handsome, finely crafted instrument still capable of soldiering on in the frontlines of the DX battle.

Is my old PL-660 a better-than-average “creampuff” off the Tecsun production line?  Does that make it special?  During the three or four months it was laid up with the encoder problem, I took the precaution of buying one of the last production units – this on the chance it might be my only opportunity of having an operational PL-660.  The newer one looks like its predecessor; it operates like its predecessor, even to the extent that it has the same birdies and the erratic encoder.  It does have the added feature of dial recalibration – a feature totally unnecessary on the original PL-660.  Somehow, it’s just not the old PL-660.  That one is special.

Maybe you have a special radio.

History of the Radio Intelligence Division Before and During World War II

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Mike, who writes:

Good afternoon, Thomas. Recalling that there have been a few postings on the SWLing Post over time on the FCC’s Radio Intelligence Division, I thought this might interest you and some readers. I just came across this (I don’t even remember what linked me to it) and have only briefly looked reviewed it, but the manuscript appears to be pretty interesting. https://www.qsl.net/w3df/sterling/ridhist.pdf 

Additional history can be found here: https://www.qsl.net/w3df/sterling/dfh1.html.

An interesting local (to me) tidbit on page 19: “It [RID] patrolled the outside of the Oak Ridge, Tennessee installation, the scene of the Manhattan Project but without the personnel knowing what atomic developments were being made inside.“

73,
Mike in Knoxville,
KW1ND

Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this, Mike.

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Guatemala (Part Six) – Huehuetenango

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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:

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Don Moore’s Photo Album:
Guatemala (Part Six) – Huehuetenango

by Don Moore

More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

I first heard of Huehuetenango in February 1974. I had gotten my first serious receiver, a Barlow-Wadley XCR-30, a few weeks earlier. Now I could try for stations in the 120-meter band. The first one I heard was Radio Maya de Barillas on 2360 kHz from a place named Barillas in Guatemala. And Santa Cruz de Barillas (the town’s full official name) was in a department named Huehuetenango. The name sounded exotic and magical.

In my mind, Radio Maya de Barillas was the ultimate DX target. The Evangelical Protestant station used a tiny amount of power in 120-meters, the shortwave band that provided the most challenge to DXers. The programs were in Mayan languages with mostly hard-to-pronounce names. And my map showed that Barillas was literally at the end of the road. There was nowhere to go beyond Barillas.

That sense of Huehuetenango being on the edge of civilization was totally correct. The department contains the rugged Cuchumatanes mountains, the highest non-volcanic mountains in Central America. It’s the only place in Central America where it’s too cold to grow corn. Instead, people get by raising sheep and planting potatoes. The mountains explain why eight different Mayan languages (belonging to three different language families) are spoken in this one department. Steep rugged mountains are a barrier to communication. A lack of communication causes a common language to diverge into multiple languages over just a few centuries.

The Mam, numbering about half a million, are the fourth largest Mayan group in Guatemala and their homeland extends into other departments in the south. But the other seven languages are only found in Huehuetenango with maybe a little spillover across the borders. The largest of those is Kanjobal, spoken by about 80,000 people today. The Tectiteco (Tektik) number just a little over two thousand.

As noted on the back of my QSL from Radio Maya de Barillas, that station broadcast in six of the region’s languages, including Mam and Kanjobal, the language spoken in and around the town of Barillas. For about a decade Radio Maya was the only radio station to broadcast in the region’s languages. Then in 1975 the Roman Catholic church opened an educational station, Radio Mam, in Cabricán to the south in Quetzaltenango department. But Radio Mam only broadcast in the Mam language. (And, unfortunately, I never got to visit the station.)

Visiting Huehuetenango (or not)

When I was traveling to Guatemala while living in Honduras in the early 1980s, one of my goals was to visit as many Guatemalan shortwave stations as possible. Yet I never once considered going to Barillas. Sure, I knew that the dirt road from the town of Huehuetenango to Barillas was one of the worst in Central America and that the bus ride took twelve hours. That wasn’t going to stop me.

 What stopped me from visiting Radio Maya was that Barillas was right in the middle of the area of the heaviest fighting between the government and the guerrillas. This may surprise you if you’ve read the previous parts of this series, but there really were some things back then that I knew better than to do. Going into the worst part of a war zone was one. The closest I came to Barillas was passing through the southern part of the department on the Pan-American Highway on my way to Mexico in December 1984. That was just a few weeks after a guerilla band had ventured south and blown up four bridges on the road. Continue reading →

Pure AM Radio Nostalgia: Vintage Aircheck Recordings from the 1970s by Dan Greenall

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall for once again sharing a remarkable collection of vintage off-air AM radio recordings. In this post, he shares recordings made from his home and during his travels across North America and the Caribbean.

Dan writes:

Hi Thomas

Judging by the interest on my Internet Archive page, vintage AM radio audio clips from the 1970’s are among the most popular files. In addition to the one posted on the SRAA in September 2023, here are the remaining ones I have to take you back 50 years.

VOA Marathon 1973

The Voice of America station from Marathon Key, Florida is heard signing off on its frequency of 1180 kHz. This recording was made while on vacation in West End, Bahamas in December 1973. Reception of the station in much of North America was tough due to the signal being south beamed to Cuba. However, at least one listener in New Zealand managed reception as evidenced by the attached QSL image from 1972.

ZNS3 Bahamas 1973

ZNS3 radio on 1060 kHz from Freeport, Bahamas is heard with a station identification jingle. The recording was made while on vacation in West End (near Freeport) on Grand Bahama Island in December 1973.

Bermuda AM/FM airchecks 1975

Brief airchecks from 5 local radio stations recorded while visiting Bermuda in March 1975. They are as follows:
ZBM1 1230 kHz
ZBM2 1340 kHz
ZBM-FM 89.1 MHz
ZFB1 960 kHz
ZFB-FM 94.9 MHz

WVMT Burlington VT 1975

Brief aircheck from radio station WVMT in Burlington, Vermont on 620 kHz recorded in March 1975 in Montreal, Quebec. Starts with “Mandy” by Barry Manilow, station ID, then into NBC news.

XERF Ciudad Acuna, Mexico 1971

Short audio recording of radio XERF on 1570 kHz as received in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada in November 1971.
“This is radio station XERF in Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila, Mexico. This is Paul Kallinger, your good neighbor along the way.”
Used a Hallicrafters S-52 communications receiver and a longwire antenna.

KPCR Bowling Green, MO 1973

KPCR radio in Bowling Green, Missouri as heard in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada on 1530 kHz during an overnight DX test on December 17, 1973. They only ran 1000 watts, but 50 kw WCKY in Cincinnati was off the air that night. Used a Realistic DX150A receiver and a longwire antenna.

KFDI Wichita, KS 1974

A brief aircheck from KFDI Radio 1070 in Wichita, Kansas as heard in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada on February 22, 1974. Receiving equipment was a Realistic DX150A using a longwire antenna.

WDXR Paducah, KY 1974

WDXR radio in Paducah, Kentucky is heard signing off for their broadcast day. This recording was made circa 1974 while they were operating on 1560 kHz. Receiver location was Ancaster, Ontario, Canada and equipment was a Realistic DX150A and longwire antenna.

WANN Annapolis, MD 1974

A brief aircheck of WANN radio in Annapolis, Maryland heard here signing off for their broadcast day. The recording was made circa 1974 while they were operating on 1190 Khz, A lucky catch for me since WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana was usually heard on 1190. Receiver location was Ancaster, Ontario, Canada, (40 miles SW of Toronto) and equipment used was a Realistic DX150A and a longwire antenna.

WCPC Houston, MS circa 1974

One of the easiest ways to log the state of Mississippi on the AM broadcast band in the 1970’s from my location near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, was WCPC in Houston, MS on 940 kHz around local sunset. Here they are giving a station ID as heard on a Realistic DX-150A receiver and a long wire antenna.

XEMO Tiajuana, Mexico circa 1971

Here is a brief English language aircheck from radio station XEMO in Tiajuana, Mexico as received in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada (a distance of 3392 km or 2108 miles) circa 1971. They were broadcasting on their frequency of 860 kHz. At the very end, there is a quick “X E M O Tiajuana Mexico” in Spanish.

WGR Buffalo, NY 1973

Here is a brief aircheck/jingle from radio station WGR in Buffalo, New York on 550 kHz as recorded in 1973 at Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. That same year, the song “Get Down” by Gilbert O’Sullivan reached number 7 on the Billboard Top 100, and WGR aired it regularly as heard here in the second recording, Most of the time they would just ID as “GR-55”.

Vintage AM radio airchecks 1975 recorded from Bermuda

These brief vintage AM broadcast band airchecks were recorded in March 1975 while vacationing in Warwick, Bermuda at the Belmont Hotel.
1. ZDK, Antigua, West Indies 1100 kHz
2. WKAQ, San Juan, Puerto Rico 580 kHz
3. Radio Paradise, Basse Terre, St. Kitts, West Indies 1265 kHz
4. WHN, New York, NY 1050 kHz
5. WKBR, Manchester, NH 1250 kHz
6. WRKO, Boston, MA 680 kHz
7. CFBC, St. John, NB, Canada 930 kHz

KKJO St. Joseph, MO 1973

In the wee hours of October 28, 1973, this DX recording was made of radio station KKJO in St. Joseph, MO broadcasting on 1550 kHz in the AM broadcast band. My receiving post was some 800 + miles distant in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. I was using a Realistic DX150A communications receiver hooked up to a long wire antenna. You can hear the station fade gradually in and out a number of times during the recording, but fortunately faded in around the 2:49 mark to catch their station ID and announcement about returning to Central Standard Time. Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” is heard at first, and Art Garfunkel’s “All I Know” afterward, 2 very popular songs in 1973.

KRLD Dallas, TX 1974

KRLD in Dallas, Texas on 1080 kHz was not heard often at my listening post in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada during the 1970’s. WTIC in Hartford, CT was normally received on this frequency instead. Here is a recording made in early 1974 when KRLD managed to make it through. My receiver was a Realistic DX150A hooked up to a longwire antenna.

Vintage AM radio airchecks 1973 part 2

Here are a few more airchecks from the AM broadcast band recorded in 1973 at Ancaster, Ontario, Canada unless otherwise noted below.

1. WLW Cincinnati, OH 700 kHz
2. WIRK West Palm Beach, FL 1290 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
3. WINZ Miami, FL 940 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
4. WSMB New Orleans, LA 1350 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
5. WDBO Orlando, FL 580 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
6. WPOM Riviera Beach, FL 1600 (recorded in West End, Bahamas)
7. KFYR, Bismarck, ND 550
8. KWAM Memphis, TN 990
9. WPTR Albany, NY 1540
10. WOKY Milwaukee, WI 920
11. WIBC, Indianapolis, IN 1070
12. WPDX Clarksburg, WVA 750 (special DX test early hours of Feb. 18, 1974)
13. WMAQ Chicago, IL 670
14. WBT Charlotte, NC 1110
15. WNOE New Orleans, LA 1060
16. WSM Nashville, TN 650
17. WJR Detroit, MI 760

73

Dan Greenall, Ontario, Canada

Click here to view all of Dan Greenall’s Archive.org contributions and click here to browse his collections on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.