Category Archives: Recordings

Remembering Radio Beijing: 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre

A long shot of the iconic “Tank Man” on Tiananmen Square. Photographer: Stuart Franklin

Today is the 25th anniversary of the horrible events that took place in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, during which Chinese troops opened fire on unarmed student demonstrators.

In this off-air shortwave radio recording of Radio Beijing, made on June 3rd, 1989, you’ll hear the news reader/editor depart from the script and comment on the massacre of protestors in Tiananmen Square:

It’s believed this brave news editor was detained shortly after the broadcast and spent years in a detention (re-training) camp.

Rest assured, you will hear no mention of the Tiananmen Square protests on China Radio International today–even though this year marks the 25th anniversary of the event. China’s state media goes to great lengths to keep this sort of on-air protest from happening again. State media even tries to limit on-line research of the protests; last year, we posted a fascinating article which listed banned search engine terms in China.

I also encourage you to check out Jonathan Marks’ comments (from a broadcaster’s perspective) on this particular Radio Beijing broadcast.

Pirate Radio Recordings: Wolverine Radio

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SWLing Post reader, Steve Yoth, decoded this Wolverine QSL two weeks ago using a Flex 3000.

A previous eQSL from Wolverine Radio. Try decoding the one at the end of this recording!

For your listening pleasure: 1 hour, 20 minutes of the pirate radio station, Wolverine Radio–recorded May 26, 2014 starting around 1:20 UTC.

Wolverine was broadcasting on 6,950 kHz in the upper side band. Typical of Wolverine, lots of music variety which spans the decades and no commentary other than station ID throughout.

At the end of this recording, you’ll hear an SSTV QSL card being transmitted.

Try decoding the QSL image from this recording–it’s quite easy! I usually decode Wolverine’s SSTV QSL with Chris Smolinski’s SSTV app for iPhone, but there are other programs to do this. The eQSL above came from a broadcast about two weeks ago and was submitted by SWLing Post reader, Steve Yoth.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3 or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Pirate Radio Recordings: Hot Legs Radio (corrected)

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“Grandma! Is that Cyndi Lauper buried in the static?”

For your listening pleasure: about 20 minutes of pirate radio station, Hot Legs Radio–recorded May 25, 2014 starting around 1:55 UTC.

Hot Legs Radio was broadcasting around 6,925 kHz in AM.

Hot Legs was rather weak and somewhat over-modulated during this broadcast. Indeed, in regular AM mode, I couldn’t make out the station ID at all. Fortunately, by turning on the WinRadio Excalibur‘s AM synchronous detector and selecting the less noisy lower sideband, I dug the signal out of the noise. AM sync also helped compensate for the over-modulation.

You’ll hear me re-tune a couple of times in this recording. Hot Legs’ signal was a bit of a moving target. I don’t think it would have been as noticeable in standard AM mode (which is more forgiving of drift), but in AM sync, you’ll hear a tone when the frequency shifts.

Still, I’m quite happy to have caught Hot Legs Radio–a new pirate logging! Hope to hear them on again soon.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3 or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Update: Correction to station name. I originally posted this as “Hot Raves Radio.” Many thanks to Andy Yoder for the correction!

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Radio Station of Macedonia (Voice of Greece)

Shortwave Radio Recordings: HCJB 45th Anniversary, December 25, 1976

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HCJB radio station staff in 1946, including engineer Clayton Howard (front row left), co-founder Clarence Jones (front row right) and future HCJB president Abe Van Der Puy (front row, fourth from left) — Source: Wikipedia

I’m very grateful to Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributor, Greg Shoom, who is digitizing shortwave radio recordings he made in the 1970’s.

His latest contribution is a 1976 recording of HCJB’s 45th Anniversary broadcast. This is a special program, broadcast on Christmas Day of 1976 to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the founding of HCJB. Greg made this recording from his home in Kingston, Ontario, Canada on December 25, 1976, starting at 02:30 UTC on 6,095 kHz.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below. Please subscribe to the SRAA podcast to receive future recordings automatically.

Pirate Radio Recordings: Wolverine Radio

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For your listening pleasure: 1 hour and 7 minutes of pirate radio station, Wolverine Radio–recorded April 27, 2014 starting around 1:10 UTC.

Wolverine was broadcasting on 6,945 kHz in the upper side band. Typical of Wolverine, lots of music variety which spans the decades and no commentary other than station ID throughout.

I decoded Wolverine’s SSTV QSL (see right) with Chris Smolinski’s SSTV app for iPhone. As you’ll hear, overall signal strength and audio fidelity were excellent.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3 or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Pirate Radio Recordings: MAC Shortwave

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For your listening pleasure: over one hour of the pirate radio station, MAC Shortwave. I recorded this broadcast on April 27, 2014 starting around 00:05 UTC, on 6,950 kHz AM.

MAC Shortwave features host “Jimmy Stewart” and some excellent big band music.

The first SWLing Post reader to identify this MAC Shortwave interval signal gets extra credit!

Simply click here to download an MP3 of the recording, or listen via the embedded player below: