Category Archives: Shortwave Radio

Saturday Night Country takes you ‘down under’ for the holidays

Felicity Urquhart, host of ABC’s Saturday Night Country. (photo: ABC)

If you’ve been reading the SWLing Post for long, you’ll know how much I love ABC’s Saturday Night Country, which I tune to every Saturday morning starting on 9,580 kHz.

Yesterday, host Felicity Urquhart produced another great mix of interviews and music, including some uniquely Australian Country Christmas songs.

You can download the recordings of the show as MP3s by clicking here for the first hour of Saturday Night Country on 9,580 kHz and here for the rest of the show on 11,945 kHz, or by simply listening via the embedded player below:

Scandinavian Weekend Radio Christmas specials & frequencies

Severance pay of Radio Netherlands CEO under scrutiny

Leave a reply

Outgoing Radio Netherlands CEO, Jan Hoek (Photo: RNW)

(Source: de Volkskrant, translated by Andy Sennitt)

The severance payment for the outgoing CEO of Radio Netherlands Worldwide is excessive. This is what Sander Dekker, deputy minister responsible for the media, wrote on Thursday in a letter to the Lower House of the Dutch parliament.

RNW Director-General Jan Hoek was originally set to receive a fee of 1.1 million euros. Following an urgent request by Mr Dekker and his predecessor, the RNW Supervisory Board agreed with the Director-General to reduce the severance pay to 800,000 euros. Despite the reduction in the amount, according to Mr Dekker it is still “too high and therefore inappropriate and undesirable.”

The Deputy Minister willl investigate the legal issues, but sees no possibility of preventing payment of the severance premium. Mr Dekker says that taking the matter to court offers no solution, because according to the agreement signed in 2001 Mr Hoek is formally entitled to receive his full severance payment.

A new law regulating the salaries of public officials goes into effect on 1 January. This will prevent excessive payments in the future. Under the new rules, a severance payment will be restricted to a maximum of 75,000 euros. But agreements already signed are not covered by the new law.

Pirate Radio Recordings: Radio Casablanca

3 Replies

On Sunday, December 17th, around 22:00 UTC, I happened to pick up the last thirty minutes of Radio Casablanca; a pirate that plays a nostalgic mix of music from the 1930’s and 1940’s. They were broadcasting on 6939 kHz in AM.

Close your eyes, and you can imagine what it must have sounded like back in the day Phyllis Jeanne Creore Westerman graced the shortwaves.

You’ll hear me tweaking the receiver in the first three minutes while, in the background, I was entertaining my children. I though about cutting it out but, on second thought, simply uploaded it as-is. I switched from a very wide AM bandwidth to AM sync and then AM sync with only the lower sideband (to kill some noise in the upper side band) after adjusting the center slightly below 6940 kHz.

I love how the recording starts on a tone and then morphs into Close as Pages in a Book by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra.

You can download the MP3 by clicking here, or simply listen in the embedded player below:

NPR: WWII ‘Canteen Girl’ Kept Troops Company From Afar

1 Reply

(Photo source: NPR)

Long before the Internet and satellite phone, Phyllis Jeanne Creore Westerman brought soldiers home at Christmas via shortwave radio:

(Source: National Public Radio)

American service members have long spent holidays in dangerous places, far from family. These days, home is a video chat or Skype call away. But during World War II, packages, letters and radio programs bridged the lonely gaps. For 15 minutes every week, “Canteen Girl” Phyllis Jeanne Creore spoke and sang to the troops and their loved ones on NBC radio.

Her Christmas shows were morale boosters. America must “use more sentiment and less tinsel, and that’s the way it should be,” she told her listeners during one wartime Christmas broadcast. Now 96, Phyllis Jeanne Creore Westerman sits in her apartment on New York’s Fifth Avenue, remembering those seasonal broadcasts she recorded 70 years ago.

[…]She did a bit of radio work, found singing jobs with various bands at hotels like the Biltmore, and volunteered at the Stage Door Canteen. That’s where she got the idea for a regular radio show — to reach more troops — across the U.S., and in Europe by short wave.

Read the full article and listen to Susan Stamberg’s interview on NPR.org.

The Mighty KBC repeating digital tests this weekend

Grundig G3 on sale at Universal Radio

1 Reply

The Grundig G3 shortwave radio.

The Grundig G3, one of my favorite full-featured portables, is now on sale at Universal Radio for $89.77.

The G3 would make an excellent gift for someone in your life who is interested in shortwave radio. I recently updated my review of this radio and even included it in our annual gift recommendations.

Not sure how long this sale will last.