Grazing the rich pastures of the interwebz I just stumbled upon this short documentary made by students of the School of Visual and Media Arts program at the University of Montana. It aired on Montana PBS in November 2022 and was uploaded to YouTube 2 weeks ago.
I like the modern style of this work, letting the images and the people in them speak for themselves, and radiate their fascination with the hobby. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike Barraclough, who writes:
Hello Thomas,
There was a 45 minute documentary on Radio Atlantico del Sur broadcast Monday evening on Forces TV in the UK. It is also on Facebook. The station manager Neill French Blake is interviewed as well as three members of their staff and an Argentinian soldier who listened to it whilst in the Falklands.
It’s now on YouTube:
I posted a link to the June 10, 1982 recording Tom Gavaras posted to Shortwave Radio Audio Archive on several forums/messageboards when publicising the programme.
Chris Greenway, who is interviewed in the programme, has a detailed blog on the station as well as other similar ones: https://radioatlanticodelsur.blogspot.com/2018/10/moonshine-story-of-psychological-warfare.html
Mike
Thank you for the tip, Mike, and for sharing Tom’s recording widely.
Yesterday, we posted a note about the new documentary, “Australia Calling: 80 Years of International Broadcasting.” At the time, I mentioned that the video was geo-blocked–meaning, you could not watch the video outside Australia without using a VPN.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Peter Marks, who shares this great news:
I’ve corresponded with the iview team and they have un-geoblocked the video. It can be watched here:
I tested it over a VPN to Singapore and it played for me.
Thanks so much, Peter! I’ve loaded the video with no problems here in North America.
Click here to watch “Australia Calling.”
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Many thanks to a number of SWLing Post contributors who contacted me about a new documentary focused on the impact of Radio Australia. Peter Marks writes:
The celebration of 80 years of international broadcasting from Australia continues. The ABC has published “Australia Calling: A look at 80 years of Radio Australia and ABC international broadcasting” today:
And tonight there’s a documentary being shown on TV.
There’s even a story about the making of that documentary here:
Thank you, Peter! I just started watching the documentary via ABC’s iView. Note that the program is geo-blocked and not available outside of Australia (unless, like me, you have a good VPN). [No longer geo-blocked! See update.]
Here’s a link to the documentary on iView:
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australia-calling-80-years-of-international-broadcasting
Peter also shared a number of related stories–some of which we’ve published in the past:
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Kris and Ed who both note a fascinating BBC World Service documentary. Ed writes:
Hey Thomas,
SWLing Post readers will surely enjoy this brilliant BBC World Service documentary about Radio Berlin International Service to Africa. “Comrade Africa” offers a 53-minute fascinating blast from the cold-war past with many nostalgic RBI airchecks and programming analyses.
-Ed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct036t
Comrade Africa
The Documentary
How Communist East Germany tried to influence Africa via radio, during the Cold War. The West often saw the GDR as a grim and grey place, so it’s something of a surprise to find a radio station based in East Berlin playing swinging African tunes. Yet Radio Berlin International (RBI), the ‘voice of the German Democratic Republic’, made it all happen over the many years it broadcast to Africa. It built on the little known strong bonds between East Germany and several large states in Africa such as Tanzania and Angola during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.
Dr Emily Oliver, a historian of postwar Germany from Warwick University, finds out why multicultural Radio Berlin International was a special place within East Germany and what happened behind the scenes. The government set tight reporting restrictions on output. Staff faced the dilemma of following the rules while competing with the likes of the BBC World Service. They were also conscious of the output of the station’s main direct rival, West Germany’s Deutsche Welle, which portrayed the world quite differently. And how did RBI employees coming from nations like Tanzania cope with working for the oppressive East German regime?
Emily hears how RBI appealed to listeners in Africa, reveals how East Germans and Angolans made friends over coffee and tractors, and discovers how the Cold War played out in Africa at a time when many African states were fighting for independence.
Presenter: Emily Oliver
Producer: Sabine Schereck
Researcher: Balthazar Kitundu
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Readers: Neil McCaul, Leone Ouedraogo (podcast only), Ian Conningham and Adam Courting
The Two Comrades: Will Kirk and Greg Jones
SWLing Post friend, David Goren (the same fellow behind Shortwaveology and the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map) has just produced and presented a BBC World Service documentary about the pirate radio scene in NYC.
Spoiler alert: it’s amazing–!
Below, I’ve included the description and audio links from the BBC World Service:
New York City’s pirates of the air
As the workday winds down across New York, you can tune in to a clandestine world of unlicensed radio stations; a cacophonous sonic wonder of the city. As listeners begin to arrive home, dozens of secret transmitters switch on from rooftops in immigrant enclaves. These stations are often called ‘pirates’ for their practice of commandeering an already licensed frequency.
These rogue stations evade detection and take to the air, blanketing their neighbourhoods with the sounds of ancestral lands blending into a new home. They broadcast music and messages to diverse communities – whether from Latin America or the Caribbean, to born-again Christians and Orthodox Jews.
Reporter David Goren has long followed these stations from his Brooklyn home. He paints an audio portrait of their world, drawn from the culture of the street. Vivid soundscapes emerge from tangled clouds of invisible signals, nurturing immigrant communities struggling for a foothold in the big city.
With thanks to KCRW and the Lost Notes Podcast episode Outlaws of the Airwaves: The Rise of Pirate Radio Station WBAD.
Producer/Presenter: David Goren
Click here to download New York City’s pirates of the air via the BBC World Service.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark Fahey, who shares a link to this BBC documentary about pirate radio: