James Copeland | The SWLing Post

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, James Copeland (KDØICP), who writes:

Hi Thomas,

Hope you are doing well. A few years ago, I sent you a story about radio dramas we were doing on my college radio station, KSDB in Manhattan, KS. Well, I’m now working at KGGF in Coffeyville, KS, continuing the tradition on this heritage AM station.

Earlier this month, we broadcast a community Christmas program to benefit our local theater in town that is being restored. The broadcast featured two old-time radio dramas and local music. Coffeyville, KS is a small town with a population under 9,000, but it has one of the oldest and largest radio stations in the area. 10 KW day and 5 KW night on 690 kHz. I thought some in your audience might enjoy trying to tune in Christmas morning at 8 a.m. CST for the rebroadcast of the program. A link for more information and the audio as well is available here:

https://kggfradio.com/local-news/721426

For those who are interested in the technical details of the broadcast, I used two ribbon mics and the main microphones, an RCA 77-DX and an RCA BK-11. The room acoustics proved to be a bit of a challenge with the final mix, but the whole thing was live with no edits and while it was far from perfect, I think the genuine nature of the community program shines through. The signal was sent to the station using a VHF Marti remote pickup unit. This particular recording was made at the station.

Also, if your readers are interested in submitting QSL reports, I would be glad to answer them. We usually get a few throughout the year, and I especially enjoyed a report early this year from some of the serious DXers in Norway!

Merry Christmas and 73!

James Copeland, KDØICP

Many thanks, James, for sharing this here on the SWLing Post. We all love a good radio production! It’s brilliant that you’ve brought this tradition to Coffeyville, KS!

I’ve also linked to the audio file of the broadcast below:

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Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, James Copeland, who writes:

I have enjoyed reading the SWLing Post for years and appreciate all your hard work. I wanted to share something with you that might interest the readers.

A few months ago, I was inspired to start writing a radio drama about a number station after reading an article on the SWLing Post about someone working at a number station.

I am the program director for the student-run radio station at Kansas State University, and we performed this drama live last Tuesday on our radio station.

The plot follows a worker at the station who has to decide what to do when she learns that the numbers she reads end up killing people and could start a nuclear war.

There are also a lot of short recordings from various active and inactive stations, including one of my recordings of HM01 at the end of the show.

We at KSDB love producing radio dramas and make them just like the golden days of radio with as many live sound effects as possible.

Click here to view on YouTube.

Many thanks for sharing this, James! I love it!

I listened to the audio as I hiked this afternoon–I actually prefer “theatre of the mind” without visuals with the first listen. Now I’ll watch the studio video and enjoy the reading, sound effects and direction!

James, you’re welcome to share your radio dramas here anytime! Bravo for putting together such a cool little radio drama. I love the off air numbers station recordings and clips!

Post readers: If you’d like to learn more about KSDB-FM or to stream their programming, check out their website and TuneIn stream.

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