Tag Archives: Nostalgia

Some holiday reading for shortwave listeners

by Dan Greenall

Attention all SWL’s! For those of you with a little extra free time over the holiday season, I would highly recommend having a look at two books that were written by a couple of very respected DXer’s from the past. They are both available on the Internet Archive and their respective links can be found below.

Shortwave Voices of the World by Dr. Richard E. Wood (1969)

I have mentioned this one before, but in case you missed it, you will find it here.

https://archive.org/details/shortwave-voices-of-the-world-richard-wood-ed-1-pr-1-1969

The World in My Ears by Arthur T. Cushen (1979)

Newly uploaded, this one comes in two parts. Part One describes his early days and how his listening began, while Part 2 gets into the hobby in general.

https://archive.org/details/the-world-in-my-ears-part-1/the%20world%20in%20my%20ears%20part%201/

Happy reading!

Check Your Time with the LM Chime

1 Reply

by Dan Greenall

Shades of the 1970’s. Commercial AM radio (in English) the way it used to be. Heavy on nostalgic music from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, plenty of good old style jingles, and of course, the LM chime every hour.

Decades ago, the “LM” used to stand for Lourenco Marques Radio as the station was based in this city in Mozambique. Today, it is Lifetime Memories Radio, and broadcasts to Maputo and the surrounding area, where it can be heard on 87.8 FM. The station also broadcasts on 702 kHz medium wave from a transmitter near Johannesburg, South Africa, and can be heard worldwide via Kiwi SDR or online stream here https://lmradio.co.za/

In addition to the live stream, be sure to read about the rich history of the station that began in 1936. The station was shut down in 1975 when Mozambique gained independence, but has re-emerged in the 21st century. A visit to the LM Radio museum is well worth the trip. https://lmradio.co.mz/history/

In 1973, I was able to hear Radio Clube de Mocambique on 4855 kHz shortwave from here in Canada. If you listen closely, you can hear the LM chime.

Give them a listen, but first, check out these sample recordings made between November 27 and December 8, 2025, through a Kiwi SDR located near Johannesburg:

2025-11-27:

2025-11-28:

2025-11-29:

2025-12-04:

2025-12-08:

The 90 metre band – Then and Now

6 Replies

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.

TWR Swaziland / Eswatini – Then and Now

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

Much to the delight of DXers, Trans World Radio began broadcasting from the African country of Swaziland over 50 years ago. According to the 1975 World Radio TV Handbook, they had four 30 kW transmitters to conduct initial testing in the 90, 60, 49, and 41 metre bands. Their interval signal, played on hand bells, reportedly comes from the song “We’ve a Story to Tell the Nations” and has a music box feel to it. It would pause frequently for an ID in English. This recording was made on November 2, 1996, on 4750 kHz just prior to 0400 UTC sign-on: https://archive.org/details/trans-world-radio-swaziland-1996

Today, the station is still on the air and follows the same format as in years past, except for the name of their country, which changed to Eswatini in 2018.

I chose a Kiwi SDR in neighboring South Africa to make this recent recording, on August 21, 2025 around 1359 UTC on 9585 kHz, leading up to the start of a program in the Portuguese language.

KBS World Radio – Then and Now

1 Reply

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

Back in the 1980’s, KBS World Radio was known as Radio Korea, and they could be heard quite well at times here in eastern North America. Even with modest receiving equipment, their familiar interval signal, that included regular ID’s in English and Korean, made it fairly easy to spot.

The recording here (circa 1983) was made in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, using a Panasonic RF-3100 portable receiver and a long wire antenna. As a bonus, this station offered a variety of colorful QSL cards to its listeners.

Today, KBS World Radio from Seoul in the Republic of Korea continues to offer programs via shortwave in several languages including English. Transmitter power up to 250 kw is used so they should be audible in most parts of the world. “Sign on” is strikingly similar using the same interval signal with bi-lingual ID’s and opening music.

They also use some of the same frequencies, including 9570 and 15575 kHz, that they have broadcast on for decades. This recording was made using a remote SDR in Hong Kong on August 14, 2025 on 15575 kHz around 1300 hours UTC.

Dan Shares Recordings of the Golden Days of European Shortwave Listening

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

Europe on shortwave in the 1970’s

by Dan Greenall

During the golden years of shortwave listening, many European countries had an international shortwave service and broadcast programs to North America (where I live) in English. As a result, these stations were usually among the first that a newcomer to the hobby would find. However, since there was no internet or e-mail, schedules often had to be found in the various club bulletins and hobby magazines. QSLs arrived through the postal system and could often take months to arrive.

I soon developed the habit of making a brief recording of each station as additional “proof of reception,” and many of these have survived to this day. These were typically made by placing the microphone directly in front of the speaker of my receiver. In recent years, they have been uploaded to the Internet Archive, and links to some of them from the early 1970s can be found here.

[Note that each title links to the Archive.org page where you can find more information and QSLs.]

Radio Moscow

Deutsche Welle, Cologne

Radio Berlin International

Belgian Radio

Radio Belgrade

RAI, Rome

ORTF, Paris

IBRA Radio via Radio Trans Europe in Portugal

Radio Sofia Bulgaria

Austrian Radio

Radio Prague

Radio Denmark

Radio Luxembourg

Vatican Radio

Radio Sweden

Trans World Radio Monte Carlo

Radio Kiev

Radio Free Europe

Radio Nordsee International

Mexico on Shortwave – Then and Now

2 Replies

by Dan Greenall

Back in the early 1970’s, a wide variety of Mexican stations could be heard on shortwave as evidenced by the loggings columns in the SPEEDX club’s monthly bulletins. Examples from this time period can be found here:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Speedx.htm

As well, the late Dr. Richard E. Wood wrote about what was available to be heard from Mexico in the 1971 Communications Handbook on page 18. You can read this here:

A brief recording of La RH, Radio Tricolor (in Spanish) on 11880 kHz from Mexico City can be found here:

The official international broadcaster, Radio Mexico, was known to issue colorful station pennants like the one pictured. Click here to listen to their ID’s in Spanish (though they did use some English) by a female and male announcer, likely on 21705 kHz (one of the many frequencies they used).

Currently, the only station broadcasting from Mexico on shortwave is Radio Educacion, XEPPM, from Mexico City on 6185 kHz. This recording was made on July 10, 2025 using a remote SDR close to the transmitter to ensure the best overall quality. The QSL attached is one received by my (then) 12 year old son in 1994.