Tag Archives: Radio Japan

Dan Revisits Radio Japan: A Half-Century Later

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


Running into an old friend

Hi Thomas

I was doing some random tuning on shortwave this evening using the KiwiSDR at VK2ATZ in New South Wales, Australia, when I came upon a repeating music box-like tune on 13705 kHz that I thought had a familiar sound to it. It was like running into someone who you hadn’t seen in many years and trying to place where you knew them from. Yes, the sound was a bit different, perhaps even a little slower (age does that ?), but then it came to me, could it be Radio Japan, the overseas service of NHK? A quick check at Short-Wave.info revealed this was indeed NHK World Radio.

It felt like I had found an old friend, one that I knew from my high school days over a half century ago. Still recognizable after all those years, and it felt good to know that they are still around.

Attached are two recordings:

Radio Japan, interval signal and bilingual ID, as heard in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada on 9505 kHz in 1970:

Audio Player

NHK World Radio, interval signal and sign on in Thai on 13705 kHz, January 23, 2025 at 2300Z (via VK2ATZ KiwiSDR):

Audio Player

73

Dan Greenall
London, Ontario, Canada

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Shortwave Radio Recordings: NHK Radio Japan

Tokyo, Japan (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Tokyo, Japan (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

For you listening pleasure: thirty minutes of NHK Radio Japan’s English language service.

This broadcast was recorded an hour ago, at 10:00 UTC on 9,625 (April 19, 2013).  Though NHK has dropped their English language services into North America, you can still receive their broadcasts targeting other regions quite easily.

Click here to download the full recording, or simply listen via the embedded player below. note that I include a full five minutes of their interval signal:

Enjoy!

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Shortwave Radio Recordings: Radio Japan

NHK-Radio-JapanThis past weekend, I recorded several stations on the 25 meter band, including (recently posted) All India Radio and Radio Nacional da Amazonia. Though I noted Radio Nacional‘s booming signal into North America, Radio Japan’s audio fidelity was simply amazing; very clear, no sign of transmitter hum nor distortion, and only the slightest QSB. Their signal emanated from the Montsinery site in French Guiana–a mere stone’s throw away in the shortwave world.

I recorded a little over an hour of their broadcast on 11.935 MHz, January 6th, 2013 starting around 02:30 UTC. The recording features Japanese commentary and a variety of music–it starts with the show tune Memory from the 1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats.

Click here to download the MP3 of the recording, or listen below:

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