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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording of Radio South Africa which was originally recorded on December 31, 1977 from his home in Plymouth, MN using a Hammarlund HQ-180.
Tom notes:
During the late 1970s, Radio South Africa (RSA) would broadcast a New Years call-in show. This recording is from 1/1/1978 (12/31/1977 in the US). At two minutes into the recording, you can hear the interval signal for RAI (Italy) in the background. I have scoped (edited) the music. Unsure how long RSA carried on this tradition, but heard a similar call-in broadcast the following year on 1/1/1979.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark Pettifor, who writes:
One of the great things about DXing and SWLing is the variety of music one can hear. One of my favorite stations to listen to on shortwave for “exotic music” was Radio Tahiti, Papeete, French Polynesia, when they were still on shortwave.
If my memory serves me correctly, I believe something happened to the transmitter, and they never got back on SW. They were on mediumwave through December of 2016 (738 kHz); now they are on FM only. (Maybe us hobbyists should start a funding website to put them back on shortwave!)
Many a Saturday night I would turn on the DX-160 (my first SW rig) and let it warm up for a while, before tuning in 15170 to see how band conditions were. If the band was good, I’d get ready to record through the air. Once I started recording, I’d often leave the room and shut the door, because having three brothers around meant the possibilities were high for having “extraneous interference” on my recordings.
Saturday evenings were a good time to tune in, because of a music program that aired with a good selection of island music. The program had an announcer who spoke in the island vernacular (Tahitian?), and when that program ended they switched to French.
Here is a 30-min recording of Radio Tahiti on 15170 kHz from a while ago, most likely around one of the solar maxima of either 1980 or 1991. I’m leaning toward the 1980 cycle. My apologies for not being able to be more specific than that. I kept terrible records of my recordings. This would be recorded either with the DX-160 or a DX-302. Apologies too for the jump in volume at around the 2:37 mark.
So close your eyes, imagine you are lying in a hammock on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific, with a warm breeze off the ocean and your favorite cooled beverage nearby, listening to some of the best island music anywhere.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who discovered that the Bhutan Broadcasting Service was on the air Friday with an uncharacteristically strong signal into Europe. Dan made the following screencast of his reception using the University Twente WebSDR on August 31, 2018 on 6,035 kHz starting around 2024 UTC:
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following recordings and writes:
With the news over the past few years, and especially over the last few weeks, of the rapid decline of Venezuela, it’s interesting to recall that there was a day when that country was a powerhouse on the shortwave band, with numerous private radio stations that SWL’s around the world could hear in the 90, 60, 49, 31, and 19 meter bands.
There was also a brief attempt to put Venezuela on the map as an international broadcaster, with Radio Nacional de Venezuela which was audible at good signal levels.
Our thanks to Dan for this 45 minute recording, found in Dan’s archives of recordings, from 2004 when Radio Nacional de Venezuela was on the air in October 2004:
Dan, thank you so much for sharing these excellent off-air recordings! I will also add these to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. We look forward to any other recordings you might turn up in your archives.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares the following notes about the final transmission of Radio Transmundial. [Dan made this recording yesterday, but Internet woes here at SWLing Post HQ prevented me from posting this until now.]
Dan writes:
FYI — I am monitoring Radio Transmundial via [the PY2BS KiwiSDR in] Brazil. They are in the midst of a final discussion in Portuguese between two announcers, mentioning advances/changes in technology, Internet, etc. that are forcing the station off the air. Many mentions of shortwave.
See attachments…..audio files are of studio discussion in Portuguese about their decision to end SW….then another file going right up until 1900 UTC or thereabouts when they went off.
At about the 9:36 mark in the 1st audio file announcer introduces a technical person (sounded like someone from TWR, but also mentioned was “director of communications”) to begin a discussion about their decision to end shortwave — that discussion lasts until about the 34:30 mark when they go into full IDs.
Would be very interesting to translate this conversation for a post on SWLing.
Perhaps SWLing Post readers with a knowledge of Portuguese could help us with any interesting details from this conversation? Please comment!UPDATE: Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Fabiano Barufaldi, who has volunteered to help translate some of the key points from this broadcast!
Dan, thanks for grabbing a recording of this final Transmundial broadcast. When my Internet connection is fully functioning again, I will add these recordings to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.
Two YouTube videos just crossed my path which sparked the question.
The brothers allegedly recorded transmissions from failed Russian Manned Space flights before the successful flight of Yuri Gagarin. I remember reading about these when I was growing up. The second video contains a snippet of a voice recording from a supposed female cosmonaut as she reports rising cockpit temperatures before she died.
