Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Pete Polanyk, who shares the following story that all started with a recording he submitted to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive:

Remember I sent you that clip of Radio Canada (that went up on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive) that was on the other side of a punk tape? Well I digitised and sold it on eBay. The tape featured a live gig of the band ATV (Mark Perry was the lead singer and main ideas person). A few days later I received an email from the buyer–a nice chap called Phillipe in France–who’s a big ATV fan.

“Just listened to the ATV one… I wonder, have you the faintest idea what the B-side is? It sounds like radio recordings, but on repeated listening sounds like some kind of noisy pieces or experimentation, which reminds me of similar ‘shortwave’ experiments done by ATV at the time of the second album. Do you know if this was somehow linked to the band?”

I replied saying it was a recording by me off the shortwave from the early 1980’s sadly, not the band, he wrote back:

“So, I guess playing with shortwave must have been something in the air back then?!
The funny thing is that there is a very similar track from a ‘lost ATV album’ entitled The End Of Flight 182 from late ‘78.

It’s actually more Dave George (later of The Good Missionaries) than ATV but still Mark Perry contributed a bit to the recordings; and one of its tracks was released somewhere else as ATV. Anyway… the album features a ‘Shortwave’ track (entitled as such) by Dave George, and I’ve have included it here (I’ve attached the track he sent us.) Can you hear how it sounds similar to yours? The track/experimentation may also been what led ATV to write ‘The Radio Story’, but that’s just a personal assumption. Mark and George were definitely in touch back in those days since Mark contributed a bit to his album which was was recorded a few months before Dave joined ATV (which then soon became The Good Missionaries). Sadly Dave George passed a few years ago, so we won’t know much more about the album and the track.”

I wrote back and told him that I will probably send it to you as you’ll be well interested in the story. This is his last reply:

“Yeah, it could be nice and interesting Thomas’ mentions it on his site. To avoid any confusion here’re a few more details: the ‘Shortwave’ track is only Dave George, and was recorded a few months before Dave joined ATV (which then soon became The Good Missionaries), so technically it’s not ATV. But he was definitely in touch with Mark Perry back in those days since Mark contributed a bit to the album as I said; hence Thomas could also publish a youtube link to The Radio Story as well. Sadly Dave George passed a few years ago, so we won’t know much more about the album and the track.”

So that was the story! What a mad coincidence eh?

A mad coincidence indeed! Thank you for sharing the story, Pete. I love where art and shortwave meet and especially in moments of serendipity like this! Now to explore more Dave and ATV…