Tag Archives: Vatican Radio

Vatican Radio – Then and Now

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

When I began shortwave listening back in 1969, Vatican Radio was one of the first stations I came across. That same year, the late Dr. Richard E. Wood authored a book called “Shortwave Voices of the World” in which he writes some notes about the station that you can read here [PDF].

In fact, Vatican Radio was established in 1931 by none other than Guglielmo Marconi. It wasn’t until sometime after World War 2 that the present-day transmitter site was set up at Santa Maria di Galeria. A nice view of it is pictured on this 1970 QSL card.

By the early 1970’s, short English language broadcasts to North America were still included in their schedule as you can see from these pages in the 1972 World Radio TV Handbook [click to enlarge].

In 1983, Ken MacHarg, a former host of the DX Partyline on HCJB, was the author of a now out-of-print book entitled “Tune In The World”. Read Ken’s comments about Vatican Radio here.

Though their published interval signal (see WRTVH) was “Christus Vincit”, Vatican Radio could also be recognized by the bells of St. Peter’s, which you will hear in this recording from 1971 that I made from my listening post in Ontario, Canada: https://archive.org/details/vatican-radio-1971

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In more recent times, I have read that shortwave broadcasts to North and South America, as well as Europe, ended in 2012. In addition, English language shortwave transmissions to Asia ended in 2017, though they could still be found online. A list of their current English language broadcasts, as found on short-wave.info is shown here:

Here is a recording made August 11, 2025 using a remote SDR in the UK, complete with “Christus Vincit” interval signal, as they began their African service on 9705 kHz.

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Also included is a recording from September 30, 2025, as they ended a transmission on 15595 kHz.

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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

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