Voice of Zimbabwe | The SWLing Post

I recently received an inquiry via the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive from someone hoping to find historic recordings of Voice of Zimbabwe, the station operated by the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) during the late 1970s. The clandestine broadcasts originated from Mozambique and were part of the liberation struggle in what was then Rhodesia.

Here’s the message I received:

“Hello. I was wondering if you had any way to help me find recordings from the ZANLA broadcasts from Mozambique; Voice of Zimbabwe. I think the main broadcasting period was during the late 70s. Quite sure a lot of the recordings from that time have been erased/poorly preserved. Would greatly appreciate the help. Looking forward to hearing from you.”

Indeed, recordings from this period and station are quite rare and may not have been widely archived. But given the dedicated community of shortwave listeners and DXers here at the SWLing Post, I’m hopeful someone out there may have an off-air recording or some sort of lead—even a logbook entry with notes.

If you happen to have any recordings, reception reports, or even recollections related to the Voice of Zimbabwe/ZANLA, please comment on this post.

According to The Zimbabwean,

Voice of Zimbabwe, a subsidiary of the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) was officially launched in the Midlands capital of Gweru on 30 July 2010.

Voice of Zimbabwe was established in 2007 and broadcasts on shortwave frequency.

As Kim Elliot points out, the Voice of Zimbabwe was created to counter other shortwave broadcasts directed to Zimbabwe (BBC, VOA, Shortwave Radio Africa, etc.).

Zimbabwe has state controlled broadcast media (on all radio bands within the country)–thus, shortwave broadcasts being heard from outside of Zimbabwe are somewhat of a lifeline for listeners.

That’s what we like about shortwave radio, it freely crosses national borders without regard to the political party in power.

So far, there have been no reports verifying that the Voice of Zimbabwe is actually broadcasting.