{"id":17638,"date":"2016-03-07T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=17638"},"modified":"2016-03-07T08:00:44","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T12:00:44","slug":"radio-time-travel-brians-1974-shortwave-radio-recording","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/radio-time-travel-brians-1974-shortwave-radio-recording\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio Time Travel: Brian’s 1974 shortwave radio recording"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post and SRAA<\/a>\u00a0contributor, Brian D. Smith (W9IND),\u00a0for the following guest post and recording. <\/em><\/p>\n

Note that Brian could use your help to ID a few unidentified broadcasters in this recording. If you can help, please comment:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"HalliDial\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shortwave Radio 1974: Canada, Argentina, Spain, West Germany, Albania, utility stations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Want to know what shortwave radio sounded like in 1974?<\/p>\n

This 55-minute recording, recovered from a cassette, was never intended to be anything but “audio notes”: I was an 18-year-old shortwave listener who collected QSL cards from international stations, and I was tired of using a pen and a notepad to copy down details of the broadcasts. I wanted an easier way to record what I heard, and my cassette tape recorder seemed like the perfect means to accomplish that goal.<\/p>\n

But it wasn’t. I soon discovered that it was simpler to just edit my notes as I was jotting them down \u2014 not spend time on endless searches for specific information located all over the tape. To make a long story shorter, I abandoned my “audio notes” plan after a single shortwave recording: This one.<\/p>\n

\"Hallicrafters<\/a>

Hallicrafters S-108 (Image: DXing.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

Still, for those who want to experience the feel of sitting at a shortwave radio in the mid-1970s and slowly spinning the dial, this tape delivers. Nothing great in terms of sound quality; I was using a Hallicrafters S-108 that was outdated even at the time. And my recording “technique” involved placing the cassette microphone next to the radio speaker.
\nThus, what you’ll hear is a grab bag of randomness: Major shortwave broadcasting stations from Canada, Argentina, Spain, Germany and Albania; maritime CW and other utility stations; and even a one-sided conversation involving a mobile phone, apparently located at sea. There are lengthy (even boring) programs, theme songs and interval signals, and brief IDs, one in Morse code from an Italian Navy station and another from a Department of Energy station used to track shipments of nuclear materials. And I can’t even identify the station behind every recording, including several Spanish broadcasts (I don’t speak the language) and an interview in English with a UFO book author.<\/p>\n

The following is a guide, with approximate Windows Media Player starting times, of the signals on this recording. (Incidentally, the CBC recording was from July 11, 1974 \u2014 a date I deduced by researching the Major League Baseball scores of the previous day.)<\/p>\n

Guide to the Recording<\/strong><\/p>\n

0:00 \u2014 CBC (Radio Canada) Northern and Armed Forces Service: News and sports.
\n7:51 \u2014 RAE (Radio Argentina): Sign-off with closing theme
\n9:14 \u2014 Department of Energy station in Belton, Missouri: “This is KRF-265 clear.”
\n9:17 \u2014 Interval signal: Radio Spain.
\n9:40 \u2014 New York Radio, WSY-70 (aviation weather broadcast)
\n10:22 \u2014 Unidentified station (Spanish?): Music.
\n10:51\u2014 Unidentified station (English): Historic drama with mention of Vice President John Adams, plus bell-heavy closing theme.
\n14:12 \u2014 RAI (Italy), male announcer, poor signal strength.
\n14:20 \u2014 Unidentified station (Spanish): Theme music and apparent ID, good signal strength.
\n15:16 \u2014 Unidentified station (foreign-speaking, possibly Spanish): Song, “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.”
\n17:00 \u2014 Deutsche Welle (The Voice of West Germany): Announcement of frequencies, theme song.
\n17:39 \u2014 Unidentified station (English): Interview with the Rev. Barry Downing, author of \u201cThe Bible and Flying Saucers.\u201d
\n24:36 \u2014 One side of mobile telephone conversation in SSB, possibly from maritime location.
\n30:37 \u2014 Radio Tirana (Albania): Lengthy economic and geopolitical talk (female announcer); bad audio. Theme and ID at 36:23, sign-off at 55:03.
\n55:11 \u2014 Italian Navy, Rome: \u201cVVV IDR3 (and long tone)\u201d in Morse code.<\/p>\n

Click here to download an MP3 of the full recording<\/a>, or simply listen via the embedded player below:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/archive.org\/download\/CBCArgentineSSB3\/CBC,%20Argentine,%20SSB%203.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\n

Wow–what an amazing trip back in time, Brian!<\/strong> Thank you for taking the time to digitize and share your recording with us.<\/p>\n

Post<\/em> Readers:<\/strong> If you can help Brian ID the few unidentified stations in his recording, please comment!<\/p>\n

Note that Brian is a frequent contributor to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.\u00a0Click here to listen to his contributions.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post and SRAA\u00a0contributor, Brian D. Smith (W9IND),\u00a0for the following guest post and recording. Note that Brian could use your help to ID a few unidentified broadcasters in this recording. If you can help, please comment: Shortwave Radio 1974: Canada, Argentina, Spain, West Germany, Albania, utility stations Want to know what shortwave […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[56,3194,960,3,305,746,43,4796],"tags":[4818,4819,3963,328,4154,4820,4151,3257,631,955,4152,169,3686,4106,3627],"class_list":["post-17638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-broadcasters","category-guest-posts","category-international-broadcasting","category-news","category-nostalgia","category-recordings","category-shortwave-radio","category-vintage-radio","tag-4818","tag-band-scan","tag-brian-smith","tag-deutsche-welle","tag-hallicrafters-s-108","tag-new-york-radio","tag-new-york-radio-wsy-70","tag-radio-argentina-exterior","tag-radio-canada-international","tag-radio-exterior-de-espana","tag-radio-tirana","tag-rai","tag-rai-italy","tag-recordings","tag-utility"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-4Au","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}