{"id":61055,"date":"2024-11-08T07:34:42","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T11:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=61055"},"modified":"2024-11-08T07:34:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T11:34:42","slug":"archiving-cassettes-dans-rewarding-journey-to-preserve-off-air-shortwave-radio-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/archiving-cassettes-dans-rewarding-journey-to-preserve-off-air-shortwave-radio-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"Archiving Cassettes: Dan\u2019s Rewarding Journey to Preserve Off-Air Shortwave Radio Recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post<\/em> and Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributor<\/a>, Dan Greenall, for sharing the following guest post:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

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

Preserving Radio History \u2013 Old Audio Cassettes<\/h1>\n

by Dan Greenall<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few years ago, during the Covid lockdowns, I rediscovered a box full of my old audio cassette tapes on the bottom shelf of a cupboard in the basement.\u00a0 These cassettes contained many vintage recordings I made between 1970 and 1999, including shortwave, AM, FM and even a bit of TV audio.<\/p>\n

I suppose I was a bit lucky, but sometimes not so much.<\/p>\n

The box was closed and had basically been in a dust free, climate controlled environment for the previous 22 years (1999-2021).\u00a0 Prior to that (1970-1999), the cassettes were subject to much use and reuse, often being left out (for convenience) unprotected, then being packed up and moved a few times to a new QTH, always within southern Ontario, Canada.<\/p>\n

In the early 1970\u2019s, and on a student\u2019s budget, I even resorted to repurposing a couple of cheap demonstration music cassettes by placing a piece of scotch tape over the ends so I could record over the existing music.\u00a0 Inevitably, some \u201cprize\u201d recordings were accidently erased over the years when a cassette was needed urgently and one was thrown hastily into the recorder without a proper check.<\/p>\n

Around 1983, I made a decent recording of Radio Mogadishu in Somalia on the out of band frequency of 6790 kHz, but it seems to have been corrupted from being left in the recorder and not discovered until it was too late.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the mistake occurred right over the moment of the actual station ID:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Radio-Mogadishu-1980s-corrupted.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

In spite of all of this, I need to feel fortunate that so many of my recordings actually survived for 30, 40 and even 50+ years in spite of my neglecting them for so long.\u00a0 A great deal of this material has since been sorted through and digitised, then saved on the Internet Archive in order to preserve this radio history.\u00a0 I have also regularly submitted some of these recordings to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is a link to my material on Archive.org, which I am constantly adding to.\u00a0 Most files have audio, however, some are \u201cread only.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/@dan_greenall<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post and Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributor, Dan Greenall, for sharing the following guest post: Preserving Radio History \u2013 Old Audio Cassettes by Dan Greenall A few years ago, during the Covid lockdowns, I rediscovered a box full of my old audio cassette tapes on the bottom shelf of a cupboard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[3,746,43],"tags":[10271,4147,4106,2479,737],"class_list":["post-61055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-recordings","category-shortwave-radio","tag-dan-greenall","tag-off-air-shortwave-recordings","tag-recordings","tag-shortwave-radio-audio-archive","tag-shortwave-radio-recordings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-fSL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":60019,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/can-you-help-dan-identify-this-mystery-interval-signal\/","url_meta":{"origin":61055,"position":0},"title":"Can you help Dan identify this mystery interval signal?","author":"Thomas","date":"June 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to Dan Greenall, one of our dedicated Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributors, who writes: Hi Thomas I was going over a few of my old cassettes today and discovered what seems to be an interval signal, but I cannot seem to place it. Recording: Unfortunately, all I can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo by Sai Harish on Unsplash","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":54166,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2022\/09\/keith-discovers-a-radio-bougainville-recording-on-the-shortwave-archive-a-50-year-old-tape-takes-me-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":61055,"position":1},"title":"Keith discovers a Radio Bougainville recording on the Shortwave Archive: “A 50-year old tape takes me back”","author":"Thomas","date":"September 29, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"We've published thousands of off-air recordings on Shortwave Radio Audio Archive over the past decade. They're freely available for everyone to search and download. For those of us who work on the archive, it's a pure labor of love. We are not compensated for the time and effort we put\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Guest Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Guest Posts","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/guest-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/IMG_0135-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60359,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/can-you-help-dan-solve-this-50-year-old-radio-mystery\/","url_meta":{"origin":61055,"position":2},"title":"Can you help Dan solve this 50 year old radio mystery?","author":"Thomas","date":"August 7, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post and\u00a0Shortwave Radio Audio Archive contributor, Dan Greenall, who writes: Hi Thomas From the early 1970's, where sadly, some of my original logbooks went missing many years ago. ANTEL, the Administracion Nacional de Telecommunicaciones in Montevideo, Uruguay used to use its telephone time announcement instead of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo by Sai Harish on Unsplash","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Casette-Tape-1.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":57327,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/radio-botswana-barnyard-sounds-mystery\/","url_meta":{"origin":61055,"position":3},"title":"Radio Botswana barnyard sounds mystery","author":"Thomas","date":"July 23, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post and SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following off-air shortwave radio recording and writes: In all of the recordings of Radio Botswana\u2019s famous barnyard interval signal I can find, the barnyard sounds are accompanied by the sound of cowbells. There is usually a rooster\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/HalliDial.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/HalliDial.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/HalliDial.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/HalliDial.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":64341,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/algeria-on-shortwave-then-and-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":61055,"position":4},"title":"Algeria on Shortwave – Then and Now","author":"Thomas","date":"October 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, for sharing the following guest post: Algeria on Shortwave - Then and Now by Dan Greenall In the early 1970s, Radiodiffusion-Television Algerienne ran a modest shortwave service (no English) mainly for North Africa, the Middle East,\u00a0and Europe. A copy of their schedule\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Greenall-Algeria-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Greenall-Algeria-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Greenall-Algeria-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Greenall-Algeria-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Greenall-Algeria-1.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":62421,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/silent-signals-recordings-from-shortwave-stations-affected-by-recent-shutdowns\/","url_meta":{"origin":61055,"position":5},"title":"Silent Signals: Recordings from Shortwave Stations Affected by Recent Shutdowns","author":"Thomas","date":"March 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dan Greenall, who shares the following recordings and writes: Hi Thomas As a result of recent actions by the Trump administration, a number of shortwave stations have recently gone silent. Whether or not this will change is anybody's guess, but the situation is currently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/1-IMG_0353.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/1-IMG_0353.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/1-IMG_0353.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/1-IMG_0353.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61055","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=61055"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61060,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61055\/revisions\/61060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}