Author: Richard Langley

Live, off-air, one-hour recording of the audio of Stephen K. Bannon's "War Room: Pandemic" podcast episode no. 46. The program was broadcast by IRRS Shortwave, the Italian Radio Relay Service of the NEXUS International Broadcasting Association in Milano, Italy, on 16 March 2020 from 20:00 to 21:00 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 9660 kHz from a transmitter believed to be in Kostinbrod, Bulgaria, and beamed to Africa. IRRS does not identify the locations of the transmitters it uses. The transmitter was switched on several minutes before 20:00 UTC but the usual IRRS sign-on music was not broadcast and the first few seconds of the program audio were skipped.

This episode of "War Room: Pandemic," entitled "Black Monday Deuce (Pt. 1)" concerned the effect of the pandemic on the economy on the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 3,000 points or about 13% of its value. The program lasts about 49 minutes with the rest of the hour being music fill. During the podcast, Bannon mentions the stations carrying the show including IRRS. There is an IRRS identification at the end of the recording before the transmitter signs off. IRRS broadcast "War Room: Pandemic" several times per day for a number of weeks in March and April 2020.

The broadcast was received by the Web-interface wideband software-defined radio at the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, with a "Mini-Whip" antenna in AM synchronous mode with 5.08 kHz total bandwidth RF filtering. Reception was generally good although there is some noise possibly due to local interference.

Live, off-air, recording of the broadcast of two special sequential half-hour programs of Radio Prague International celebrating its 85th anniversary. The programs were broadcast via WRMI, Radio Miami International, using a transmitter at Okeechobee, Florida, on 31 August 2021 from 21:00 to 22:00 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 15770 kHz. The listed transmitter power is 100 kW with an antenna beam azimuth of 44°. The recording includes WRMI station identifications.

Czech Radio officially began its international service on 31 August 1936. Eventually, the service became known as Radio Prague, then for a brief time in the 1990s as Radio Czechoslovakia International and most recently as Radio Prague International. Radio Prague International is mostly an on-line service now with its own transmitters having been shut down on 31 January 2011. It continued to broadcast over the single WRMI transmitter in Miami and currently relays its daily programs in English, French, and Spanish using the WRMI transmitter complex in Okeechobee.

The special anniversary programs include archival recordings, interviews, and comments from listeners. The first half-hour program is in English followed by a second half-hour program in French.

The broadcast via WRMI was received outdoors on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver in AM mode with 2.3 kHz filtering and a Tecsun AN-03L 7-metre wire antenna strung to a nearby tree in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada. Reception was mostly quite good.

A live, off-air, half-hour recording of the BBC World Service special Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast on 21 June 2021 beginning at 21:30 UTC. The broadcast, hosted by Cerys Matthews, featured messages and music for the staff of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) overwintering in Antarctica. In addition to personal messages from family and friends, there were special messages from BAS personnel and others including one from Sir David Attenborough accompanied by a blackbird. The transmitter had a "crash start" and the first two words of the introductory announcement ("This is") were cut.

The recording is of the transmission on a frequency of 7305 kHz from the BBC's Woofferton, England, transmitting station (300 kW rated transmitter power, antenna beam 182 degrees). The transmission was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with a Tecsun AN-03L 7-metre wire antenna outdoors in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada, in AM mode with 2.3 kHz RF filtering. Reception was fairly good with little noise and fading and reasonable signal strength, which was better than that on the parallel frequencies of 9505 kHz from Woofferton and 6170 kHz from Ascension Island. A fourth frequency, 6035 kHz, transmitted from Dhabbaya, United Arab Emirates, was not heard. At the very end of the program, there is some slight adjacent frequency interference.