An image of the Giotto spacecraft during construction (Source: ESA)
Many thanks to SRAA contributor William Parmley, who found several cassette tapes with off-air recordings he made in the 1980s. Here are Bill’s notes for this recording:
BBC transmission live during the encounter of the Giotto space probe with Haley’s Comet, March 13, 1986. (43:45)
Comet Halley at Giotto spacecraft's closest approach (Source: ESA)
Many thanks to SRAA contributor David Goren, who shares the following recording and notes. This recording captures Radio Macapá, Brazil, clearly identified several times on the air. David discovered it on a cassette tape.
While the exact date is uncertain, David believes it could be from 1988, though he notes he was still recording to cassette into the early 2000s. The absence of CODAR interference—common on the bands starting in the early 1990s—suggests the recording likely predates that period.
Though not as unusual as some of David’s other finds, this recording remains a fine example of Brazilian shortwave broadcasting and a valuable slice of radio history. Enjoy and feel free to comment with any other details that may help date this recording.
Somewhere along the line I managed to acquire a whole bunch of someone's tapes of Australian shortwave broadcasts from the 1960's and 1970's. My un-listened-to tapes in my basement have gotten jumbled around several times over the years, so a lot of collections which were once stacked all in one place are now scattered amongst the stacks down there. And so it is that this week, I found yet another tape of Australian shortwave recordings. The recordings only include the day of the week and the date, not the year, but based on those days and dates, and the contents of the broadcasts, I am surmising the first of these to be from September of 1968 and the other to be from nearly exactly two years later.
The 1970 tape [included here] is considerably clearer in sound quality [than the 1968 recording posted last week].
Somewhere along the line I managed to acquire a whole bunch of someone's tapes of Australian shortwave broadcasts from the 1960's and 1970's. My un-listened-to tapes in my basement have gotten jumbled around several times over the years, so a lot of collections which were once stacked all in one place are now scattered amongst the stacks down there. And so it is that this week, I found yet another tape of Australian shortwave recordings. The recordings only include the day of the week and the date, not the year, but based on those days and dates, and the contents of the broadcasts, I am surmising the first of these to be from September of 1968 and the other to be from nearly exactly two years later.
The 1968 recording starts off difficult to hear and grows progressively worse - this is not an easy to listen to tape - such are the vagaries of listening to short wave broadcasts. The 1970 tape is considerably clearer in sound quality.
HMCS margaret Brooke off rothera station during the canadian antarctic science research expedition on March 15, 2025 (Courtesy of Dr. kevin wilcox)
A live, off-air, half-hour recording of the BBC World Service special Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast on 21 June 2025 beginning at 21:30 UTC.
The broadcast, hosted by Cerys Matthews and which celebrated the 70th anniversary of the first BBC broadcast to Antarctica, featured messages and music for the members of the staff of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) overwintering in Antarctica at the Rothera (Antarctic Peninsula) and King Edward Point and Bird Island (South Georgia) research stations. In addition to personal messages from family and friends, there was a message from Professor Dame Jane Francis, Director of BAS, who highlighted the construction of the Discovery Building at Rothera, and a very special message from King Charles III, a first for a monarch, highlighting climate change. He said "Each observation, measurement and calculation you undertake adds to the world's understanding of the Earth's fragile systems."
The recording is of the transmission on 12065 kHz from the BBC's Woofferton, England, transmitting station. 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 RF filtering. Reception was quite good with little noise or fading and good signal strength. The additional parallel frequencies of 5960 kHz from Al'Dhabbaya, United Arab Emirates, and 9575 kHz from Ascension were heard but not as well as 12065 kHz.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor Carlos Latuff, who shares the following field recording of All India Radio on 9620 kHz made on August 20, 2025 at 19:34 UTC in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor Paul Walker, who shares the following field recording of the Voice of Korea on 11,910 kHz made on August 29, 2025 at 18:51 UTC in McGrath, Alaska. Paul notes that the recording begins in French then moves to their English language service.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor David Goren, who shares the following recording of Radio Gjirokaster recorded in January 1988, likely on 7200 kHz (but subscribers can comment with corrections). David was using his Panasonic RF-2900 as a receiver. He has also kindly shared the following photos of his logs and the cassette tape notes.
David notes:
Found this little scrap on an old cassette…it’s the middle of a recording of the Road Gang, the trucking show I was obsessed with at the time…and of course I would tune around during it sometimes and I marked the cassette…I have Gjirokaster and Yerevan in the same segment
Many thanks to SRAA contributor Carlos Latuff, who shares the following recording and illustrated listening report for this Voice of Vietnam broadcast celebrating their 80th anniversary. This recording was made on September 7, 2025 at 20:39 UTC on 11,885 kHz from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
