Radio Enoch was one of many Europirate stations active in the late 1970s. As this QSL card shows, Radio Enoch broadcast on 6,248 khz using SSB at a claimed power of 4,000 watts. This reception was between 0800 and 0900 UTC in December in the eastern U.S. which was 3:00 to 4:00 AM eastern time. This was pre-Internet so QSL verifications came in the mail. The approximately 4 minute recording consists of a commentary against Marxism and Communism and a station ID at about the 3:55 mark as “This is Radio Enoch, the Voice of People Against Marxism”
For shortwave listeners, if there was one station that became a favorite it was ELWA in Monrovia, Liberia. But whereas ELWA was extremely easy to hear, the real DX catch was ELBC, the Liberian Broadcasting Corrporation. Its frequency was 3,255 khz in the 90 meter band and during the “golden” years of tropical shortwave broadcasting, that band was full of stations from Africa and Latin America, which created interference issues. With a power listed as 10 kilowatts, in comparison to 50 kilowatts for most of ELWA’s transmitters, ELBC was a definite challenge for DX’ers, but occasionally was heard before its listed 0000 UTC sign off. This recording was heard on a Hammarlund HQ-180A in Levittown, Pennsylvania. There is a female announcer, perhaps concluding a news segment, followed at about the 10 second mark by drums, followed by an ID: “This is the ELBC, Monrovia”
With a transmitter power listed as 100 kilowatts, Malawi should have been one of the easiest African stations to hear during the “golden” years of tropical shortwave broadcasting. But that was not always the case as the 3,380 khz frequency in the 90 meter band was often plagued by interference from Latin American stations that were being heard at the time.
The 1978 WRTH listed Malawi as using 3,380 khz, 5,995 and 7,130 khz. Best time to attempt to hear Malawi was in the evening in eastern North America just before its 0300 UTC sign on. When conditions were good for central Africa, other stations could be heard, such as Rhodesia, as well as Indian Ocean signals from Zanzibar and Reunion and Comoros.
In 1974 I had the opportunity of living in Swaziland as an exchange student, and brought with me my Drake SPR-4 receiver for which I erected a 75 foot longwire antenna on a hill near Mbabane, Swaziland. This recording of MBC in Blantyre was made there, from actual air and is not a studio recording.
Another from the golden era of tropical band shortwave broadcasting, the Central African Republic was among the easiest stations to hear on its 5,038 khz frequency, especially in early to late afternoon as heard in eastern North America. The 1978 WRTH listed two shortwave frequencies including 7,220 khz which was shown as being for 0730 - 1630 UTC. And that 1978 listing had the country identified as “Central African Empire” instead of CAR. The 5,038 frequency made for quite a mash up in the area above WWV on 5.0 mHz as there were a number of stations in that range, including Cabinda/Angola on 5,033 khz, Sudan on 5,039, and Togo on 5,047 khz, Benguela/Angola and Mocamedes/Angola and Niamey/Niger, along with numerous other Latin American stations. This recording of Bangui as it signed off was made in Levittown, PA using a Hammarlund HQ-180A receiver.
During the golden days of shortwave broadcasting, there were more than a dozen stations on the air in Angola, in addition to the main government station in the capital Luanda. In the 1978 WRTH, 14 regional stations are listed, and one of them Emisora Regional da Cabinda, broadcasting from the enclave between Democratic Republic of the Congo and Congo Republic. This station was among the most rarely heard by listeners in North America, but occasionally atmospheric conditions permitted some decent reception of its 5,033 khz frequency which varied quite a bit. This reception took place in Levittown, Pennsylvania using a Hammarlund HQ-180A receiver — the recording has had a bit of noise reduction applied. You can hear the steady interval signal that the station used, consisting of a drum, before a national anthem and sign on announcements as “Aqui, Republica popular da Angola, Emisora Regional da Cabinda….”
Not as much has been written about the history of broadcasting in Sierra Leone in comparison with other countries in Africa — see Wikipedia for this summary. The SLBC broadcast on shortwave on 3,316 khz, one of those odd frequencies that one remembers. Although the power of the station was 50 kw as of 1978 it was exceedingly difficult to hear, with the best time being in the afternoon/early evening in eastern North America. According to the World Radio TV Handbook of that year, the 250 KW transmitter that had been installed for use as a relay of international broadcasters was designated for 5,980 khz but it’s hard to recall any DX’ers ever reporting that frequency. Normal sign off according to the WRTH was 2335 UTC, a bit later on Saturdays.
This reception occurred in Pennsylvania, where I used a Hammarlund HQ-180/A receiver which had numerous capabilities for dragging difficult DX signals out of the mud due to its fine vernier tuning, notch filter, and multiple crystal filter bandwidths. You can hear “Leaving On a Jet Plane” and some talk by an announcer. There was heavy CW interference on the frequency — the 90 meter band in these days was no picnic and always presented a challenge in hearing the African countries that used it. Sierra Leone verified with an aerograme type letter, similar to verifications received from Voice of Kenya over in eastern Africa.
The former Zaire, later the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was a focus of radio activity for decades, including many shortwave stations comprising both the national radio in Kinshasa and regional stations that became targets for radio listeners around the world. Zaire which had that name from 1971 to 1997 was controlled for a very long time by Mobutu Sese Seko who seized power in a coup in 1965. Geographically the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa (after Sudan and Algeria, and 11th-largest in the world, DRC has a population of more than 23 million. As Wikipedia notes, Mobutu set out to “[rid] the country of the influences from the colonial era of the Belgian Congo . . . [but] weakened by the termination of American support after the end of the Cold War, Mobutu was forced to declare a new republic in 1990 to cope with demands for change. By the time of its downfall, Zaire was characterised by widespread cronyism, corruption and economic mismanagement.”
“Zaire collapsed in the 1990s, amid the destabilization of the eastern parts of the country in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and growing ethnic violence. In 1996, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the head of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL) militia, led a popular rebellion against Mobutu. With rebel forces successfully making gains beyond the east, Mobutu fled the country, leaving Kabila's forces in charge as the country restored its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo the following year. Mobutu died within four months after he fled into exile in Morocco.”
Zaire was one of the most radio active of all countries in Africa. Only Angola had more regional stations using shortwave frequencies, and some of these were exceedingly rare to be heard by foreign listeners. The main national station Voix du Zaire was frequently heard on its 15,245 khz frequency (see Jack Widner’s superb recordings here on the archive) and during the 1970’s until transmitters started encountering problems, Zaire was easy and enjoyable listening on that frequency. As noted by Jerry Berg in his excellent Broadcasting on the Shortwaves, the status of smaller lower power stations including Radio Mbandaka, Radio Kananga, and Radio Mbuji-Mayi, was often unknown. Radio Bukavu in the east, and Radio Kisangani were more frequently heard, along with Radio Lubumbashi.
The SWL QSL Card Museum shows QSL cards/letters from four stations in Zaire, three from DRC — so this does not include verifications from some of those extremely rare other stations. Radio Candip, which was widely heard abroad on its 5,066 khz frequency, was still on the air into the 2000s, while Radio Kahuzi, the U.S. missionary-run station in Bukavu, was on and being heard via SDR receiver sites in Europe as of 2020, but after that has remained off as of early 2022.
In 1972, the Voice of the Revolution, Guinea’s national radio carried the funeral ceremony for Francis Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president after independence. Quoting from the history: “Nkrumah was born in the Gold Coast (later Ghana) in 1909 and was educated there before going to the United States in 1935 where he attended Lincoln University and later, the University of Pennsylvania. Nkrumah spent 10 years in the U.S., and later went to England to study at the London School of Economics. At the same time, he intensified his political activities for the independence of his homeland, which he led to full nationhood on March 6,1957. He was toppled in 1966 in a coup by army officers and remained in exile in neighboring Guinea until his death in April 1972 in Bucharest, Romania, where he had gone for medical treatment.
As reported by AFP from Accra: “The body of Kwame Nkrumah was flown back here today in a special Guinean Air Force plane. The military government or declared all flags to be flown at half‐staff until the former President is buried in Nkroful, a village 190 miles southwest of here where he was born on Sept. 1, 1909.
Return of the pan‐African leader's body to Ghana marks the culmination of protracted negotiations between the governing National Redemption Council here and President Sékou Touré of Guinea. Mr. Nkrumah died on April 27 in Rumania, where he was receiving medical treatment, and his body was taken to Guinea.
At first, President Touré refused Ghanaian requests for the body and gave Mr. Nkrumah a state funeral in Conakry, the Guinean capital. The Ghanaian had spent most of the years of his exile in Conakry, following his overthrow in 1966 in Ghana's first military coup. He was given the symbolic title of Co‐President of Guinea by President Touré.
Radio Conakry, also known as The Voice of the Revolution, was frequently heard by listeners around the world, usually on its shortwave frequencies including 9,650 kHz and 7,125 kHz. Nkrumah had used the station to make speeches from Guinea to the people of Ghana in 1966.
In this recording, made in Pennsylvania in 1972, you hear part of what appears to be a funeral observance held in Conakry, mostly in French but some English. Radio Conakry remained on shortwave into the 2000s, but later was intermittent. After repairs to its transmitter, it returned to shortwave in 2016 and was still being heard as of early 2021, though at weaker levels than before, and mostly in European locations.
Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Anthony Messina, who shares the following audio clip and notes:
Notes: Short recording of JOUF-AM heard in full C-Quam Stereo. Note the wide stereo separation that C-Quam can achieve. Shame it never fully took off in the U.S or most other places.
