Category: THE SHORTWAVE RADIO AUDIO ARCHIVE

In South America, three non-Spanish speaking countries — Guyana, French Guiana, and Surinam — were key DX targets for listeners around the world. A history of broadcasting in Guyana can be found here. DX’ers who are still surviving and whose listening stretched back into the 1950’s and 1960s are lucky to have received the classic older ZFY / Radio Demerara QSL cards, whereas later the main station GBS sent out only letter verifications. Guyana was still on shortwave as of 2015 as reported here.

In 1971, Christmas Eve, at the very beginning of my listening career, I used a 1940’s era T-133 Pilot Radio to hear Guyana on 3,290 khz. The station listed a power of 10 kilowatts. One of these two recordings has the transition to Christmas day as an announcer said: “On Action Radio, the proclamation of Guyana, the time is midnight. It is not Christmas morning 1971. On behalf of the management and staff of GBS, this is Ron Standish wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. . .” The broadcast then switched to midnight mass in the cathedral in Georgetown, the capital. A longer recording is also included here. Note the heavy interference on 3,290 khz from a utility station that made hearing Guyana so difficult for years.

Without doubt, Radio Andorra was one of the most sought after stations in the 1970s and with a bonus — it sent out one of the most beautiful QSL cards ever produced by any station. The QSL here was for a reception on 6,230 khz though the station ID, as it went into programming by Adventist World Radio said 6,220 khz. This was very early in the morning eastern U.S. time. This recording was made on a Drake SPR-4 reciver in Washington, DC

In 1978, Radio Condor International was among a number of pirate stations operating from Ireland. I heard the station twice, on 6,243 khz and on 11,463 khz. Claimed power was 100 watts. As can be seen the station verified with a letter QSL that listed another shortwave frequency of 6,200 khz and a mediumwave frequency of 1000 khz and had a return address in Dublin, Ireland. This recording was made in Washington, DC using a Hammarlund HQ-180A receiver.

Radio Euzkadi, the Voice of the Basque Underground, was a clandestine station representing the struggle of the Basque people for autonomy. Much has been written about the station. Radio Netherlands Media Network did an expansive 30 minute program on the station, and the article by the late DX’er Don Jensen is one of the best on the subject. For many shortwave listeners, Radio Euzkadi was a familiar station, usually heard in the 13 mHz band on 13.250 khz though it varied quite a bit due to jamming directed against it. These recordings were made in Levittown, Pennsylvania using a Hammarlund HQ-180 receiver. The station’s familiar “B.P. 59, Paris 16, France” address can be heard. The content of the English commentaries is especially notable for historical reasons. Radio Euzkadi verified with two types of cards, one a map card with a letter on onion skin paper, the other the well-known actual QSL showing a photo of the station’s antenna, either in the Pyrenees or in Venezuela where the transmissions came from later on.

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”

by Dan Robinson

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”

Dan Robinson

by Dan Robinson

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.

by Dan Robinson

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.

by Dan Robinson

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….”

by Dan Robinson

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.