Let’s face it - the late 1970’s were, arguably, the very best years for DXing and Shortwave listening - there was very little manmade interference other than the buzzy power line or the occasional TV set or furnace motor. These were the days. Stations like TIFC had no issue cutting through because all they needed was a relatively clear frequency. This was recorded off air in my Fernwood neighbourhood in Victoria B.C. in the late Fall of 1978 on my DX150B and a modest 75’ Inverted L antenna. Who needed noise reduction? Not me!
TIFC San Jose Costa Rica as received on the West Coast of Canada in 1978
Pirate radio was the product of the mid to late 1970’s and one example of one of the more adventurous and ahem professional sounding stations was The Voice of the Voyager - apparently from Minnesota - which was widely received at Christmas 1978 extending into January 1979 on its inaugural run. There are not a lot of recordings of VOV - not a lot of great recordings - and this one is noisy at best - but you get the idea. Received on the West Coast of North America - one cold winter!
The Voice of the Voyager -
Snuck in the middle of this recording a surprise (never before heard track) of the Voice of Clipperton! 6205 Khz New Years Day 1979! At 0130 UTC
Living on the West Coast of North America meant not hearing Africa much - a few times a year - particularly near the equinoxes, we would get some astounding openings on 60 and 49 meters in the early afternoon prior to 2300 UTC when a lot of African regional stations were signing off for the night. It was awesome. It would still be light outside and we were hearing low powered 60 meter West African signals in French, Portuguese and others native African tongues. It was a treat. Here is a not often heard station on the 25 meter band on my DX150B.
To the best of my knowledge, there are not a lot of recordings of ELWA from that period in radio history.
When I was a young radio hobbyist, I taped as much as I could and as often as I could - and while I did not always have tape rolling, it was often rolling at the right time. In the 1970’s, my priority seemed to be logging stations and jotting down times and frequencies with not a lot of thought to historical content. Occasionally these little gems would appear… Like a mention of President Gerald Ford in a news clip… or some peculiar phrase unique to one era or another.
In 1975 and 1976 I was blessed to live in the country and have a decent radio (the DX150B) and 5 1/2-wave dipoles for 60, 49, 31, 25 and 19 meters… and living on the West Coast no less. And while the West Coast of North America was something of a radio fringe area, the reception possibilities for the Pacific and South Asia areas were delicious!
Anyway - here are 42 sound clips from days gone by - the PDF master list is below.
The master list of this hodgepodge - right here. And in the page below.
Back in 1977, when we were still in the throes of the Cold War, there was not only a psychological battle on the ground - there was the war on the airwaves to squelch public opinion. One such example of silencing the opposition was “jamming” - it was immensely popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It consisted of one nation switching on transmitters on (or slightly off frequency) and blasting the smaller broadcaster with noise and interference. The USSR, for example, poured megawatts of electricity into silencing the voice of Israel on its scheduled broadcasts to he jewish diaspora in Russia. Like Radio Free Europe at the time, the jamming was merciless - and this is an excellent example of how it worked and what it sounded like… way back in the bad old days of May 1977!
KOL Israel - Israel Radio - Jerusalem - on the 19 meter band
By 1977, I had become and old hand at DXing and digging out some incredible signals on the West Coast - it was the best of times. I had almost finished high school and the future looked bright. I had my sights on a career in Electronics - and as it would turn out (as I look back on that career…) that I lead a truly charmed life. Starting in 1972 I began recording bits and pieces of what I was hearing on the radio dial - it was a modest attempt using some pretty basic gear. By 1974 I had figured out how to tap into the line audio of most receivers and capture superior (all things considered) audio from the source. Between then and the early 1990’s I likely recorded over 20 hours of sound bytes (well cataloged) of World Band radio - now is the time where I am making more of an effort to digitize that material as the cassettes age. In this clip we feature a Christmas Eve recording of WWVH on 5000 khz, the Solomon Islands on 5020 and Noumea, New Caledonia on 7170 Khz. All of these recorded on a “Transonic Executive” tape recorder and a DX150B tabletop communications receiver.
Nothing compares to the carefree pathway of youth. Not a worry. Not a concern. The future is endlessly bright. And at the radio dials in 1977, this idealism could not be closer to the truth. Our solid-state and tube type radios glowed in the waning light of sunset and revealed an endless expanse of fully utilized radio spectrum. The voices were often hard to separate and determining a radio frequency often came down to guesswork or crafty use of band spread dials, crystal calibrators and interpolation charts. But that was our youth and the approaching salad days of International Broadcasting. I had been finding my voice in clubs like CIDX, SPEEDX and the IRCA - learning the ropes of journalistic hobby contributions. Half the fun of the radio hobby was the sharing with the sisters and brothers of the hobby. And here we were. And here I was - at 17. That sounds like a song by Janis Ian and I guess it was. At 17 my ears were full and my heart was well stocked with hope for the future.
Here is part two of my 1977 “Greatest Hits” Interval Signal Series - recorded in Victoria B.C. Canada on my DX150B table-top communications receiver.
In 1977, I had been SWLing for a solid 5 or 6 years. I seemed like I was something of a veteran DXer by then. I have been making tapes since 1972 (but only really kept a solid and organized library since the Spring of 1975. I approached each cassette like it was a concept album. I was learning to play guitar so it made sense - that if my recordings were to make sense in the future that I need to catalog them properly and they needed to have some kind of theme. In my wisdom, I started producing what I would call “My greatest hits” cassette of that year - everything carefully logged and noted. One of the results was my “ID’s and Interval Series” in 1977 that mimicked to a certain extent, Ian McFarland’s Language series of ID’s with Doctor Richard Wood. Here is the result with the youthful sounding 17 year old me!
It was another time and place. The 1970’s. Radio was alive and well with no sense whatsoever than the decade to follow would not be exactly the same - well, it was in part… but change would come. Even in the late 1970’s, many old stations had a folksy feel to them - Radio Luxembourg was no exception. Based on whatever they were playing you had no idea what was coming next. In this little recording, we have RTL on 6090 playing a mixed bag of what sounds like light German big band music - or folkie pop - or what have you. Station ID at the end…. drifting into a snippet from our old friend CFRB in Toronto on 6070 Khz. All received on a DX150B and an Inverted-L antenna located on the West Coast of Canada.
Recording of Voice of America in English, November 7, 2021 at 13.58 UTC (shortwave frequency of 15580 kHz)
Station: Voice of America Place of reception: Europe Frequency: 15580 kHz shortwave Date: November 7, 2021 Time: 1358 UTC Transmitter location: Botswana Transmitter power 100 kW Transmission direction: Africa Receiver: SONY ICF SW1 portable Location of receiver: outdoor (far away from buildings to limit the man-made noise interference) Antenna: internal telescopic 0,5 meter long Recording device: SONY portable cassette tape recorder
