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!

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.