This edition of programme was subtitled “Crime Time”, a tongue in cheek look at the offshore pirate radio ship Laser 558, later sold to East Anglian Productions. I spoke with Ray Anderson, who said that Laser was going to Gibraltar. The UK Customs authorities have been very active in trying to prevent the ship leaving the UK. Ray Anderson says he has made a profit on the sale of the vessel. In InfoDutch, we talk about the HCC Hobby Club and the new CD-ROM player which can store a massive 600MB of data (remember this was the era of data on compact cassettes). We discuss the use of modems and the FIDO computer network. Victor Goonetilleke and Sarath Weerakoon report on new stations being launched in Sri Lanka. TWR is going on shortwave. RAE Argentina is being heard in South Asia on 15345 kHz at 1745 UTC.
Saturday, June 20, 2020
MN.20.12.1984. Radio Monique
An early edition of the show. We were more reliant on off-air recordings because the phone was poor quality and very expensive. Radio Monique, from the Ross Revenge ship in the North Sea has appeared on-air as expected. All the usual discussions about where the programmes are being made. The FM bands are full. A WARC has been held to tackle the overfull FM – there are 51,000 FM transmitters in the world in 1984. Nic Newman and I test out the new Panasonic RFB600L . We conclude it represents fair value, with some strange tuning quirks. Michael Murray updates on plans for the EDXC meeting in Madrid. The theme will be satellite communication. Richard Ginbey reports that a number of new transmitters are coming on the air in Botswana. Angola has launched an international service. We concluded this edition with Pubspot. Larry Miller has revamped his shortwave programme guide by turning it into a newspaper. We concluded with our own version of propagation – before Mike Bird appeared on the scene.
MN.27.10.1986.STADAMS.RadioTruth
Another news edition of the programme. We reported that VOA Europe has been saved. Director Frank Scott in Munich explains how they plan to save money. Plans in French and German have been shelved. A reporter from Radio Marti has been asked not to ask any more questions at US presidential press conferences. Dutch TROS public broadcaster announces a plan to go commercial. Laos is being heard in Europe via transmitters in the USSR. 11852 kHz is being heard from Caracas. Jeff White reports that Radio Discovery is back on the air. Also on 6245 kHz. Europa TV is in financial trouble. We did a feature on Radio Truth, a South African based clandestine. Rob Horvitz went to investigate a new US address being announced by the station on the air. It turned out to be home Ndabaningi Sithole (photo), former leader of ZANU, who was living in exile in Silver Spring, Maryland. We also did a feature on STAD Radio Amsterdam, interviewing Director Leo Jacobs, At that time the stations broadcast 3 hours a day from a converted house in the capital city. They had a curious way of doing bilingual programmes. They are waiting for the green light to becoming a provincial station. We can also hear a bandscan of some of the pirates on the FM bands heard in Amsterdam.
Sunday, June 14, 2020
MN.31.07.1986.CaptainMidnight.Woodpecker
Analogue satellite stations are scrambling as a result of the HBO Captain Midnight incident. Now the mystery has been solved. John Campbell reports that there are still pirate radio stations operating from Ireland, including Radio Rainbow. Richard Ginbey has new recordings of Voice of the Black Cockerel. Media Network’s research file looks at the Woodpecker Project. We discuss this in some detail with ANARC’s Robert Horvitz. There is a lot of publicly available now becoming available. It is amazing now to see how accurate Robert's research turned out to be. Youtube contains many videos too. of the abandoned site in Ukraine.
MN.14.09.1989.AudienceResearch
A news edition of the programme. This year (1989) we’re starting to see the spectrum analysers on radio, ten years after frequency readouts appeared in 1980. The Italian Radio Relay Service is expanding with PLAY DX with Dario Monferini. There’s news of a clandestine Radio Venceremos from El Salvador. CHU Canada has a new voice. Tim Hendl in Miami reports has suddenly identified as La Voz de Nicaragua. We did an interview with Tom Fikkert and Dr Kim Andrew Elliott (pictured) about international broadcast research. We discuss the challenges of measuring the size of international broadcast audiences in a pre-Internet era. There was also a strong rise in satellite-delivered relays, plus poor frequency management on shortwave. We review a shortwave radio that is made in Poland made by Sabena. And we call Kaz Matsuda who is leaving Radio Japan after 18 years and heading for Australia. We were sad to learn that Kaz passed away in 2010
MN.21.05.1993.dianaross.kurdistan
We always had fun with openings on Media Network in an era when programmes had signature tunes, ours included. So we had the BeeGees and Diana Ross open this edition. Radio Netherlands launched a European Press Review – a project which was doomed to failure. Marcel Rommerts reports on new relays via Moscow. Julius Hermans has an update on his recent trip to Radio Vilnius. He gives great insights on how they recovered from Russian occupation in 1991 as well as some idea of the size of station – 20 journalists in 1993. There is also a report on the satellite service Euronet and its link with Radio Caroline. Correspondent Heddy Lubberdinck takes us on a visit to rebel radio station in Iraqi Kurdistan. The report contains some unique off the air recordings.