This programme includes a visit to the shortwave transmitter site at Meyerton a small town lying 15 km north of Vereeniging in Gauteng, South Africa. But the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention the radio towers that once broadcast the external service of Radio RSA during the apartheid era. Later it turned into Channel Africa, and spare airtime was rented out to other stations who wanted to reach Southern and Central Africa with a reliable signal. The trip to Meyerton was fascinating. So imagine my horror when the track with the interview I had done with Blackie Schwartz showed up as only 3 seconds long. Did I eject the disc too quickly? I sent the disc to Sony to see if the recording could be recovered. And 4 months later, they said they had recovered the file. Sure enough, it plays perfectly. These days the towers in Meyerton are silent, though recent time-lapse photos by Cobus van Zyl would indicate that the towers are still there. So what will happen from 2021 onwards?
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