Mount Evelyn DX Report

Shannon Aeradio Republic of Ireland 1972 Recording Mr. Rainer Brannolte runs a very interesting website on Utility DXing, full of facts about utility radio stations, plus many wonderful old recordings and images of QSL cards and verification letters. You can get to it at  UtilityRadio.com . On the site, under Ireland, he gives an explanation between Shannon Aeradio, Shannon VOLMET, and Shanwick Aero. Check it out! The site for all three stations is at Ballygirreen, County Clare, about 9 km (5.6 mi) north of Shannon Airport. This is my 1972 recording of Shannon Aeradio, heard here in Melbourne, Australia: Other Utility stations in this series of blog posts: Gander Radio, Newfoundland, Canada Rügen Radio - German Democratic Republic Tel Aviv, Israel PTT New York Radio VOLMET Brazzaville, République Populaire du Congo Shannon Aeradio Lyngby Radio, Denmark Paris PTT Station, France Scheveningen Radio, The Netherlands Belgrade PTT, (former) Yugoslavia 73 and good DX to you all, Rob Wa...

Brazzaville PTT République Populaire du Congo 1972 Recording The People's Republic of the Congo (French: République Populaire du Congo) was a Marxist-Leninist socialist state that used this name between December 1969 and 1992. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the country was no longer propped up by Soviet patronage. In 1992, the name was changed back to the Republic of the Congo (a.k.a Congo-Brazzaville or Congo Republic).  This voice mirror recording from the Congo's communications department in Brazzaville makes announcements in French and English. There appears to have been some receiver drift or BFO retuning as you hear the SSB pitch change somewhat in the recording. This station was never a big verifier of listeners' reception reports, although there are a few pre-prepared QSLs floating around amongst avid Utility DXers. This is my recording of the voice mirror on 11477 kHz at 0645 UTC on November 22, 1972: Other Utility stations in this series of ...

NEW YORK RADIO VOLMET 1972 Recording The word VOLMET is derived from the French words "vol" (flight) and "météo" (weather). The purpose of a VOLMET broadcast is to provide weather information to aircraft in flight. VOLMET reports are broadcast principally over high-frequency (HF) radio by a number of civil and military stations located around the world. This global network is divided into regions, with each region having a number of VOLMET broadcast stations which all broadcast on the same frequency(s). In some regions, such as Europe, there are also a number of stations that provide VOLMET broadcasts on very high frequency (VHF) radio.  In both cases, the station will use automated voice transmission to broadcast TAF, SIGMET and Meteorological Terminal Air Report (METAR) information for a published list of aerodromes. VHF stations normally broadcast their information in a continuous loop, updating the information as changes occur. HF VOLMET stations generally broad...

  TEL AVIV PTT RADIO  1972 Recording A Voice Mirror (VM) is simply a looped recorded message. These were commonly used by government agencies in many countries as part of their shortwave Postal, Telegraph and Telephone (PTT) services. The repeated messages were played for tuning and circuit adjustment at times when there was no exchange of radio traffic. This recording from the Tel Aviv PTT service in Israel is a classic example of a VM. If memory serves me correctly, the receiver I used here was probably the Lafayette HA230, an eight-valve receiver, into dipole antennas. Here is the video recording: This point-to-point station wasn't interested in receiving reception reports. They regarded such activity as "unauthorised interception"! Instead, the station directed DXers to the Kol Israel international shortwave service (Video: sample letter received by a listener). Other Utility stations in this series of blog posts: Gander Radio, Newfoundland, Canada Rügen Radio - Ge...

  Ary Boender's QSL before German reunification in October 1990 (Thanks to UtilityRadio.com) RÜGEN RADIO  GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC From 1972 Another Utility station from yesteryear, recorded towards the end of 1972. This coastal maritime station has an interesting history, overseeing ship-to-shore communications in waters controlled by the then-German Democratic Republic. You can read more about this station at the German Wikipedia site - Google Translate does a good job of changing into English (or many other languages). Check it out at:  https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rügen_Radio Here is my video recording: Interesting Trivia! While researching this station, I stumbled across an old movie called Seilergrasse 8 , a  crime drama released in 1960. Here is an excerpt from the movie focusing on an action scene, supposedly at Rügen Radio. Total fiction, of course....but the radio gear is fun to look at!! Can anyone identify these radios? Rügen Radio closed its opera...

  GANDER RADIO NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA A recording from 1972 Recently, I have been endeavouring to resurrect old reel-to-reel tapes and digitise them before they deteriorate any further. For younger readers, old magnetic tapes degrade over time for a whole variety of reasons!  I was never a big Utility DXing fan, so I only have a few Ute QSLs ( see this earlier post ). And in further cleaning up of all my stuff, I reclaimed some old Ute tapes, mostly from around the second half of 1972. What never ceases to amaze me is the lack of electrical (man-made) noise and hash that we hear and take for granted nowadays. I mentioned this recently in a post several weeks ago with my 1973 recording of Radio Lara, Barquisimeto, Venezuela . And so, this recording of Gander Radio again illustrates just how little man-made noise there was around in 1972. Atmospheric noise - yes, of course! But the hash we hear across the shortwave spectrum these days just didn't exist. And, yes, this recording wa...

  RECORDING:  RADIO LARA, BARQUISIMETO, VENEZUELA August 12, 1973 I've been digging through a few old tape recordings and digitising them. I'm attempting to salvage them before the original media deteriorates any further. It's a time-consuming task, but an enjoyable one. Many DXers and shortwave listeners from the '70s and early '80s will remember the chain of Venezuelan radio stations that operated on 60 metres. They included Radio Barquisimeto, Radio Juventud, Radio Yaracuy, Radio Universo, and this one, Radio Lara. These shortwave broadcasters were heard well worldwide and were generally very good verifiers. The network was called Emisoras del la Cadena Venezolana de Radiodifusión and collectively known as the "Circuito sin Fronteras". Unfortunately, all the stations closed in the mid-'80s due to the network's financial difficulties. This short recording of Radio Lara in Barquisimeto was recorded on August 12, 1973 at 1036 UTC on 4800 kHz. I thi...

  AUSTRALIA CALLING The ABC Radio Australia Story A book review by Rob Wagner Many years ago (in the late 70s or early 80s? – I forget!), I toured the studios of Radio Australia here in Melbourne along with other Australian Radio DX Club members. This was during what could be called the heyday of shortwave broadcasting. Radio Australia (RA) reputedly had millions of listeners around the world. Indeed, the audience numbers throughout Asia were huge, especially in Indonesia and Japan. I remember the tour guide telling us that listener letters from Indonesia alone numbered not in the hundreds but literally in the thousands each month! Such was the global impact of this radio station in those days. So, I was eager to purchase a copy of  Australia Calling – The ABC Radio Australia Story by respected author and former ABC/RA broadcast journalist Dr Phil Kafcaloudes. The author provides a highly readable account of the history behind RA and the role that it was to play as a signific...