Legacy remains of WSY, Alabama's first radio station
One hundred years ago this year, on April 24, 1922, Alabama Power hit the airwaves with the state's first operating radio station. WSY (an acronym for "We Serve You") began broadcasting from rented space in a building on Powell Avenue in Birmingham.
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Marajó Island Amazonian DX Camp, Brazil 2019
Reports of 1st DX-Camp 15.61 Crew Radio Listeners' Marajó Island – Amazon Rainforest Northern Brazil – November 15, 16, 17 and 18, 2019 – Ivan Dias da Silva Junior & Martin Butera
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Radio Woodville Nearly 25 Years Old
Radio Woodville in Woodville near Palmerston North will be 25 years old on the 1st June 2023. As their 25th anniversary approaches we take a look back at their first 20 years on-air.
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Coffee and Radio – with Carlos Latuff
Martin Butera chats with Brazilian radio listener and political cartoonist Carlos Latuff.
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News Radio WHAM 1180/Rochester Celebrates 100 Years
iHeartMedia Rochester celebrates the 100th anniversary of News Radio WHAM 1180. As the longest surviving radio outlet in Rochester, NY, WHAM debuted on July 11, 1922, under the call letters WHQ.
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Shortwave Station WMLK
US broadcaster WMLK from Bethel, Pennsylvania resumed broadcasting at the end of June 2022 with a new 450 kW transmitter on the frequency of 9275 kHz. In the spring of 2017, the WMLK radio transmitter building caught fire and the transmitter originally built in 1975, and which worked reliably until the fire, was completely destroyed. We take a look at the history of this shortwave station, and the step by step reconstruction after the fire, with exclusive photographs courtesy of WMLK.
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Dmitry Mezin Collection
True Sounds Audio Archive
From his now closed dxsignal.ru hobby website Dmitry Mezin has made available an off-line version of his “True Sounds” audio archive. With his permission, we are pleased to add a copy of this audio archive to our on-line Collections.
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Coffee and Radio – with Danilo Nonato
Martin Butera chats with Brazilian DXer Danilo Nonato.
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The Powerful United States Naval Radio Station at Tarlac in the Philippines
The Tarlac Radio Transmitter station on Camp O'Donnell contained three separate transmitter facilities, each with its own separate antenna systems. A total of nearly one hundred American personnel operated the station and its equipment, together with more than two hundred local Filipino personnel as well.
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Another Radio Wedding
We go back to the year 1908, and that was when the American navy vessel Alabama was taken into service in the Atlantic Ocean as a cruiser. During the following year (1909), a series of wireless tests was conducted, between the Alabama at sea and the well known American naval wireless station NAA at Arlington in Virginia.
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Powell Crosley and His Life Story
Powell Crosley was born in Cincinnati Ohio on September 18, 1886, as the first of four children. His father, known as Powell Crosley 2nd, was a prominent lawyer, and his mother Charlotte (Utz) who was an accomplished pianist as well as a capable mother.
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Voice of America Relay Station at Tinang in the Philippines
The fourth VOA relay station in the Philippines is the large and powerful station that is located at Tinang, some 50 miles north of the national capital, Manila, on the main island of Luzon.
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One Hundred Years of Radio in Manitoba, Canada: The Early Wireless Years
During the month of April (2022), the Canadian province of Manitoba is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the introduction of official radio broadcasting in their territory.
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BBC London Celebrates 100 years
Mediumwave station 2LO
On Thursday May 11, 1922, the second radio broadcasting station in England was inaugurated by the Marconi company in London under the official callsign 2LO. Wednesday May 11, 2022 forms the exact one hundredth anniversary of that historic radio event that set a pattern for radio broadcasting in many other countries around the world.
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Alexandre Grimberg PY1AHD, creator of the "AlexLoop" antenna
During my visit to the city of Rio de Janeiro – Brazil, I had the pleasant experience of sharing a dinner with the great Alexandre Grimberg PY1AHD, famous inventor of the "Alex Loop" antenna.
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Independent Radio Station WMCA
After first testing as station 2XH, WMCA began regular transmission on February 1, 1925, broadcasting on 428.6 meters wavelength (700 kHz) with a power of 500 watts. It was the 13th radio station to begin operations in New York City and was owned by broadcasting pioneer Donald Flamm. The station’s original studios and antenna were located at the Hotel McAlpin, located on Herald Square and from which the WMCA call sign derives.
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VOA Shortwave Relay Station at Poro in the Philippines
The Poro radio stations were constructed on 200 acres at the Wallace Air Force Base, at Poro Point on Poro Island. The original complement of shortwave transmitters was made up of six transmitters...
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Coffee and Radio – with Valter Aguiar
The first in a new series where Martin Butera chats with Brazilian radio enthusiasts.
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The Story of the Two Shortwave Stations Known as Radio Sada-e-Kashmir
In mid-January 2003, a new shortwave station called Radio Sada-e-Kashmir (Voice of Kashmir) hit the airwaves in Southern Asia. It was first noted broadcasting in the Kashmiri language at 0230 – 0310 UTC, followed by programming in the Dogri language at 0310 – 0330 UTC on 9890 kHz.
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Radio Station Studios Through the Years
A photograhic journey through the evolution of the radio station studio.
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The Voice of America on Mediumwave at Poro in the Philippines
The third relay station for VOA, the Voice of America in the Philippines, was located at Poro Point, 150 miles north of the national capital, Manila. Interestingly though, that one VOA relay station at Poro was in reality four different radio broadcasting stations all clustered together.
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The Early Marconi Years at Chelmsford
Back in the early days of wireless and radio, station callsigns were applied in several different ways; there was no clear, no regular pattern. Official internationally recognized callsigns were in use to identify a specific transmitter, or a specific transmitter frequency, or a particular programming service, or a particular transmitter usage, such as amateur, experimental, communication or broadcasting.
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Radio Stations for the Navajo Nation in the United States
The use of radio had an appeal to the Navajo in the pre-war years, and there were occasions when a tribal scene was enacted depicting the use of a receiver. For example in October 1924, a photo was published in Radio News showing a Navajo mother with her baby at the rim of the Grand Canyon, listening to a broadcast on a radio receiver.
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The Radio Scene on the World’s Largest Private Property
The world's largest property in private ownership was Victoria River Downs with its almost 16,000 square miles of cattle country, some 500 miles south of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. In the year 1879, the South Australian government awarded the concession to two men, Englishman Charles Fisher and Australian born Maurice Lyons, who developed the land together as a cattle ranch.
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Visiting the Punta Brava antennas of the Uruguayan Navy
The Punta Brava Transmitting and Receiving Station is currently operated by Communications Personnel of the Fifth Division of the Navy’s General Staff, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, operating communications systems that allow them to fulfill the tasks assigned to them. the station.
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Islands of Curiosity
With its white-sand beaches and tropical foliage, the Scilly Isles have some of the UK's most beautiful scenery (writes Monica Lillis). Originally launched as Radio Scilly in 2007, Islands FM is a non-profit community radio station informing and entertaining the five-island archipelago's 2,500 inhabitants.
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New Zealand Broadcasting Press Clippings Scrapbook 1992-1993
The late Mark Nicholls kept a series of scrapbooks containing newspaper and magazine clippings relating to the broadcasting scene in New Zealand. These books provide an interesting look back at NZ broadcasting at the time.
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New Zealand Broadcasting Press Clippings Scrapbook 1991-1992
The late Mark Nicholls kept a series of scrapbooks containing newspaper and magazine clippings relating to the broadcasting scene in New Zealand. These books provide an interesting look back at NZ broadcasting at the time.
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ULR DX-pedition: May/June 2021
Three States of Brazil
Martin & his wife Ligia visit Natal, Tibau do Sul, Praia do Pipa, João Pessoa & Recife, in North East Brazil, in search of sun, sea and ultralight DX listening.
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Island Records - Falklands Radio
About 480km northeast of the southern tip of South America lie the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory and sprawling archipelago (writes Monica Lillis). Falklands Radio provides information and entertainment for up to 15 hours a day to its approximately 2,800 residents. Here the station's news editor, Traighana Smith, tells us about its beginnings and memories of the 1982 Falklands war.
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The Second VOA Relay Station in the Philippines
In our brief mini-series of topics here in Wavescan about the VOA Voice of America radio stations in the Philippines, we have presented the story about their first relay station, which began as a submarine operation under the callsign KZSO which subsequently morphed into a landbased station as KZFM in Manila city. We move on now to the story of their second relay station in the Philippines which was located in the regional city of Malolos on Luzon Island. Let’s go back to the beginning.
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AWA in Australia
Snowy Mountains Radio
The Snowy Mountains Scheme involved the hydro-electric generation of electric power and the down stream irrigation of water for use in farming areas. The Barren Jack Hydro-Electric Scheme was a significant part of the over all Snowy Mountains Scheme which was the largest engineering project in the history of Australia. The name Barren Jack was the nearest English pronunciation for the Aboriginal name of the area.
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The World’s First Radio Weddings – Part 1
In our program today, we provide an answer to the probing question: What was the first radio wedding; that is, a real time wedding with a new husband and a new wife, that was broadcast live over a radio broadcasting station? As an answer, we examine a claim that was listed in a historic resume for the mediumwave station WSB in Atlanta Georgia.
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The First VOA Relay Station in the Philippines
According to the official history of PBS, the Philippine Broadcasting System in the Philippine Islands, the first programming from OWI the Office of War Information in Los Angeles California, and VOA the Voice of America in New York City, was on the air from a low powered mediumwave transmitter aboard an American submarine in the Lingayen Gulf, off the west coast of Luzon Island. This unique radio broadcasting station operated with just 50 watts under the callsign KZSO, and it took to the air in its Philippine service in December 1944.
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AWA Radio Station Callsigns
The 1927 issue of the AWA Radio Guide contained a wealth of collected radio information that was not available anywhere else back then. AWA [Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd], was a mega-radio organization in Australia that was founded one hundred years ago and it welded together British, German, American and Australian radio companies, in the same way as RCA [Radio Corporation of America] welded together in the United States similar American and European radio companies.
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The World's First Radio Weddings – Part 2
Two more early Radio Weddings from the 1920s, broadcast over KDKA, Pittsburgh, USA, and 2MT in the UK.
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Radio Station 2MT Centenary
Radio historians in England inform us that the very first radio broadcasting station established anywhere in the British Isles was located at Writtle in England, and the auspicious date for their inaugural broadcast was Tuesday February 14, 1922.
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Three International Radio Weddings
The first international radio wedding in our program today took place in Perth Western Australia on Saturday October 2, 1926, and it was described at the time as the first radio wedding in the history of Western Australia. Back during that era, many radio weddings were broadcast live on radio in many parts of the world, and they were sometimes described as a publicity stunt to gain an increase in listenership.
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American Shortwave Stations
On the Air in 1925
During the year 1925, there were just 5 shortwave stations on the air in the United States with a regular broadcasting schedule. These pioneer stations were operated by 4 different radio companies.
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ULR DX-pedition: March 2021
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Join Martín Butera & his wife Ligia Katze for a week of holidaying & radio listening in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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Barbados in the Caribbean
The Royal Visit and the Radio Scene
According to recent news items out of the Caribbean, the world's newest independent republic celebrated its new status with flag ceremonies, a 21 gun salute, official speeches, and general merrymaking during the midnight hours of Monday November 29 and the early morning hours of Tuesday November 30 (2021).
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Radio Scene on the Outlier Islands of New Caledonia in the South Pacific
The main island is known locally as Grande Terre, and also included in the territory of New Caledonia are nearby island clusters that are identified as the Loyalty Islands, the Isle of Pines, the Belep/Daos Islands, and the Chesterfield Islands, together with a few remote and uninhabited islets. We look at the radio scene in each of these islandic clusters, and we take them in the order of their population figures.
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Ancient DX Report – 1927
The American radio magazine Radio News for October 1927 presented a list of radio broadcasting stations that were recently monitored on shortwave. We have adjusted that list into a more modern format, and we present this off air monitoring information in frequency order.
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Voice of America Relay Station in a Submarine
The Voice of America radio stations in the Philippine Islands, that subsequently became so well known throughout the international radio world, underwent a very small though very interesting beginning towards the end of the Pacific War in the middle of last century. In order to understand those early origins way back then, let’s go back to the year 1942. This is what happened.
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Bird Calls on Shortwave Radio
Bird Call identification signals from five different shortwave stations, and a little about the bird that is featured in the sign on routine, as well as about the station itself.
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Radio in Bulgaria Celebrates 100 Years
It was on September 25, 1921, that the very first radio broadcasting event took place in Bulgaria, and they celebrated the 100th anniversary of this historic event on September 25, 2021, just three months back. Their very first radio broadcast was the live relay of a program from Germany via a Morse Code transmitter that was specially modified for the event.
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Living Traditions
KKCR Kauai
Kauai, Hawaii's fourth-largest island, is known for its exceptional natural beauty, even by local standards. It is the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands, home to about 70,000 people and KKCR Kauai Community Radio.
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A Radio Fair in Buenos Aires
Martin Butera takes us on a visit to a radio fair (hamfest) in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, South America.
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New Home for 2XN
When the studios of Station 2XN, in Nelson, New Zealand, were destroyed in a fire which ravaged two Trafalgar Street buildings in late 1965, the Broadcasting Corporation had to find a new home for its local station pending the building of its own block.
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Sea Change
Coast FM West Cornwall
The sandy beaches and turquoise waters of Mount's Bay in Cornwall are one of the UK's most cherished natural spots (writes Annabel Martin). The historic port of Penzance is the county's westernmost town. Here, we speak with Dave Pascoe, station manager of Coast FM, about the community radio station, the Beach Boys and a shoplifting seagull.
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ULR DX-pedition
November 2020 – Northeast Brazil
Join Martín Butera & his wife Ligia Katze for a week of holidaying & radio listening in Recife, Brazil.
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AFRTS AFN Kodiak Alaska
Rare Audio from 1967
Part of an episode of The Steve Phillips Show from 1967, recorded in the studios of "The Mighty 8-90", AFRTS Adak, dedicated to the staff/listeners of AFRTS Shemya.
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Palau restores AM radio service
After erecting a new tower Palau's state broadcaster has restored its AM radio service. The previous AM tower was destroyed during Typhoon Bopha, in 2012.
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YVTO: Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory, Caracas, Venezuela
Historical compilation of what was one of the most important time signals in South America YVTO, transmitted from the "Juan Manuel Cagigal" Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory, in the city of Caracas, Venezuela.
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Radio Nova Opens 'The Vinyl Vault'
Like any computer, a playout system can need rebooting at an awkward time. When that happened for Dublin's Radio Nova, however, it launched an on-air vinyl resurgence.
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Remembering Radio Doctors, Milwaukee's Legendary Record Store
The other night during a Milwaukee visit enjoying the road show version of the Temptations' Broadway hit Ain't Too Proud with my wife, Susan Orr—former WYMS-FM dee-jay—I was reminded of the years I bought their records at Radio Doctors' three locations...
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GatesAir's 100 Years of History in Pictures
Photos span nearly all decades of the company's existence, many of which have never been published.
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The NZ Vintage Radio Project
If you have an interest in vintage radio receivers, especially those that were available in New Zealand, then The NZ Vintage Radio Project website, run by Steve Dunworth, is worth a visit.
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Aotea FM
Sounds of Sanctuary
Aotea Community Radio Trust runs the only radio station on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand (writes Annabel Martin). More than 60 per cent of the island, which lies about 90km off the Auckland coast, is protected by the country's Department of Conservation and its natural beauty has not gone unnoticed.
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Offshore Radio Against The Beatles Phenomenon
In the early 1960s, an event would occur that would change the sound of British radio forever – the growth of 'pirate' radio stations from overseas.
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