Media Network Vintage Vault 2018-2019

Just found a clean clear copy of this documentary that Andy Sennitt and I made one Saturday afternoon in August 1987 at the Radio Netherlands studio centre at Witte Kruislaan 55 in Hilversum. It had been a busy week, so no time to prepare clips for what would be a nostalgic look back at the offshore era. So we took all kinds of records and tapes into the office and spent most of the day just messing about and putting the extracts into some form of logical order. Andy recalls a cleaner asking us towards the end of the afternoon what we were doing in the building at the weekends. I retorted that this wasn't working it was the best fun in a long time. Thanks to (still going strong as one of the main organisers of the each year) as well as the late Buster Pearson. I am glad these clips survived quite well. Hans has published countless books and newsletters since this programme was made. If the nostalgia of that era still brings back memories of adventure, then I recommend checking out his.

This was the first show of the New Year 1986, when the talk of the day was John Campbell's report on political clandestines radio stations in Europe, and Marcel Rommerts calls to observe a "numbers station"in the middle of the 49 metre shortwave band. This was probably a switching error by a transmitter site which put out both broadcasts and spy number stations. Later in the programme, Taher Aftab, a listener from Pakistan, explains the shortwave scene in that country, where HF was still used for domestic broadcasts. Andy Sennitt reports on a crackly line from Copenhagen about the plans that Radio Earth (Jeff White) has to build a transmitter in the Netherlands Antilles and Roland Paget does a pitch for the EDXC Conference to be held in Paris. 

This regular show from January 1993 focused on financial problems facing Radio Sweden, changes to BBC Management structure, and Richard Measham from BBC Monitoring updates us on the clandestine station, the Voice of Free Iraq. On a lighthearted note we looked at the problems of printing QSL cards for Radio Netherlands Russian relay.

This is another newsy edition of Media Network, this one dating from December 1992 when Eric Beauchemin was just back from a visit to Zagreb in Croatia. The radio in that part of the Balkans played a crucial role in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. And CNN was taking night-sensitive cameras to Somalia to watch the landings of US troops for an operation in the Horn Of Africa. How little has changed. Radio Czechoslovakia International was to be dissolved with the split of the country into Czech Republic and Slovakia and Radio Norway International ponders the future of its foreign service. Enjoy.

The review of the Sony ICF1000T is still  though not at Radio Netherlands. In this edition of the programme you can hear us review it on air. I suppose now it seems silly to review equipment over the radio to the level of detail we did back in 1996. But there was no Internet to speak of and most of the audience didn't have access to independent consumer reviews. We spent a lot of time and effort compiling receiver guides and reviewing publications, but it I think it was worth it. The programme also includes updates on what the BBC was doing to restore services after a hurricane hit Antigua, home of one of the shortwave relay stations (since closed down). And there's a celebration of Arthur Cushen's 30 years of service to the media shows on Radio Netherlands.

A news show with contributions from Andy Sennitt, Victor Goonetilleke, and Arthur Cushen reports hearing Radio Alma Ata from Kazakstan. We interview an old friend of the programme who we last spoke to when he was in the Solomon Islands. Martin Hadlow is now in Central Asia for UNESCO. It is interesting that the radio and TV stations in the area have changed little in the last 15 years since this programme was made, although they seem to be on the verge of making heavy investments in digital television. The TV stations were using consumer video formats of Sony's Hi-8 and Panasonic's SuperVHS. Radio was suffering back then. There's a second chance to enter the Media Network Car Route to visit 12 international stations. There were also major refurbishment to Radio Netherlands entrance hall! I remember that well - an early attempt to explain the mission to the general public. I think it worked rather well - but then I was involved in pushing for the change to building. The inside of RN was deliberately austere, b

In a regular edition of the programme, we hear about the start of the CBC Overnight service in Canada which relayed various international broadcasters while CBC programmes were off the air.  The KNVB decides to launch Sport 7. It would cost an extra 12 Euro a year on a cable subscription. Lou Josephs looks at the Telecommunications Reform Bill which removed restrictions on ownership. One company spent a billion dollars acquiring 52 radio stations. DW ceases from facilities in Malta. Radio Mediterranean also leaves the airwaves, a joint Maltese-Libyan operation. We had 500 pages on the WWW ! All those http's. Arthur Cushen reports Radio North Solomans has been reactivated.

By the time 1996 started, Diana Janssen (see photo) was firmly established as the co-host of Media Network. Had enormous fun putting the show together each Wednesday evening. This was one of the few editions where Jonathan didn't present. But the programme was in capable hands. Smart Lady. This edition covers modifications to the Baygen clockwork radio in a interview with Trevor Baylis. There is also the first airing of Media Race 1996. Radio Vilnius hires a radio transmitter in Juelich, Germany. HCJB and Radio Norway announce expansion and VOA tests its new site in Sao Tome. America 1 signed a joint venture agreement to distribute public radio across Europe - remember this is well before Internet audio is good quality was available to the public.

A pre-Christmas show in which the news of the week was the appearance of religious station TWR from Albania (the old 1 MW transmitter of Radio Tirana) on 1395 kHz. This caused problems to Veronica News Radio on the same frequency. Interesting to hear the old budgets stations had in those days for news production. Radio 1 had 50 million dollars for the network. Veronica was trying to run a news service with no less than 60 journalists. I believe that Business News Radio in the Netherlands currently runs the distant successor to Veronica News Radio with a staff of 36. Adam Curry, now co-host of . Talk Radio announced plans for the old BBC Radio One mediumwave network. Transmissions will start in early 1995.  There's news about "strawberry radio" in Bosnia, the nickname for Radio Nederland. Rick Lansig has a go at Mike Bird on his propagation.  The call of the Fish Eagle used to be the only voice out of Zambia. Now Christian Voice has added a 100 kW transmitter on 6065 kHz. Andrew Huddleston a British born singe

This was a documentary I made in 1993 looking back at the floods in the Netherlands in the winter of 1953 and what had happened since. It contains many broadcast extracts from broadcasters that used the station's facilities to broadcast to the US. UK listeners may recognise the voice of Brian Matthew, who worked for Radio Netherlands in the 1950's and then went on to a career at BBC Radio 2. The documentary won a prize at an Asian Broadcasting Union meeting a year later. Bearing in mind the floods that affected New York and New Jersey in late October 2012, I am beginning to wonder whether we have learned all the lessons from these tradgedies. Yes, we have understood how to build barriers. But we don't know how to communicate disaster preparedness. Wrote this with more information.

A Media Network news edition edition from early October 1995 in which we were concerned with the extension of the mediumwave band in the US. Chris Greenway from BBC M looks at news out of Yugoslavia, including a swap with China Radio International. We also lift the lid on DVB and find out how Victor Goonetilleke got into shortwave listening. The photo shown is the mediumwave mast on the Flevopolder used for 747 and 1008 kHz. In those days both the signals were from the public broadcasters in the Netherlands.

This edition is tinged with sadness because the DXer featured in the programme, Bernt Erfjord, in June 2004. The photo is from happier times at NRK Sørlandet, the regional station belonging to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. In this programme Bernt explains about the student station in Trondheim. He also reported many times to the Media Network programme on events in the Baltic states which he could hear from this vantage point in Norway. Great guy, still missed.

Throughout 2020, the Netherlands is celebrating from Nazi Occupation. Media Network on Radio Netherlands was famous for doing documentaries about broadcasting during the Second World War and using recordings from both public and private archives that you don't normally hear in UK/US documentaries. To celebrate 750 editions of Media Network on May 4th 1995, we told the story of the station that predated Radio Netherlands, Radio Herrijzend Nederland.  At the Philips Radio Factory in Eindhoven, a radio transmitter had been built in secret. When the Allies liberated the South of the Netherlands in September 1944, the transmitter was quickly prepared for action. The first programmes were broadcast on October 3rd 1944 by the broadcasters from Radio Oranje (Orange) who had travelled back from London to report from liberated Europe. Broadcasts were led by the journalist , who led . The station started from North Brabant with makeshift equipment while the North of the Netherlands was still under Nazi Occupation. Full

I got a chance to visit Tehran, Iran as part of a delegation to the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union meeting taking place there in October 1995. It remains one of the most amazing trips of my life. Nothing could prepare me for the visit as a CIP - a commercially important person. The programme includes off air recordings I made in the hotel of what IRIB sounded like in those days on FM. The language lessons were decidedly different. In those days listening to foreign stations was discouraged - there was a giant poster to that effect at the airport. But looking out on the rooftops outside my hotel there was nothing but a forest of dishes.

Remember Trevor Baylis and the wind-up radio? I organised a conference for Radio Netherlands at the International Broadcasting Convention IBC between September 11-14th 1995. We decided to celebrate the fact that we were 5 years away from a new Millennium by looking at the technologies that would carry us forward. That included a look at different codings for DAB, a reality check on radio by Sri Lankan broadcaster Victor Goonetilleke and a special performance about the Clockwork Radio from Trevor Baylis, the British inventor who turned up in Amsterdam and charmed the audience with his frank, funny and brilliant introduction to the concept of wind-up radios. A few weeks after the conference we produced a special CD for those who took part. This is a copy for those who missed it. It's double the length of a normal Media Network, just over an hour.

Andy Sennitt has some media news updates from the WRTH, the Lowe HF-250 has started to appear in the UK and here in The Netherlands this past week. Kevin Whitehead is the general manager of Lowe Production in Matlock Derbyshire England. Jonathan Marks had a preview of the radio before we do our own test on it to find out more about the philosophy behind the new set and, to the point, what it is made of. There’s a feature on the rather curious Turkish Police Radio and we review an excellent book about Zenith Shortwave Radios produced by the Radio Professors of P.O. Box 592, Stillwater, Oklahoma, 74076, USA. The ISBN number is: 0-88740-708-0. The authors were John H. Bryant and Harold N. Cones and the title of the book is “The Zenith Trans-Oceanic, the Royalty of Radios” It was published by Schiffer Publishing in 1995. Photo is one I took in Istanbul back in 2004. 

So here it is then, the sixth and final installment of the HitchHikers Guide to DXing, broadcast a full year after the last episode. The references to a monitoring service not unlike one in Caversham in the early 1980's are purely coincidental. Just a note to say that the popularity of this 30 year old radio parody has been more than I could have expected. I had more than 5500 recorded downloads in the course of July. Thanks for the feedback on the material so far. I an very curious to know which epiosde you enjoyed most. It was blast then, and it's a blast now.

Oliver and Drisopholis escape in a van carrying white books to Geneva. They weasle their way into the auction where frequencies are bought and sold to the highest bidder. At the time the "white book" of frequency registrations was only a guide to what had been registered by stations. There was no guarantee that stations actually used the channels they claimed. The ITU is still based in Geneva, opposiite the UN HQ in Geneva. 

In this episode, Oliver Pass and Drisopholis escape to the jamming shed in the grounds of Radio Polizania. They meet the head of jamming and discover how the noise is really generated. The episode also includes clips from Radio Daddy LongLegs, the pirate station with all the latest closedown news complete with home-made jingles. They also get a tour of the QSL verification department where "word-processors"are helping to reduce the workload (Radio Netherlands had no computers in those days),

The introduction to this episode was a story in itself. I discovered that Peter Jones, the actor who narrated the original HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy was appearing with Arthur Lowe in a TV drama being filmed at the NOS, a short walk from Radio Netherlands. I quickly typed out some copy from the HHGuidetoDXing and ran over to the studio at lunchtime with a UHER tape recorder. Explaining I was a great fan of the original I asked Peter if he'd be willing to record a few lines of text for my little wireless show. He agreed. What a nice man! In this episode our two heroes are still trapped inside Radio Politzania. This time they visit the advertising department and hear the recording of a DXTel advert with Graham Gill. Thanks to Surge Forward for the make-up.