Media Network Vintage Vault 2018-2019

This edition of Media Network includes a feature about a guy in the North-West of the UK who had contact with hundreds of Dutch Mediumwave pirates. Hans Bakhuizen discusses satellite delivered DAB. 15 years later still nothing has happened. This is partly because the cost of the satellite delivered radios proved prohibited. Manufacturers were also not interested in building the chipset. Veronica also plans to rebroadcast the Dutch programme from Deutsche Welle in Cologne. That happened - but not for long.

Amazing how history repeats itself in international broadcasting. At the start of December 1995 we reported that BBC World Service has to cut back by 5.5 million pounds in 1996. Interview with Caroline Thompson, then with the BBC WS management. 10 languages were threatened at that time. BBC has also been testing a mediumwave transmitter in Slovakia. We also reported from a field to the East of Quito in the antenna farm of HCJB. Jonathan Marks attended a conference of local broadcasters in Ecuador and took a side trip to meet those behind a station he'd heard in Europe from the early 1970's. They were also testing a 26 MHz antenna. There are two weather problems - either winds or lack of rain. HCJB also build 100 kW shortwave transmitters as well as small FM transmitters. The site has now been dismantled as on their blog in 2009.

This is what was news in April 2000 - We had quite a few e-mails reacting to our comments on this show that we believe Digital Audio Broadcasting DAB to be so seriously in trouble that it will probably have to be re-launched in a different form. With less than 10,000 receivers in use across the entire continent and no portable set yet on the horizon, this 10 year old technology needs a rapid re-think. David Aldridge in Northampton agrees with our correspondent Bob Tomalski that DAB lacks a focused publicity campaign and no-one will get excited about an 800 dollar radio.    We reviewed the ICOM ICR-75 receiver. The ICOM ICR-75 first appeared in North America towards the end of 1999. This is a tabletop receiver for the serious listener. At a price of 610 pounds sterling in the UK, 780 dollars in Canada, or 1775 dollars in Australia, that’s before the options have been selected, you’re not going to be interested in such a set unless you take the hobby of digging weak stations out of the noise quite seriously.  

This programme comes from a park bench in the Vondelpark, Amsterdam - I was testing out a new Minidisc recorder and it was a boiling hot summers day. Diana and I discussed the success of CNN Interactive with the then boss of the Interactive department in Atlanta, there was news of a Radio Veronica revival broadcast, and a parody on QSLing phone conversations. 12 years on, the memories have apparently not faded. is still attracting crowds each November- this year's reunion is set for Saturday November 12th 2011. In the UK, a discussion had also started about how much of the UK licence fee should be devoted to serving the interests of non-payers living abroad. The BBC made an attempt to offer Internet access in 1994 with its Networking club set up by the Educational branch of this vast organisation. They quickly discovered that answering queries about modems and problems with operating systems wasn’t really their core business. So it was taken over by a commercial company in November 1995. So it is interesting

We talk to Herman van Wijk of Digitag who explains what's right and wrong with the future of Digital television. We also talk about the long running Delta Radio project which planned to move offshore. They wanted 2 antennas of 400 metres to broadcast on Long Wave 171 kHz from the North Sea. The cost was estimate at 12 million dollars. BBC was planning to cut its domestic radio channels by 10%...hey what's new? 

This edition of the programme looked at the work in the garden of Radio Netherlands, the Radio Netherlands Training Centre founded as a joint venture at the end of the sixties by Philips and Radio Netherlands. The electronics company in the south of the Netherlands at that time made a lot of broadcast equipment - and outfitted many of the Radio Netherlands studios. But they quickly got out of that side of things, although I still find some Philips studio mixers in various states of repair during my travels in Africa.

We talk of propagation and desert islands. There's also a profile of broadcasting in Tonga. Mike Bird appears twice and chooses the kind of music he'd like to take with him on a DXpedition.Martin Allard, is a Project Consultant to UNESCO. Writing in the newsletter of AMARC, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters. He outlines some of the problems facing stations in the Pacific.   We stay in the Pacific for today’s main feature, following up on several letters. Peter Williamson from London, Ontario Canada, Kurt Gruber from Hamburg and Stefan Hoekstra in San Francisco California are just some of the people who want us to discuss more aspects of the ionosphere and how its affects reception of signals between 3 and 30 MHz.

This programme looks at Kerbango, the Internet radio that (with hindight) never was.At the last count there were three devices promised on the world market to allow you to listen to internet audio on a separate stand alone device. A few days ago (in Feb 2000), a California based company, calling itself Kerbango, showed the prototype of a special radio to be launched in a few months and which is styled a bit like a valve radio of the 1950’s. We asked Marc Auerbach, who’s Vice President of Marketing, why their approach is different. Clement Stokes of Springfield,Durban in South Africa is a regular listener to this programme via the relay on SAFM on their domestic service. Two weeks ago he heard us mention that today we’d be testing one of the new Worldspace receivers. He is particularly curious because he sees the radio advertised in a hi-fi shop not far from his house, although he points out only one South African broadcaster is so far participating in the scheme. The question is simple, does the performance j

We started this week's edition by looking at how Western countries are trying to get signals into Serbia now that the authorities have silenced independent radio stations in their country. On Thursday and Friday of the previous week press briefings at NATO headquarters created quite a bit of confusion in the media. It was first suggested that NATO was planning to destroy Serbian radio and television. In fact, NATO air-raids early on in the campaign had already severely damaged or destroyed domestic TV and radio transmitting masts. But the position was clarified in a briefing on Friday April 9th when NATO spokesman Jamie Shay said that whatever NATO feelings about Serb television, TV transmitters are not a main target. However, Serbian military communications facilities are often co-located with TV transmitters, as in many East European countries, so bombing may well have had a secondary effect. On Thursday the 8th April 1999 NATO started its own radio and TV transmissions to Serbia and Kosovo from a fleet of

Flashback to a news show in January 1999 when the capture of Chris Carey in New Zealand were the radio headlines and Lou Josephs explained how Command Audio was planning to bring Internet radio to the home. We explain the difference between UTC and GMT and the leap second. It seems that some of the Millennium countdown clocks are running too slow. We also talked to Swatch who had a strange idea to make the time metric with the Swatch Beat! We review the World Radio TV Handbook for 1999. Deutsche Welle's monitoring station has collected and published a CD of interval signals, including a number from Southern Africa. Brian Clarke talks about the rescue of the BBC World Service on mediumwave in Auckland. The station had an ingenious system of delaying the feed from London and speeding it up slightly, so as to squeeze in some commercials each hour. And the station with a strange name from Azerbaijan. Harald Kuhl reports about a new Peace Station in Ecuador. Jonathan also reported on a short revival of Kootwijk Ra

Yes those early home DAB receivers were kinda expensive. Interesting to hear the thinking behind digital radio as captured 11 years ago. There's a great, spooky recollection in the Memory of the Millennium about listening on an old Hallicrafters' receiver. Q-Radio struggles on 1224 kHz and we asked whether the Euro will encourage more co-ooperation between European international broadcasters. The photo is more recent. I think Radio 538 comes up with some of the most original campaigns (this one on disused gas towers in Amsterdam) and is doing a lot with developing digital radio's hybrid future.

Twenty years ago the Media News was centred around changes at Radio Moscow. With no way of doing a direct interview, we called Richard Measham at BBC Monitoring. And there were interesting comments from Vasily Strelnikov on his show. BBC had also found a new clandestine station, the Voice of Free Iraq. Radio Tirana, Albania suddenly announced what they were planning next - a sign that there were humans there after all. Richard Ginbey also had media news from Southern Africa, including items about Namibia going onto shortwave. Rudy van Dalen had a question about the Lincolnshire Poacher, a numbers stations believed to be operated by the British from Cyprus. 

This programme includes a report from the late Bob Tomalksi about digital television and how bandwidth is being squeezed to cram more channels into a satellite transponder. Bob explained that DAB radios were finally starting to take off. But the BBC had lost its way in marketing the medium.  Wireless Internet starts to pop up in Japan. But we were evidently confused about how it worked. Andy Sennitt recalls Radio Pamela and Your Radio of the Sea, both in Eastern England. As from Monday October 19th, Radio Voyager is to be launch to replace the now defunct VOA Europe. It's a commercial venture run by 4 full-time staff in Washington DC.    

This programme is typical of a listener supported edition. We talk to Linden Clark of Radio New Zealand International about budget reductions.  Derrick Lynch reported hearing Sri Lanka Clandestine produced in Canada Alan Weiner of Radio New York International fame gets a licence to build a SW transmitter in Maine to beam to Canada. RNW pages have been framed. Brian Clark reports on the Chatham Islands. Andy Sennitt says that FEBA is planning simplified English Bible lessons using no more than 1500 words. We also looked at the CIA public relations campaigns to publicise Radio Free Europe at the start of the sixties. RFE was "the in sound from outside".  By the way, the photo in this  is actually of the new HQ of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty a little further out from the centre of Prague than it was when this edition of Media Network was made. 

This edition includes a mean Christmas contest promo, Media News from Victor Goonetilleke and we talk to special guest Karl Rossiter, on the future of digital television and radio. At that time, the economic downtown in Asia had actually stimulated the broadcasting business to tighten its belt and look for alternative technologies. Karl predicted that costs could be cut to 1/5th if IP protocols were adopted. TV New Zealand was running a couple of networks on servers as early at 1998. Note Karl's use of the word Hybrid, because that word seems to be very much in vogue again now, 12 and a bit years later. Actually, I would argue that digital radio has been rather slow to see the advantages of a hybrid approach - using broadcast for mass distribution and IP technology to narrowcast things like profile driven commercials or specialist programming. Karl was spot on - and I see he is still in the business (at least according to Linked-In). Towards the end of the programme Mike Bird gets an intro from Jim Cutler lik

We came across a fascinating a promo for  "Books from America" broadcast in the US in the 1960's. They were trying to collect books in English to counteract the cut-price propaganda distributed by the "Chinese and Russian communists". We talk to Jerry Berg who had just started a new website called , which I am pleased to note is still there and regularly updated. We also talk to the founder of SonicBox - an early form of wifi radio - before wifi had been invented. Professor John Campbell also explains about a low-Power radio station hoax in 1977 which was supposed to have been located on Ocean Island. Radio Guano was in fact closer than they thought. 

If the names Laslo Pinta and Charlie Coutts mean anything to you then this edition of Media Network recorded in Budapest, Hungary in 1991 will bring back memories. Budapest no longer has an external radio service like the one described in this programme. I am so glad that once Eastern European became more accessible at the start of the 1990's, I jumped in the car and drove to the places that had only been accessible until then via a shortwave radio. My only regret is not visiting Albania.  The voices in this programme tell some fascinating stories. Dennis Herner was the editor of the Radio Budapest SW Club and probably provided listeners in Eastern Europe with the only paper bulletin they were allowed to receive. Dennis also confirmed that one of the resistance radios in the black propaganda schemes run out of Woburn Abbey actually got through to the target area. It being wartime, there doesn't seem to be much evidence of listeners' letters ! the existence of wartime clandestine radio stations. The other voic

This show starts with the news that money troubles are affecting the BBC World TV, Wolf Harranth reports that James Blades who played the drums on the BBC's Victory V campaign passed away. And Bavaria's BR decides to upgrade its 49 metreband channel. (I guess it was one of the last European broadcasters to do so). This programme was broadcast at a time when independent radio in India still wasn't fully commercialised. Only 13 Indians per thousand had access to the telephone, let alone the Internet.  In those days the Star TV network was losing money. We also reviewed a book by Bob Padula - The Shortwave Guide to South Asia.  We also got a great contribution to the Memories of the Millennium contest in this edition. including some rare VOA English bloopers and recordings from the BBC World Service when Big Ben was playing up. Jammin' Oldies was the hot format of the day. There's also a flashback to Radio Free Grenada. 

I picked this recording out of the archives because it has a nice capsule summary of the major media stories from 1982. The highlight was, of course, the Falklands-Malvinas "conflict". This programme contains clips from the FIBS, RAE Argentina and the BBC's Calling the Falklands Programme. We also looked in some detail at the shortlived Radio South Atlantic which broadcast in May and June 1982 from a requisitioned BBC transmitter on Ascension Island. We asked the British Ministry of Defence to explain how the station was operated. We also analysed a transmission broadcast on May 20th 1982 (the second night of transmission).  But it was also the last programme in which Wim van Amstel appeared as RNW Frequency Manager. It was certainly not the last time he was heard on the programme, though. Again it is striking to hear some of the predictions - and how they were spot on. The call with Arthur Cushen in New Zealand is rather like making contact with the moon. Cannot believe how fast time has flown. At the time o

Love this programme about the UK Radio Interference service, especially with hindsight. In the 1980's, perhaps stimulated by the offshore stations, the FM band in London was full of pirates. Those were the days when the police also operated in the top end of the FM dial - but in AM mode so it was more difficult to follow what was being said. Also, on the 49 metre short-wave band, just above 6200 kHz, hobby pirates operated with just a few watts on holidays and Sunday mornings. In this programme, we also talked to Michiel Schaay about his hobby of RTTY listening. Richard Ginbey gave an interesting overview of the history of broadcasting in Angola and we talked to Maurice Tainton of the BBC Club in London who explained how staff would celebrate the 50th anniversary of BBC External broadcasting, despite the demise of the BBC's World Radio Club programme.