Radio, the way it used to be.

These are air checks of shortwave radio stations from what is now called the golden era  the 60s. I have also added some AM classics and a couple of FM favorites as well.

The most popular clips on the site:  WNYW, WZZD and  The Radio Sweden Saturday Show. (updated April 19, 2003).

I have edited some clips from a 30 minute documentary Media Network that aired in 1985, this first clip is Steve Silverstein, later Steve Grayson hosting Dx'ing Worldwide. It also features a clip I did at WROR radio.You'll like the old RN and Radio Sweden cuts that follow. The next clip is Les Marshak doing the Worldwide Hit Parade, this show I produced, which in those days meant, getting the content, the records and Les's coffee.  Dick London did weekend news, here's a clip from the summer of 1969, Jonathan Marks follows with information then Caribbean Weather Watch. You also get to hear Tito and Joe Roberts doing the Bi-lingual service IDs. This is what Dx'ing worldwide sounded like in July 69, the music under Larry Yount is called Peace III, it was on Elektra records. 

Click here to listen to WNYW Radio New York Worldwide. The month December, the year 1968. Les Marshak voiceover god is the jock. The longer clips features Caribbean Weather watch and sign/on and sign/off announcements. You will also hear in the long clip the first promo I ever cut. WNYW also featured a DXing program for short wave listeners, Dxing Worldwide, hosted by Larry Yount. The trail of this cut features the BBC's Letterbox, Can you name the host?   Here's some new WNYW  from October of 1968. Dx'ing Worldwide with Steve Grayson, the first of 3 hosts) featuring an ad for the Drake SW-4a. Also a promo featuring Bert Kleinman WNYW PD at that time and his show International mailbag. Bert was one of the first PD's of WPLJ an AOR  FM in New York. Bert also made US international broadcasting history by being part of the 1st call in program, the world wide phone in , April of 1968. Voa may think Talk to America is the first US international call in show but historically its not the case.  Bert put Radio Maximum on the air in Moscow and  Radio 7 killed it dead. Bert's currently the consultant on Radio Sawa.  Here's another cut from WNYW. It's the end of  the radio documentary British Pirate Radio, QRM from VOA (old IS), this aired in September 1968. A sign off follows.  The cut ends with the WNYW Interval Signal  sign on. This sign on uses a Robert Hall music track and runs 10 minutes then it's spliced several times it's on a master reel that runs 30 minutes and was both in New York and also could be run from Scituate. Here's a link to a recording of WNYW during the Christmas Season, it's slight off speed but it does feature a Ken Lamb newscast and CBS coverage of Apollo Eight. The last portion which cuts off  features the WNYW Christmas thank you to listeners. Here's a Worldwide Hit Parade with Les Marshak recorded in April of 1968. This is a classic Music from New York it features Ken Lamb and Mitch Lebe and was re-aired on Radio Netherlands Media Network.

I handled qsls as part of my job at WNYW, here's one I wrote for a listener in Germany. My boss Irwin Belofsky was a school teacher by day and editor of the listeners club bulletin by night. Irwin was also the promotion director of WRFM noted for the dial  card campaign. WNYW had for a very brief period of time pennants. Have one of these in your collection?  Perhaps you bought into the hype and had a Drake SW 4-A.   Wnyw had one of these in the programming office, of course I had to show the PD how to tune in the station, as he had never used a shortwave radio. Where did the air talent come from, WPIX now WQCD 101.9 in New York was the WNYW farm club, see how many of the WNYW staff that you remember worked also for WPIX.

Please note these  recordings were made with tube type equipment and hence are warmer than what you may be hearing today from these same broadcasting stations.

Remember when a Swiss watch gave you the exact time. This is Berne, in the Spring of 1969. Heidi is the female voice. Hedi left SRI to work for the Red Cross. She was with the Two Bobs  and was a part of Swiss Shortwave Merry go Round, at one point answering dx'ers mail. The clip ends with ORF, Vienna's interval signal. Switzerland will be off shortwave in 2004, they no longer beam to North America.

Remember the Windward Islands Broadcasting Services, with time pips and BBC World Service news. Heres more of WIBS.  This is a 1969 clip before the Castro folks got involved. And then two opposite ends of the spectrum, Voice of the West, Radio Portugal and Radio Cairo when Egypt was the United Arab Republic united with Syria. Both of these clips from early 1969.

If you would like to learn more about the early days of shortwave broadcasting, check this website and buy the book.

Radio Sweden had the best rock show, called the "the Pops": and here are three clips of  "the Saturday Show" with Roger Wallis. The jingles are CRC "the sound is" and some homemade things. Voice over are by Bob Zanotti who was at Radio Sweden for about a year, then he moved to Switzerland to become part of the "two Bobs".  Can you name other international broadcasters who have worked at other stations in their careers ? Roger has written several books on music and the Known World of Broadcast News. He currently teaches in Sweden and is the head of SKAP, the Swedish authors and composers society. While the BBC person in Sweden he broke the Chernobyl story to the world. If you listen to Swedish internet stations like Radio Guld and Vinyl 107 you will get a feel for the music, when it was in the day. Roger talked with just about every big star in the country, Tommy Blom who does the midday show at Vinyl 107 was a member of the Tages, who are heard on the clips.

This was a ground breaking show for shortwave radio.  Here a few more clips from the summer of 1969. This cut features the "joke of the week", plus some of the production elements, that sound much like US top forty stations of the era.  Here's a Heller-Ferguson jingle and the Tages, a signature Swedish group of  the era. Production elements were a key part of this show, here's something that you would never hear on a US radio station a Kissing Signal. This was a Chuck Blore invention heard on the Cromwell-Collier radio stations like KFWB in LA . The show always closed with the same song, it's called "You got me High" the group is Science Poption. (google it, you find out who was in the group which may explain why you heard it on this show). This is a great piece of pure pop music it runs 2:20, our clip is over a minute. This show also had an influence on another shortwave broadcaster who was a listener growing up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, highlights of his work appear from his stations in Moscow, Russia further down this page.

I have this CD set, which I found on Amazon.com. It's the only thing I have found on CD that really captures this era in Swedish Pop music.  Here's another page on Swedish Pop from the 60's.

How did American radio sound in 1978, moving forward in time ten years to Philadelphia, the station Wizard 100, WZZD, who's 50 KW RCA transmitter was sold to WMLK and put that station on shortwave in the late 80s. The jingles are from the "masters" and were created by Hugh Heller. You just don't hear long jingles like these on the radio anymore. The format at this Fairbanks Broadcasting Company station was AC.  The AM channel was 990. This station has been religion since 1979.  Why do you have jingles from the "master". That's easy I was the production director and I do have a complete clean set of all the WIBG and WZZD Heller jingles. 

NEW JINGLES, these two are from what became of Heller, Fairwest, the Package is called LA 1, and it aired on WXLO, WLKZ, and KLSI.

It being the holidays some of you may remember the Neff Samplers, Micheal Neff was a PD and also a Production Director who used to send out wall to wall jingles at Christmas time. He also created the Jingle Elves, and in keeping with that tradition lets see what the Elves have brought us. From Anamoose North Dakota, the land of Heller, we have the Zentz labs remix of the Schykull boogie. Another rarity is this WIBG jingle, its from the original package, you can figure out why these were remixed by Zentz. This is that special in the clear cut, it's from the Wizzard 100 package and was NEVER used on the air. It's a mix that doesn't feature the famed "light of freedom" singers.

Some of the more interesting jingles that were ever created didn't get a long run on American radio in the early 70's. These are the AA jingles, created by Johnny Mann for Bill Drakes stations (the RKO chain). When Motown moved to the west coast, the musician's starting doing sessions, the AA's seem to be a result of that.

Heller also did work for WBZ,  these jingles aired in the late 60s. These are the classic "sprint of New England" cuts. 

Here's a clip from Radio Netherlands Media Network, the radio show, it's from 1985 and features the late Pete Myers, Jonathan Marks, Roger Broadbent and a guy I worked with in Boston who is part of a two man morning show in Providence, Rhode Island.  Al, does all the voices of the Star Trek crew enjoy.

What's he up to today you will have to ask him, Mr. Weekend, with this 1991 aircheck from Radio Moscow. He also set up the first local fm station in Moscow, it's December 1994, enjoy this cult classic from the neighborhood. Winner of the New York radio festival awards for international broadcasting, it's the legendary Vasily Strelnikov.  I have tons more in the vaults. So many I  have not cataloged them yet. Here's the final weeked from Xmas eve 1991.

One of the giants of the radio biz was a client of Dewy Cheatem Takem and Howe. He's the Magic Christian. I worked with Magic at WZZD in Philadelphia, Magic had just arrived after owning afternoons in Boston at WVBF in Boston.

This is my radio station, the year 1977, the place Florida's Space Coast, the name of the place WRMF.I was morning man and Program Director.  In 1972 I was at Emerson College in Boston, producing and board op'ing at WERS. I got a copy of this from a tape a listener burned to CD. You don't find radio stations today that attract that kind of loyal listener 30 years later.

Here's a page of photos that go with some of these clips.

These clips are encoded at 64kbps using a Windows Media Encoder and also Helix the Real Networks Encoder. All clips are in stereo. Please allow the clip to download , if you are on dialup it will rebuffer. Enjoy, comments are welcome. You can send them to loujosephsnospam@yahoo.com  Please remove the no spam.

And yes you can hate the "retro web colors scheme", how about I bring back the blink tag?