ginbey

An early edition of the show. We were more reliant on off-air recordings because the phone was poor quality and very expensive.  Radio Monique, from the Ross Revenge ship in the North Sea has appeared on-air as expected. All the usual discussions about where the programmes are being made. The FM bands are full. A WARC has been held to tackle the overfull FM – there are 51,000 FM transmitters in the world in 1984. Nic Newman and I test out the new Panasonic RFB600L . We conclude it represents fair value, with some strange tuning quirks. Michael Murray updates on plans for the EDXC meeting in Madrid. The theme will be satellite communication. Richard Ginbey reports that a number of new transmitters are coming on the air in Botswana. Angola has launched an international service. We concluded this edition with Pubspot. Larry Miller has revamped his shortwave programme guide by turning it into a newspaper. We concluded with our own version of propagation – before Mike Bird appeared on the scene.

This edition of the programme is from the early series of Media Network. We were very much focused on the Falkands War at the time, and this programme was a catch-up show to report on other things. Richard Ginbey was a broadcaster who worked in South Africa, New Zealand, and Namibia. I think he was unique in recording and compiling what he heard on his shortwave radio. In this edition he traces the history of broadcasting in Lesotho. I think he used cassettes, so the editing must have been challenging. I think he cued up the clips and played them in to his live presentation. Some people may also remember him from the DX programme he ran on Radio Portugal - the Voice of the West. Wim van Amstel reports on his visit to the European DX Council in Cologne. This was an era when there was very little contact between shortwave broadcasters and their listeners. We also reviewed the Directory of World Band radio from Sony, concluding that it wasn't of much use. We spoke with Pat Gowen, G3IOR, (pictured) about the work of AMSAT and how the findings may have to modify our thoughts about radio propagation.  The programme concludes with Arthur Cushen who had been hearing some amazing transpacific signals on mediumwave.

We start this edition with news about clandestine radio stations being set up to broadcast to Afghanistan, currently occupied by Soviet troops. Dennis Powell reports on concerns in the US about vastly expanded Cuban mediumwave stations and possible interference. Andy Sennitt reports about the legendary format change for WABC in New York to all talk. We phoned RTV Hong Kong to find out why they were going on shortwave for a brief period. Richard Ginbey presents Part 2 of his illustrated feature on radio in Mozambique. Those recordings of Radio Free Mozambique must be unique these days. No-one else has kept this material. Sadly, Richard was killed in a car accident. Not sure what happened to his cassette collection of those radio recordings. Dan Robinson has been hearing Radio Portugal and Radio Singapore with very strong signals.

This programme was broadcast just before Christmas as rumours started emerging that the Soviet Union was about to stop jamming Western broadcasters like the Voice of America. Richard Ginbey reports on what he could hear from a listening post in Johannesburg, South Africa. The EDXC convention was to be held in Helsinki 1987. We tested the Kenwood R-5000 communications receiver, Andy Sennitt reports from WRTH editorial office and John Campbell discussed how to contact clandestine radio stations. Pete Myers also looked at an automatic car starter launched in Japan in time for Christmas.

This programme turned out to have a different ending than was originally planned. During the recording session on a Wednesday afternoon came the tragic news that long-time contributor to the programme, Richard Ginbey, had been killed in a car accident. Richard was a true broadcast professional working on several stations in Southern Africa. He also spent some time in New Zealand it seems, as several Dxers in the Pacific recall him as a DJ there in the 1970's. He also ran his own media show on Radio Portugal in the days when it was known as the Voice of the West and had a shortwave service in English. The programme, called Radio Safari, even issued its own QSL cards signed by Richard. This programme simply broke the news of his passing. There were tributes in several subsequent programmes. Other items in this programme include Radio Netherlands' single sideband tests to North America, changes at Radio Finland (interview with Juhani Niinstoe), a profile of VNG - the time signal station in Australia, Paul Ballster has news about GLR in London, and there are delivery problems with the International Listening Guide.

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.

In this edition, let's head back to the 1980's. The late Richard Ginbey was a keen shortwave radio listener who did more than most to document African broadcasting. He lived in South Africa, Namibia, and New Zealand for much of his life, working as a radio presenter for a number of music radio stations. He was one of the few people making audio recordings of the stations he heard. In the 1970's he was heard with his own radio programme on Radio Portugal (then known as the Voice of the West) and a publication called the World Radio Bulletin. By the time I joined Radio Netherlands, he was already contributing a monthly spot for that station. I encouraged him to give us more profiles and less lists - and he duly obliged. Sadly, Richard was killed in a road traffic accident. I tried to find out what happened to his priceless collection of cassette recordings, but my letters were never answered. This programme from June 1983 includes a contribution from Professor John Campbell on the Irish pirates, a promo for ANARC 1983 with Dan Robinson (now with VOA News), and an update on Basicode 2, a universal language for home computers broadcast by the Dutch domestic channel NOS in a programme called Hobbyscoop.

It has gone rather quiet media wise in Angola, though since this programme was made the country has had to do a lot to recover from decades of civil war. Oil money is flowing again - but Angola remains low in the country list of press freedom. In 1999, a colleague in the Portuguese dept of Radio Netherlands left to do extensive training in the region and we interviewed him on his return. It was a chance to dip into the Richard Ginbey collection of rare African radio recordings. Between 1998-2000, we did a lot of Safaris on the programme and I've found it fascinating to revisit these shows after just over a decade. What amazes me is how international broadcasting has virtual stood still since 2000, stuck in a time warp with nothing but future plans.