It was in the years 1979 and 1980. The FM band in Switzerland was used only up to 100 MHz. Local radio stations in Italy as well as some radio stations in Germany used already frequencies up to 104 or even 108 MHz. On several days that year, the conditions were such, that I could receive local radio stations from south Italy in Uster, which is in the north east of Switzerland. Also AFN Stuttgart, which normally could not be heard.
The above picture shows the tuner, with which the transmissions were received.
Some of the better parts my recordings, for those who don't like to listen to all the noise.
clip01.ogg (1:40, 1.4 MByte) radio stations probably from Cosenza.
clip02.ogg (1:19, 1.1 MByte) radio stations probably from Messina.
clip03.ogg (1:12, 1.2 MByte) Radio Telecolor International on 100.2 MHz from Catania.
clip04.ogg (0:22, 0.4 MByte) Catania Dimensioni Radio 102.2 MHz.
clip05.ogg (1:32, 1.3 MByte) Teleradio Siracusa International 101 MHz.
clip06.ogg (1:21, 1.2 MByte) radion station from Calabria.
clip07.ogg (1:02, 0.9 MByte) radion station from Calabria.
clip08.ogg (1:01, 0.9 MByte) radion station probably from Vibo Valentia (Calabria).
The following pieces come directly from the cassette tapes I recorded back in 1979 and 1980 while listening at the radio. Some (e.g. I suspect ukw4 and ukw5) I already edited at that time, i.e. I copied some good pieces I had recorded to another tape and then erased the original recording.
Sometimes I had connected a microfone (actually I used my headphones as I did not have a microphone) to the recorder, and used it to speak comments on one of the channel. Mostly I announce the frequency on which the station is received. Sometimes I added the time.
ukw01.ogg (10:07, 8.1 MByte)
ukw02.ogg (28:55, 23.2 MByte)
ukw03.ogg (28:30, 22.7 MByte)
ukw04.ogg (1:35, 1.4 MByte) AFN Stuttgart on 102.3 MHz, recorded 1979-11-28 15:50
ukw05.ogg (0:20, 0.3 MByte) Ö2 on 98.1 MHz, recorded 1980-03-03 11:30
ukw06.ogg (43:20, 34.7 MByte)
ukw07.ogg (2:19, 1.9 MByte)
ukw08.ogg (0:39, 0.6 MByte)
ukw09.ogg (29:33, 24.0 MByte) recorded 1980-08-02 17:19
ukw10.ogg (11:59, 10.0 MByte) Test transmission of Radio 24
ukw11.ogg (0:36, 0.6 MByte) Radio 24 Spectrum Intro
ukw12.ogg (1:17, 1.1 MByte) Radio 24 Spectrum Intro
ukw13.ogg (0:46, 0.7 MByte) Radio 24 Spectrum Intro
ukw14.ogg (2:23, 2.0 MByte) Radio Alpha transmitting from France
ukw15.ogg (0:41, 0.6 MByte) Radio 24 Spectrum Intro
ukw16.ogg (0:49, 0.7 MByte) Radio 24 Jingle
ukw17.ogg (9:13, 7.6 MByte) FM Pirate radio station in Switzerland
I mention this, because it was not straightforward. My laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8500, lacks a Line In connector. There is a Microphone connector, which is not stereo.
As it was Sunday evening, and going out to buy an USB audio box was not an option I came finally up with this solution. I connected the headphone output of my Sony MHC-1500 Mini HiFi System to the microphone input of my Panasonic NV-DS28 Camcorder. This was then connected to the Firewire input of my laptop.
Using this command allowed me to record the audio stream:
sudo dvconnect | playdv --no-mmap --disable-video --audio-file /mnt/10/raw
While recording I could also listen to what was recorded executing:
tail -f /mnt/10/raw | play -c2 -fs -r48000 -traw -sw -
After finishing the recording I would first transform the raw stream into an AIFF file using:
sox -c2 -fs -r48000 -traw -sw /mnt/10/raw /mnt/10/out.aiff
Finally I used audacity to cut out the empty pieces - I always recorded the full 45 minutes of each cassette side - and store the remaining as OGG files.