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The Media Network Vintage Vault 2024-2025


November 2024 - A message from Jonathan Marks, producer Media Network.  Yes, we're still here although my other work has meant I have little time for shortwave these days. I've started sorting out some off-air archives in the audio-only selections. It's true, radio has a terrible memory. (I'm delighted to learn that the British Vintage Wireless Society is still going strong https://www.bvws.org.uk ) Now you know why I am publishing old editions of Media Network here on this site, as well as some of the off-air recordings of stations I monitored in the 80's and 90's as part of the research for the programme. I'm simply looking for ways to capture more unique stories that I believe need to be told before we all forget. I realise that in 1000 editions of Media Network, we had only just begun the scratch the surface. So at this time of reflection, I'd just like to thank everyone for their support and encouragement as the archive project enters a new phase.   First time visitor? I'm Jonathan Marks. If this is the first time you've visited the vault, then I'm glad you dropped by! There are over 660 editions of Media Network, representing just over half the episodes that we made and broadcast from the Radio Netherlands' studios in Hilversum. I'm pleased to say most survived in excellent studio quality (quite often in stereo). 

Feb 21, 2010

This is Part One of one of the most popular documentaries broadcast in the Radio Netherlands Media Network programme in 1993, looking at UK black propaganda during the Second World War. In 2019 we might call it deliberate "fake news". 

This programme features an interview with the late Harold Robin, the Foreign & Commonwealth broadcast engineer who put a number of "fake" resistance stations on the air from a transmitter site not far from Bletchley Park. I was glad to see that they haven't forgotten the role of these broadcasts - it's mentioned in the exhibition at Bletchley.

The second part of this 30 minute documentary can be found here (see March 22nd 2010). The second part deals more with the Aspidistra transmitter built very near Crowborough, Sussex and still used by Sussex Police as a training ground. Little known fact is that it was also used a location in 1981 for an episode of BBC's Dr Who.

The only remaining parts of the Aspi 1 transmitter were hanging in the entrance hall of the Babcock transmitter site at Ordfordness, Suffolk. That site was used until March 27th 2011 for transmission of BBC programmes on 648 kHz towards Western Europe.