May 29, 2014
In the 1980's you could find time signal stations quietly ticking away on the shortwave dial. WWVH from Hawaii, CHU from Canada, VNG from Australia. They were a useful beacon to tell you whether signals were coming in from a particular part of the world. In 1984 I compiled a feature with examples, mainly made by writing to the stations concerned and sending them a cassette. There was no Internet and phone lines sounded pretty terrible. We also included an interview with VOA who were busy building a new mediumwave radio station to improve the audibilty of their Spanish service in Nicaragua. And Victor Goonetilleke supplied us with news from his listening post in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His cassette machine was coming to the end of its life! By todays standards, this programme sounds incredibly slow. And it took ages to write on a typewriter with carbon copy in between. But the time signal recordings bring back memories.
Seeing this posted here has simply made my day. Possibly my week. Thank you, thank you! (Do any of those original cassettes survive?)