BC-DX TopNews WWDXC #945 BC-DX 945

^ to avoid ERA in Greek
& to avoid CRI in Polish/English/Chinese/Russian
* to avoid CRI in Chinese/Vietnamese
+ to avoid Radio Republica in Spanish
= to avoid Radio Japan NHK in Japanese and REE in Spanish
Radio Liberty in Avari/Chechen/Cherkassian
0400-0500 NF 15230 IRA 250 kW 316 deg to CeAS, ex15205
Radio Mashaal in Pashto
1100-1200 NF 15715 IRA 250 kW 340 deg to SoAS, ex13580
Radio Free Asia
1100-1400 NF9435 DB 200 kW 125 deg to CeAS, ex11540 DB in Tibetan
2200-2300 NF7505 TIN 250 kW 280 deg to EaAS, ex11740*KWT in Canton.
* to avoid CNR in Chinese.
(R BULGARIA DX MIX News, Ivo Ivanov, via wwdxc BC-DX TopNews Nov 22)
USA Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. RFE Broadcasts From Hungarian
Revolution Digitized.
By A. Ross Johnson & Manfred Hanspeter November 14, 2010
The RFE/RL Broadcast Collection at Stanford's Hoover Institution contains
some 80000 studio tape reels of RFE and Radio Liberty (RL) broadcasts.
Now, thanks to the hard work of a dedicated team of RFE affiliates, it
also contains rare log tapes (low-quality recordings of short-wave
transmitter output) for the crucial three weeks of the Hungarian
Revolution (Oct 19 - Nov 13, 1956).
During this era, log tapes were routinely reused (no others have been
preserved), but thanks to historical accident and modern technology, the
complete recordings of every RFE broadcast hour from that momentous period
are now available in digitized form at the Hoover Archives at Stanford
University and the Hungarian National Szechenyi Library. While the
transcripts of many of these programs aired during those three weeks of
1956 have long been available, the recovered 1956 log tapes provide the
only complete audio record of RFE's broadcasts at that time.
Accidental Preservation.
During the Cold War, RFE and RL log tapes were retained for only a few
months in accordance with German, Portuguese, and Spanish transmitter
licensing requirements. However, after public controversy developed around
RFE's 1956 Hungarian broadcasts, the West German Foreign Office borrowed
the set of log recordings made at the RFE transmitter station at Biblis in
order to conduct a review (which was generally positive). It quickly
returned the log tapes to RFE, but, fearing more controversy in the media
and labor courts, reclaimed them again in the spring of 1957. Seeking
secure storage, the Foreign Office deposited the tapes in the Federal
German Archives in Koblenz - where they remained, forgotten until their
rediscovery in the late 90s. By this point, the ravages of time and
outdated technology had made them all but unplayable.
Archaic Sound Recovered.
In 2000, after Hungarian Radio arranged for the copying of the Hungarian
broadcasts, RFE/RL and the Federal German Archives decided to recover in
digital form all RFE language broadcasts during the period of the
Revolution. Manfred Hanspeter of RFE/RL Technical Services and RFE/RL
file:///Z|/DOKUMENTATION-BULLETINS/WWDXD-BCDX/2010/BCDX991.TXT[11.06.2012 10:40:32]