Category Archives: “Radio connects us all”

A view from the front door (January edition)

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A big cheers goes out to Rich R in the Lake District for sending us a few pictures from his front door this week. And what a view! As Rich told us: “Here’s the view out front this lunchtime. A bit of context here, the distance from one end of the photo to the other is 6 miles. Imagine how many buildings London has in that space!” He ain’t wrong there. We worked out that Forest Hill to Elephant and Castle is 5 miles or so, so that is some width!

Pic below “This is looking south from the doorstep towards Keswick , 2 miles away and in the foreground.” Now there’s a great view from the front door. Cheers for sending the pics in Rich!

A couple for a Saturday night

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A tune for a winter’s Saturday night found while researching a shortwave mix. It’s called “Farewell” and is from Stereognosis® from a few year ago. It’s wonderful stuff!

And while we’re on the subject of Stereognosis® check the whole LP on Bandcamp as it’s well worth getting. Here’s another good one off it.

Radio Bingo!

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If you’ve got a shortwave radio (or fancy a go on a Software Defined Radio aka SDR radio lilke this one here) there’s an Imaginary Stations show called The Numbers Station going out to Europe via Shortwave Gold this Sunday 7th January 2024 at 1000/1400 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then on 3975 kHz at 2100 UTC. 

As you expect there’s an hour of great tunes that feature numbers and also at 18 minutes in is a mix from One Deck Pete aptly called “The Numbers Game” that has tunes from Kieran Mahon, Sonmi 451, Paper Sailboat, AK and Madtone. Tune in!

Also numbers related is an interesting youtube we’ve posted up before but worth posting again called Which Mysterious Numbers Stations Were Used In Music? from the great Ringway Manchester. Excellent stuff and cheers for mentioning Madtone!

Sorry we ain’t into the Bad Seeds, only the good ones

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Happy New Year to all our music/gardening friends and we hope 2024 is a good one.

It’s now time to think of what you’re going to grow this year and what changes you may be making in the garden, if any. First thing we did was check our seed tin seeing what we may have had left over. There were some Ldll lettuce, a couple of packets off ebay and some stuff we’ve had knocking around for ages which suprised us a little as we thought we used everything up.

As ever we’re on the look out for any seed swaps, or community/allotment sales that have good cheap seed and plant events we may be able to get some interesting variety of seeds. At the present moment we can’t find too many local ones in south London. Garden Organic has a regularly updated list here that is worth checking and also Pumpkin Beth‘s website here which list seeds swaps and plant fairs. If there’s any you know of in the London area or thereabouts, do let us know and we’re blog the dates up.

So we will now raise a mug of tea and hope everyone has a great 2024 and may your garden thrive! And here’s some garden related tunes to give inspiration and good plant growing vibes.

 

 

 

 

Oi mate, that’s my Egg Nog okay?

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A Happy Boxing day to all! Here’s the audio of The imaginary Stations Winter Holiday Special which was broadcast via Shortwave Gold on Christmas Eve on those shortwaves. There’s a load of festive tunes throughout the hour plus “A holday Mix” from One Deck Pete at 40.38 minutes in. Here’s the tracklistings:

Forgotten employee – The Backroom Tapes
Snow Palms – Evening Rain Gardens (Excerpt)
Kohei Yoshi – Cold Ice Dub
Frost – Munch RIP (instrumental)
Bodyswitch – Gee Whiz it’s Christmas
Jacob Miller/Ray I – Deck The Halls
Kibble – Warm Fireplace (Excerpt)

 

 

Not the Twelfth Night

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We went out for a Christmas Eve pint and saw the first dumped Christmas tree of the year at Blythe Hill Fields (where the recycle team usually pick the trees up in January) at 3pm today. Crazy stuff and it isn’t even Christmas Day yet. Those trees aren’t cheap!

Whilst we’re on the Christmas/Yule/Solstice tip, we would like to wish all our gardening and music friends and readers a Happy Holiday and may you all have a great 2024!

(Not) an imaginary fanzine

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Better late than never but we must let you know about a great A5 fanzine from DJ Frederick called Tin Can Telephone which is available here if you’re in the US.

It’s a great fanzine if you love radio of a different kind. Issue number 8 features: Imaginary Stations, WKFC (audio here), Alan Maxwell’s KIPM (more here), an interview with Bob Catface from Radio Catface International (if you like downbeat and mellow his great shows are here) Pirate TV stations and Part 15 Legal Low Power AM Radio.

If you’re from out of the US and fancy a copy, an email to imaginarystations@gmail.com will be a good place to start. It’s a really good read and a fanzine worth tracking down.

Tune in here for more solstice vibes

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If like us you can’t be at Stonehenge this Friday 22nd December for the Solstice sunrise, you can tune in via the services of youtube here while you sit at home having some toast and lime marmalade or a bowl of All Bran in your PJ’s. Tune in, drop out then drop off (for a bit of a kip).

On a shortwave Solstice Christmas tip

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On Christmas Eve Sunday 24th December 2023 there’s an Imaginary Stations Winter Special going out to Europe via Shortwave Gold at 1000/1400 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then at 2100 UTC on 3975 kHz. There are festive tunes a go-go and at 40 mins in there’ll be One Deck Pete with “A holiday mix”. Tune in with a Irish Coffee and get festive!

One tune that will be played is a cracking dubbed out version of Carla Thomas’ “Gee Whizz it’s Christmas” (above) by the one and only Bodyswitch out of Oakland, California, Great stuff indeed.

 

Then on early Christmas Day there’s a show from the Radio Thrift Shop archives called a Winter Holiday Special with DJ Frederick. Tune in at 0300 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI for the more eclectic side of yuletide/winter solstice programming featuring some eclectic holiday tunes and a very interesting mini-documentary called “In Search of The Shaggs” about the rock band formed in Fremont, New Hampshire in 1965. Tune in for something that little bit different for Christmas.