Category Archives: Shortwave radio

Radio connects us all

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Cheers to Kit, G0JPS presently on a boat on the Grand Union Canal who told us earlier he was listening to the “Alt Universe Top 40” on 9670 kHz on his XHDATA D-808 portable. As he reported: “Lovely reception. Hot Butter’s seminal track, “Popcorn” is currently playing.” Brilliant stuff Kit!

Then around the same time we heard from Debby H who picked up a couple of pepper plants from a few streets away (there was a mixture of plants on a wall with a sign “please take me” on it) and guess what one of the varieties was called? Marconi Red. Radio (and gardening) connects us all!

They Could Have Been Bigger than the Beatles

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At 2.58 above is a tune that made us smile this week while putting together another shortwave mix for Imaginary Stations. It’s called Beatles and the MBE from Lord Short Shirt & The Silhouettes and even if you’re not keen on the Fab Four this’ll cheer you up.

We’re the tomatoes in the dustbin

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In a post the other day here we were discussing our impatience about putting tomato plants outside in the garden. Yesterday we saw a Facebook post where someone down here in London had taken a picture of their tomato plants outside in the garden with “Now there’s a good job done, all of my 30 odd tomato plants are outside in the ground. I doubt if there’ll be a frost now…” Looking at next week’s weather, it looks brilliant during the day and not too cold in the evening so we’re now even more confused than ever.

We had a plant on the kitchen windowsill with two flower trusses begging to go out and today we gave a broken council food recycling bin a good clean out and put a few holes in the bottom and now the two trussed plant is in it and up near the house. It should be well hardened off anyway and tonight it’s covered in bubble wrap just in case. It’s one less plant on the kitchen windowsill.

Above is the food recycling bin with the tomato in it and funnily enough it fits in with the other plant pots including one of the cuttings from Honor Oak Park station geraniums (we now think they are really pelargoniums) which is now flowering!

A report from Bristol

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Thanks to Kit, G0JPS in Bristol for letting us know he did a bit of garden clearance yesterday (Easter Sunday) which included “removing a huge tangle of cleavers (if the name isn’t familiar, you’d know what they are straight away when you see the picture of them) and the sad deceased remnants of a fuchsia bush.”

“Found this nice little sectioned off bit (above) under the wreckage; so gave it a good hoeing, sowed it with foxglove seeds, and rehomed a small thyme plant rescued from a supermarket car park. And pinched your idea of sticks and things to keep the cats off.” Brilliant Kit, we love your choice of metal sticks and wood that will keep the cats and probably the foxes off too we reckon.

He added  “Thinking that it’s a bit of a blank slate now, the words Tabula Rasa popped into my mind so here’s a couple of tune suggestions:”

They are two excellent tunes that we’d never heard before. The first is Tabla Rasta who were from Crete with Mystic Dub and Brother Dan from Sweden with Bay Leaf and Thyme Dub. Excellent musical recommendations Kit, do keep them coming!

A tune for a good Friday

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We’ve just finished another shortwave mix and being on the ball as ever, just discovered a genre called rebajada where DJs play cumbia tunes at the wrong speed for better effect. Sounds like one of those happy musical accidents (just like Ruddy Redwood forgetting to leave a vocal off, hence dub). Here’s the origins:

“The Rapson (soundsystem) had been playing for six or seven hours non-stop,” “The motor overheated and started lagging, and that’s when the rebajado sound came out. The music slowed down dramatically: the voice in the track deepened like in a slow motion scene, the accordion notes stretched out and there was more space between each scrape of the guiro. People kept dancing, captivated by this new sound.”
mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/cumbia-rebajada-monterreys-accidental-music-genre/

We found the tune above Manzanita – Paga La Cuenta Sinverguenza from Peru played in a rebajada stylee and it’s a tune.

And here’s the original. Crazy stuff!

‘ere, can you spare us any bubble wrap or jam jars for the garden mate?

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It’s been a lovely day here in south London today and it looks like the temperature will drop again a little from tomorrow. Looking at the weather forecast for the next week it could be anything from 6-10 degrees C overnight so hopefully no frosts.

We’re taking no chances here as don’t want to lose any plants overnight even though they have been hardened off over the last few weeks. We’ve put three tomato plants out and some sweet peas but we’re still covering them at night with some improvised protection from bubble wrap, jam jars and the terrarium we found years ago that is now a bit cracked at the side and missing its glass top and now has some polythene on the top. Who cares what the frost protection looks like as long as it’s doing its job! More sunny weather please.

And we started a day with a great tune and we end it on another one. It’s by Jah Version out of Lisbon, Portugal with Friendship (Vocal Dub). Turn it up.

Radio Freedom

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Typically we finished a shortwave mix and just after it was sent off, we found another one we could have used while looking for something completely different. This one is from many years ago from Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry vs The Moody Boyz called International Broadcaster (feat. Roots Manuva & LSK). “Adjust your treble, get rid of the trouble.”

More radio connections

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Big thanks to Kit G0JPS for sending these two radio related tracks. The first is (Paul Thorpe, recording as) Voodoo Trombone Quartet with a track called Medium Wave. Great fun stuff.

 

The next is (Paul Thorpe again under the moniker) Braces Tower with a shipping forecast tune called The General Synopsys.

That’s what is great about music, you think you know a bit and then you realise, “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know” as the saying goes. Cheers Kit, two great tunes and we will do further research on Paul Thorpe as he sounds like an interesting fellow.

Seven seven inch singles selection

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One of the good things in life is looking through a pile of seven inch singles and not thinking too much about the tunes and putting together a mix (in the old days it would be on one of those cassette tape things). Below is a quick one put together this evening after looking through a couple of piles of records that haven’t been played for a while.

We were influenced by a post by The Rhythm Doctor on Facebook about a recent mix of his from 7” singles for MOJO Estonia and Sugar B‘s “supermix” show on Charisma FM 87.8 Mhz where all sorts of reggae singles are played in any order.

Here’s the first Seven seven inch singles selection in the pot and here’s the tracklisting:
Jah Cure – Longing for version/drop leaf rhythm
Alton Ellis & The Flames – Ain’t that loving you
Ras Ibuna/Village Bunch – Diverse Doctrine Version
Pablove Black – Chaunting Dread
Anthony B – Stop Fight
Jah Woosh – Shine Eye Gal Version Part 2
Yabby You/King Tubby’s – Chant Down babylon Version

We welcome other mixes and don’t worry too much about the genres just put them on and if they sound good…

Stations that only exist in our imagination

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Here’s a couple of shortwave shows in an Imaginary Stations related style, the first on Wednesday 19th March 2025 at the new time of 0200 UTC via WRMI is another episode of the excellent Shortwave Music Library by DJ Frederick. A show well worth tuning into if you the like all sorts musicwise.

This weekend coming, Imaginary Stations hoist the sails on the pirate ship Skybird again and brings you another audio voyage in the Free Radio Skybird series and it’s the third and final planned broadcast of the station this year.

Tune in on Saturday 22nd March 2025 at 1200 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and also on Sunday 23rd March 2025 at 1000/1400 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and at 2100 UTC on 3975 kHz. As with last week’s show, expect some great tunes, onshore and offshore classics and lots of interesting bits and pieces as usual. At 28 minutes in there will be a mix called Who’d be a pirate (again) by One Deck Pete. Tune in!