We’ve got your number

 

Cheers to our good music/gardening/radio friend Justin Patrick Moore for sending over this musical recommendation in an ambient downbeat style called The haunted testcard tapes by Alpha Seven. Haunted Testcard is a lovely bit of electronica and a great one to drift off to. By the way the cover of the LP is great too!

There’s another testcard connection as Pete Roberts of Alpha Seven was also a member of Testcard F, remember them?

 

The next we’ve chosen (above) is a numbers stations related tune and you know we love one of them here. There’s quite a few on Bandcamp if you tap in “Numbers Stations” under the search. Some are of an industrial or harsh experimental nature which all have their place but it is nice to hear something in a more chilled out style. The track even has some morse in there as well. Double radio-related bonus. Cheers for the musical tip Justin.

And by the way if you want to get into a saturday spy mode, pretend you are secret agent 001 and fancy listening to some numbers stations have a look here and see if there’s a transmission coming up.

Don’t worry you don’t need a shortwave radio hidden in a bar of soap or disguised as a loaf of Hovis to listen in, just click the link ( in blue under “Next station in so and so minutes”) and it will bring you to a online SDR (software defined radio) all ready tuned in and ready to decode. Make sure you have a biro and a rough book at the ready.

Listen carefully

We’ve posted this up before thanks to discovering the tune off our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore. It’s by Glenda Collins and called It’s hard to believe it. Denis H from The Joe Meek Society send us this alternative take a while ago but last night we found a lot clearer version which features those shortwave radio samples even clearer. Are those a couple of tape rewinds at 0.17 and 0.25?

We can’t remember exactly what Denis H told us but it was something like Joe may have had a subscription to an electronics magazine like Practical Wireless at the time and given his excellent knowledge of electronics he had more than enough skill to put together a shortwave radio. Great to hear the samples in all their glory!

Two towers of power

Cheers to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for the picture of his mullein plant which as he says “is in its next stage now!”

And here’s ours down by the pond. Coyboy’s toilet paper indeed.

A shortwave slow down

Imaginary Stations will be bringing another Downbeat on Shortwave this weekend (cheers Fred!) on Saturday 5th July 2025 at 1200 hrs (UK Time) on 6160 kHz and on Sunday 6th January 2025 at 1000/1400 hrs (UK) on 6160 kHz and at 2100 (UK) on 3975 kHz/6160 kHz.

Our good dub gardening friend Jesse Yuen from Perth, Australia and One Deck Pete from Brockley Village, London will be bringing you two 15 minute downtempo mixes each in a back to back downtempo style.

Tune in your shortwave radio this weekend or if you haven’t got one, via an online Software Defined Radio here (tuned into 6160 kHz) at the right time in AM mode and listen in and chill out to their slow-mo selection.

Quaking grass and shortwave space travel

We’ve had this in the garden before and God only knows how it actually got there (have they self seeded themselves or are they the fruits of our anarchistic “throw them anywhere” sowing method) but it’s the wonderful quaking-grass. It’s only a small plant but is great close up and we’ve just found out that the seeds are good source of food for the birds.

We’ve got a flower on our courgette plant we sowed in a pot when we thought it may be a bit late so it’s always worth trying! How’s people’s gardens going? Do send some pictures please!

Also this weekend on the shortwave bands Imaginary Stations bring you Starship Skybird. The show is broadcast on Saturday 7th June 2025 at 1100 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then again on Sunday 8th June 2025 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and at 2000 UTC on 3975 kHz and 6160 kHz (via the services of Shortwave Gold).

Start the countdown to this weekend when you can strap yourself in for a trip of a lifetime. Tune in, make yourself a cosmic cocktail if that’s your thing and enjoy the sounds of space.

There’s all sorts of space madness with music (and some great jingles) you may have never heard before from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 6.15 mins in there’s One Deck Pete presents a ride into space on a 60+travelcard mix. Grab yourself a shortwave radio or tune in via here.

A mullein in Cincinnati

Cheers to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for sending us a picture of the mullein plant in his garden. Justin mentioned “I let the plants grow when they pop up, even though some consider them a weed. People smoke the leaves for lung issues and make an oil from the flowers for ear infections. Its a medicinal weed, that in its second year, goes up past the knees!”

And thanks to Justin for forwarding a great tune named after said plant from MF Doom. Cheers Justin!

To the world with music

This weekend will see a return of the onshore/offshore pirate radio sound of Skybird Radio International to the airwaves, via the services of Shortwave Gold. The show goes out on Saturday 3rd May 2025 at 1100 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then repeated on Sunday 4th May 2025 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and at 2000 UTC on 3975 kHz and 6160 kHz.

All you do is tune your shortwave set in (or click here if you haven’t a shortwave radio) at the allotted time to enjoy all sorts of worldwide sounds with mixes from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 59 seconds in is a mix from One Deck Deck Pete.

Tune in your shortwave set at the alloted time and treat yourself to various music genres from all points around this spinning ball we call Earth!

 

 

It’s snow joke

Thanks a lot to our good mate Justin Patrick Moore for sending us some photographs of the extreme weather in Cincinnati at the moment, and we thought it was a bit cold here! Temperature is around -3 at the moment with -9 degrees C overnight with even -13 later on some nights this week. We are not going complain about the weather here any more, ever. Great pictures Justin. And here’s one of his back garden.

And if you fancy a great listen, below is the audio of Trash Flow Radio broadcast on WAIF 88.3 FM from Sat Dec 28 and as it says here:

“DJ Justin Patrick Moore returned to hold down the fort one more time. Hot on the heels of his outstanding recent book event in Cincinnati, Justin was joined in the studio by Slumdog Ethan and Old WAIFer Douglas.  Together, they provided more audio accompaniment to Justin‘s new book “The Radio Phonics Laboratory.”  They also spun choice esoteric tracks from all around the world, including tracks from: Tristwch Y Fenywod, Chelsea Wolfe, Tanya Tagaq, The Fauns, Melody’s Echo Chamber, The Skull Defekts, idialedyournumber, Alan Sparhawk, Josh Datko (Bitpunk.fm), An-Ting 安婷, Controlled Bleeding, Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang, The Limiñanas, Shilpa Ray, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, and more!” Tracklist here.

There’s an archive of the last 15 shows here if you fancy it too. Radio connects us all.

To all our mates across the pond

A big Happy Thanksgiving to all of our good radio/music/gardening mates from across the pond including DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore, Thomas Witherspoon, Dr Strangedub and Nic Greene and anyone else we’ve forgotten about.

Earlier today we heard from Justin who sent us a picture above straight from the garden of some Japanese Giant Red Mustard Greens that look great. “These were volunteers from last year. Harvesting today for our meal.” Great stuff Justin!

And also we heard from DJ Frederick who informed us of something musical and gardening related from a duo called Woo, one we’ve never heard about even though they’ve been around from a long long time! Cheers for that Fred, that is one interesting duo who’ve produced a wealth of chilled and dubby tunes.

Hope you’re all having a great day!

XRPT on your RADIO

Here’s the audio of yesterday’s transmission from Imaginary Stations, a show called XRPT, a compilation of Imaginary Stations shows past, present and future. It’s an interesting listen and includes contributions from all the crew, DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore and at 21 minutes in is a mix from One Deck Pete called Bits and Pieces (nothing to do with Smiley Miley and The Radio 1 Roadshow of course!)

Bits and Pieces tracks:
Donut Specialist – As advertised (KMRT)
Alan Ginsberg vs Anima Universalis Into The forest – A supermarket in California (KMRT)
Beatz for Food – Frozen Food (KMRT)
The Conet Project – Phonetic Alphabet NATO (WORD)
Giorgio (Moroder) – Stop (WORD)
Christine Miller – Word Sound and Power (WORD)
Ham QSO – What’s it like being a token male? (KNTS)
Kwook – Calling all stations 1 (KNTS)
Jodey Kendrick – QYJ 9 (KNTS)