News from the Radio Heritage Foundation
http://www.radioheritage.net/Connecting the stories of Pacific radio and popular culture
What's New! You'll find some of our new look Radio Dial series now online. As well as being a 'snapshot' of the radio dial at a specific time, we now look at the social and popular culture context of the same time.music, movies, population trends, big events, and, as usual, lots of nice images.
You'll enjoy Shanghai Radio Dial 1941 with the eye witness reports about XMHA's Carroll Duard Alcott, the American broadcaster who wore bullet-proof vests and see the surprising number of local stations on air at the time. This item has been getting hundreds of hits and local Shanghai commentators say the radio dial sounded more interesting then than now..so check it out!
Another of the new look snapshots covers the California Radio Dial 1928 in the days when barely 50 stations were on air across the entire state, and the two most powerful stations were KFI Los Angeles and KGO San Francisco..fascinating and long forgotten callsigns and names of
broadcast pioneers..now at
http://www.radioheritage.net/Coming soon..Australia Radio Dial 1931.
Plans to privatize the Samoan Broadcasting Corporation feature in our multi-media presentation Samoan Radio Sale Threatens Public Radio Future. Online you'll find the full story plus exclusive images, expert analysis of public radio changes in Samoa, Cook Islands and American Samoa and what the future holds as new and free public radio services enter the airwaves. At
http://www.rnzi.com/ you can listen to the audio version as one of our growing number of documentaries featuring on the long running 'Mailbox' program. [Click on January 21 audio]
This is one of a new series looking at challenges facing Pacific radio that we'll be releasing over the coming six months.leading up to the Pacific Radio Conference to be held in Wellington, New Zealand in lateSeptember 2008. You'll find more information about the conference shortly at
http://www.radioheritage.net/ .
Keep September 26-28 free and make plans to attend. We've booked substantial room blocks at several central city hotels at excellent rates, and it just so happens that the world famous Wearable Arts Awards will be on in the city at the same time!
RNZI/Radio New Zealand Shortwave 60th Anniversary...September 26, 2008 is also the anniversary of shortwave broadcasting from New Zealand. We're looking for old audio recordings, program guides, QSL cards, magazine or newspaper clippings, photos, and memories of the station, its programs and personalities. Can you help? Let us know what you have as it may help us as we research special radio documentaries for RNZI to celebrate the anniversary. What you have, may be a vital part of the story!
Please email info@radioheritage.net or write to us at Radio Heritage Foundation, PO Box 14339, Wellington 6241, New Zealand. You can also see our online account of the first broadcasts from Radio New Zealand on shortwave at www.radioheritage.net today.
More New Content Online ..our series about radio broadcasting in the Borneo and Singapore region continues with the story of Radio in Brunei, our series about merican broadcasting from Australia during WWII now includes VLC Shepparton and the story of early American shortwave radio heard around the Pacific has added CBS on Air from Philadelphia [WCAU].and we'll continue to add more to these series shortly.
You'll also find the story about Radio Pasifik Nauru the new station on the island, and one that may hold some of the answers to the challenges facing Pacific radio today. Golden Memories looks at how radio broadcasting of music from the 1930s-50s may help elderly Australians cope with the challenges of growing old.
Volunteers Needed to Grow Website Content...our webmaster needs help! Do you have a spare hour or two a week? Some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, ASP, image optimization, RSS and FTP desirable, but also suitable for people wanting to learn.
The job involves taking stories and provided images and making them up accurately according to a template, deciding on image size/placement and optimizing for the web, modifying an RSS file, uploading the files to a test site. Opportunities are available to undertake functional development with ACCESS databases and ASP if suitable.
These are volunteer roles, and you'll be contributing to the growth of the Radio Heritage Foundation website www.radioheritage.net During 2007, the number of hits to the site rose 65% over 2006 to reach almost 2 million, and the number of visitors grew almost 60% to reach nearly 200,000. Volunteers welcome from anywhere in the world.
Contact us today at
info@radioheritage.net if you'd like to help us expand. Volunteering with us is fun!
Kiwi Radio Campaign....you'll see we now have a special zone at the website for news and information about the 3 year campaign...including an item about our first Kiwi Radio Celebrity.Ambrose Reeves Harris, the founder of the Radio Broadcasting Company of NZ.
Pacific Radio Guides.......Bruce Portzer in Seattle continues to expand this wonderful online service for listeners, stations and the business community. As well as the Pacific Asian Log Mediumwave guide we now have the Pacific Asian Log Shortwave guide and work has now started on the new Pacific Asian Log FM guide to reflect the massive growth in FM radio across the entire region.
These are major efforts, with thousands of stations, transmitters, locations and other data available to freely download or search online at www.radioheritage.net.
You'll also enjoy our new series of Pacific Radio Guides, coming online shortly, and starting with New Zealand AM Radio, Australia Narrowband 1611-1702 AM Radio, Hawaii AM Radio, Pacific Islands AM Radio and Pacific Islands FM Radio.
Our highly popular New Zealand Low Power FM Radio Guide will be included in the new series, and is currently online with nearly 1,200 entries. Check out the NZLPFM Blog for some great art work and news from some of the great LPFMs on air today! We'll also be making guides easier to access, easier to use, and expanding the information
available. In the meantime, enjoy!
Pacific Wide Content.also coming in 2008, many more early Australian AM stations from our popular Long lost Australian Radio Stars series, more in our Armed Forces Radio Heritage series, more of our popular on-line art exhibitions in the Art of Radio series, and more from our Radio Dial series.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Argentina, Japan, China, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand, as well as Antarctica, are just some of the places covered in our planned content during the year..and if there are places and stations you want to see included, write to us at info@radioheritage.net and tell us.
Please pass this newsletter on to friends and colleagues who you think will be interested in making the connections between radio and popular culture across the Asia Pacific region. No state funded radio or sound archives in the entire region makes their collections freely available online 24/7 like we do.
(Source: Radio Heritage/HCDX)
