International Radio Festival Zurich 21 August to 7 Sept #irfradiofest

Several international radio stations will meet to celebrate all things "Radio" and broadcasting live as part of the “On Air” programme at the 5th International Radio Festival. They include BBC Radio 1, Kiss92 Singapore and Dubai Star FM Dubai coming to Zurich to celebrate all things radio.  This year’s is running from 21st August to 7th September 2014 transforming Zurich’s Kaufleuten Club & restaurant into a place for music lovers. The IRF radio studio will host live shows by international radio broadcasters presenting a multi-faceted programme with guests, food and drinks on the terrace and of course lots of music. The International Radio Festival can be heard on 104.1 MHz (Zurich Nord) and 96.9 MHz (Zurich South) and online around the world, and back home where the IRF radio guests originate from. Radio stations broadcasting as part of the “On Air” programme include; BBC Radio One, Kiss FM Berlin, Kiss92 Singapore, RTL102.2 Milano, Star FM Dubai, Radio Nova Paris, Radio Romantika Moscow, XFM UK, SRF Virus Switzerland, Soho London Radio, Radio 24 Zurich, Ibiza Sonica, Radio Fiume Ticino, and web radio Creatures Of The Night. Each station will broadcast a radio show with its own music programme in their local language. The IRF is the only international radio festival in the world which broadcasts an on-air program, celebrating the most consumed and most influential medium in the world – radio. The boutique event has blossomed into one of the most important meetings of the global radio landscape, welcoming radio producers, industry professionals and radio jockeys from around the world to join together in Zurich. One of the show highlights will be Tony Prince presenting "Flashback Radio" the best of 50 years of Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg with many original interviews from the past. 50 years ago the ship was anchored under the Panamanian flag in the North Sea and Prince aka "Your Royal Ruler" was a crew member infamous MV Fredericia. Radio Caroline was a fundamental part in the revolution of the British music industry giving young people to access pop music, which had previously been withheld from them. Other highlights include Kiss FM creator Gordon Mac and his new Mi-Soul internet radio, Acid Jazz founder Eddie Piller from Soho Radio and film and music composers Lionel and Diego Baldenweg of Great Garbo. SwissRadioDay On Wednesday, 3rd September the IRF will celebrate SwissRadioDay with a programme designed by Swiss radio stations including; Switzerland’s number one station Radio24 Zurich, SRF Radio Virus, Radio GRRIF, Radio Fiume Ticino and Radio 105. IRF B2B Forum In addition to the live broadcasts the IRF also features an exclusive B2B Forum, bringing together people who are passionate about radio from around the world to deliberate, collaborate and network to discover the future trends and evolution of their Industry. This year’s forum will be an informal round table discussion headed up by Tony Prince and new and IRF Advisory Board President Gordon Mac on "UK radio yesterday and tomorrow". All frequencies and the detailed programme can be found at www.internationalradiofest.com www.radioday.ch and www.kaufleuten.ch/ Listen to shows from previous editions on Mixcloud here: www.mixcloud.com/IRF See photos from the event here: www.flickr.com/photos/internationalradiofestival/ See what people in radio say about the IRF here: www.internationalradiofest.com/what-the-radios-say/

Where are they now? Former shortwave broadcasting giants & minnows

Photo above from Public Radio of Armenia Facebook page

Extracts below from Radio Websites (August 2014)  by Chrissy Brand, for Radio User, 2014. 

Where are they now?

This is the part of the magazine where I track down and remind you of where former radio shortwave broadcasting giants and minnows have now gone to. The Voice of Russia left shortwave to park its bus in cyberspace but can be heard on DAB in south east England, and online at the special UK service website. It’s today’s equivalent of those mighty shortwave broadcasts that Radio Moscow used to target to listeners in “Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.  If you go to  http://voiceofrussia.com/uk/  you can see how the Voice of Russia  still has the variety of exciting programmes that it used to air on shortwave. With current world politics it will pay to keep an ear to that station.

The Voice of Armenia still broadcast on shortwave but not in English, on 4810kHz. The next best thing is that you can watch Armenian television at http://www.armeniatv.am/en/voice with programmes such as The Human Factor, Sharp Angle and Inner Kitchen. It’s also available on a Russian version of You Tube, called Ru Tube http://rutube.ru/  and you can follow the tv channel on Twitter at @armeniantv 

When you mention The Voice of Armenia these days it is more associated with the tv singing show The Voice which started in the USA and has spread globally.  

There is sport as well which doesn’t require too much in the way of knowing the local lingo. It all looks slick and there is a even a little English to help us poor saps. The Armenian alphabet and script looks very elegant I must say, as do some of the presenters you’ll see. It’s a long way from the “This Is Yerevan” identification calls that used to echo across the shortwaves with more regularity than they now do, but I enjoy staying in touch with a country I learned so much about through radio.

Of course, as well as current day audio and video from former international broadcasters, there is an ever-expanding archive being compiled by DXers around the world, and uploaded to You Tube, Vimeo and doubtless other similar video and audio social media sites. You can spend many a happy hour wallowing in the snap crackle and pop of shortwave’s golden era when you search for archive material online. 

For example D Firth has a You Tube channel laden with off-air recordings clips from the late 1960s which feature Radio Australia, Radio Moscow, Radio Peking, Swiss Radio International and the Voice of America at https://www.youtube.com/user/dfirth224  

Our good friend of the DX community SWLDX in Bulgaria, along with a regular blog, has over 2,000 videos online at https://www.youtube.com/user/SWLDXBulgaria which include vintage as well as current catches. Listen to his 40 minute long audio from “The Glory Days of Shortwave Radio”, if you fancy a trip down memory lane. 

Others I’ve enjoyed recently include John Doe’s YouTube channel 
https://www.youtube.com/user/RWObservatory which has current recordings of shortwave stations such as the BBC and Vatican Radio plus some older material including  vintage Brother Stair clips – in full preacher mode- from the 1980s.