In 1994, the Dutch broadcast museum was just that. It was a collection of equipment in a rather nondescript technical centre tucked away in the complex spiderweb of lanes that is Hilversum. It wasn't until 11 years after this recording that everything moved into the spanking new centre on the Media Park (photo shows it under construction).

Arno Weltens was working as a curator of the Netherlands Broadcast Museum at the time and organised an excellent exhibition about offshore broadcasting. This was rather different than some of the other recollections of the offshore days, when several entrpreneurs tried to break the monopoly in public service broadcasting in the Netherlands. Arno illustrated the exhibitions with recordings from the broadcast archives.

In 1995, Radio Netherlands signed a deal with RTL Radio Luxembourg to use the great 208 metres for a few hours each night for it's English language broadcast. We combined that with a visit to the station and made the following documentary. This was one of the first dual presentations we tried with co-host Diana Janssen. Interesting old recordings of RTL which I haven't heard elsewhere in a long time. The picture of the transmitter site at Marnach is shown below. That was were the English transmissions came from.

Some mysteries remain unsolved. So let's reveal a rather old one. In February of 1988, George Wood of Radio Sweden visited Radio Netherlands on a duty trip. He was there to see how we were doing things in the English department. He dropped by on a Wednesday. Over lunch we decided on a prank. We'd swap programmes for one week only. He gave me some scripts to read and he read the texts I'd compiled for that week's show. And then Pete Myers, Mike Bird and other contributors played along. We changed the jingles for that week only. It was if George had always presented the programme.

On the day of transmission I took the day off. After the European transmission at 1130, listeners started to call the station, asking what happened to Jonathan Marks. Had I been fired? Had I said something wrong? The sweet lady operator on the Radio Netherlands switchboard tried to connect the listeners, but there was no answer from my extension. She told the callers that I was not "in anymore", implying that I had left for the day. But that's not what callers assumed.

Within a few days my demise was already being posted in weekly DX newssheets that were around. Until I popped up the following Tuesday on Radio Sweden, presenting Sweden Calling Dxers as though I had always been there.

Two days later everything was back to normal. George and I both made no reference to the swap. Ever. There's nothing like a mystery. When some people asked me about the incident a few years later, I wondered whether it might have been a trick of propagation? Did anyone have a recording? No-one ever did. But I kept one. Here it is back on the Interwebs. Everyone loves a mystery.

This week back in in 1995 I went down to the open day organised in Brussels by Radio Vlaandern Internationaal, the voice of the Flemish community in Belgium. The radio station has long since disappeared, gradually stopping its foreign language broadcasters, becoming an Internet only radio station, and now only a few pages in English on the VRT Newsroom website. This programme, recorded in September 1995, recalls the early years of the station with guests Frans Vossen (DX Editor) and Jacques van der Sichel (who was the director at the time). Some interesting archive recordings too. This version is slightly shorter than the original transmission (missing Mike Bird's report).

It doesn't seem like nearly 15 years ago that Arthur T Cuhen passed away. He was probably one of New Zealand's most famous shortwave listeners, having made his hobby of radio listening into a career from the 1960's onwards. He reported regularly for magazines and radio stations, including Radio Netherlands DX Juke Box and Media Network. We broadcast this tribute programme in which I tried to mix tributes with some fascinating stories told by Arthur himself. While we recorded his contributions for the programme he would often reminisce. He also had made excellent recordings of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia even though he was monitoring the events in Prague on the other side of the world. He often spoke of his wife Ralda, who was his childhood sweetheart and faithful companion. They lived at 212 Earn Street in Invercargill, New Zealand - an address that was often read out over dozens of international radio stations.

I was struck by his picture perfect memory in which he could recall his work for the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service during the Second World War. He could hear stations in Japanese occupied Singapore and Indonesia, as well as Tokyo. They regularly broadcast the names of Allied Prisoners of War, which Arthur would transcribe by hand (there were no tape recorders) and pass on the message to grateful next of kin. Arthur was born with poor eyesight which gradually got worse in the course of his life. He not only did a lot of work for the shortwave radio community, he was also extremely active in local groups for blind and partially sighted in the South Island of New Zealand.

This programme is a celebration of Arthur's contribution to a very important time in international broadcasting.

Towards the end of the Media Network radio show series, we did several radio safaris to countries in Latin America and the Pacific. I tried to ensure that they captured the sounds off the air as much as possible, to give a flavour of the radio scene in the country. Argentina went well. And Chile was a fascinating discovery. Santiago had huge smog problems when I visited and it was great to escape to the mountains and the coast. Had long talks with local radio operators who were having difficultly keeping their business going. Slick satellite music networks attracted advertisers away from the smaller operators.

At that time, Christian Voice had also purchased the transmitters of the former Voice of Chile network. In fact government had sold off all its broadcast properties. I remember wandering around a Sunday market in Valpariso and seeing world band transistor radios being offered for sale for a few dollars. Incredible names on the dial. Took a photo in lieu of carrying them half way round the world.

Safety officials in the US are studying the navigational black boxes to determine the final moments of the Korean Airlines Boeing 747 which smashed into a jungle covered hill on Guam on Wednesday. Later on Wednesday evening we reached Glenn Scheyhing, assistant news director at KTWR in Guam. Because from the news video it looked as if the plane came down very near their shortwave radio station. Was that the case?

In receiver news, the International Centre for Humanitarian Reporting in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the USA passes on the results of two major field tests of the BayGen Freeplay radio. These have been undertaken by the BBC Afghan Education Drama (AED) Project in Afghanistan, and the Cranfield Disaster Preparedness Centre (DPC) in Eritrea. Each of the tests was designed to test whether the clockwork radios would match up to the expections and durability claims that we’ve seen widely quoted in the press in many parts of the world.

Victor Goonetilleke (photo taken in 1997) joins us to discuss a non-governmental Tamil language station based in London which was starting a series of test transmissions to South Asia. Former members of the BBC have started a station called IBC from the studios of the World Radio Network in South London.

Enjoyed relistening to this Media Network programme recorded in October 1997. Pete Myers was not only a famous presenter and producer at Radio Netherlands. He had a previous life in London being the main anchor for Good Morning Africa on the BBC External Services. But he also presented evening talk programmes on the new Radio 1 when it launched in October 1967. He went back to London to the reunion and recalls what life was like at the Beeb. In the famous line-up photo, he's the one further to the right sitting behind John Peel. He always wore sun-glasses for this type of photo. I believe this one was made on the steps of All Souls Church next to broadcasting house. Golly, nearly fifteen years have passed since we made this.

A news edition of the programme including items about World Radio Network London, Radio Netherlands analogue audiosubcarrier update and changes to the RNW webste.

It seems our efforts to make a different kind of offshore radio special last week did not go unnoticed. We’ve had a nice post bag of reaction, plus a question from Humphrey Macintosh in Leeds in the UK. He notes that many of the offshore radio personalities of the 60’s went on to make a big name for themselves in either BBC or independent local radio. But were there any people who were famous on the high seas but never made it ashore? Well to wrap up our coverage of the scene for the time being, we put that question to Dutch offshore radio specialist Hans Knot. We also talked to Paul Rusling about his various projects in the Isle of Man and the Baltic States (a station targeting Sweden).

This Media Network is concerned with closedowns rather than sign-ons as we delve back into the archives for a special documentary on offshore radio. Jonathan Marks, Diana Janssen, plus a host of other stars will be tracing one of the most important stages in the development of European Radio.

We now present, “30 years in 30 minutes”. That’s the voice of the late Paul Kaye, who 30 years ago today made the very last announcement on Radio London, or Big L. Radio London was the most successful of the radio stations which operated from ships and old army forts off the British coast between 1964 and 1967, and which had a major influence on the development of broadcasting in this part of Europe. A company called East Anglian Productions obtained a so-called Restricted Service Licence, which allowed them to operate the station for one month on mediumwave 1134kHz, using very low power - officially just one watt. Back in the 60’s, the original station operated with much higher power and covering a large part of the UK as well as the Benelux countries. To explain how it came to be on the air, we need to go back to Easter 1964.