The Media Network Vintage Vault 2026-2027

I personally think the old Media Network was at its best when it mixed documentary features with informed reports from the network of media enthusiasts around the globe. We built all kinds of conversations about our shared passion for international broadcasting and searching for signals between "DC and daylight." This was a typical show from December 1997, which this time featured a new station in Buenos Aires. Stay tuned to this podcast channel, because news is coming about the return of Media Network in 2016. I am personally intrigued to find out what happened since we reported all this. You heard it here first.

This programme from April 1988 was a based on my personal trip to Indonesia. I took a shortwave radio and a Walkman Pro on my holidays, making tapes of the local broadcasts off-air to compile this travelogue. I'm glad these recordings have survived because you couldn't hear most of it on shortwave. I recall the Voice of Indonesia kept re-using tape, with the result that the print-through from previous broadcasts was clearly audible. Interested in a copy of DXing Indonesia? Leave a message in the comments section.

A year after I joined Radio Netherlands, I remember making a feature on the different kinds of music you could hear on Indonesian radio stations. Thousands of stations were operating on the lower shortwave bands in those days, which meant the signal would often spill over to other parts of world. Victor Goonetilleke would often report hearing stations, but also Dan Robinson on the US East Coast. I got tape back from some of the stations in the RRI network and compiled the feature you can hear in this release. In fact this was a one-off repeat broadcast via Bonaire to the Pacific. There had been a transmission failure during the original broadcast, and we got letters asking to hear it again. The answer was to do the second of the two Pacific broadcasts live. So that explains why I sign-off the transmission at the end. I wonder if there is interest in posting the brochure "DXing Indonesia" which I still have?

The feature producers at Radio Netherlands were always given the task of making extended pre-recorded Christmas and New Years Day programmes because there were no current affairs magazines like Newsline aired on those days. So Media Network suddenly became 46 minutes long. I'm glad I found this Christmas Day show from 1997 in time for Christmas 2015. It includes a feature about offshore radio. You will hear the voices of Jim Cutler, Lou Josephs, Vasily Strelinikov, Andy Sennitt, Bryan Clarke, Esther van Pluym, Willemien Groot, Ray Anderson et al, Victor Goonetilleke, Katherine Farnon and Mike Bird. Please don't write to those addresses or call the answerline. Although it sounds fresh, this is time travel back to 18 years ago. Christmas was always a special time at Radio Netherlands, especially for kids of staff and freelancers. The visit of Sinterklaas a few weeks before at the start of December was always a highlight. Wherever you are this year and whatever you celebrate, I wish you peace, happiness and joy.

This edition of Media Network includes details of Radio Netherlands summer transmission schedule, an interview with the late Joop Heintz about the project together with Radio Benidorm and Director General Lodewijk Bouwens on the setting up of the BVN Television service. I see that BVN is finally streaming its service online for viewers outside the Benelux, though I am not sure why they are using a rather old-fashioned Flash-based player.

In 1981 we experimented with live special editions of Media Network directed to South Asia. There was a lot of mail coming in from India and Sri Lanka (mainly postcards) which we couldn't handle in the regular show. It was always a balance too - we were talking about technology that was not readily available in South Asia. But the feedback we got was that was an excellent reason to listen. This programme is 34 years old - from an era when phone calls were very expensive and mail sometimes took up to 3 months to arrive in Hilversum.

This early edition of the Media Network programme has details of proposed cuts at BBC World Service with a call to Douglas Muggeridge, the Director General. There was a feature on ethnic stations like 2EA in Sydney and short-term holiday stations in New Zealand.

In June 1995 we decided to borrow some airtime from Robert Chesal and broadcast a live programme from the Netherlands broadcasting museum. The premises were on the South side of Hilversum on the Oude Amerfoortse Weg 121 in what looked like a warehouse in those days. This was a decade before they moved to brand new premises on the Media Park, although much of the collection of old equipment didn't move with them. Since it was 60 years of the Dutch transmission authority NOZEMA we put on a ham radio station from the broadcast museum, in line with similar experiments we did on the Flevo polder in 1985. The shortwave transmitter site still stands on the Flevo polder, and Peter Veenendaal has posted a lovely video of the silent transmitter site which is now owned by the Dutch Ministry of Defence. We're told it is a backup system in case satellites fail or get hacked. One thing about analogue shortwave radio, it is difficult to block. This programme was one of several live segments Jeff Clayborn and I did during the day marking 100 years of radio, 60 years of NOZEMA, and 10 years of Flevo. Check out the helicopter sequence when they put a new antenna on top of the Lopik TV Tower.

This extended edition of Media Network broadcast on January 1st 1998 contains an extensive international survey on the state of the international shortwave receiver market. This was probably the peak of the shortwave listening period, when more than 60 receivers were available on the market. This was probably the most extensive survey we ever completed. Presenters Jonathan Marks and Diana Janssen. Enjoy!

There used to be an annual hi-fi and TV exhibition at the RAI Amsterdam called FIRATO. It gradually died out as organisers realized that going to see pop stars dancing on stages next to gadgets didn't sell any more gadgets. The acoustics in the vast halls bear no resemblance to what it sounded like at home. When we visited in 1982, the show was already passed its peak. I was always surprised that a new shortwave radio was often shown there, though seldom on the market until months after. Back then DAT was the big story. In 2015, the only show in Europe left is IFA in Berlin, but I seriously wonder for how much longer.