Stocks and Shares Radio for Africa was one of the more unusual private shortwave ventures, dating back to 1996. And they got the prize for the most boring sign-on music.

Yes, this is a Media Network edition dating back to October 1984, which includes a double report from Roger Tidy and Bob Tomalski from London. At that time there were a nuge number of FM pirates, many of them operating out of semi-permanent locations in the tower blocks that dominate the skyline in North and South London. David Hermges reports on the disappearance of Austrian regional station Radio Tyrol on 6 MHz. Professor John Campbell has clandestine news from Tonga, started as pirate. Jim Young of WaveView explains a new type of low power television transmitter for 8000 pounds sterling. We talk to Dutch radio hams who are participating in one of the Friesland DX contexts. We also talked about the first test transmissions from the Flevo transmitter site. Victor Goonetilleke has bad news that the Maldives SW transmitter is off the air.

This edition goes way back to the time in late October 1984 when they started testing the new Radio Netherlands transmitter site out on the Flevo polder near the town od Zeewolde. I got a chance to take a short helicopter ride as they put the transmitters on low power to measure the antenna radiation pattern. I'll never forget the ride because I learned later the German helicopter couldn't stop the rotors when we landed because the battery had failed and he needed to get back to Germany the same day. It's rather ironic to learn that in 2012, the entire Flevo transmitter site has been sold to the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. The facility will now be converted to operate in the ultility bands, acting as a back-up system to Dutch military abroad incase conventional satellite systems failed or are compromised. Bearing in mind Syria and Iran are both jamming satellite communications at the moment, I can understand why they take precautions. Of course they will need much lower power than the 4 500 kW transmitters used for Radio Netherlands broadcasts. The programme also discusses the return of Wonderful Radio London International. We spoke with John England from Texas. Enjoy this flashback.

AM (mediumwave) stereo has been trying to take off since as long as I've been in radio. The idea surfaced in the early nineties again and we covered it in Media Network in December of 1991. Rather wierd listening to it 21 years later. Never did take off. Interesting to hear how listeners were calling in their tips to the show even though the cost was rather high compared to today's standards. And some familiar voices from long-time Media Network listeners in this show - Tony Barrett, Julius Hermans, Dave Onley.

A rare glimpse into the inner workings of one of the strongest propaganda voices out of the Balkans from one of its smallest countries. Today Radio Tirana is a shadow of its former self when it was the mouthpiece of Enver Hoxha. One of the older female announcers used to fascinate me. She would sometimes sign-off with the words. And that is the end of our broadcast. "Goodbye dear Listener". Perhaps I was the only one.

One of my favorite programmes from 1999 because of an excellent contribution from listener Nevil Coles in the UK explaining how fanfares used by international broadcasters had intrigued him. We voiced his contribution and managed to find most of the interval signals he was talking about in the Media Network Archives. We also looked at how the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was shutting down its AM broadcasting facilities as it transferred to FM. The new FM transmitter was opened with fireworks. But the shutdown of the AM facility in Hornby Ontario was witnessed by DX Audio Service reporter Scott Fybush. I am delighted to report that Fred Vobbe's DX Audio Service is still going strong in 2012.

A Media Network edition from August 1997. One of the items is an interview with Tudor Lomas who used to work for the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in the early nineties, before heading out to start a training centre called Jemstone based in Jordan. I did a training session with him in Beirut in that year. Would be impossible now.

Media Network's first visit to Chile. This was in connection with a radio festival that Radio Netherlands organized with several hundred partner stations in Santiago. Diana Janssen made the trip - I stayed in the Netherlands working on other projects at the time. She spoke with Bruce Girard who later went on to do a lot of work with AMARC, the community radio organisation.

The mystery of the spy number stations has been a recurring theme in Media Network. Perhaps the most elaborate project to catalogue them was a 4 CD project set up in 1997. I see it's still listed in Wikipedia. The edition of Media Network talked with the producer of the CD in the second half of the show. We also looked at how radio was seen in the dim distant past (Remember the TM Century Punk Country Campaign?) and Jim Cutler threw in a surprise T-shirt competition. Perfect proof that the nineties weren't boring, even though no-one had a smart phone.

This programme starts with a portrait of Radio Denmark. Then we presented a feature on Hate Media. Recently found the complete edition of this programme, so I am reposting the complete programme. We knew that Radio Milles Collines incited genocide in Rwanda in 1994. But in March 1995 we didn't know the full extent of the tradegy. That would be revealed several years later at the trials in Arusha, Tanzania. Eric Beachemin did a lot of travelling in the Great Lakes region of East Africa and brought back with him some unique insights into how media could help repair the social damage as well. This version is slightly shorter than the regular Network - was used in transcription to other radio stations. We also noted that some of the later work we did on publishing information about hate speech was used (and credited) by those who made the film Hotel Rwanda in 2004. That was the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda.