This edition of programme was subtitled "Crime Time", a tongue in cheek look at the offshore pirate radio ship Laser 558, later sold to East Anglian Productions. I spoke with Ray Anderson, who said that Laser was going to Gibraltar. The UK Customs authorities have been very active in trying to prevent the ship leaving the UK. Ray Anderson says he has made a profit on the sale of the vessel. In InfoDutch, we talk about the HCC Hobby Club and the new CD-ROM player which can store a massive 600MB of data (remember this was the era of data on compact cassettes). We discuss the use of modems and the FIDO computer network. Victor Goonetilleke and Sarath Weerakoon report on new stations being launched in Sri Lanka. TWR is going on shortwave. RAE Argentina is being heard in South Asia on 15345 kHz at 1745 UTC.

Black Clandestine stations go back decades with many appearing during the Second World War. Media Network documented many stations like Soldatensender Calais run from Crowborough in the UK. But in 1985 (yes this is time travel stuff) we reviewed a Japanese publication which told the story of a fake Radio Bandung set up by the Japanese in Vietnam. John Campbell explains that many DX clubs are giving up their subscriptions to the BBC Monitoring Services World Broadcasting Information because of a major price hike. In other news, there has been an earthquake in Mexico. Victor Goonetilleke has spotted a new clandestine station Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front. Germany is switching off its chain of time stations like 12763.5 kHz. A nice escape from lockdown don't you think?

BBC Turkish service is being jammed. Dennis Thompson explains. DW and VOA are also affected. The audio on the Radio Netherlands Flevo transmitters are being tweaked. We have an in-depth review of the FRG-8800 shortwave receiver from Yaesu. UN Radio is expanding its broadcasts for an hour in English and French to Africa.

This early edition of Media Network reports that there have been reception problems. Reports on Radio Marti for Cuba has resurfaced. We hear the voice of Rudy Espinal who is now hosting The World on Radio Earth. We interviewed Peter Bradley about the difficulty in predicting shortwave propagation. I also looked at the BBC's experiments to measure the state of the oceans. This is not the Russian Woodpecker but it is a radar system. Dick Klees looks at the growth of home computer club. The programme concludes with a feature on Blue Danube Radio, on 102.2 MHz. I recall one of the DJ's on BDR was the now-famous presenter from New Zealand Paul Holmes. I interviewed John Wilde, who I knew from my days at the ORF shortwave service.

The end of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Radio Australia is in danger of grinding to a halt. Radio Thailand is planning to expand its English language programmes. I went out to the new Flevoland shortwave transmitter site. Some of the masts are up. Henk ter Loo of the Dutch PTT explained what they have installed. In equipment news, we looked at the Grundig Yacht Boy 700 together with Wolfgang Scheunemann of WeltWeit Hoeren magazine. There is a new shortwave receiver from Bearcat which is made in Japan. President Reagan has appeared in a James Bond promotion for the new film Octopussy. Roger Tidy has news about Brazil.

There was a postal strike in the Netherlands which gave us a lot of headaches both in terms of taped contributions to Media Network but also a vast drop off in listeners letters. Dennis Powell reports on an ELF system for communicating with submarines. We announced plans for ham radio communications on the Space Shuttle STS-9 from astronaut Owen Garriott W5LFL. We call Bill Whitacre who reports on new stations from Costa Rica. Radio Impacto is targeting Nicaragua. It seems that people in New Zealand who will not be prosecuted for watching satellite television feeds. We look at what can be received with a 6 metre dish! There is a souvenir issue of Monitor Magazine from Benfleet. We also interviewed Larry Magne on his forthcoming Radio Database International publication.

Not sure of the exact date of this early Media Network but I am guessing 10.01.1985 We started with a visit to the Sunspot Index Data Centre in Brussels. I remember assuming that with a name like Koekelenberg, the head of the centre would speak Dutch, but discovered he would only speak French and a smattering of English. Belgium remains a mystery to me with the language divide. We then looked at a proposal for a new Radio Free Europe programme called Radio Maccabee. The programme concludes with reports about various strange stations coming out of the northern part of South Africa. Irish music has been heard, but no station announcements. Reporter Roger Tidy went down to Stockbridge Post Office to investigate a letterbox announced by the South African political clandestine station Radio Truth which is beaming to Zimbabwe. We included several off-air clips from the station. The British Foreign Office wasn't all that interested. Richard Ginbey has been noting some strong signals from Burundi, Kenya and Mauritius.

A newsy edition of the show. Good Morning Britain launches with David Frost. TVAM has some challenges with the unions. Quality Media said they were planning to expand their Caribbean Beacon station to include shortwave. They were planning 2 100 kw transmitters. Guyana is being heard in the European mornings on 5950 kHz. Radio Mediterranean in Malta is also been heard. We broadcast another short feature on spy number stations, this time a feature from a Swedish newspaper. This edition also included Part 2 of Forces Radio, where we featured the Canadians in Europe. I found some interesting post-war recordings and that prompted a visit to Brunssum to find out about the 5 Canadian radio outlets for their troops in Europe. Arthur Cushen has been hearing 7355 kHz is a new outofband channel for WYFR as well as several mediumwave stations from North America. KYOI in Saipan is also QSLing.

Tony Barratt in the UK reports on the VOA Bethany Closedown transmission. There are updates on KHBI, the Christian Science Monitor Station which took over KYOI in the Mariana Islands. There are changes going on at Radio Berlin International. In PUBSPOT we look at new Fine-Tuning Group's Proceedings 1989 which contains 27 articles from real specialists. John Bryant is one of the editors and explains why they went into so much detail. This edition is both for beginners and advanced alike. Bryant wrote a very practical article on the Beverage antenna. John Fisher has an excellent article on broadcasting in Brazil and Hans Johnson on broadcasting in the Middle East. A lot of information may be "dated" in 2020, but for someone who travels and wants to kill some time reading about SWL, they are a great resource. It's like sitting down with a veteran DXer and picking his/her brain. The authors were "giants" of the hobby back in the day. All the books were available on a single CD-ROM for US$10 from Harold Sellers of the Ontario DX Association.. (http://www.odxa.on.ca) There are earlier interviews with John Bryant of Fine tuning in these editions of Media Network: http://jonathanmarks.libsyn.com/mn-18-08-1988-poland-and-radio-solidarity plus two other programmes with John Bryant which we did: http://jonathanmarks.libsyn.com/mn-11-09-1995-turkish-police-radio-and-zenith-sw-radios covered the Zenith Transoceanic http://jonathanmarks.libsyn.com/mn19091991-drake-r8 which went into some depth about the Drake R-8. In another publication "Latin America by Radio" Swedish DXer Henrik Klemitz has made a study of Latin American broadcasting. We report on the Ulysees mission from the European Space Agency. Roy Neal reports that in the wake Hurricane Hugo, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands have asked amateur radio operators for help.

Offshore station Laser Hots Hits is back with a new formula of hot hits on 576 kHz. Barry Johnson of Anoraks UK has more details. For some reason, Laser were running several Public service announcements, with an address in New York. Another project from the ship the Nanelle will come later. Europa TV has closed down. It seems viewers in Portugal miss it most. We speak with Jonathan Hill, author of the excellent reference book Radio, Radio. He thinks that that radios of the 1930's are the most interesting. He also tells the story of why the Pye Rising Sun radios were withdrawn. Jonathan also explains that some of the international collectors are getting together. We hear a complaint about shortwave books review. We look at the mystery alphabet Morse stations. Arthur Cushen reports KSDA, Guam is asking for reports. BBC Monitoring reports a new mainland Chinese station targeting Taiwan.