Welcome to the
Virtual Museum of Radio Communications!
 
Like in every museum, you will find here a collection of old things from ancient times. This little private museum is about Utility Radio, that is about everything on the airwaves, which is not broadcasting for the public or experimental radio from licensed radio amateurs, so-called HAMs. Utility Radio is still alive yet, even your mobile phone is part of the whole thing. But this little museum will deal with radiocommunications in the frequency range from 0 to 30 MHz only, the classical long-, medium-, and short-wave range. Also you will not find very much information on what is going on in the Utility Radio spectrum nowadays, even though some of the stations presented here may still be 'on air'.
 
So what will you find here? Since more than 50 years I am into the world of utility radio, the one way or the other. Being a 'collector' and 'hunter', I have collected 'QSL' reception verifications from all parts of the world, and I have hunted for many signals of hard-to-hear utility stations. One day I found, that my private collection might be the starting point for a website, giving a short description of a utility station, it's callsigns, the used frequencies, and so on, and illustrating this with pictures of 'QSL' verifications, with photos from the antenna farm, with a link to an actual website, or with one or more soundclips, where you can hear that station again - most of the stations described here are 'off the air' now. With the time, many utility radio experts have joined in, and the collection of pictures and soundclips is ever expanding. I am sure, it is a real unique collection of utility-radio related stuff. Still, many gaps are to be filled, so open your eyes and ears while walking through this museum, and share your collection here with those who are interested.
 
You want to listen again to that Voice Mirror from Cable & Wireless Port Stanley, Falkland Islands? You want to check which telegraph frequencies were used by KLB Seattle Radio from the U.S. Pacific Coastline? Or want to see different types of QSL-verifications used by Tokyo Volmet, Japan over the decades?
Stay tuned...
 
Please do not expect reference material for actual shortwave listening. Even though you will find tenthousands of frequency information on this site, it will not help you to see the actual status of a frequency. For the first start in 2008, I selected about 2.700 Stations for this museum, but the number of stations increases with every contribution, now there are more than 4.500 utility stations featured here, country by country, and more to come...
 

How to navigate here?
Imagine, the above clip from C&W Port Stanley made you to want more... There are 4 different audio clips from that station presented here - how to find them? On the left side there is a navigation bar, and there you will find a simple entry 'Station Data'. Click on it!! Here you have the choice of opening either a geographically oriented list by continents, or you may use the alphabetical listing. Use the list of the geographical areas of the world - for the Falkland Islands chose 'South America'. Now, the list of all south american areas opens, and your next mouse move should point to 'FLK - Falkland islands'. You then have the list of all the stations from there - clicking on 'C&W Port Stanley' gives you the page with the data sheet of the known callsigns, working frequencies, and modulations used, and links to all multimedia items related to that station. Now you can easily chose to listen to the other audio clips, or to look at the QSL reproduction. Of course, searching for other stations is the same way: select the continent, select the country, select the station. There is even a search function, offering you to search for a callsign, name, frequency, or whatsoever. If you use the entry 'Station Data - alphabetical list of Countries', you will find the countries by their names - even the old names of countries will work. That list, however, will not show you what multimedia items will await you.
A different approach is made on the point 'Station Data - Specials'. Here you have listings with stations of a similar nature, such as Time Signal & Standard Frequency stations, or point-to-point radiotelephone services. There you will find Port Stanley again...

In all listings (countries within a continent, stations within a country) these little symbols tell you what to expect:

this ear advises you, that a sound clip is on board.
this eye tells you, that there is something to see, maybe a QSL oder other visuals.

Additionally, on the individual station data sheets those visuals indicate even more items:

this G indicates a look on a Utility Site via Google Maps
this symbol indicates a link to an external website.
this little camera indicates that there are motion pictures ahead.

When you are on the data page of a utility radio station, a double-click on the above mentioned
symbols () will bring the item to your ears or eyes.
 
Naturally, such a museum will never have a 'complete' collection of something, and there will be mistakes and errors in the data presented. So you are invited to help erasing errors, and to fill gaps. If you have recordings of good quality, QSLs, or other information not yet contained herein, please do not hesitate to share it with others via this site. Contact me at: rainer (at) utilityradio.com, and look here for some more details on contributing.