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| RADIO NOVA - DUBLIN MARCH 2010: After a long time, here are a load more recordings of Radio Nova, most recorded in Scotland from AM radio at some distance from the transmitter site. Many are really good AM quality, many are night time MW quality, when signals had the "Luxembourg" night time AM sound to them. When NOVA was on 819, my own local here in Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland used to give some grief. And it did depend on the receiver used, whether the selectivity was really enough, or whether you could actually hear the BBC at times too. One old valve receiver I used was very unstable, and tuning would drift, even on AM!! NB: Please read the comments on the "download index" regards the age and audio quality of these recordings.
MARCH 2008: Nova was started in the early summer of 1981 by ex Caroline / Northsea / Luxembourg / Radio Free London presenter, Chris Cary/ Spangles Muldoon. Initially
Nova was only on 88 FM, but in Sept 1981, the first MW frequency of
846kHz was added. This channel was used for a time, but RAI were still
on high power on 846kHz, causing grief at night. After trials on 891,
(remember the mighty 8-90 jingles) Nova settled on 819kHz, followed
by 828 after their 1983 raid. Brief tests on 729kHz were made, before
the final MW frequency of 738kHz was chosen. At the time of the recordings,
the rf output power was a massive 50kW. In late 1985 Nova briefly tested
on LW 254kHz. Nova even had a UHF TV station at one time, and a SW service
on 6207. After leaving Dublin, Cary started Nova as a satellite radio
station. NOVA
transmissions came from various sources around Dublin city, but the
main location, and certainly home to their 50kw MW transmitter, was
Greenacres Country Club, Rathfarnan, renamed Nova Park. See
article elsewhere on this site about a memorable visit to the old
site in 2004.
Many of the following recordings are from the summer of 1984, and are in the main of excellent "AM" quality from 738kHz. Most of the tapes were typically made on an average weekday, and are a great insight into Radio Nova's daily programming from that era. All recordings were made in Scotland. While I would love to travel back in time to 20 odd years ago, with my PC, and almost limitless time recording capabilities, it is a dream none of us can obviously hope to achieve. Thus we have to make do with what recordings there are. Back then I never had a reel to reel machine, which was capable of recording four tracks at six and a half hours each on triple play reels. I never had a video recorder which could have made recordings of 4 hours, or even 8 hours at slow speed. The length of the recordings therefore are mainly only 45m or so. This was simply due to "banging a C90 tape on in the passing" and somehow hope to return at the time when it was ready to turn over. Sadly this rarely happened, due to work commitments. My philosophy in 1984 was that 45m was better than nothing. I am now so glad that was the case! These unique recordings are taken from the master cassettes, most of which in all honesty probably had not been played back since they were recorded all those years ago. They have never seen the light of day, and no one else has copies of these tapes to my knowledge. They were just recorded and stuck in a box, and left. Personally speaking, if I am playing old radio tapes back, I tend to listen to 1970's Radio Caroline recordings, complete with the unique selection of music that once radiated from the North Sea from the old Mi Amigo. My ageing cassettes from that era of offshore radio are well worn. The Nova tapes seem to be in rather better nick luckily. It
is hoped that these recordings will bring back fond memories of radio
"25 plus" years ago. If you weren't there, I am sure you may
still appreciate the historic content of these recordings.
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RADIO NOVA NIGHT NETWORK: This is not really Irish, but lumped in with the Irish stuff because of the earlier NOVA Dublin station. (There was however a Radio Nova relay from Dublin of this satellite station). This is taken off air from ILR AYR when they used to relay NOVA during the night. The first clip is continous from ILR AYR closedown at 0000, until reopening again at 0600. NOVA is heard in between times for 6 hours. Files recorded onto a single mono track from a mono radio, a grundig satellit 3400. Listen to a young Sybil talking about the satellite Radio Nova.
880610_media_network_article_on_sat_radio_inc_nova.mp3 (2,992k)
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Radio Nova related links http://www.chriscary.com/Radio%20Nova.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Nova_(Ireland) http://193.63.162.100/7rnova.htm http://www.broadviewecology.com/irishpirates/nova_jingles.htm http://www.radiowaves.fm/radionova.shtml Links to various raids clips courtesy of dxarchive.com NB:
These recordings are for sharing and enjoyment but are subject to
copyright, and are not for resale. |