Audio Archives

Miscellaneous Recordings

The Hindenburg Disaster

Many people have heard the famous recording of Herb Morrison describing the arrival of the Hindenburg and the disaster that followed when the airship caught on fire. There's a two minute recording that is often played by the media. What is less often heard is the several minutes before and after the airship catches fire. This is the extended recording.

[5 minutes, 56 seconds - 4.1 MB]

Strange Trades - Monty Mazels, Sound Effects Operator

Here's a great example of a profession that doesn't exist any more - sound effects operator for live radio plays. This is likely to have been broadcast in the 1950s.

[4 minutes, 17 seconds - 3.4 MB]

AWA Radiola Demonstration Recording

A recording supplied to purchasers of an AWA Radiola radiogram to demonstrate the quality of the sound. It dates back to around 1960.

[3 minutes, 16 seconds - 1.9 MB]

2UW promos - 1964

Several 2UW promos and a couple of other ads from 1964.

[2 minutes, 54 seconds - 1.7 MB]

Radio Week 1961

Radio Week 1961 - 1 [41 seconds - 1.1 MB]

Radio Week 1961 - 2 [1 minute, 23 seconds - 2.2 MB]

Radio Week 1961 - 3 [6 seconds - 185 kB]

Radio Week 1961 - 4 [25 seconds - 707 kB]

Radio Week 1965 - Radio Stretches the Imagination

Radio Stretches The Imagination 1 [30 seconds - 825 kB]

Radio Stretches The Imagination 2 [44 seconds - 1.2 MB]

Radio Stretches The Imagination 3 [60 seconds - 1.6 MB]

Radio Stretches The Imagination 4 [13 seconds - 358 kB]

Radio Stretches The Imagination 5 [59 seconds - 1.6 MB]

Radio Week 1968

Radio Week 1968 - 1 [57 seconds - 564 kB]

Radio Week 1968 - 2 [23 seconds - 229 kB]

Radio Week 1968 - 3 [40 seconds - 399 kB]

Radio Week 1968 - 4 [1 minute, 21 seconds - 800 kB]

Radio Week 1968 - 5 [9 seconds - 94 kB]

Radio Week 1968 - 5 [6 seconds - 63 kB]

NSW Department of Education Test Tape

A tape prepared for the NSW Department of Education by The Teaching Resources Centre in conjunction with Radio and Motion Picture Branch of Government Stores Department. It was recorded in the studio of Music Branch on 19th October 1970.

[15 minutes - 9.1 MB]

Remembrance Day - 11th November 1978

Remembrance Day 1978 as broadcast by 2UE.

[3 minutes, 58 seconds - 2.7 MB]

2SM at the Elliotts'

A summary of a promotion by radio station 2SM where they spent an entire day in 1979 broadcasting from the home of the contest winner, the Elliot family.

[4 minutes, 14 seconds - 3.4 MB]

Death of John Lennon

The Death of John Lennon, as it was first announced on Radio 2SM, 9th Dec 1980, by 2SM news man, Steve Blanda and 2SM's New York correspondent, John Raedler. Includes an air-check from the following hour.

[12 minutes, 35 seconds - 5.8 MB]

New Year 1973-74 - Radio 2BL Sydney

A prank to fool people into celebrating New Year a minute early, possibly illegal as I believe it was not legal to play the pips except at exactly o'clock.

[1 minute, 15 seconds - 293 kB]

Akai Crossfield Head Demonstration Tape

A Crossfield Head enables a reel-to-reel tape recorder to record sound with much better quality at very low speeds than a conventional reel-to-reel recorder.
Tandberg introduced the concept in the 1960s, but it was widely used by Akai. There's more information about this on Wikipedia.

This is a demonstration tape which came with the Akai model X-IV tape recorder. The tape was recorded at fifteen-sixteenths inches per second, which is one quarter the speed of most domestic reel-to-reel recorders in the 1960s.
You can see more information about this model at reel-reel.com

[16 minutes, 18 seconds - 293 kB]

Thanks to Geejay Schneeweiss for giving me this tape.

Anyone who knows where the following items came from or any information about them, please let me know by emailing me. There's no direct link because of the problem of SPAM. Just type the word andrew followed by the at symbol, that's @, then andrewhost.com