In message ,
Terry Casey writes





One AFN station, I think it was Munich, ended its 1am close down
sequence with "Ladies and gentlemen, our National Anthem!"

To a teenager listening under the bedclothes in the early 60s, this
always conjured up a marvellous image of all the yanks in Germany
jumping out of bed, snapping smartly to attention and saluting ...

I recall hearing the close-down of an AFN station on the short wave,
from an island somewhere in the Pacific. They signed off with the
playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner', and there was lots of rapid
fading and phase distortion. It sounded great - just like SW radio ought
to sound. If I had been an American, I'm sure I would have leapt to my
feet and stood to attention, with my right hand on my chest and my eyes
brimming with tears.

Some of the renditions of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' on YouTube are also
guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes (but for different reasons). This
is typical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFIHq...eature=related
Thank heavens nobody gets to sing 'God Save The Queen' like that!
--
Ian

In article , Ian Jackson ianREMOVET
scribeth thus
In message ,
Terry Casey writes





One AFN station, I think it was Munich, ended its 1am close down
sequence with "Ladies and gentlemen, our National Anthem!"

To a teenager listening under the bedclothes in the early 60s, this
always conjured up a marvellous image of all the yanks in Germany
jumping out of bed, snapping smartly to attention and saluting ...

I recall hearing the close-down of an AFN station on the short wave,
from an island somewhere in the Pacific. They signed off with the
playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner', and there was lots of rapid
fading and phase distortion. It sounded great - just like SW radio ought
to sound. If I had been an American, I'm sure I would have leapt to my
feet and stood to attention, with my right hand on my chest and my eyes
brimming with tears.

Some of the renditions of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' on YouTube are also
guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes (but for different reasons). This
is typical:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFIHq...eature=related
Thank heavens nobody gets to sing 'God Save The Queen' like that!

Well I've always thought that the SSB was open to a bit of
"interpretation" and hence appropriate for the new world but nope, GSTQ
is more of a regal theme and you couldn't do that with it anyway....

OK I know Mr Rotten once had a go....
--
Tony Sayer

"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...
In message , Terry
Casey writes





One AFN station, I think it was Munich, ended its 1am close down
sequence with "Ladies and gentlemen, our National Anthem!"

To a teenager listening under the bedclothes in the early 60s, this
always conjured up a marvellous image of all the yanks in Germany
jumping out of bed, snapping smartly to attention and saluting ...

I recall hearing the close-down of an AFN station on the short wave, from
an island somewhere in the Pacific. They signed off with the playing of
'The Star-Spangled Banner', and there was lots of rapid fading and phase
distortion. It sounded great - just like SW radio ought to sound. If I had
been an American, I'm sure I would have leapt to my feet and stood to
attention, with my right hand on my chest and my eyes brimming with tears.

Nahh, we yanks stayed in bed, sleeping well knowing that we dominated the
world. ;-)

Having a powerful radio station on foreign ground broadcasting your national
anthem is a great experience in marking your territory!

In article , Arny Krueger
scribeth thus

"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...
In message , Terry
Casey writes





One AFN station, I think it was Munich, ended its 1am close down
sequence with "Ladies and gentlemen, our National Anthem!"

To a teenager listening under the bedclothes in the early 60s, this
always conjured up a marvellous image of all the yanks in Germany
jumping out of bed, snapping smartly to attention and saluting ...

I recall hearing the close-down of an AFN station on the short wave, from
an island somewhere in the Pacific. They signed off with the playing of
'The Star-Spangled Banner', and there was lots of rapid fading and phase
distortion. It sounded great - just like SW radio ought to sound. If I had
been an American, I'm sure I would have leapt to my feet and stood to
attention, with my right hand on my chest and my eyes brimming with tears.

Nahh, we yanks stayed in bed, sleeping well knowing that we dominated the
world. ;-)

Having a powerful radio station on foreign ground broadcasting your national
anthem is a great experience in marking your territory!



Nice tune tho;!...
--
Tony Sayer

On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:03:53 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

Having a powerful radio station on foreign ground broadcasting your national
anthem is a great experience in marking your territory!


Yup, that's chapter three in "how to win friends and influence
people". ;-) You should of course have been broadcasting the tune to
"My country 'tis of thee".

d

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:03:53 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

Having a powerful radio station on foreign ground broadcasting your
national
anthem is a great experience in marking your territory!

Yup, that's chapter three in "how to win friends and influence
people". ;-)

I think we did well in the "win friends" department by simply not being the
Russians or like them, and everybody in Europe knew it!

I suspect that our current strategy is to simply wait for the EU to bankrupt
themselves with their current implementation of a common currency, and then
buy it all back with Chinese money! ;-)

The UK is to be complemented for staying as clear of the Euro as they were
able to.

You should of course have been broadcasting the tune to
"My country 'tis of thee".

Isn't that the the tune that accompanies "God save the matriarch" or
something like it?

On Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 at 08:33:50h -0500, Arny Krueger wrote:

I think we did well in the "win friends" department by simply not being
the Russians or like them, and everybody in Europe knew it!

VOA Jazz Hour with Willis Conover as opposed to tractor production
statistics in Round about the Soviet Union.

I suspect that our current strategy is to simply wait for the EU to
bankrupt themselves with their current implementation of a common
currency, and then buy it all back with Chinese money! ;-)

The Chinese are doing very well buying up Europe at the moment
with their own money eg Port of Piraeus.

Isn't that the the tune that accompanies "God save the matriarch" or
something like it?

Same tune as the Lichtenstein national anthem.

The music for a Star Spangled Banner is reputed to have been
composed by the English composer John Stafford Smith (1750–1836).

Incidentally the Star Spangled Banner only became the USofA
national anthem in 1931.

"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...
In article , says...

Terry Casey wrote:
In article , re says...
AFN used only one or two AM frequencies actually, they had FM
transmitters as well.

Three[1] (or, possibly, four) with high power transmitters easily
received in the UK in the 60s.

Plus, at closedown, a very long list of relay transmitters would be
read
out, all with AM frequencies.

[1] Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart spring to mind ...

I could only get AFN in one place on the dial when I was a kid.


Well, from memory - and this was in the days when the wireless was
metric, of course - Stuttgart 271m, Frankfurt 344m and Munich 547m.

I might be a bit out with Munich but it was right at the end of the band
somewhere.

Wireless World published an EBU chart in 1966 IIRC which contained lots
of useful information. Now, if I could only work out what ever became of
mine, it would fill in all the gaps in ze leetle grey cells (the chart
was published in Brussels, of course ...!)

I'm pretty certain I've remembered this accurately:

"This is AFN Frankfurt, key station of the American Forces Network,
Europe ... AFN Frankfurt operates on an assigned frequency of eight
hundred seventy two kilocycles per second, three hundred forty four
metres (meters ...?) in the Medium wave band with a power of one hundred
fifty thousand watts"

One AFN station, I think it was Munich, ended its 1am close down
sequence with "Ladies and gentlemen, our National Anthem!"

To a teenager listening under the bedclothes in the early 60s, this
always conjured up a marvellous image of all the yanks in Germany
jumping out of bed, snapping smartly to attention and saluting ...


I remember Frankfurt 873kHz (which was always the best frequency for me) and
also, I think, 1107kHz and 1143kHz.
That was probably some time in the late 70s or early 80s.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)

To email me remove the letter vee.

In article ,
says...

"Terry Casey" wrote in message
...
In article , says...

Terry Casey wrote:

Well, from memory - and this was in the days when the wireless was
metric, of course - Stuttgart 271m, Frankfurt 344m and Munich 547m.

I might be a bit out with Munich but it was right at the end of the band
somewhere.

Wireless World published an EBU chart in 1966 IIRC which contained lots
of useful information. Now, if I could only work out what ever became of
mine, it would fill in all the gaps in ze leetle grey cells (the chart
was published in Brussels, of course ...!)

I'm pretty certain I've remembered this accurately:

"This is AFN Frankfurt, key station of the American Forces Network,
Europe ... AFN Frankfurt operates on an assigned frequency of eight
hundred seventy two kilocycles per second, three hundred forty four
metres (meters ...?) in the Medium wave band with a power of one hundred
fifty thousand watts"

One AFN station, I think it was Munich, ended its 1am close down
sequence with "Ladies and gentlemen, our National Anthem!"

To a teenager listening under the bedclothes in the early 60s, this
always conjured up a marvellous image of all the yanks in Germany
jumping out of bed, snapping smartly to attention and saluting ...


I remember Frankfurt 873kHz (which was always the best frequency for me) and
also, I think, 1107kHz and 1143kHz.
That was probably some time in the late 70s or early 80s.

873kHz corresponds to the pre-WARC 872kHz/344m that I recall. 1107kHz
(pre-WARC 1106) is what I remember for Stuttgart but 1143kHz is a blank
to me - the nearest I can recall to that was VoA Munich 251m/1196kHz.

A couple of relevant snippets I've been able to unearth a

http://www.nrcdxas.org/bios/md.html

(Relating to the 50s) " ... the AFN Frankfurt operation was running 150
kilowatts on 872 kHz and AFN Munich was doing 100 kilowatts on 548 kHz."

548kHz is the 547m I recalled in my first post!

From: American Forces Network in the Cold War: Military Broadcasting in
Postwar Germany

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/ex...1772/coldw.pdf

(1945/6) " ... Five of AFN's transmitters were small, but three were
high-powered units captured from the Germans. Two were 100 kw medium
wave transmitters located in Stuttgart and in Munich ...

(Later) AFN ... broadcast over 31 AM and 21 FM radio transmitters ...

The network's 150 kw radio transmitter broadcasts Frankfurt
on 872 kHz with three times the power of any AM station in the U.S. AFN
operates seven other AM transmitters of 10 kW or more, providing a
medium-wave radio signal that covers much of West Germany during the
day, and can be received over a large part of Western Europe at night."

All very much as I remember it ...

--

Terry