Sunday, September 15, 2013

Radio Roma Libera II (Radio Free Rome 2)

The radio station was a success beyond all expectations and it was extremely gratifying to walk through the 'barracks' and hear the programming playing from individual radio sets in the various rooms. There was but one malfunction - for reasons unknown, one afternoon Windows Media Player failed to move on to the next mp3 file. Fortunately, I was in the vicinity and so was able to launch the file manually with only a brief delay.

I cannot say enough about Media Outlet's Old Time Radio World War II MegaSet which was the source for nearly all of the material for the broadcasts. While one might bristle at paying for old radio programs that are in the Public Domain (and not too difficult to find online), your time is worth much more than Media Outlet's $14.49 price. Many of the mp3s include information about the "air date" of the program (usually embedded in the file name). Be advised that there is some post-war material included on the DVDs, but it's easily recognizable by checking the date.

The Media Outlet discs contain mostly Allied material, but there are a few hours of German programming as well. Unfortunately, for the MTO (Mediterranean Theater of Operations) there is very little Italian language material, outside of a few Italian songs and a couple of Mussolini's speeches. For this, I turned to the Italian State Radio and Television system, or RAI. With an online translator, a bit of trial and error, and some appropriate audio recording software, you can glean useful material from the RAI History site.

If you're interested in having your own low-power AM radio set, so as to become the next Edward R. Murrow, send me a message (preferably not in Morse Code)!

2 comments:

  1. Hello. I'm a WW2 Italian reenactor from the Atlanta, Georgia area. Over the last 6 months I've developed a partisan impression. I'd love to learn more about the AM radio set - I'm trying to build a field-expedient crystal radio set for my display and receiving a period-based broadcast would be great. I'm also trying to put together some paperwork for my "pocket trash". Grazie!

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