My friend Simon Beale from Heart London alerted me to this site last night whilst in the pub after the excellent Nextrad.io conference.

http://www.aircheckdownloads.com/

Trevor Dann, speaking at the conference yesterday, was discussing how incomplete the archives of many broadcasters are. The BBC has a huge archive – but much is missing. In the past, there hasn’t been so much value placed in maintaining archives.

Archives = space. Space costs money.

When I worked in Leicester Square, what archives there were, were kept in the record library by the very knowledgeable librarian Clive Smith. Once he left, who knows what happened to them?

Luckily, there have always been a band of “enthusiasts” who have taped radio stations off air and filed the results away. This site seems to be a fairly large archive.

So whether you want to hear what Capital FM used to sound like, or how Atlantic 252’s Test transmissions turned out – along with airchecks from across the pond, this site may be worth a listen.

Radio in the past wasn’t necessarily better. But if you haven’t heard much of it, this could give you a snapshot.