Breaker! Breaker!

February 1, 2008 2:50 AM

I want recordings of people communicating over the radio, especially in a military or astronautical context. Gimme.

I'm not looking for radio-show broadcasts. Recordings of police dispatchers, military transmissions (especially in the field), transmissions to and from spaceships, or ocean-going ships, airplanes... things like that, are all good. Heavy noise/distortion, jargon, and a sense of urgency (or emergency) are a bonus.

Ideally these would be available for free over the net, but I'd be interested in other options too. LiveATC is quite well-suited, but I need more! I'm looking for them partly out of curiosity/fascination, and partly to sample for music.

posted by Drexen to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Response by poster: Oh, and foreign-language transmissions are fine, if not preferred. Especially Russian!
posted by Drexen at 2:55 AM on February 1, 2008

Best answer: Here are a few places to try.
posted by mykescipark at 3:10 AM on February 1, 2008

Best answer: For astronaut/space stuff these recordings from the early days of the space program in the United States sound just like what you might be looking for. However, sadly, they are not posted at the site anymore. (I had seen them because they were linked on the front page of metafilter at one time). But the posting mentions that metafilter user loquacious helped restore the files to the server at one point, so perhaps you can mefi mail him to see if they are available anymore.
posted by extrabox at 5:04 AM on February 1, 2008

Best answer: Here is a post on the lost cosmonauts that includes links to some purported Russian transmissions.
posted by TedW at 5:07 AM on February 1, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks, all good answers so far!
posted by Drexen at 9:08 AM on February 1, 2008