If you're interested in a trade, please email me at info@radiowasbetter.com.

Please note that there are also several "regular" airchecks of 1930s and 1940s New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago radio listed under the corresponding state listing.

Note that these are not in chronological order.  They're just in the order I acquired them.

The latest material on this list was added on June 30, 2011 and are items #26 and #27.

1. World War II Broadcasts.

2. "Christmas on the Blue." Heard at 2 p.m. on December 25, 1944 over NBC Blue/WJZ.  This recording contains "Two full hours of the greatest Entertainment has to offer, brought to you by the Blue Network from Hollywood, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Pearl Harbor, and the European Battlefront. To make your Christmas a merrier one, you'll hear Paul Whiteman and his orchestra, Wendell Niles and Don Krendle, Lawrence Tibbets and Reese Stevens, Walter Winchell, the Andrews Sisters, Alan Young, The 'Life of Riley,' starring William Bendix, Andy Russell, Charlotte Greenwood, the Fred Waring Chorus, Ed Wynn and his son Keenan, Joe E. Brown, the Paul Taylor Chorus, Herbert Marshall, Westbrook van Voorhis, the famous voice of the March of Time, who will introduce our fighting men and women who are spending Christmas on far-flung battlefronts all around the world, and last, but not least, the woman who heads our cast of over 200 actors, singers, and musicians, our mistress of ceremonies, known to servicemen everywhere as "Our Gracie," Miss Gracie Fields!" (118 minutes)

3. Bill Stern's Colgate Shaving Cream Sports News. On NBC, from 1946. These were short sports shows that also featured the appearance of a name entertainer. The four here feature (about 14 minutes each) Lucille Ball, Tommy Dorsey, Elsa Maxwell, and Dinah Shore. (56 minutes, tape 380/HD)

4. Airplane Crashes into the Empire State Building.  Several networks' coverage of the event that occurred on July 28, 1945 where a B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the 78th and 79th floors of the Empire State Building. 

   1. ABC coverage. (3 minutes, CD139/HD)

   2. NBC (over WEAF).  Don Goddard interviews by phone a man named Bill Kirby of the Grant Advertising Agency whose office was on the 76th floor, Herb Sheldon interviews two eyewitnesses to the event, Charlie Vail reports from the site, and Ray Barrett reports generally about the incident.  (24 minutes, CD139/HD)

   3. Mutual News broadcast by Paul Kilyen at 11 a.m.  (13 minutes, HD)

   4. Mutual News broadcast by Barry Gray at 12:25 p.m.  Ends with a very interesting recording of the crash itself.  In what more or less presages what we have today with video cameras on every street corner managing to capture almost anything that happens, it so happens that, a few blocks away from the site of this crash, someone in the offices of the American Society of Civil Engineers was dictating a letter and had his window open, and the sound of the plane's engines and the crash can be clearly heard in the background of the recording.  (6 minutes, HD)

5. Breakfast Club with Don McNeill. From WLS in Chicago, from June 21, 22, 23, and 24, 1945.  Each show is 14 minutes.  (54 minutes total, tape 1521/HD)

6. Glenn Miller War Bond Show at Paramount Theater.  7th War Bond Drive.  A tribute to Glen Miller with many big band stars heard at 8:00 p.m. on June 5, 1945 over WNEW in New York.  (219 minutes, tapes 1522-1525/HD)

7. Breakfast Club with Don McNeill.  From NBC in Chicago on December 8, 1941.  Features numerous interruptions for war bulletins.  (59 minutes, unscoped, tape 1520/HD)

8. Removed due to duplication.

9. Selective Service Lottery.  From October 29, 1940 on the Mutual Broadcasting System.  Implementation of the Selective Service Act of 1940 establishing the first peacetime draft.  FDR gives a speech and then draws the first number.  Announcers include Walter Compton and Stephen McCormick.  One of the announcers' numbers is actually called, but he doesn't realize it until later (toward the end of the recording).  Very dramatic!  (44 minutes, tape 1542/CD139/HD)

10. In Town Tonight.  From January 24, 1940.  On NBC.  Variety show with Cliff Engle and Helen Morgan and featuring interviews with Jack Benny's secretary and writers.  From the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. (15 minutes, tape 1542/HD)

11. Raleigh's Radio Rally.  From the late 1930s on NBC.  A variety show hosted by Ken Griffin and featuring the First Nighter, Dale Evans, Rex Moffen and his band, and others, and brought to you by Raleigh Cigarettes.  (29 minutes, unscoped, tape 1535/HD)

12. Removed due to duplication.

13. This Is WCBS.  From November 2, 1946.  A documentary about the radio station at 880 on the a.m. dial in New York City on the occasion of its change of call letters, which had been WABC since 1926.  (The WABC calls went to the station we know now as WABC, at 770 on the dial, with the formation of the ABC network from the former NBC Blue Network.)  Hosted by Arthur Godfrey, who notes that this is the first time a radio station changed its call letters to reflect the network that owns it.  Mr. Godfrey assures his listeners that this will continue to be the same radio station they know and love.  (31 minutes, unscoped, tape 1535/CD139/HD)

14. Harrington & Wood.  From WCBS in New York from October 4, 1948.  Program featuring live music with Norm Brokenshier.  There are some tape speed problems (warble) near the beginning of the tape.  (15 minutes, tape 1542/HD)

15. Steve Allen on KNX, Los Angeles.  From October 26, 1949.  Humorist Steve Allen interviews Al Jolson.  (31 minutes, unscoped, tape 1528/HD)

16. WJSV Complete Broadcast Day.  From Thursday, September 21, 1939.  President Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech to Congress this day, and station WJSV, 1460 AM in Washington, DC decided to preserve the entire day's broadcast, from sign-on at 6 a.m. to sign-off at 1:00 a.m. the following morning, to commemorate it.  To see a complete, hour-by-hour program schedule, click here.  Note that this recording is contained entirely on one CD in .mp3 format, so you need either an .mp3 player or a computer with the capability to play .mp3 files.  If you would like a copy of this, you will get an exact copy on one CD.  (19 hours, approximately 262 megabytes, CD129/HD).

17. Removed due to duplication.

18. Dr. John Romulus Brinkley. The famous medical quack and flim-flam artist from the 1920s and 30s who broadcast first on KFKB ("Kansas Folks Know Best" or "Kansas First, Kansas Best," depending upon whom you ask) in Milford, Kansas and then on several early Texas border blasters.  Read about him here.

    I have several items:

    1. Recording tests from 1939. Saturday night talk excerpt. Pickard family music excerpts. (27 minutes, CD 415/HD)

    2. XERA transcriptions from 1939. Dr. Brinkley talking, Pickard family music, commercials. (30 minutes, CD 415/HD)

    3. Two broadcasts with filler music from 1939. Among other things, Dr. Brinkley asks you to send him $2.00 for a "medicated container" kit on how to extract a sample excretion from your kidneys and send it to the Country Club Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas for tests. (31 minutes, CD418/HD)

    4. Saturday Night Talk from October 1, 1939 (about 13 minutes). A message to Johnny Boy from August 23, 1933 (not complete — about 5 minutes' worth). (18 minutes, CD 418/HD)

    5. From XERA, 1939-1941. Also includes some XERA spots. These were originally recorded from transcription discs, and there are some skips and crackles, but these are quite listenable. (29 minutes, CD419/HD)

    6. Dr. Brinkley greeting you for 1939. (15 minutes, HD)

    7. Dr. Brinkley pitches the new Dilley Aircraft plant opening up in Kansas as a source of new jobs. (10 minutes/HD)

19. The Carter Family.  From XET, Monterrey, Mexcio.  1939.  Recorded from transcription disks.  All are nice quality considering the age.  All feature the Carter Family theme, "Keep on the Sunny Side," and all feature at least one XET station identification ("XET from down Monterrey way!").  June Carter (later June Carter Cash, the portrayal of whom by Reese Witherspoon in the 2005 movie "Walk the Line" won her the Oscar for best actress) is among the family members.  She was 10 years old at the time.

    I have three disks:

    1. Disk 1:  27 songs totaling 1:03:35.  (CD429/HD)

    2. Disk 2:  26 songs totaling 1:03:01.  (CD430/HD)

    3. Disk 3:  25 songs totaling 1:06:11.  (CD431/HD)

20. Hindenburg Airship disaster coverage.  From 1937.  The crash took place on May 6 of that year at the Lakehurst Naval Airstation in New Jersey.

    1. Airing of a restored, speed-corrected recording of the coverage by WLS reporter Herbert Morrison, who was onsite at the time to report on the airship's arrival.  At the time, WLS was testing the idea of having reporters cover distant, major events, record that coverage, and rebroadcast it later.  This airing was made over WNID, "Classical 97," in Chicago on the 60th anniversary of the disaster on May 6, 1997.  It was aired as part of WNID's "Those Were the Days" radio program.  One of the main points made by the airing is that the recording we've all heard all these years ("oh, the humanity") was actually at too fast a speed.  The announcer points out that other recordings of Mr. Morrison's voice from that time do not sound the same, and that if the Hindenburg recording is slowed down, his voice sounds the way it should.  (46 minutes/HD)

    2. Coverage of the disaster by the NBC Blue network from the day after the disaster, May 7, 1937.  WLS announcer Herbert Morrison and his assistant, radio engineer Charlie Nielsen, are interviewed.  The quality of the audio is fair.  (15 minutes/HD)

21. Gabriel Heatter on WCCO, Minneapolis.  Newscast by Mr. Heatter from election night 1944 (11/7/44) with results from the Roosevelt/Dewey presidential race.  (14 minutes/HD)

22. Allen and Jean on WJZ, New York.  April 20, 1946. Talk show.  (25 minutes/HD)

23. Bob Smith on WNBC. August 25, 1947.  (26 minutes/HD)

24. "A Christmas Carol" presented by Orson Welles on CBS Radio from Christmas 1939.  (62 minutes/HD)

25. Two Boxing Matches.

    1. Max Baer vs. Joe Louis.  Heard over NBC/WEAF at 10 p.m. on September 24, 1935.  Begins with an ad for Buick for 1936.  (41 minutes)

    2. Joe Louis vs. Jack Sharkey.  Heard over CBS/KHJ, Los Angeles (pronounced by the announcer with a hard "g") at 6 p.m. on August 18, 1936.  (30 minutes)

26. Maiden run of the Burlington Northern Railroad Zephyr Train to Chicago.  Charlie Lyons covers the event from Union Station in Chicago.  Heard over KYW, Chicago (NBC) at 7 p.m. on May 10, 1934.  (15 minutes)

27. Christmas Eve Moonlight Serenade and Chesterfield Time with Glenn Miller.  Heard at 10:00 p.m. on December 24, 1941 over CBS/WABC.  (14 minutes)