Tom Roche BBC World Service Tapes



Similar to the model followed in the 400 Box project, this page has been created for an overview of the 98 tapes in the Tom Roche BBC World Service collection.

Tapes
A few notes from Tom on the tapes in his collection:

The BBC World Service shows come in 3 flavors - wooshy over the air shortwave (generally 1980's) more crisp but flat satellite feed of BBC World Service (90's-00's) and then a dozen or so shows from WRAS-Atlanta FM college radio station that briefly had an agreement with BBC World Service. The latter shows sound best, but the college DJs nearly always clipped the start of the show. Tapes labelled WRAS are from this last batch, often 3 shows stacked on a 90 minute cassette.

All shows are in mono.

The 80s shows were recorded in Atlanta via a $900 professional communications receiver like this via BBCs Caribbean Relay on the island of Antigua that a friend (and Peel fan) owned. Even at that price, some shows are markedly low-fi, but I think it is important to save that snapshot to honor the behind-the-iron-curtain listeners who listened this way for years. My friend probably recorded every show over 10 years, but we only saved the best ones and rolled over the rest, alas. So the surviving shows are good ones.

In the 90s BBC World Service was placed on a satellite channel audio subcarrier accessible to people in North America with the old big backyard dishes. There is a bit of analog hiss to these shows, and the EQ is flat as this feed was for stations to rebroadcast and apply their own EQ. (RF Note: Will try and fix this in the rip)

Generally my friend with the dish would record Peel on one side of the cassette and the BBCWS Top 20 Countdown show (sometimes called "Multitrack" by the BBC.) It is your call if you want to digitize these shows also. To cover 20 songs in 30 minutes makes it a tight tidy show, and some songs are edgy outliers... but mostly it is pop "product." Still an interesting time capsules for sure.

Below are all 98 tapes as listed below. This section is intended to give at an overview of tape status, plus links for information on the tapes themselves and the shows broadcast on the dates they cover. Further information will be added when known. Not all tapes are dated accurately and the show was usually repeated 3 times in a week so some dates will be rough guesses to the nearest week. Where a show already has a Wikia page I will use the same page, even though the exact broadcast date of the Tom Roche tape may have been one of the other repeats in the same week.

TR001-TR098
TR001: December 1984 (BBC World Service) / 08 April 1985 (BBC World Service) / 04 January 1985 (BBC World Service) / 14 January 1985 (BBC World Service)

TR002: 26 August 1985 (BBC World Service) / BBC World Service Top 20 (Paul Burnett) 27 August 1985

TR003: 05 December 1984 (BBC World Service)

TR004: No Peel content (Tom's Answer Phone Tape!)

TR005: 03 December 1985 (BBC World Service) / 23 March 1987 (BBC World Service)

TR006: 02 January 1986 (BBC World Service) / BBC World Service "Two Cheers For 1985" Review

TR007: 28 October 1985 (BBC World Service) / 28 February 1987 (BBC World Service)

TR008: 05 November 1987 (BBC World Service) / 13 November 1987 (BBC World Service)

TR009: 26 July 1993 (BBC World Service) / 23 February 1993 (BBC World Service)

TR010

TR011

TR012

TR013

TR014

TR015

TR016

TR017

TR018

TR019

TR020

TR021

TR022

TR023

TR024

TR025

TR026

TR027

TR028

TR029

TR030

TR031

TR032

TR033

TR034

TR035

TR036

TR037

TR038

TR039

TR040

TR041

TR042

TR043

TR044

TR045

TR046

TR047

TR048

TR049

TR050

TR051

TR052

TR053

TR054

TR055

TR056

TR057

TR058

TR059

TR060

TR061

TR062

TR063

TR064

TR065

TR066

TR067

TR068

TR069

TR070

TR071

TR072

TR073

TR074

TR075

TR076

TR077

TR078

TR079

TR080

TR081

TR082

TR083

TR084

TR085

TR086

TR087

TR088

TR089

TR090

TR091

TR092

TR093

TR094

TR095

TR096

TR097: No Peel Content

TR098: Unknown Frank Zappa bootleg audience recording (No Peel Content)