Launched just five months ago, Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications has expanded to more than 61,000 items related to amateur radio, shortwave listening, and related communications. The library’s newest additions include deep historical resources and contemporary reporting about the world of radio.

These include Amateur Radio Newsline, a weekly audio news bulletin: DLARC has added audio and scripts of about 700 episodes published from 2012 to the present, plus scripts for many Newsline episodes from the mid-1990s.

The library has also added 2,300 issues of DX Listening Digest, a newsletter about shortwave and DX radio published from 2000 through 2019. Its predecessor, Glenn Hauser’s Shortwave/DX Report, is also in this collection. Through these publications, 20 years of news about radio-world events are available to read, search, and download.

The DLARC Lending Library has expanded to more than 400 books for online borrowing via controlled digital lending. These books encompass all technical levels, from very basic to highly advanced. DLARC has also added thousands of issues of radio- and communications- related magazines and trade journals including Radio Electronics Magazine, QEX, Tele-tech, and Electronic Industries.

But not everything in the radio world is as mainstream: the library has added back issues of two newsletters that cover the fascinating world of numbers stations, pirate radio, and other odd activity of the radio waves: Numbers & Oddities and Enigma 2000. Nor is everything in English, such as Populaire Electronica and Elektronika Hobbie, Dutch-language magazines for electronics hobbyists published 1974 through 1980.

Ham radio clubs from around the world continue to contribute their newsletters and other creations. DLARC has added more than 300 newsletters from the Quarter Century Wireless Association, the international organization for amateur radio operators who were first licensed at least 25 years ago. New regional group newsletters include 340 issues of The GARzette, from Gwinnett Amateur Radio Society (Gwinnett County, Georgia); The Radiogram, from Portage County (Ohio, USA) Amateur Radio Service; 700 issues of CrossTalk, from Gloucester County (New Jersey) Amateur Radio Club; and NEVARC News, the newsletter of North East Victoria Amateur Radio Club, based in Australia. 

Clubs’ contributions are not limited to newsletters. The Athens (Georgia) Radio Club has submitted more than 100 items to the DLARC library, including newsletters, meeting minutes, presentations, annual reports, and event photos.

For newsletters that were short-loved or where DLARC has been able to find only a few issues, there’s the new Miscellaneous Amateur Radio Newsletters collection. This enticing compilation includes YouthNet News, a short-lived, kid-published 1994 e-zine; 7415, a 1990 newsletter for “Internet Pirate Radio Listeners”; W5YI Report, 1984’s “up-to-the minute news of amateur radio and personal computing”; and Fidonet HAM-PACKET Digest, featuring packet radio news from the early 1990s.

DLARC continues to add ham radio e-mail and Usenet conversations from the early days of the Internet, including discussion threads from Ham-Policy Digest, which was a discussion list about amateur radio regulations; Ham-Equip Digest, about hardware and equipment; Ham-Space Digest, on space and satellite communications; and Ham-Ant Digest, about antenna topics.

The DLARC Podcast Collection now includes more than 40 podcasts — nearly 3,000 episodes in all. The latest additions include Ham Radio Workbench and the call-in show Ham Talk Live. Other additions include a dozen defunct podcasts: no longer published and hard to find online, now they remain part of the history of the amateur radio hobby.

The Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. DLARC invites radio clubs and individuals to submit collections of material, whether it’s already in digital format or not. Anyone with material to contribute or questions about the project, contact:

Kay Savetz, K6KJN
Program Manager, Special Collections
kay@archive.org
Mastodon: dlarc@mastodon.radio