Recovering tapes from São Tomé's National Radio archive

In 2019 I was invited by Afonso Simões to take part in the recovery and digitization of a great deal of tapes belonging to the archive of Rádio Nacional de São Tomé (RNST). The task had to be accomplished in situ, so after a couple of months of preparation we packed our bags and set out to build a temporary lab at the radio station's headquarters. We prepared as best we could for the artifacts' possible bad condition, bringing a trustworthy Revox A77 MkIV, some lab gear for calibration and maintenance, and a good amount of cleaning equipment.

Digitizing the tapes was a time-consuming process. Each spool had to be carefully prepared, and the whole process involved prioritisation, labelling, and conditioning of the tapes in an extra-dry environment prior to unspooling. Ampex and Scotch tapes were some of the most problematic. Most suffered from aging issues such as shedding of the back coating, sticky-shed syndrome and squealing, some depositing a considerable amount of oxide along the tape path, which itself had to be maintained and cleaned between tapes, sometimes between tracks.

On our arrival, the radio personnel presented us with a beautiful-looking Tascam BR-20 that, after some maintenance, was ready to be used. In fact, we ended up using the Tascam for the majority of the work thanks to its heavy-duty transport: a true workhorse for the job.

Among the tapes filled with decades-old music from São Tomé, some of it recorded at the radio station itself, were tapes of África Negra, a cult band formed on the island in the early 1970s. We were fortunate to have one of the band's founding members, Leonídio Barros, visit us and watch us work on some of these tapes. Surely a day to remember.