Vintage Radio Shows.com
For all of you who have been griping that I talk a lot about Old time Radio detectives but don't do anything about it, try this out. Vintage Radio Shows.com charges a mere $6.95/month to access tens of thousands of your favorite vintage radio shows from the 30s, 40s and 50s, including plenty of private eye serials from way back, such as Adventures Of Philip Marlowe, Broadway Is My Beat, the great Candy Matson, YUkon 2-8208, I Love A Mystery, Richard Diamond and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, among others. In fact, through a special arrangement, we've even got a few links scattered through the site so you can listen to specific episodes for free. Or just go here, to see what goodies they're offering.

AudioMysteries.com
AudioMysteries.com rents audiobooks starting at $7.50. Choose from over 500 audio book mystery and suspense titles on CD and MP3-CD format. Titles rent for 30%-50% less than other sites, and there are no clubs or monthly plans to join.

The CBC Mystery Project Log
Geoff Loker's new log for the long-running Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Mystery project, complete with summaries (of a sort) of the various series. A comprehensive site like this has been long-overdue, and it's great that Geoff's finally given us one.

The Golden-Age Detective Shows Page
A great listing of old-time radio detectives and detective series, part of the extensive OTR (Old-time Radio) site.

OTR Private Eyes Page
A good page, with RealAudio sound bites.

Old-Time Radio Crime/Detective BBS
A new bulletin board, where fans of OTR can post messages, tips, recommendations and the like for each other.

Lou Genco's Original Old-Time Radio Site
Certainly the most popular and diversified OTR site. It has quite a bit of everything relating to OTR. Well-worth the time spent browsing it. Under the Clubs page at this site is the Radio Historical Association of Colorado (RHAC), one of the sponsors of Lou's site. You can download a zipped dBASE file of the RHAC's tape listings; over 16,000 programs in the most recent edition.

Jerry Haendige's Vintage Radio Place
Lots of interesting articles, a listening lounge for listening to segments several shows, perhaps the largest collection radio program logs at any one site.

Jack's List of Old Time Radio Pages
Jack Mann's site is the most comprehensive list on OTR-related URLs' on the Internet, with well over 100 sites, including, ahem, this one. Not only a site that tastes good, but one with good taste! Recommended!

The Radio Historical Association of Colorado
RHAC is a non-profit organization, with an extensive tape library of over 16,000 programs. Included in the tape library are programs from many detective radio series. At the RHAC web site, you may view an index of the library or download a zipped version of the entire library listing in dBase format. And contributor Stewart Wright edits the group's monthly newsletter, Return With Us Now....

Jerry's Vintage Radio Logs
Besides lots of interesting articles, a listening lounge for listening to segments several shows, Jerry has perhaps the largest collection radio program logs at any one site.

Nostalgia Radio/TV Episode Logs
L.O.F. Communications' small, but none-the-less intriguing selection of old radio and television episode logs. They only do shows not available elsewhere, that they themselves like. Recommended are the Nero Wolfe and Adventures of Philip Marlowe radio logs.

The American Radio Archive at Thousand Oaks
The American Radio Archive, established in 1984 by the Thousand Oaks Library Foundation, contains manuscripts, sound recordings, scripts, books, photographs and other materials that vividly reflect the history of radio and radio broadcasting.  An invaluable resource for serious researchers.

RADIO SHOWS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD OR LISTENING
Evidently, some of these guys haven't been playing by the rules, giving out or even selling copyrighted material, so sites tend to pop up and flicker out pretty quickly sometimes. If any of these links don't work, let me know please.

Mystery Radio Network
Thanks to streaming audio technology, mystery lovers can now listen for free to mystery adventures, reviews and music, while surfing the web. They promise "All mysteries, all the time!" They broadcastshort mystery stories, serialized novels and new radio theater productions interspersed with music to sleuth by. The Hearsay program spotlights mystery news, reviews, previews and interviews. Part of the Live 365 gang.

A Newbie's Guide to Old Time Radio
Just what it says. Straight ahead, no-bull approach. A good intro, with great links.

Nostalgia 43
This site streams old time radio 24/7, specializing in detective/crime/thriller programming with shows such as The Shadow, The Whistler, Ellery Queen, Sherlock Holmes, Escape, Suspense and the CBS Radio Mystery Theater to name a few. We also feature weekly radio serials including I Love A Mystery, Adventures By Morse, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Doc Savage" E-mail requests are welcome and receive top programming priority. Stop by, and sign the guestbook.

otrcat.com
Jon Foulk's site is a real find.A bunch of radio dicks are there, including the best, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Johnny Dollar, as well as Nero Wolfe, the Saint, and a bunch more. And the best part is he sells MP3 shows on CD at $5 a pop, that's up to 50 hours for a fiver! and according to one source, "Jon's price is just about the best I've found. Plus, he's honest and immediate in his delivery. Good traits in a PI, too.

Wayback Old Time Radio
A bunch of shows in .mp3 and RA, available for free downloading, usually including a few P.I. shows. Also several links to other sites offering free downloads.

RUSC Old Time Radio
Are you sitting comfortably? Because Ned Norris offers a great selection of both free mp3 files, ands, if you can become a member for a nominal amount, even more. Ned promises "Thrilling tales, hilarious comedy, detective stories, and lots more, all in crystal clear MP3 and ready to play on your computer." Available for your listening pleasure are episodes of Rocky Fortune, The Adventures of Sam Spade, Dangerous Assignment, Night Beat, Pat Novak for Hire and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

Old Time Radio Web Ring
Links, links, links.

Bobby's Digital OTR
Radio shows for sale, radio shows for sale...

The Old-Time Radio Corner
A new page from mystery maven J. Alec West, and one well worth checking out. "If you get tired reading mysteries," J. invites you to "take a break and listen to one" (in RealAudio format, "encoded at a bitrate even 14.4K modems can handle"). The page contains a whole host of programming choices from the 30s/40s/50s -- mysteries included. And, if you don't have RealAudio on your system, the page has links for download purposes." There's some great stuff here. J. is also responsible for The Mystery Vault which archives several mystery listservs and newsgroups.

Poets of the Tabloid Murder
Those of you in the Connecticut area should make a point of tuningin to 91.7 WHUS FM on Tuesdays at 5:00 p.m. EST for a half hour of serious talk about crime fiction, hosted by Steve Nester. WHUS is a commercial-free college-and community-based radio station broadcasting from the University of Connecticut. And if your radio is beyond their signal range just kick start your favorite browser and Real Audio, and head to http://whusfm.saup.uconn.edu for a simultaneous webcast.

WEB BROADCASTERS and PODCASTERS

virtuallyamerican.com
Virtuallyamerican.com broadcasts original and classic audio drama and comedy in all genres, including The Phil Byrnes Mysteries, Jake Danger, Two Sisters Mysteries and OTR favourites Phillip Marlow and Night Beat. "It's the hope of Virtuallyamerican.com to create a web site that will offer something to everyone. To make it a complete experience to harness what the Internet is capable of offering through sound. Obviously, we want out audience to grow, support all the wonderful theatre groups providing their content, and maybe realize a concept as an internet based drama radio station."

"Black Jack Justice" on Decoder Ring Theatre
NEW! An audio drama podcast project in the style of the Golden Age of Radio. After warming things up last summer with a mini-series very much in the tradition of "The Shadow" and "The Green Hornet," they're ready to take on the hard-boiled detective genre with a show inspired by the great pulp P.I.'s of the past called "Black Jack Justice," which makes its debut January 7, 2006. The show features plenty of gritty first person narration, with the twist that there are two often contradictory narrative voices -- that of Jack Justice himself and his long-suffering partner, Trixie Dixon, girl detective.

VENDORS

Ted Kneebone's OTR Catalog
This trader and collector, who hails from Aberdeen, South Dakota, has an online catalog where you can order tapes of OTR shows.

Radio Spirits
A pretty thorough site, offering recording of OTR-related tapes, books and other memorabilia. They also offer a catalogue. You can also call them at 1-800-833-4248 or write them at P.O. Box 3107, Wallingford, CT, 06494, USA.

Ed Carr
Inexpensive, low-generation copies of great OTR programs on cassette or CD.

OTR in MP3
Offering many favourite radio eye shows, including Barrie Craig, on CD in MP3 format.

Thanks to Stewart Wright of The Radio Historical Association of Colorado for his help with this page.