Since the earliest days of radio transmitting, individuals and organizations have made an effort to record and preserve broadcasts, especially those which marked a moment in time.
Currently, through the use of software defined radios (SDRs), we can record not just one individual broadcast from one radio station at a time, but we can record an entire broadcast band, all at once. Each recording can easily contain dozens of stations broadcasting simultaneously. Later, via a software defined radio application, recordings can be tuned and listened to as if they were live.
Radio spectrum recordings give the future the ability to tune through a time-shifted recording as if it were live radio. Researchers, historians, media specialists, archivists, history students, and enthusiasts will be able to access the past through this history-rich medium, which supplies abundant context for any event or period of time thus recorded.
Indeed, with an SDR application, there is no difference between tuning live radio and tuning a time-shifted spectrum recording––hence it becomes, essentially, a form of radio time travel.
Videos:
May 1, 1986 – Providence, Rhode Island
Thomas is the founder and curator of the Radio Spectrum Archive. He has been a passionate supporter of shortwave radio and international broadcasting most of his life and publishes a news site on these topics called 
Guy Atkins has been a radio enthusiast since 1970. His pursuit of tropical bands DX targets slowly migrated over the years to chasing foreign medium wave stations–while on regular DXpeditions to the beaches of Oregon and Washington. Guy was a staff editor and author for the highly popular “Fine Tuning’s Proceedings” series of books in the 1990s. He has also published receiver and antenna reviews for the IRCA and ODXA club bulletins, and 
Mark Fahey lives in Sydney, Australia. He is fascinated by the role of broadcasting and media in reflecting and capturing the culture and pulse of communities. Mark leads a series of projects that record and analyse the media’s role in creating and shaping of public opinion and strengthening of society.
Victor Goonetilleke became fascinated with shortwave radio in 1960 following the run up to JFK’s election. A serious radio DXer since 1966, Victor began professional broadcast monitoring for International Broadcasters. Victor formed the first DX club and serious DX news as Union of Asian DXers. Victor is passionate about shortwave broadcast and mediumwave DXing with a great love for propagation studies. Victor did the Asian DX Report over Radio Netherland’s Media Network for 24 years and reported DX news to DX clubs and programmes. Victor is a contributor to the World Radio TV Handbook. Victor has been an active ham radio operator with the callsign 4S7VK.
London Shortwave is a radio archiving project run by a radio enthusiast based in London, UK. Since July 2013, he regularly explores and records various parts of the shortwave radio spectrum using a small selection of receivers. His criteria for radio equipment are inexpensiveness and high sensitivity, as well as portability (for lightweight outdoor operations to escape the urban noise) and robustness to man-made interference (for indoor reception). See 
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