THE WORLD OF SHORTWAVE BROADCASTING Glenn Hauser On Thu May 8 I heard the German at 2244 introduced as the program REE heard during the 21 UT hour on 17595 with new Portuguese for Monday, 17 December 2007! Do they just play out whatever old service to Brazil, including Spanish lessons. Collides with WEWN Eng- stuff? Unclean audio with distortion on sibilants, sharp gating like in lish, but depending on skip, can override it. Also airs earlier at 18-19 the old USSR days (Kai Ludwig, Germany, DXLD) on 17595 before WEWN comes on (gh, OK) O Espanhol no Brasil is RUSSIA Another shortwave site to go: Samara – Well-placed sources hint bilingual, partly in Spanish, M-F (Célio Romais, Panorama) that the Russian transmitter operator RTRS intends to close down its REE’s token newscast in ‘’Lenguas Co-Oficiales,” M-F 1240-1255, shortwave facilities at Samara, perhaps by the end of the current A08 best on 15170 via Costa Rica, was sometimes incomplete; supposed season. to be 1240 Catalan, 1245 Galician, and 1250 Basque. Catalan was If so, it would be the third shut-down of a major SW site in the sometimes missing, and Basque really in Castilian! Clásicos Populares former Soviet Union, after Brovary (Ukraine) and Yekaterinburg. And it from Radio Uno, is now Mon, Tue and Wed only at 1305-1400, best would by no means be a surprise. Just compare the amount of installed here on 15170, 17595 (gh, OK) capacity with the remaining demand for airtime, if not for Samara in SUDAN [non] Southern Sudan Interactive Radio Instruction, in English, new particular, for the facilities in European Russia altogether. It does not sked in May: M-F 0600-0630 15215-UAE, 15750-RSA; M-F 0630-0700 appear to be an exaggeration to call the situation precarious. 11905-Rwanda, 15760-UK. M/W/F 0630-0700 15530-UAE, Samara still has old phone-quality feeds, accompanied by a nasty 15660-RSA. M/W/F 1300-1330 12070, 15390, 15485 all via RSA hiss, as if the equipment has now noticeably started to deteriorate (Kai (DX Mix News) Ludwig, Germany, DXLD) A-08 BBC Darfur Salaam in Arabic, all via Cyprus: 0500-0530 The Samara site is surrounded by suburbs and dacha areas. So 12015 13650; 1700-1730 15515 17585 (DX Mix News, Bulgaria) the property and construction firms are waiting in the wings. Samara SWEDEN The external service of Swedish Radio turns 70. On July 1, 1938, was always of bad sound quality in past decade, and broadcasts will the first-ever broadcast from Stockholm directed abroad was in Swedish. be easily taken over by Armavir Krasnodar capacity (Wolfgang Büschel, A year later, programs in English and German went on air. See http:// ibid.) snipurl.com/29dp9 (Media Network blog) The imminent closure of Samara will surely mean an end to the TAIWAN [and non] Big trouble. Radio Taiwan International revealed in late strange anomaly of Radio Tatarstan. Did anyone listen anyway? (Dan April that management was considering ending broadcasts to NAm on Goldfarb, England, ibid.) The transmission is worth listening to for the 5950 and 9680! They were seeking listener comments on whether it exotic music played – usually during the last half hour. Hopefully some would be more convenient for us to listen to them on the internet. Com- other site will carry it instead of Samara (Noel R. Green, England, ments to: [email protected] This is a never-ending nightmare (Chuck ibid.) Ermatinger, Ian Baxter, DXLD) GTRK Tatarstan: 0410-0500 15110, 0610-0700 9690, 0810-0900 It was already decided to end airtime exchange between RTI and 11925. Other Samara clients in several languages are VOR, including WYFR as of June 30, as notified May 2 to German listeners on 7780, English at 16-21 on 9890; Family Radio, TWR, IBRA, CRI, and clan- 15600. Unclear yet whether another SW relay could be used to NAm, destines for Ethiopia, peak usage ten frequencies at once (Kai Ludwig, such as Guiana French (Kai Ludwig, Germany, ibid.) Germany, DXLD) TANZANIA Sauti ya Injili, a Lutheran station, on its website says it plans to RWANDA DW’s Kigali relays sound fine on AM, but if you turn on the BFO, start low-power SW broadcasting from Moshi on the 7 or 9 MHz bands, the carriers waver slightly, perhaps due to unstable power supply. We having purchased and transported a used Russian transmitter. TWR noticed this on 15420 at 2056, later changed to 15445, in Arabic; fol- Swaziland presently carries their programs, and it would have cost US$1 lowed at 2059 by 15205 and 11865 in English (gh, OK) million to buy a 50 kW transmitter (via Jari Savolainen, DXLD) SLOVAKIA My recent e-mail to RSI: “From what I’ve heard listening to U K [non] BBC Mundo Radio via WHRI Furman, 9410, M-F at 1200-1300 in Radio Slovakia International, Pete Miller is being encouraged to retire. Spanish, contains: 1200 News, 1215 Estudio Abierto, condensed call- Please reconsider and keep Mr. Miller on RSI. Mr. Miller gives RSI its in shows from archives, sometimes with frank discussions of sex; 1230 friendly voice on the air waves. Mr. Miller, in my opinion, is unique Efemérides historical items; 1234 M/W/F Los Clásicos, unannounced in today’s radio broadcasting. Perhaps, Mr. Miller is considered ‘old classical music fill, exactly the same selections repeated all week; Tue/ fashioned.’ However, one of the main reasons I listen to RSI is because Thu BBC Top Diez de la Semana, pop music countdown. Also on 11860 of him. We need more people on the radio like Mr. Miller.” (Kraig Krist, Guiana French (gh) VA, DXLD) U S A WBCQ planned to use 15420 in A-08, but as we reported last month SOMALIA [non] See last month; the new IRIN Radio service in Somali via was blocked by Deutsche Welle. DW was persuaded to move by mid- South Africa at 1730-1745 soon moved off 9665, conflicting with May to 15445 for its Arabic via Rwanda hours, 18-21 UT, but not for Spain, to 9735, which got good reports from Europe (gh, WORLD OF the Russian hours at 14-16 via UK and UAE. So WBCQ moved again RADIO) Louise Tunbridge of IRIN in Nairobi says they got zero response from 17495 to 15420-CUSB; it still collided with DW in the mornings, from Somalia on 9735, so were moving again from May 5 to 7290 but was clear if weak in the afternoons, with that ‘prophet’ from Fence (Dan Henderson, via Wolfgang Büschel, ibid.) Armchair listening on Lake, NM until 2100 (gh) 7290, slight QRM (Büschel, Germany, DXLD) Changed again a week World Harvest Radio has added an ‘’Angel 6’’ transmitter; it’s re- later to 13685 via Abu Dhabi, and also changed time to 0830-0845 ally the third transmitter at WHRI Furman SC, a 100 kW unit moved in (Henderson, BC-DX) So the odds are high it will have moved several from Indiana. Schedules were jumbled, but much of the programming times more by now! on 250 kW Angel 2 moved to 6, including Hmong Lao Radio, Sat/Sun Not to be confused with IRIS = Interactive Radio Program for So- 1300-1400, noticeably weaker (gh, OK) malis in the Ogaden of Ethiopia, a.k.a. Radio Mustaqbal, which canceled On 4440, WSRC, Fair Bluff, NC, strong third harmonic of 1480 all its transmissions, via South Africa, UAE (DX Mix News, Bulgaria) heard at 0350-0555 with very enjoyable old time radio dramas, and SPAIN I ran into Justin Coe of REE here in Madrid. Says the English service then bluegrass music. Outstanding signal, reaching 70 dB and full has really been scaled back and perhaps won’t last much longer. I quieting (Richard Parker, PA, NASWA Journal) hope the Zapatero government sees fit to keep it, even though RTVE Kevin Alfred Strom, the white supremacist and neo-Nazi who had has been a money-losing operation. With the large British community a SW pirate, Voice of To-Morrow, and a program on WRNO and other and the Americans who live here, more than 100,000 – there is really SW stations, American Dissident Voices, was sentenced to 23 months a need for more foreign and domestic English-language outlets (Marty in jail after pleading guilty to possession of child porn (The Hook News Delfín, Spain, DXLD) blog, via Strom’s ex-wife, Kirsten Helene Kaiser, DXLD) See also http:// REE to phase out SW in favor of internet – (note that REE is a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Alfred_Strom (Harry Helms, DXLD) subsidiary of RNE which is a subsidiary of RTVE). And this month’s Outer Limits - ed. RTVE foresees transmitting R. Exterior content via Internet, by an VANUATU After eight years in which most islands have not been able to undetermined date, and thus abandon gradually its SW transmissions receive Radio Vanuatu, the national broadcaster will return to speak- to other countries. This part of RNE will extend its service on internet, ing nationwide by the end of July when installation of new transmitters but such content cannot be taken off SW abruptly due to agreements financed by aid should be completed (Vanuatu Independent via Gavin with other countries [as in relay exchanges with China?]. Robertson, BDXC-UK yg) I just visited the main island, Efate, and could RTVE considers that the role of REE must be autonomous from RNE, only hear them on FM (Robertson, ibid.) and thus have its own content, not sucking info from elsewhere, but the But: 7260, R.