Tag Archives: Radio St. Helena

Radio St. Helena to go off the air

Though this news effects a relatively small number of people on the remote island of St. Helena, it is sad to those of us who enjoyed the annual challenge of catching  the weak signal of Radio St. Helena on shortwave. In truth, for technical reasons, they have missed recent annual broadcasts. Still, it was a fun event. Would be nice if an annual shortwave transmission or amateur radio special event could be scheduled to take its place.

(Source: RNW Media Network)

One of the remotest islands on earth, St Helena in the South Atlantic, will experience big changes in its media this year. Radio St Helena, which operates on 1548 kHz mediumwave and for some years broadcast a special once-a-year programme on shortwave via a transmitter of Cable and Wireless, will be closing down. Its parent company, St Helena News Media Services, is being dissolved, and the final edition of its newspaper the St Helena Herald was published on 9 March 2012.

In its place, a new government-funded company called the St Helena Broadcasting Corporation (SHBC) has been set up, and will operate three FM radio stations on the island, one of which will be a relay of the BBC World Service. The intention is that SHBC will become self-sustainable within three years. It officially became operational in February, and will also publish a weekly newspaper to replace the Herald. The first edition will be published later this month, but the radio stations are not expected to go on air until the summer. Until then, Radio St Helena will continue operating.

The other current station on the island, Saint FM that started operating in 2005, was invited to become part of the new organisation, but station manager Mike Olsson subsequently pulled out of discussions. Saint FM provides a 24-hour community service on FM, and is also broadcast on Ascension Island, the Falkland Islands and Tristan da Cunha. Its internet stream enables Saints around the world to keep in touch with their families on the island. Former Radio St Helena station manager Tony Leo can be heard on Saint FM every Wednesday at 1500-1700 UTC. Saint FM also publishes a weekly newspaper, the St Helena Independent.

The resident population of St Helena, who are entitled to hold UK passports but have no automatic right of residence in the UK, is currently just over 4,000, but this is being boosted by the arrival of personnel from the company building the island’s first airport, which is due to open in 2015. It’s expected that the number of tourists per year will rise from the current level of under 1,000 to 30-50,000.

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Radio St. Helena Day 2010

[UPDATE: Radio Saint Helena Day 2010 has been canceled. Please read this updated post with info.]

Want to chase some fun DX? Radio St. Helena Day 2010 is almost here–this time being held in October. Details below:

(Source: Jaisakthivel via Hard-Core DX)

Radio St. Helena Day 2010 : Date,Times and Targets
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RSD 2010 will be on 11092.5 kHz USB, Saturday, 9th October 2010

Target Region Times (UTC ) Beam Heading

  • EUROPE 1900 – 2030 UTC 10 degrees
  • INDIA 2030 – 2130 UTC 70 degrees
  • JAPAN 2130 – 2300 UTC 50 degrees
  • North America 2300 – 0030 UTC 310 degrees

Gary Walters, Station Manager of Radio St. Helena, has just confirmed the above information,and, as usual, Derek Richards will operate the RSD shortwave transmitting facility. There will be a special email-address exclusively for the evening of RSD 2010. As soon as Gary sets up this special email account, will be published.

The RSD 2010 QSL cards are being sponsored by the Danish ShortWave Club International. Reception reports for RSD 2010 should be sent with sufficient return postage to RSH using thespecial Airmail address via Ascension and the United Kingdom — exactly the same procedureas for the RSD 2009 reception reports. ALL mail to RSH should use this procedure. ALL 266 QSLs for RSD 2009 have been mailed and should now be arriving around the world.The sunspot minimum between sunspot cycles 23 and 24 is the longest in history — much to the dismay of shortwave listeners everywhere. This minimum has lasted since 2007 and is still ongoing. There are not very many sunspots to “help” propagation, and there is no real sign of significant change.

The UTC-times for broadcasting to the various target area have been very carefully selected to to have the very best chance of good reception in each area. Also, we need to have the RSD broadcasts one after the other.After RSD 2009, it was decided to change the times somewhat and to move RSD from November to October (as was the case back in the late 1990’s — Thanks, John). RSH hopes that everyone around the world has excellent reception conditions during RSD 2010 and is looking forward to your emails and also, if possible, to your telephone calls.

Gary Walters , Station Manager of Radio St. Helena via Robert Kipp

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Radio St. Helena Day – November 14th, 2009

sthelenalogoRadio St. Helena has announced that their annual Radio St. Helena Day will be held on November 14th, 2009. If you would like to try your shortwave listening skills, this is a fun event indeed. DXers around the world try to tune into the annual broadcast and snag St. Helena’s unique QSL card.

Below is the full press release from Radio St. Helena:

Radio St. Helena Day 2009 will be on Saturday, 14. November 2009.

The “Party On-The-Air” will have the following schedule.
Time in UTC Target Area(s)
20:00 – 21:00 India / Southeast Asia
21:00 – 22:00 Japan / Asia
22:00 – 23:30 Europe
23:30 – 01:00 North America / Central America / Caribbean
The transmission will be on 11092.5 KHz in Upper Side Band, as usual.

Radio St. Helena is very pleased to announce that the newly designed RSD 2009 QSL cards will be sponsored by the highly respected Japan Short Wave Club. This good news has been reported by Mr. T. Ohtake of the JSWC. It can truly be said, that without the very generous help of the JSWC, there would not have been a RSD Revival in 2006.

To get a QSL from Radio St. Helena, you must send a written and verifiable reception report
by AIRMAIL and include sufficient return postage. Email-reports will be not be verified. Recordings will not be returned. In EURO-countries, please send a 5-Euro banknote. Otherwise, please send 3 or more US dollar banknotes to cover the required return postage.
Radio St. Helena
P.O. Box 93
Jamestown , St. Helena
STHL 1ZZ
South Atlantic Ocean
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via AIRMAIL
via United Kingdom & Ascension
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The last two lines of the above address are very important and should be written as shown. Be sure to use sufficient postage on your letter to RSH. Ask at your local post office for the correct AIRMAIL postage for your letter to go all the way to St. Helena.
Emails and telephone calls from DXers everywhere are very welcome during the broadcasts.
A special email address for RSD 2009 will, probably, be announced in October.
Gary Walters and his Team at RSH wish everyone excellent listening conditions, hope that you enjoy the programming, and hope that the sunspots will be kinder to us this year.

With best 73’s,

Robert Kipp

(source: Radio St. Helena)

02 Nov 09: Note that the special email address for this event is:

radio.announcements4669 (at) msn.com

Click here to see St. Helena's remote location in the South Atlantic Ocean. (Map coutesy of Wikipedia)

Click here to see St. Helena's remote location in the South Atlantic Ocean. (Map coutesy of Wikipedia)

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