It appears that after all of the rumors from last year, and after the cuts to shortwave broadcasts earlier this year, the Voice of Russia has decided to stop broadcasting on shortwave entirely.
This morning, Alokesh Gupta shared the following message from Elena Osipova at the Voice of Russia World Service Letters Department:
“This is just a short message to thank you for your letter and let you know that the Voice of Russia is closing shortwave broadcasts as of April 1st. Our programs will be available online at http://voiceofrussia.com/play/
We hope you will stay with the Voice of Russia and hope to hear from you soon again.”
2nd Update: Shortly after publishing this original post, SWLing Post reader Stephen Cooper, noticed a VOR twitter account announcing the final date as April 30, 2014–I now believe this account to be fake:
Update 2 (10:00 UTC on March 21, 2014): I just received the following message from Elena Osipova at the Voice of Russia World Service Letters Department:
Dear Mr Witherspoon,
This is to thank you for your message and confirm the information about the upcoming cancellation of the Voice of Russia’s short- and medium wave transmissions as of April 1, 2014.
Best regards,
Elena Osipova
Letters Department
World Service
Voice of Russia
I remember when the Voice of Russia and Radio Moscow absolutely dominated the shortwaves, especially in my early years as a radio listener. Times have changed for this broadcaster who has been the mouthpiece for Russia and the Soviet Union.
On a side note, if you have the ability to record the Voice of Russia in its final days on the air, please consider submitting and sharing your recordings on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. Please contact me if you have any questions.
Many thanks!
If disaster ever strikes the world again (and I suspect we don’t have long to wait) all these geniuses in Government have managed to disable the one simple way of transmitting emergency information. Good luck with the internet or satellite radio if nuclear war breaks our or an asteroid strikes. The extreme hubris of mankind is beyond comprehension. I thought the Russians were a bit better than the rest of us idiots. Turns out I was wrong. Radio Australia is abandoning their SW service soon. So when it’s SHTF time don’t bother hauling out the ol SW radio. Nobody will be transmitting. The peak of all civilisations is the idiocracy which we are now witnessing.
I was wondering what happened. One day it was there, the next, poof! Gone. I’m only 37, but God I miss the old days of tuning around on a shortwave rig listening to the world. Now she’s getting all quiet….it sucks! Internet just isn’t the same.
And the internet is extremely vulnerable. Big difference between simply switching on a SW transmitter and the internet. If things go pear shaped the internet will be the first thing to break. So how do you get emergency info? It’s mind boggling that we swap a proven technology with no achilles heel, to one that has many.
I miss Radio Moscow….
Este radio alegra-me bastante devido dos bons programas que oferece nos seus ouvintes
espero que largam os vossos programas a nível mundial.
VOR-RADIO MOSCOW was one of the great radio stations of all time. So sorry to see them stop broadcasting on SW. They are definitely missed.
Can’t help but feel that with a little advertisement in magazines and newspapers by SW Broadcasters, that Short Wave Radio may still be made popular and acquire many more listeners. There must be a billion Short Wave Radios out there, and they are still being manufactured. Used Short Wave Radios fetch a good price at on-line auctions.
A shame to see VOR go. Russia has away been an interesting country to DX, weather the old Radio Moscow in the 1980’s, to all those independent short lived stations in the former Soviet Blocks of the early 1990’s, (Remember Radio Galaxy rockin’ out at 750KW?), to todays Russian pirates like Radio Magic Eye on 25.900MHz. Yep, Russia has been quite the source for DX’ers for all sorts. Still, hate to see Voice Of Russia go off the bands.
Just barely picked up the last day broadcast of VOR on 13805 at 13Z. I live in MN and used a dipole antenna in the attic. No mention on air of a final broadcast, which some services have given before closing down. Too bad to lose it, but time does move on. It’s funny, though given the issues with Russia that they would cease using another media outlet right now.
Anyway, Radio Havana still has the old Cold War attitude, though am guessing that might change fairly soon. And Radio China is still a big player (I actually had a tour of their headquarters last year). And as you know there are others. So we can still enjoy what’s left.
This is sad news indeed. Another giant of SW bites the dust. Almost everyday now you hear of some station or other closing down or some shortwave service closing down. Not everybody wants to or can, listen via internet.for me it just isn’t the same, although at times I admit it is very handy.
Still, you can’t beat that feeling of trawling the SW bands trying to tease out that signal.That was always the fun of it for me as much as the listening to programming.
I will be holding onto my gear because there is still plenty to go at if you care to scan the bands.Not just broadcast stuff.Those mysterious places between broadcast sections are wonderful !
Although the VOR hasn’t targeted North America in years, they still had one of the most reliable configurations for their digital (DRM) broadcasts to Europe. Regardless, other broadcasters will fill the void left by VOR and other public broadcasters. It’s ironic, however, that as VOR apparently leaves broadcasting on the shortwave bands in favor of the Internet, I’m leaving the Internet in favor of shortwave broadcasting. 😉
We seem to be living in a world now where the assumption is nothing can go wrong. We abandon simple reliable things for complicated very unreliable things all based on the premise that nothing will go wrong. Well nothing could be further from the truth.