(Source: Radio World via Andrea Borgnino)
Swiss-based company Ampegon has accepted a contract from Al Rashed to handle the upgrade of five analog shortwave transmitters that are more than 20 years old for the Kuwait Ministry of Information in Al Kabd station.
[…]Ampegon will refurbish all of the transmitters, and in addition upgrade three of them to full digital DRM integration and converted to the new transmitter control system UCS[…]
I listen in East Poland Radio Kuwait on 15540 kHz on my dongle RTL238 (+converter frequency) and software DRM. Signal SNR ~27 dB but I have meny break signal. Sorry my English 😉
That is unusual. 27 dB should be plenty for a solid decode; I can often get reliable decoding with no dropouts with as little as 15.5 dB with the DREAM software. It is possibly you have some local interference causing the DRM signal to lose sync. Here in the US, thunderstorms even hundreds of kilometers away can cause enough static crashing to render DRM impossible to decode.
DRM also requires a very stable receiver. I don’t know the specifics of your RTL238 setup but it may be drifting slightly during reception causing sync to be lost.
They are back on as of today, although this may just be a test run. 15540 kHz, 1800-2100 UTC. I’m in the SE USA and they’re putting a usable signal here after a very weak start. Seems to be mostly English pop music at the moment. Good to hear a new signal on the air!
Thanks for the report, Tom! I just got back from travels and was greeted by a bulletin from Dan Robinson and you. I hope to catch them on the air before someone decides to pull the plug! 🙂
Radio Kuwait is back on. shortwaves. Head in Canada at 1800 utc on 15540 kHz. Good signal. A real good news :)) Roger .
Radio kuwait , l’ m looking towards listening to you again soon. Your English programs had been wonderful to me. My shortwave radio is still waiting for you.
Since I have the luxury of being retired and able to play radio in the afternoon this is great news. I hope they come back with the same kind of programming and time slot they had in the past. I started listening to them in the afternoon because there was nothing else on the airwaves besides you know who. I soon became a regular when they had a soap opera type of radio play every day. It was just a great well rounded station reminiscent of days gone by. Kudo’s to them for not following the same negative course as all the stations lost lately.
I know very few people that enjoyed listening to Radio Kuwait as much as I did, no matter what though, this is some of the best shortwave news I’ve ever heard. Back in 2014 I would turn on my radio every single afternoon and listen to the full 3 hour English Service on 15540 kHz, I enjoyed the news broadcasts, the cultural programs from the GCC and the musical variety of course!
I couldn’t be happier, it’s so rare for a shortwave station to come back to the airwaves – especially with it being the one I missed the most. It’s excellent news and I look so forward to listening to them again soon.
Hello. I’m so happy that Radio Kuwait is back on the air. I missed those broadcasts on 15540 when you were of the air. I’m listening from St. Louis Missouri USA. Welcome back.