One of the 19 curtain antennas on the campus of the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Site (Click to enlarge)
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Macon Dail, Transmitter Plant Supervisor at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, who writes:
Hi Thomas,
Greenville has recently begun shortwave broadcast to Ukraine to support Cubans in that country. We are broadcasting four hours daily in Spanish with programming supplied by the OCB. We are on 17680 KHz, 1700-2100 UTC MO-FR and 17865 KHz, 1300-1700 UTC SA-SU.
UPDATE: Due to a conflict with NHK on the new summer schedule, our 17680 KHz frequency has been changed to 17690 KHz to provide a clear frequency
Thank yo for the update, Macon! Great to hear that the Greenville site is beaming into Europe again!
Tonight – 2024-04-03 – on 17690 kHz instead of 17680 kHz, very well heard here in Austria. I just wonder why we have USAGM broadcasts on SW in Spanish for Cubans in Russia & Ukraine but no Russian broadcasts to Russia, especially to those regions from where the recruits for the war are recruited.
73 Wolfgang
It was a bad and short-sighted decision to scrap SW entirely for Radio Liberty in Russian, especially if we consider that it was done around 2016 when the war was already ongoing. Their transmitters located in Germany (Lampertheim and Biblis) provided an armchair copy. They’re still operational and they’re transmitting programmes in other languages. Why Russian was not reinstated on SW – not even for a single hour daily – is beyond me. Radio Liberty in Russian is broadcast overnight on MW from Lithuania but this outlet covers only a fragment of the European territory of Russia.
Actually Radio Liberty uses three different MW transmitters for Russian programming:
1430-1530 864 kHz via Noratus, Armenia (1000 kW)
1800-1900 1035 kHz via Tartu, Estonia (200 kW)
1800-2100 1386 kHz via Viešintos, Lithuania (75 kW)
Source:
http://novosibdx.info/schedules.html
(Search for “????? ???????” within the page to find the schedule)
Not anymore I think, I checked 1035 kHz and there was no sign of Radio Liberty at the given timeslot. The transmitter was airing a religious programme from Radio Eli. So I think that RL relays via this TX have now ceased.
It seems, you have it right.
Translation from RadioEins news item:
“At the end of March 2023, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty expanded the distribution of its Russian programs with two additional broadcast slots on medium wave. These disappeared again after exactly one year.”
https://www.radioeins.de/programm/sendungen/medienmagazin/radio_news/beitraege/2019/estland.html
Even dxguides.info confirms this.
http://www.dxguides.info/p/mw-dx-guides.html
Despite this, Radio Libery website still lists all the three frequencies.
https://www.svoboda.org/radio/waves/everyday
There has been lots of discussion about this new service on Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio io group. The broadcasts are directed at Cubans fighting for Putin. Here is one of my WoR postings:
On 16 February, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “How Russia Recruits Soldiers From Cuba to Fight in Ukraine; Eager to escape Communist island’s poverty, Cubans are joining Russian army.” In that article, we find:
“Ambassador Ruslan Spirin, Ukraine’s special representative to Latin America and the Caribbean, said the government believes that about 400 Cubans are fighting in the country. ‘We take it seriously,’ he said.
“Others think the numbers go higher. Maryan Zablotskyi, a member of the Ukrainian parliament who has studied the issue, estimates that between 1,500 and 3,000 Cubans have enlisted as the island’s state-controlled economy crumbles .”
The whole article is quite interesting but is behind a paywall unless you have a WSJ subscription or access through a university library, etc.
Considering it’s the “Edward R.Murrow” transmitting station, you would like to think they are not supporting Putin. However Russia is currently running a soldier recruiting campaign in Cuba as we speak.
Buenas tardes, quisiera hacer un pequeño apunte, la frecuencia de emisión de lunes a viernes es 17.690. Gracias
https://www.usagm.gov/ the Parent Government department which contains Marti
https://www.martinoticias.com/
Marti is what is being transmitted from North Carolina.
Mangosman
I’m confused. Are the Cubans in the Ukraine just immigrants? Are they supporting the freedom of the Ukraine or siding with Putin? It makes a huge difference. We should not be broadcasting if it’s Russian propaganda. Are the Cubans filing for Russia? What is being broadcasted?
La liberté d’expression, il faut en tenir compte aussi. C’est toujours intéressant d’entendre toutes les parties, leurs argumentations même si l’on est de l’autre côté. Perso j’écoute aussi RCI ce n’est pas pour autant que je soutiens leur gouvernement. Un peu d’ouverture d’esprit fait aussi du bien 😉