Welcome to the SWLing Post’s Radio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor David Iurescia for the following tips:
RNZ Pacific – 35 years of broadcasting to the region (RNZ)
January 24, 1990, the same day the Auckland Commonwealth Games opened, RNZ International (RNZI) began broadcasting to the Pacific region.
Its news bulletins and programmes were carried by a brand new 100kW transmitter. The service was rebranded as RNZ Pacific in 2017. However its mission remains unchanged, to provide news of the highest quality and be a trusted service to local broadcasters in the Pacific region.
Although RNZ had been broadcasting to the Pacific since 1948, in the late 1980s the New Zealand Government saw the benefit of upgrading the service. Thus RNZI was born, with a small dedicated team.
The first RNZI manager was Ian Johnstone. He believed that the service should have a strong cultural connection to the people of the Pacific. To that end, it was important that some of the staff reflected parts of the region where RNZ Pacific broadcasted. He hired the first Pacific woman sports reporter at RNZ, the late Elma Ma’ua. [Continue reading…]
The BNR’s QSL cards for 2025 present the beauty of Bulgaria (BNR)
Dear friends, we are happy to announce that the Bulgarian National Radio’s QSL cards for 2025 are now available. The two series – one with 6 postcards and the other with 12 postcards – are entitled “The Beauty of Bulgaria.”
The series of 6 cards confirms that you have listened to Radio Bulgaria’s programming in any of its languages.
To receive this series, you need to send reports, indicating the date and the language of the programme you have listened to, as well as content details. QSL cards are sent upon receipt of the necessary number of reports, irrespective of the language in which the programmes were heard on our website. [Continue reading…]
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I’m happy to see that BNR is offering QSL cards, but I can’t find any shortwave frequencies that they’re on in English. Does anyone have times and frequencies for Eastern North America?
New Zealand has had the good sense to maintain a shortwave broadcasting presence in the Pacific and beyond. This is totally unlike the ignorant degenerates in the Australian government who decided to stop the Radio Australia service on the basis of faulty evidence, lies and political posturing. Australia and its geographical region needs shortwave coverage. The land mass of Australia is enormous and MW, FM, DAB+ and satellite are hopelessly inadequate in their coverage. The problem of course is that the empty-headed morons making decisions have no idea what shortwave broadcasting is and those that do are under the misguided belief that the technology is antiquated.
Happy Birthday to RNZ Pacific!
I hope they expand their DRM service particularly for emergencies like cyclones and tsunamis, and the New Zealanders already know about earthquakes within their own pair of islands.
DRM’s Emergency Warning Functionality when the general public and emergency crews in the affected areas have the following which is not available on their analog service;
If the receiver is in the affected area it will;
wake a receiver in standby
tune and select the emergency channel
Make a siren sound to attract attention even if the victim or crew are asleep
Make a loud announcement
Display maps of the affected area as well as coloured weather maps
Display multiple pages of multilingual text instructions both before, during and in the recovery stages.
It also has a controlled access mode which can be used for individual receivers to groups of receivers, just like sel-call on UHF two way radios.
This is all available without satellite or undersea fibre optic cable. Remember that sat phones and broadcast satellite reception does not work in dense rain or volcanic ash either. Electricity supplies to local broadcasters can easily be out for days and cyclones can severely damage satellite receiving antennas and broadcasting transmitting antennas.
Usual programming can be supplied to the unaffected.
The DRM1000 receiver module is ideal for Pacific Islanders because it will run for a longtime on non rechargeable batteries and is inexpensive in quantity.
Are the Pacific Islanders supposed to be listening to the radio with a module??? DRM from RNZI is intended only for the partner stations in the region that rebroadcast their content. It has been stated numerous times. The RNZI management is perfectly aware of the fact that there are no DRM receivers available for the general audience. There is also no receiver that implements this EWF functionality, it’s only on paper.