The new B14 shortwave broadcast schedule started on Sunday, 26 October 2014. You might have noticed that many online resources are in the process of updating schedules.
If you need up-to-date schedules in the meantime:
Happy listening!
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, @K7al_L3afta, for sharing news that the top floors of the Radio France broadcasting house were on fire this morning:
@SWLingDotCom @LondonShortwave fire in Radio France!! pic.twitter.com/EWoIWsyLEq
— ????? ????????? (@K7al_L3afta) October 31, 2014
You can read more about the fire, in English, via Reuters:
A fire broke out at France’s public radio headquarters in Paris on Friday, forcing live programmes off the air as staff evacuated the vast Paris complex where major building work has been underway.
“The fire is not put out but it is under control,” said Paris fire brigade spokesman Gabriel Plus, adding that there were no victims and that there was no longer any risk of the fire spreading to other parts of the building.[…]
Fortunately, it seems all staff were evacuated and there have been no casualties noted at this point. Time will tell if this has a temporary effect on Radio France International programming.
UPDATE: Jonathan Marks comments, “Unlikely that RFI will be affected as they have moved out of the Maison de la Radio and into the same offices as France 24 a little bit further down the river.”
Thanks, Jonathan!
Many thanks to the Global 24 Radio team for notifying me that they’ve posted their initial programming. I posted the full list below, but you should also check the Global 24 website as they’re making frequent additions.
As a reminder: Global 24 Radio begins broadcasting tomorrow, October 31, 2014, beginning at 2300 UTC on 9,395 KHz.
(Source: Global 24 Radio)
News:
Feature Story News – Top of the Hour News
European News Network – Top of the Hour News, Breaking News, Weekly News Review
Global 24 Breaking News – Top of the Hour News, Developing News, Live News Feeds
Focus Asia Pacific – Daily News from the Pacific
International Relays:
Music:
Easy Listening:
Drama:
Perspective:
Science:
Radio:
Survival, Homesteading & Off the Grid Living
(Announcements Pending)
Last Sunday, I tuned to The Mighty KBC on 7,375 kHz, starting at 0000 UTC. The KBC signal out of Europe was blow-torch strength.
The Mighty KBC’s Giant Jukebox is chock-full of rock-n-roll and Euro-pop variety, spanning the decades. DJ “Uncle Eric” never disappoints.
If band conditions are as good as last night, you should be able to hear The Mighty KBC quite easily tonight.
In the meantime, here’s a recording from last week to wet your appetite:
Waterfall display of the 31 meter band last night.
Last night, band conditions were superb above 7 MHz. Both the 31 and 25 meter bands seemed crowded with stations; for a moment, it felt like a true solar peak.
This morning, solar flares have dampened down the excitement but I imagine conditions could favorably change at times this weekend, so stay tuned!
I recorded the entire 25M band for a couple of hours yesterday evening and a large portion of the 31 meter band throughout the night. Fortunately, I had just invested in another Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA drive, so there was ample space to make these (very) large recordings. I think this brings my overall spectrum storage up to 12 TB!?!
I love the fact that these SDR band captures will make for good listening sometime this winter when the sun isn’t being so cooperative. I liken it to radio time travel, but I believe David Goren (of shortwaveology.net) said it best in a comment he posted in “Confessions of an SDRaholic: when 4.5 terabytes is not enough“:
“My approach to recording SDR band captures is like assembling a collection of fine wines. I tend to record captures when there are unusual propagational openings…and while recording a whole swath of frequencies for an hour or so you can still tune around and make discoveries and even record them singly.. And then once the capture is done, you have it as long as you want to keep it.. So, on a static-y summers day I can go to the shelf and pull down “Ye Olde Auroral MW Opening 10/15/11? or “Hot Bolivian evening on 60 meters.” and I can make discoveries to my heart’s content. Since I can listen to an hour’s worth of each frequency it will take a long time to exhaust the potential of any particular capture, esp. with the ability to refilter and change. multiple parameters of reception.”
See? (I tell my wife) I’m simply building my collection of fine wines!
Below, you’ll find some of the stations I logged last night (actually, this morning in UTC).
31 meter band beginning 00:00 UTC, 25 OCT 2014
25 meter band beginning 0100 UTC, 25 OCT 2014
If you were listening to the 31 meter band last night in North America, you would have heard a very strong ERT Open (Voice of Greece) back on their long-established frequency of 9420 kHz.
Only yesterday, I posted a note about ERT’s apparent move to 9415 kHz to avoid interference with the IRIB. Seems they changed their mind.
Indeed, conditions were superb last night and bands were wide open above 7 MHz. ERT was broadcasting on 9420 and 9935 kHz and both were strong (S9+).
I’m very curious if ERT will remain on 9420 or move back to 9415 kHz during the week. I suppose time will tell.
(Source: The Guardian via Andy Sennitt)
The Rwandan government has suspended all BBC radio broadcasts in Rwanda’s most common language to protest against the news organisation’s recent documentary about the 1994 genocide in the country.
President Paul Kagame’s government, members of parliament and genocide survivors have expressed their anger at the BBC over the recent documentary that suggested the country’s president may have had a hand shooting down his predecessor’s plane, a crash that triggered the mass killings.
Its hour-long documentary, Rwanda, The Untold Story, also quoted US researchers who suggested that many of the more than 800,000 Rwandans who died in the 1994 genocide may have been ethnic Hutus, and not ethnic Tutsis as the Rwandan government maintains.
Late on Friday, the Rwandan Utilities Regulatory Authority announced the suspension of the BBC’s broadcasts in the local language, Kinyarwanda. The board said it took the action because it has received complaints of “incitement, hatred, divisionism, genocide denial and revision” from the public. It said further action could be taken.
The BBC had defended the film on Friday, saying it had a “duty to investigate difficult and challenging subjects”.