Category Archives: Broadcasters

Skywave Radio Schedules now on the Google Play store

Skywave Schedules App will allow you to search a comprehensive, regularly updated, database of shortwave radio broadcasts.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Cap, who has just notified me that his shortwave radio schedules app for Android–Skywave Radio Schedules–is now available via the Google Play store.

You might recall that Cap first shared this app in Beta form and invited us to share feedback and comments. Cap has spent weeks incorporating our suggestions and making changes in the background–Skywave Radio Schedules feels refined and responsive. Best yet? It’s free and has no ads. Amazing.

Cap does note that you should uninstall any previous versions of this app before installing it from the Google Play store.

Thank you, Cap! Great job making this app a reality.

Click here to view Skywave Radio Schedules on the Google Play store.

Spread the radio love

North Korea “aggressively” jams new BBC broadcasts

3 Replies

(Source: The Telegraph)

The BBC’s new Korean-language service is being “aggressively targeted” by North Korean jamming of its broadcasts.

The service was launched on Monday and delivers a mixture of global news, sport and radio features to the whole of the Korean Peninsula for a three-hour window that starts at midnight local time.

Broadcasts are going out on two shortwave frequencies, from Taiwan and Tashkent, while the hour-long segment from 1am is relayed on medium wave from Mongolia, according to a report on the 38 North web site, operated by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

“As listening to foreign radio is illegal, the government makes a great effort to prevent people from doing so”, the report states. “At the most basic level, it modifies radios so they cannot be tuned to anything but state-run channels, although that can be later reverse engineered.

[…]The BBC broadcasts are going out after midnight, which will make it easier for listeners with access to short wave to tune in secretly.

Read the full article at The Telegraph…

Spread the radio love

New Korean language service from the BBC

Leave a reply

(Source: BBC Media Centre)

BBC News launches Korean language service

The new Korean language service announced in November 2016 by the BBC World Service began broadcasting today. Audiences in the Korean peninsula and Korean speakers around the world can now hear radio broadcasts and access the latest news online at BBC.com/Korean.
BBC News Korean is one of 12 new language service launches now underway as part of the biggest expansion of the BBC World Service since the 1940s, funded through a £291 million grant in aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Director of the BBC World Service Francesca Unsworth says: “BBC News Korean will build on the long-standing reputation for fairness and impartiality the BBC World Service has earned all over the world.”

BBC News Korean features a daily 30-minute radio news programme broadcast at 15.30 GMT on Shortwave (SW) and 16.30 GMT Medium wave (MW). The service will also feature a digital offer with written stories, videos and radio programmes which can be downloaded and shared. The new service features a wide range of news, sport, business, culture, in-depth reports and English language learning.

BBC News Korean journalists will be based in Seoul, London and Washington and will draw on the full extent of the BBC’s global network of correspondents.

Notes to Editors
Service to launch on Monday 25 September at 15.30 GMT (Tuesday 26 September in Korea):

Shortwave service to broadcast for three hours, 15.30 – 18.30 GMT (0030 – 0330 GMT local time Seoul; 00.00 – 03.00 local time, PYT)

Medium wave service transmission for 1 hour 16.30 – 17.30 GMT (0130-0230 local time Seoul; 01.00 – 02.00 local time, PYT)

All transmissions to be 7 days a week

Medium wave (MW) Frequency: 1431KHz

Shortwave (SW) Frequencies: 5810 kHz & 9940 kHz (from launch to 28 October 2017) then; 5810 kHz & 5830 kHz (from 29 October 2017 to 24 March 2018)

The BBC News Korean website will be available at BBC.com/Korean

The BBC World Service is currently launching in 12 new languages – Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Serbian, Telugu, Tigrinya, and Yoruba.

Spread the radio love

VORW Radio International’s New Schedule

BBC World Service: new shortwave services to Ethiopia and Eritrea

3 Replies

Note that, in terms of press freedoms, Reporters Without Borders ranks Eritrea the second most repressive country in the world, next to North Korea.

(Source: BBC Media Centre)

BBC World Service continues expansion with new services for Ethiopia and Eritrea

Three new language services for Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the diaspora are being launched today by the BBC World Service as part of its biggest expansion since the 1940s.
BBC News in Amharic, Afaan Oromo and Tigrinya will be available online and on Facebook. This will be followed later in the year with shortwave radio services in each language consisting of a 15-minute news and current affairs programme, followed by a 5-minute Learning English programme, from Monday to Friday.

The new BBC services will provide impartial news, current affairs and analysis of Ethiopia and Eritrea as well as regional and international news. Boosting the BBC’s operation in the Horn of Africa will also provide the rest of the BBC’s global audience with a better understanding of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Programmes will target a younger audience with social media playing a key role. In addition to news and current affairs, there will be extensive coverage of culture, entertainment, entrepreneurship, science & technology, health and sport – including the English Premier League.

These services will benefit from a growing network of journalists across the region and around the world.

Francesca Unsworth, BBC World Service Director, says: “The BBC World Service brings independent, impartial news to audiences around the world, especially in places where media freedom is limited. I’m delighted we’re extending our service to millions of people in Ethiopia, Eritrea and the diaspora worldwide.”

Will Ross, Editorial Lead for Africa, says: “We know that there is a great deal of hunger for audiences in Ethiopia and Eritrea to access a broad range of high quality content in Amharic, Afaan Oromo and Tigrinya. It has been a privilege to work with Ethiopian and Eritrean journalists who are so keen to learn new skills and to ensure the new language services are a success.”

Spread the radio love

Photos of WRMI antenna field damage

6 Replies

Since we’ve been following WRMI in the wake of Hurricane Irma, I’ve posted a few photos below that WRMI shared on their Facebook page. These photos give us an idea about the magnitude of damage to their antenna farm.

Amazingly, Jeff White confirmed a few days ago that WRMI is back up to full power on all of their frequencies.

All of the caption below were noted by WRMI:

One of the towers holding our 44-degree antenna to Europe was folded in the middle by the hurricane.

A mess of crossed transmission lines in the field.

Transmission lines on the ground that should be above ground on poles.

Transmission line poles were knocked down.

A second tower holding the 44-degree antenna was snapped in the middle.

We had some requests a few days ago from listeners who wanted to see a diagram of our transmitter-antenna connections. This may blow your mind, but here goes…

For all WRMI updates, please bookmark the WRMI Facebook page.

Spread the radio love

The Guardian: Study shows ABC cuts to shortwave & rural broadcasts “jeopardising safety of remote communities”

3 Replies

(Source: The Guardian via Ian P)

Reduction of local news and station closures disastrous for people living outside Australia’s cities, researchers say

Cuts to the ABC in regional and rural Australia and the corporation’s increasing reliance on digital technologies is jeopardising the safety of remote communities and their access to emergency warnings, Deakin University research has found.

The ABC’s increasingly “digital-first” approach to emergency information and the reduction in ABC reporters’ local knowledge is causing great distress among rural populations who rely on broadcast signals because they don’t have the bandwidth or coverage for digital, researchers say.

A reduction of local news and information, centralised newsrooms in metropolitan areas, the closure of several ABC stations and the scaling back of broadcast programming has been disastrous for people outside the cities, according to a new study, Communication life line? ABC emergency broadcasting in rural/regional Australia.

But the ABC has played down the study’s significance, saying it is based on parliamentary submissions and is not an “accurate or up-to-date” summary of the corporation’s role in rural and regional Australia; and that the ABC is not funded as an emergency service.

Based on public submissions to a parliamentary inquiry, the researchers Julie Freeman, Kristy Hess and Lisa Waller found “burgeoning discontent about the corporation’s ability to fulfil its role as a designated emergency broadcaster and provide communication life lines to rural and regional communities”.[…]

Continue reading at The Guardian.

Spread the radio love