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Hurricane Irma has done extensive damage at WRMI in Okeechobee, Florida.
Two antenna towers are down and many poles holding transmission lines are also down.
Power went out at around 2030 UTC Sunday, and it may not be restored for days.
Meanwhile, all transmitters are off the air. Our Internet service is also down, which means that our live stream is down as well. All of our staff are OK. We’ll try to provide more information later today here on Facebook. Thanks for all of your messages of support.
Hurricane Irma is currently a Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds at 185 mph. (Image: NOAA.gov)
(Source: WRMI on Facebook)
Hurricane Irma:
Thank you to all of our listeners who have inquired about our hurricane plans. At the moment (early Wednesday local time), it appears that the eye of Hurricane Irma will come right over or very close to Okeechobee by Sunday or Monday.
We will stay on the air as long as possible and as long as it’s safe. Our transmitter building is quite prepared to withstand most hurricanes, and our antennas have survived many hurricanes in the past with little damage.
However, electrical power generally goes out during or after most strong hurricanes, and our generator will only power our lights, computers and air conditioning. Unfortunately we don’t have enough generator power to operate 14 x 100-kilowatt transmitters. So if the power goes out, we are off the air.
We may have enough power to maintain one frequency on the air even during a power outage, and it looks like this will probably be 9455 kHz.
At the moment, our Internet is down, but we hope it will be back up soon, although it could go out again later. We’ll keep you informed as best we can. Thanks again for your interest.
The current hurricane model does show Irma heading straight toward Okeechobee:
Here’s wishing WRMI the very best weathering this monster of a storm. Let’s also hope any SWLing Post readers in the path of Irma make it through without any problems.
When Hurricane Harvey’s intensity became clear, employees at 93Q in Houston reserved hotel rooms across the street from the station. They were going to be very busy.
The on-air talent slept in the Cox-owned radio station for days, said Bill Tatar, digital content manager at Cox Media Group Houston. When they weren’t on-air, they did Facebook Live hits.
93Q is not normally an all-news station. But when emergencies hit, local radio stations can convey vital information: which streets are open, what shelters are taking people in and where communities can rally once the water begins to recede.
“Radio has been all over Harvey doing what radio does; immediately helping with updated information,” said Valerie Geller, a radio consultant. “Most stations dropped the format and went ‘all Harvey,’ taking calls, and across the country, stations are sending help and raising money.”[…]
KBS World Radio English Service is carrying out a major frequency and time adjustment on shortwave as we expand our programming as of September 4.
First of all, we will start a new two-and-a-half hour broadcast on 9.770Mhz at 0800h UTC toward Southeast Asia. The one-hour broadcast on 9.515Mhz toward Europe will expand to two hours, and will start at 1500h UTC. Our broadcast toward India will be on 9.785Mhz instead of the current 9.880Mhz and expand to three hours, starting at 1400h UTC.
Unfortunately, as we add more hours and programs to several frequencies, we will no longer be broadcasting on 9.690Mhz, 6.095Mhz and 7.275Mhz.
For more information on the frequency adjustment and program schedule, please visit our website at world.kbs.co.kr.
A new transmitter will be launched in Lithuania this week for broadcasting the Russian and Belarusian-language services of the US Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) aimed at countering Russian propaganda, reports LETA/BNS.
It will replace a 52-year-old transmitter in Sitkunai, close to Kaunas, that has been transmitting programs for listeners in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova at a lower quality.
The medium wave (AM) transmitter was manufactured some five years ago and was used by the US Defense Department in Western Germany to broadcast a radio program for American troops stationed abroad.
The transmitting power of the new device is set at 75 kilowatts, the same as that of the old one, but it can be increased up to 300 kilowatts if needed, Rimantas Pleikys, the owner of Radio Baltic Waves International, said.[…]
The flea-powered Ozy Radio has begun testing on 5045 kHz in the 60-meter band. First noted here in Australia on August 28, the station has been missing for several years from its former 3210 kHz allocation. The location has been reported as Razorback, New South Wales, but I have not been able to confirm this yet. The transmitter power and the type of antenna are also unknown at this time. Observations by myself and other Australian listeners have noted the station operating between 0600 and past 1300 UTC.
The signal into Mount Evelyn, Victoria (at a guess, about 800 km from the reported transmitter site) is very strong – about 10 dB over S9! This is a much better signal than was ever heard on the old 3210 outlet. Whatever has been done at the station appears to be working very well! I believe there could be a very good chance that Ozy Radio will be heard internationally!
The current programming consists of test transmission announcements, relays of the Australian Independent News service, and continuous antique pop music from the 50s and 60s. Cheekily, the station is also using the Radio Australia interval signal, while the RA kookaburra also fires off every now and again throughout the broadcasts. I’m not sure how the ABC feels about that!!
Here is a short video I prepared of the test announcement and email address given out at 1356 UTC.
Good luck with hearing Ozy Radio!
Rob VK3BVW
UPDATE: The current power output is 500w and the location is confirmed as Razorback, near Camden approx 45 km southwest of Sydney. Thanks to John Wright for the eQSL statement and information. John also reports that reception reports have been received from as far away as Germany.
Rob Wagner, VK3BVW, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. He also blogs at the Mount Evelyn DX Report.
Consternation, mourning and national soul-searching greeted the temporary silencing of Big Ben last week, but at least another favourite fixture of the nightly and early morning radio is to continue. The hymnal cadences of Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, through Shannon, Rockall, Malin all the way to south-east Iceland, will be heard as usual on Thursday, as the shipping forecast celebrates 150 years of uninterrupted service.
The shipping forecast, the longest continuous weather forecast ever made, has been a public service since 1867 when it was used to warn of storms. The warnings were first issued using the electric telegraph until radio became available. Storm warnings were sent over the telegraph wires to harbours, where signals were hoisted to warn ships at sea.
When the BBC was formed in the 1920s, the maritime forecast became a fixture of the daily wireless programme where it would remain with occasional modifications and a break during the war when the broadcast was discontinued for fear it would help the enemy. The forecast was still made, however, and disseminated to the Royal Navy.
Though today’s seafarers have access to many more sources of meteorological data, and many radio listeners famously use the late-night incantatory broadcast – never more than 380 words, and always following the same strict format – for soporific rather than navigational purposes, the broadcasts still fulfil a vital safety role.[…]
If you love The Shipping Forecast like I do, check out our archived posts.
I especially love these posts by SWLing Post contributors Dave Porter (G4OYX) and Kris Partridge (G8AUU) who have both inadvertently caused the shipping forecast to repeat!
Long live The Shipping Forecast!
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