Category Archives: International Broadcasting

BBG tries to improve employee morale

In December 2012, we posted a survey from the 2012 edition of The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government by The Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte. The survey indicated that the Broadcasting Board of Governers (BBG) had been ranked in the bottom five places to work in the federal government.

According to the Washington Post, the agency is now working on a plan to boost employee morale. Some of their initiatives include:

“Agency directors and senior staff hold[ing] face-time sessions in the cafeteria for informal talks with employees, a “Civility Campaign” addresses labor-management issues, and a Workplace Engagement Initiative takes a deeper dive into the agency’s low morale ratings.

Some of the morale-boosting events are meant to be fun, such as the raffle during the fitness-center open house, a chocolate bake-off in time for Valentine’s Day, and ?after-work gatherings — a bingo night, happy hour, checkers and chess.

It’s going to take all that and some sustained work to improve the agency’s failing report cards.”

Read the full article on The Washington Post…

Many thanks to Richard Cuff for the tip!

Outernet: shortwave radio for the smartphone enabled?

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There’s a new project in the works, Outernet, that aspires to bring the international accessibility of shortwave radio along with the versatility of the Internet. Outernet’s goal is stated on their website:

“By leveraging datacasting technology over a low-cost satellite constellation, Outernet is able to bypass censorship, ensure privacy, and offer a universally-accessible information service at no cost to global citizens. It’s the modern version of shortwave radio, or BitTorrent from space.”

It’s a fascinating concept: deploy low-cost, CubeSat satellites which broadcast data in a way that it should be accessible to anyone with a wi-fi enabled device such as smart phone or computer. Specifically, Outernet states that they will be using, “globally-accepted, standards-based protocols, such as DVB, Digital Radio Mondiale, and UDP-based WiFi multicasting.”

(What? Did they say Digital Radio Mondiale? They did indeed.)

I’m all about freedom of and access to information, so I hope Outernet is successful. They’ve published an ambitious timeline with a goal of having CubeSats ready to deploy as soon as June of 2015. For more information, check out Outernet’s project page.

Lynley Marshall defends ABC overseas broadcasts

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Lynley Marshal (Source: ADNews.com.au)

(Source: The Sydney Morning Herald)

“The chief for the ABC broadcasting into the Asia Pacific insists the taxpayer funded network has a growing audience with better programs on the way – despite reports the service is for the chop in the May budget.

ABC International boss Lynley Marshall stoutly defended overseas broadcasts as a way of promoting Australia, saying the spread of social media and mobile devices in Asia has vastly extended the potential audience.

She told a Melbourne audience on Monday evening the service had more than 1 million supporters on its Facebook page for learning theEnglish language.”

[Continue reading…]

While this article doesn’t mention shortwave radio per se, it’s most interesting to see where Marshall must both defend Australian international broadcasting as a form of diplomacy while also defending the news agency when its reports are critical of the government.

There’s an inherent tension all international broadcasters face–at least, those that are tax-payer supported–as many try to transition from being purely a mouthpiece of the government to an example of free press and democracy.

Eight new recordings in the Media Network Vintage Vault

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Voice of America, circa 1968

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Many thanks to David Firth, who is kindly sharing shortwave radio recordings he made on reel-to-reel recording equipment in the late 1960s.

Firth is uncovering and digitizing these off air recordings as time allows and, thanks to his generosity, we will be posting these recordings on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.

The following is a recording of the Voice of America, which Firth recorded in 1968.

This seven minute recording will surely bring back memories with clips from VOA Jazz Hour (Willis Conover), the VOA Breakfast Show, and VOA Special English.

[Confession: the first time I heard this recording, the Willis Conover clip gave me chill bumps.]

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Check out more recordings on the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive, also check out David Firth’s channel on YouTube.

Want to know more about Willis Conover? Check out David Goren’s podcast for Jazz At Lincoln Center.

Nothing on shortwave? I still disagree.

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One of the most popular posts on the SWLing Post is one published nearly two years ago: “Is there anything to listen to on shortwave?“

In that article, I posted recordings made on the 31 meter band of eight different broadcasters, all of which I found within a 250 kHz chunk of bandwidth on a Friday afternoon.

On February 8th (this past Saturday), I recorded a 160 kHz chunk of spectrum on the 31 meter band with my WinRadio Excalibur, starting around 1:00 UTC and lasting for about 9 hours. I made this spectrum recording in attempt to capture the Voice of Korea on one of their three scheduled frequencies.

While VOK wasn’t audible enough to make a good recording, I did log the following stations all within this thin slice of radio spectrum (click on links for recordings):

Radio France International (9,790 kHz)
Radio New Zealand International (9,765 kHz)
BBC World Service
Voice of Iran
- Dari (9,740 kHz)
- Hebrew (9,755 kHz)
Afia Darfur (9,845 kHz)
Voice of Turkey (9,820 kHz)
NHK Radio Japan (9,770 kHz)
KBS World Service (9,805 kHz)
Though not logged, I also heard Radio Havana Cuba, China Radio International, WRMI, China National Radio, WWRC, Deutsche Welle, Voice of Korea (faint) and many others.

I’m guessing that I only logged 50% of what I heard as this list was put together from a quick scan through the recording. In fact, I’m systematically making recordings of each of these broadcasts, from the spectrum file, and adding them to the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. I may actually discover more stations in the process.

My point is, if you think there’s nothing to listen to on shortwave, you’re simply not listening!

Now back to my radio…