Category Archives: International Broadcasting

Monitoring the BBC’s Emergency Radio Service for Sudan and Gaza (A Few Considerations)

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by Carlos Latuff

I bring to the brothers-in-radio of SWLing Post a short report on my recent listening sessions of the BBC’s emergency radio service, which broadcasts half an hour of Arabic-language programming from Sunday to Thursday to Sudan and Gaza on the frequency of 15280 kHz. The programming consists of a podcast entitled “Middle East Diaries,” which can be accessed on the BBC Arabic website. Basically, it consists of news about Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Sudan, and other regions of the Middle East, and in one specific case, a public service announcement teaching water purification techniques, vital information for those who live (or try to survive) in regions whose civilian infrastructure has been destroyed by bombings.

These listening sessions were conducted between April 20th and May 21st of this year, in front of the Guaiba River in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The receiver was the reliable Xhdata D-808, and a 3-meter long wire antenna. Transmissions always begin at 12:00 PM Brasília time (3:00 PM UTC), the worst time since the sun is at its zenith, which negatively impacts shortwave reception. The signal is weak; most of the time, it was only possible to save a few audible fragments, and in some cases, it wasn’t possible to record anything; it was almost all noise. Reception usually improves slightly after 12:30 PM. Now, the transmitter, located in Talata Volonondry, Madagascar (about 9800 km from Porto Alegre), is directed towards Sudan and Gaza, so receiving this signal in Brazil is already a stroke of luck!

(Listening session held on May 1st, one of the days with better reception)

One problem I detected was on April 30th, when the Radio Romania interval signal interrupted the end of the programming. Radio Romania broadcasts in Arabic on the same frequency, but at 12:30 PM. The interval signal started at 12:27 PM, when the BBC program had not yet finished.

I also noticed interruptions that seemed to stem from technical problems and/or power outages, as happened on May 4th, when I missed the first three minutes of the broadcast due to a signal interruption.

Four days ago, I was in another city in southern Brazil, Florianopolis, 463 km from Porto Alegre, and there, on the campus of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, I tried to listen to the BBC broadcast but noticed strong interference from a Chinese radio station (CNR ?) on the same frequency. I imagined it was something related to my geographical location. However, today, May 21st, back to Porto Alegre, I found the same problem, which practically made listening impossible. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to listen to those broadcasts again.

Too bad, ’cause I was really enjoying listening to the BBC’s emergency radio service, as it became the only time BBC broadcasts in Arabic, since the station ended its regular service in that language in January 2023. I’m making available here a PDF with all the illustrated radio listening reports I produced during this period.

Click here to download the PDF.

P.S.: I have tried to contact the BBC several times, either by email or through their social media.

All in vain.

VOA Hitting the Target in Korea

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Greenall, who writes:

Hi Thomas,

Judging by the 60 dB over S9 signal strength on a Kiwi SDR receiver in South Korea, I would say the Voice of America is getting into its target area very well.

They have a Korean language broadcast on 9310 kHz beginning at 1530 hours UTC using their Tinang transmitter in the Philippines. I made a couple of recordings, which are as follows:

April 29, 2026, leading up to 1600 hours UTC (programming in progress), presumed news about King Charles’ visit, “VOA” heard a few times around 3:04 and 3:10:

April 30, 2026, starting at 1527 UTC, open carrier with tone, carrier off after 40 seconds. carrier back on around the 1:44 mark with English ID and Yankee Doodle briefly, then off, Yankee Doodle resumes at the 2:03 mark, then programming in Korean:

Since my original post on March 9, I’ve noticed the Voice of America is no longer using 7500 kHz for its 2200 UTC broadcast in Mandarin Chinese. According to short-wave.info, they are now using 9625 and 11590 kHz from 2200 to 2230 UTC. Shortwave.live has them here as well, but in recent checks using remote SDRs, I have been coming up empty on 9625, and a bit of a mess on 11590. Other listed times and frequencies checked for the Mandarin service have not been heard either.

73

Dan Greenall. Ontario, Canada

Kim Andrew Elliott: Why Congress Should Fund VOA

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Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in North Carolina

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Dennis Dura who shares this post from Kim Andrew Elliott regarding the importance of continued congressional funding for the Voice of America (VOA). He argues that U.S. international broadcasting is still a vital form of soft power—delivering credible news where press freedom is limited—and warns that cutting funding would weaken a key source of trusted global journalism when it’s needed most.

Click here to read the full article.

Radio Waves: DLARC, Solar Cycle 25 Explained, and VOA Delano property to be sold

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Radio Waves:  Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

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 Dennis Dura for the following tips:

DLARC: The Radio Geek’s Doomscrolling Antidote (Radio World)

The internet has aged to the point where it is easy to fall into a rabbit hole, reminiscing about websites from decades past.

The site that fuels those scrolling endeavors is the Internet Archive — a nonprofit that hosts a digital library of internet sites and other artifacts in digital form. The project began in 1996 to archive the web.

Today, it contains one trillion web pages through its “Wayback Machine,” as well as 56 million books and texts. It also works with approximately 1,400 libraries through its Archive-It program to identify and preserve important digital history.

Kay Savetz (K6KJN) freely admits to having been an Internet Archive power user. Savetz used not just the archive.org website, but also its command line interface to upload many documents. [Continue reading…][Continue reading…]

Solar Cycle 25 Gives Amateurs and Shortwave a Boost (Radio World)

Beyond their love of radio, amateur radio operators and shortwave radio broadcasters have one thing in common: They rely on the ionosphere to refract or bend their signals back to Earth, so that they can travel beyond line-of-sight distances.

In turn, the ionosphere’s ability to refract radio signals depends on its level of ionization or charge. The more ionized the ionosphere is, the more likely it is to bend signals back to the ground rather than let them pass through.

Here’s where the sun comes in. The number of sunspots on the solar surface rises and falls over an 11-year period, during what is known as a solar cycle. The more sunspots, the more solar radiation comes to Earth. [Continue reading…]

City of Delano plans to sell Voice of America property, keep portion for ‘future park purposes’ (KGET)

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The city of Delano is looking to keep a portion of the former Voice of America property for “future park purposes” and sell the rest, according to the Delano City Council agenda for Monday.

The property is on about 800 acres bordered by West Garces Highway, Woollomes Avenue, Melcher Road and Casey Avenue.

It was home to the Delano Transmitting Station, built in 1944 to broadcast Voice of America programming worldwide. It stopped operating in 2007 and was demolished shortly after.

The City Council is set to consider whether it should retain about 20 acres of that property for park-related reasons and designate the remainder as “surplus land” and approve selling it. [Continue reading…]

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BBC Seeks Shortwave Recordings and Listener Stories—Can You Help?

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SWLing Post readers,

I’m currently helping a BBC reporter who is producing an upcoming program about shortwave radio—and she’s hoping to tap into the incredible collective knowledge and experience of the SWLing Post community.

There are a few specific things she’s still trying to track down:

  • Recordings of what was heard when stations like Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty signed off. In other words, do you have final recordings for any of these broadcasters?
  • Audio recordings of a coronal mass ejection (CME) as heard on shortwave. I’ve heard this before–those broadband waves of fading–but I have no recordings.
  • Personal experiences of listening to shortwave while living in a closed or restricted country.

If you have recordings, firsthand experiences, or even strong leads, your contribution could help shape this program.

If you’d like to help, please leave a comment on this post–I’ll share your contact details with the producer.

As always, I’m continually amazed by the depth of knowledge and experience within this community—thank you in advance for any help you can offer!

Dynamic Map of Broadcasters Currently on the Air

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Stefano, who writes:

Hi Thomas,

I just wanted to share a small project I created today that I thought might be interesting for your readers. I put together a webpage where you can see broadcast radio stations currently on air displayed on a world map.

It’s based on two frequency databases: the EiBi and Aoki lists. I also keep these databases updated, since they are the same ones used for the data updates of SWList.

https://www.sramp.com/worldradiomap

Here’s also a page from my blog where I describe the project:

https://sramp.com/world-radio-map/

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

Stefano

What a cool map, Stefano! Thank you for sharing this with the wider SWL community.