Category Archives: International Broadcasting

Radio Waves: Israeli and Palestinian Radio Reach, Vatican Radio While in Captivity, and the Voice of Nigeria

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 contributors David Iurescia and Richard Cuff for the following tips:

Reaching hostages and prisoners, through Israeli and Palestinian radio (NPR)

TEL AVIV, Israel, and RAMALLAH, West Bank — Thousands of Israeli and Palestinian families know nothing about the fate of their relatives — Israelis held captive in Gaza and Palestinians jailed in Israel — during the Israel-Hamas war.

No phone calls. No letters. Just a few short Hamas hostage videos and limited lawyers’ visits to Israeli prisons. Even as diplomats try to reach a cease-fire deal for their release, it is an ongoing source of anguish for the families.

So Israeli and Palestinian radio stations are broadcasting their voices, hoping their loved ones hear them.

Some have.

“People tell you, ‘If she listens to you right now, what would you say? What would you want her to hear?’ And I always feel like, OK, no way she can hear me,” says Gil Dickman, whose cousin’s wife was a captive in Gaza. “But it turns out that, thanks to the fact that radio is such an analog platform, it was possible.” [Continue reading at NPR…]

Fr. Lohre: ‘Vatican Radio made me feel part of Church during captivity’ (Vatican Radio)

By Devin Watkins & John Baptist Tumusiime

“My captivity was a time which God gave to me to renew my strength, to renew my faith in order to be of any use to people afterwards.”

Fr. Hans-Joachim Lohre, MAfr, was on his way to celebrate Mass on the feast of Christ the King in 2022, in Bamako, when armed men pulled up behind his car, told him he was under arrest, and dragged him into their vehicle.

“This was a question of some seconds only,” he recounted. The men then drove him for a few hours into the bush, where he was handed to jihadists.

“When I was handed over to the jihadists,” he said. “The man on my right said, ‘Do not be afraid; we are the good ones. We are from Al-Qaeda. We are not like the Islamic State who killed people like this. You have nothing to fear from us.’”

Thus began the German-born missionary’s year-long ordeal at the hands of Islamic militants in the deserts of Mali. [Continue reading at Vatican Radio…]

Book Review: International Broadcasting and its Contested Role in Australian Statecraft (Australian Institute of International Affairs)

As a middle power in an increasingly volatile and contested region, Geoff Heriot argues that Australian Governments need to be more strategic about their approach to international broadcasting. This is if they are to effectively tackle contemporary diplomatic and security challenges.

Geoff Heriot is a veteran of Australian journalism, and his recent book covers Australia’s late 20th century international broadcasting efforts and the role of Radio Australia in Australia’s statecraft. His is a timely and important intervention, for in bringing light to this aspect of the nation’s media history, Heriot also speaks deftly to the pressing security concerns facing Australia today. At a time when the importance of the Indo-Pacific region to Australia’s security is becoming increasingly apparent, Heriot urges Australian governments to recognise the opportunities inherent in the discursive power of its international broadcasting service.

Throughout his well-argued and persuasive work, based on what he describes as a “late career” doctoral project, Heriot makes the case that international broadcasting offers Australia the opportunity to use its soft power more strategically in the region. He argues that international broadcasting possesses “discursive power” and this power provides Australia the chance to both model the nation’s democratic values and, perhaps more importantly, to ensure that “its strategic narrative forms part of the regional discourse.” However, he maintains that successive Australian governments have little understood the strategic purpose of, and opportunities offered by, its international broadcasting service. This has not only led to a cycle of investment and disinvestment in Radio Australia, but a lack of the long-term planning and focus that is required to ensure Australia possesses the kind of technically capable, trusted, and culturally sensitive broadcasting service required in times of crisis or need. As Heriot has claimed elsewhere, “The cardinal rule when seeking to project the values and interests of our imagined community, the democratic nation-state, is to play the long game and do so with constancy.” [Continue reading…]

A hundred days of resilience, transformation and hope at VON, By Jibrin Baba Ndace (Premium Times)

Beyond the tangible structures and facilities, the true heartbeat of VON lay within its people.

In the hushed corridors of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), a narrative of change and renewed hope unfolded under the warm embrace of the October sun when I was appointed Director-General/CEO of the media agency by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR) on 20 October, 2023, marking the beginning of a transformative journey within the Nigerian international broadcasting corporation.

The handover ceremony from my predecessor, Mr Osita Okechukwu, was more than a ceremonial passing of the baton. Stepping into leadership on 23 October, 2023, the canvas of change began to take shape during my attendance of AFRICAST 2023 in Lagos. It was during this visit that I paid a visit to the Broadcasting House in Ikoyi and the Ikorodu Transmitting Station, which serve as poignant reminders of untapped potential, urging a commitment to revitalisation.

Returning to the heart of VON, the Corporate Headquarters in Abuja, told its own story — a tale woven with threads of promise and challenge. The deplorable state of infrastructure in Lagos reverberated through the echoing hallways of Abuja, creating a stark reality that demands immediate attention and a resolute commitment to transformation. [Continue reading…]

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (Part Two)

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–for the latest installment of his Photo Album guest post series:

Don Moore’s Photo Album: Costa Rica (Part Two)

by Don Moore

It’s been three months since the last time I put together one of these pieces because I was busy finishing my book, Tales of a Vagabond DXer [Note: SWLing Post Amazon affiliate link]. You may have seen the announcement about it here a few weeks ago. This series should appear more regularly in 2024 as I plan to concentrate on small writing projects for a while!

Back in August, we looked at five Costa Rican shortwave stations that I visited in 1990. This time I’m going to feature just one station, but a station with a very interesting story. My book has an updated and rewritten version of the article I wrote about it for Monitoring Times magazine in the early 1990s. But the book doesn’t have many photos as adding those significantly increases the price. So, here are the pictures and a little bit about the station.

This seven-and-a-half-watt transmitter was the first transmitter for TI4NRH, the first shortwave broadcast station in Latin America. It was built by Amando Céspedes Marín in Heredia, Costa Rica in 1928. Don Amando operated a small medium wave station and hoped that by using shortwave he could reach listeners in all of Costa Rica. Instead, he gained an audience all around the world. His little TI4NRH became one of the most popular radio stations for shortwave listeners throughout the 1930s until he shut it down at the beginning of World War Two. This portrait of Don Amando was made around that time.

I remembered reading about TI4NRH in an old-timer’s article, so while I was in Costa Rica I went to Heredia hoping to find someone who could tell me where the station had operated from. I wanted to get a picture of the building. Instead, I found that everything was still there in the dimly lit backroom of the family house. (The pictures are grainy as the room was very dark.) Don Amando had passed away in 1976 but his never-married daughter, Lydylia, still lived there and treated the room as a shrine to her departed father.

The Céspedes family house was on a side street a few blocks south of the main plaza in Heredia. The radio station was located in the middle section, behind the white door.

Plaque on the front door commemorating the building as the birthplace of radio in Costa Rica.

Financial support from listeners helped TI4NRH buy new transmitters and raise power. This 300-watt transmitter was the last one used.

Radio amateurs in the USA and Canada raised money to buy and ship this antenna tower to TI4NRH in the late 1930s.

Nothing was removed after the station closed down but the space became a storage room for the family. This is how it looked in June 1990.

The bottom of that original 7 ½ watt transmitter. Unfortunately, the photo came out very dark in the dimly lit room.

The walls were covered with yellowing 1930s amateur radio QSL cards.

This letter written by Arthur Kopf, an American working in the Panama Canal Zone, was the first report received by TI4NRH. That made it the first reception report ever written to a Latin American shortwave broadcast station.

Don Amando’s daughter Lydylia was the guardian of her father’s legacy.

A view showing the house and neighboring antenna tower.

TI4NRH was only a hobby for Don Amando. He made a living by operating a print shop and photography studio. With financial support from the Zenith Corporation, he published a monthly radio magazine (primarily in Spanish) for several years in the 1930s.

In 1928, Philadelphia DXer Charles Schroeder became the first North American DXer to log a Latin American SWBC station when he heard TI4NRH. He not only got a QSL for his reception, TI4NRH sent him a beautiful chair made out of Costa Rican tropical hard woods. The chair was sent in pieces with instructions for assembly and arrived in just twelve days. Mr. Schroeder passed away in 1956, but in 2005 I heard from Schroeder’s daughter, who still had the chair. She sent these photos.

Finding TI4NRH was like finding an unknown time capsule. It was one of the biggest highlights of both my DX career and my travels. And I always hoped to return. In the late 1990s I learned that Lydylia had passed away and that one of her nephews had moved into the house. Sometime around 2010 the antenna tower had become unsafe so the family had it torn down and sold for scrap. However, other than donating a few items to the city museum (something Lydylia had refused to do), the family continued to hold on to Don Amando’s legacy. In 2017, a group of Costa Rican radio amateurs visited the house and published their photos, which were much better than my old ones.

I would like to say that everything is still there for the next visiting DXers to see. But in looking for links to include in this piece I came across some very sad news. The house was demolished in July 2021. Apparently the next generation of the family (Don Amando’s great-grandchildren) had no interest in maintaining the old house and Costa Rica doesn’t have a good program to preserve historical sites. So the city of Heredia had the house torn down. The news article I found (which was very critical of the destruction) didn’t even know what had happened to the station memorabilia that had been in the house. So, unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending.

Kim Elliott: Why We Need “Shortwave 2.0”

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Many thanks to a number of SWLing Post contributors who share the following article written by our friend Kim Elliott for Radio World:

Why We Need “Shortwave 2.0”

by Kim Andrew Elliott

Debate about the future of shortwave broadcasting focuses on the correct observation that shortwave listening is no longer a mainstream activity in most of the world.

The future of shortwave broadcasting — “Shortwave 2.0” — will not involve any revival of those large audiences. Instead, it will be an activity of communications enthusiasts and professionals. They would comprise a reserve corps able to relay information to larger populations in their countries when newer media are blocked or otherwise become unavailable.

The beginning of the end of “Shortwave 1.0” was described in “Shortwave Broadcasting Begins Its Long Slow Fade,” an article I wrote in the 1995 World Radio TV Handbook. I noted the elimination, in the post-Cold-War media environment, of shortwave broadcasts in some languages, as well as some entire transmitting sites, e.g. Trans World Radio on Bonaire and Far East Broadcasting Company in California (KGEI). In my (then) role as audience research analyst at the Voice of America, I listed examples of declining shortwave audiences.

The really big chunk fell from the shortwave glacier six years later, when BBC World Service ended its English broadcasts to North America. In the following years, other international broadcasters followed, first dropping shortwave to North America, and eventually to other parts of the world. The aforementioned 1995 World Radio TV Handbook listed 27 European countries with English broadcasts on shortwave to North America. Now only Radio Romania International has shortwave English to North America.

The exodus from shortwave (for both international and domestic broadcasting) was due to competing media, including relays on FM stations in the target country, satellite broadcasting (mostly television) and, especially, the internet.

For the audience, internet content is easier and more reliable to receive. It also allows content to be received on demand, and text or video in addition to the audio to which shortwave was restricted. As an audience researcher, I could see in the datasets that audiences for international media were migrating from radio to internet-based media. [Continue reading at Radio World…]

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Pyongyang Radio appears to have halted broadcasting

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dennis Dura, who shares the following article from The Korea Herald:

N. Korea halts radio station known for sending coded messages to spies in Seoul (The Korea Herald)

North Korea is pressing ahead with measures to disband its inter-Korean organizations, apparently stopping a radio station previously used to send encrypted messages to its spies in South Korea.

As of Saturday, the North appears to have stopped broadcasting the state-run Pyongyang Radio and cut off access to its website.

The latest move comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered “readjusting and reforming” its organizations in charge of inter-Korean affairs during a key Workers’ Party meeting last month amid growing cross-border tensions.

Pyongyang Radio is known for broadcasting a series of mysterious numbers, presumed to be coded messages, giving directions to its agents operating in South Korea.

The North resumed such broadcasts in 2016 after suspending them in 2000, when the two Koreas held their first historic summit. [Continue reading…]

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Results of the 2023 SWL Contest

Radio 4 Continuity Announcers

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who writes:

While setting up to record BBC Radio 4 LW for the turn of the year using the U. Twente SDR receiver, I noticed the program in the final hour before midnight: “But First This …” It is about the jobs of Radio 4 continuity announcers and is a behind the scenes look into radio continuity. Those interested in how radio production works will find it interesting. It includes discussions on the reading of the Shipping Forecast, also known as the Shipping Bulletin, and not crashing the Greenwich Time Signal (the pips). There’s quite an amusing music and poetry item about the pips. Several of the continuity announcers, some of whom also read the news, take part including Neil Nunes, who frequent listeners to the World Service will recognize.

Here is the program description from the BBC Radio 4 website:

“Continuity announcers’ voices are at the heart of Radio 4 – they introduce programmes and bring us the news. But who are they? What does it take to do their job – from introducing The Archers to reading the Shipping Forecast? And what happens on those hopefully rare occasions when things don’t go according to plan? With contributions from more announcers than ever previously spotted in one place, and a special musical performance, countdown to the new year with the BBC Radio 4 announcers.”

The program is available to listen again here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001trdd

Might be worth a mention on the SWLing Post.

All the best
— Richard

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing this, Richard!

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New High Power Broadcast of VORW Radio International to Europe & Africa!

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Hello shortwave listeners! I wanted to share an exciting update about a new high power broadcast I’ll be doing for listeners in Africa, Europe and beyond!

Beginning Monday the 11th of December, 2023 and continuing every Monday – this radio program will be heard across Africa, Europe & Beyond from a high power transmitter in Issoudun, France.

The broadcast is 1 hour in length and I always consider it to be a light entertainment program. The aim of this radio show is to provide good music and occasional news commentary to listeners worldwide. Oftentimes, listener music requests are taken and played – and all are invited to participate.

Here is the broadcast schedule for this additional airing:

Mondays 1900 UTC – 11920 kHz – Issoudun 100 kW – Africa, Europe, Middle East

For this airing I will resume QSL verification of reception reports, there will be a new QSL every month!

Reception reports and feedback are most welcome at [email protected]

That’s all for today, I just wanted to let you all know that there’s a new airing out there if you’d like something to listen to!

73’s John

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