Category Archives: International Broadcasting

Radio Waves: AM Vehicle Act Passes Committee, iHeart Supports AM, Swan Island and Equatorial Guinea

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 and Tracy Wood for the following tips:

Senate Committee Passes “AM For Every Vehicle Act,” Sends It to Senate Floor (Radio World)

Committee gives the legislation a green light

On Thursday morning, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation officially passed the AM For Every Vehicle Act on to the Senate floor. The executive session was broadcast live and facilitated by committee chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat representing Washington state.

The ranking Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz, supports the measure, saying in a statement that “AM radio is vital to free expression and viewpoint diversity” and “allows Americans, especially conservatives, to communicate their points of view and help free speech flourish.”

The legislation was passed via a voice vote, and, while not every senator’s vote was recorded, the National Association of Broadcasters said Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan, asked that he be recorded as a ‘no.’” Michigan is home to the U.S. automaker industry, which opposes the AM For Every Vehicle Act. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which has a base in Michigan, recently said, “Congress has never mandated radio features in vehicles ever before.” It called the bill unnecessary. [Continue reading…]

“iHeart Is Still Focused on AM as a Medium” (Radio World)

Littlejohn and Mullinax describe recent projects to protect and extend its investment

At a time where the viability of the U.S. AM broadcast band has come under the microscope, what’s the prevailing attitude of iHeartMedia and the 250 AM properties it owns and operates?

Continue to invest, says Jeff Littlejohn.

“iHeart is still focused on AM radio as a medium,” said the company’s executive vice president of engineering and systems integration. “We see the importance AM has not only as an entertainment medium, but for news and information.”

Among other things, Littlejohn strongly believes in AM’s importance for emergency weather coverage. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in South Florida.

In addition to being an iconic AM signal dating to the 1920s, iHeartMedia’s news/talk 610 WIOD in Miami has received notoriety and awards — including regional recognition from the Associated Press — for its breaking news and weather coverage, notably during Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Wilma. [Continue reading…]

Notes about two Spanish language stations (Tracy Wood)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Tracy Wood, who writes:

I continue to enjoy the blog. Yes, those radio sets that appear in Spanish TV (and in the movies) are great! Lots of Grundigs, Philips, Telefunkens, and national brands.

Here are the two items

(1) Swan Island

At one time this was the home to Radio Swan, the US-funded anti-Castro clandestine radio station on AM and shortwave of the 1960s. Now Honduras wants to convert it to a prison island

https://time.com/6295724/honduras-islas-del-cisne-prison-island/

For more details see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Swan

(2) Equatorial Guinea

Thanks to WorldRadioMap for originally posting this audio link [note that this playlist must be downloaded and used with an audio streaming application]: https://rrsatrtmp.tulix.tv/tvgeradio/tvgeradio/playlist.m3u8

Yes. Radio Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial, Malabo, is now streaming on the Internet. The main language is Spanish but I suspect other languages may be heard. The hosting company (out of Atlanta) handles both their TV and radio streams. The TV channel’s website is https://tvgelive.gq/ but there is no radio-specific website yet.

As a reminder, the country’s other station is commercial – Asonga Radio. It is owned by the president’s son. Audio is at https://asongaradio.com/

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

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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:

A Coruña coast

Don Moore’s Photo Album: The Museums of Galicia

by Don Moore

Some of my favorite sites to visit while traveling are historical, marine, and military museums. I’ve always been interested in those subjects and sometimes those kinds of museums have a few old radios on display. That makes a nice bonus to the visit. Last year, I spent May and June traveling all over Spain (with some short excursions into neighboring countries). One of my favorite regions was Galicia, where I stayed for five nights in the capital of A Coruña and six days in a rural village to the east. And the museums of Galicia had some of the most interesting radio-themed items I’ve ever seen.

Galicia is that small region of northwestern Spain directly north of Portugal. It was part of the Celtic world (along with Brittany in France and the British Isles) and the coastline was home to Phoenician and Greek settlements. It later came under Roman rule along with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula.

A Coruña Fishing Boats

A Coruña Fish Market

Spanish is spoken everywhere but the people are proud of their native language, Galician or Gallego. The language looks and sounds like Portuguese with a lot of Spanish influence but is actually older than either of those. Some linguists believe that Portuguese was derived from Galician.

The rugged Galician coast is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen with its numerous bays, estuaries, steep hillsides, and rocky shore. Most of Spain is arid but Galicia is one of the rainiest parts of Europe so the countryside is green and lush. And because of the neighboring cold Atlantic Ocean, temperatures remain comfortable even when the rest of Spain (and places further north) are baking in the summer heat.

A Coruña City Hall

MOON RADIO

One of the first places I visited in A Coruña was the Museo Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnología on the west side of the harbor. The very first display in the museum is a piece of radio history like no other. In the 1960s NASA set up a network of communication stations around the world to maintain constant contact with the Apollo moon missions. The primary stations were located in rural California, near Canberra in Australia, and in the little village of Fresnedillas outside Madrid. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969 Madrid was facing towards them and received the first radio transmissions from the surface of the moon. This museum has one of several redundant radio racks that were used to receive that historic broadcast.

After visiting the museum I wandered uphill to Monte de San Pedro Park, the best place in A Coruña to view the city and harbor. Those heights were also once vital to the city’s defenses and the park contains several mothballed gun turrets built in the 1930s. Continue reading →

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BBC Kranji shortwave relay station to close July 16, 2023

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Many thanks to a number of SWLing Post contributors who have reached out about a report on AWR Wavescan regarding the closure of the BBC Kranji relay station in Singapore.

I contacted AWR Wavescan host, Jeff White at WRMI, and asked for any details he might have since I could not locate any press release from the BBC or Encompass.

Jeff shared the following notice from AWR Wavescan:

Another shortwave station is about to go off the air for good also. Encompass TV reports that the BBC relay station that Encompass operates in Kranji Singapore will cease operation as of July 16th, after many decades of service. This will result in a reduction of BBC English transmissions to South Asia. Some transmissions from Kranji will be moved to other shortwave transmitter sites.

Many thanks for the info, Jeff.

We’ll post more details about the closure as they become available.

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TX Factor Episode 29

Welcome to our new episode!

TX Factor Calling – TX date 8th July 2023

We’re beaming (almost) live across the airwaves with microwatts of broadband energy to bring you the long-awaited show 29 of TX Factor. In this programme we increase the power to a few tens of Watts when Bob, Dave and Noel head to the Wiltshire hills with a pair of Icom IC-905 all-mode transceivers to see what can be achieved.

Bob takes the TX Factor cameras to the heart of England to the UK’s last remaining shortwave transmission station and ramps up the power to a staggering 250 kilowatts. Woofferton, near Ludlow, is the home to some venerable Marconi senders from the 1960s still beaming programmes across the globe.

Oh, and there’s a free-to-enter draw – details below.

Click here to view on YouTube.

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Shortwave Modernization Coalition: Public comment period on new proposal

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Benn Kobb, who shares the following announcement:

The FCC has opened for public comment the Petition for Rulemaking of the
Shortwave Modernization Coalition.

The proposal would bring new private, non-broadcast digital stations to
the high-frequency spectrum.

As covered in Experimental Radio News, the Coalition members have
performed HF experiments over the last several years. Favorable FCC
action on the proposal would open the field to regular commercial
operations.

The FCC has assigned the petition number RM-11953. Comments are due in
30 days.

FCC Public Notice:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-394830A1.pdf

Petition:
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1042840187330/1

Benn Kobb

Experimental Radio News
https://www.experimentalradio.news

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Radio Waves: Sri Lanka DRM, Czech Radio, Ham Radio Ops Ready for Disaster, Space Pirates, FM Not Far Behind AM, and AM Hearing Live Today

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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 contributors Dennis Dura, David Iurescia, John Palmer, Gareth Buxton, and Mangosman for the following tips:

Sri Lankan Broadcaster Goes DRM Following Listeners’ Request (DRM Consortium)

The international service of the Sri Lankan Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) recently doubled its Tamil Service airtime to two hours, on 873 kHz AM (medium wave) from Puttalam transmitter. The new schedule is 0130-0330 UTC (7.00 am to 9.00 am IST). This is partly in response to individual efforts of listeners, many in the southern part of India, in Bengaluru. Introducing this change, Colombo International Radio also announced that shortly they are going to use DRM on 1548 kHz! This will be done by is using the old transmitter of Deutsche Welle located in the north of Sri Lanka at Trincomalee. The Sri Lankan public broadcaster has started airing the DRM announcement:

The publicity for the new DRM service is in full swing. See video:

Czech Radio centenary: Listeners send congratulations (Czech Radio)

On the occasion of Czech Radio’s centenary, we asked our listeners to let us know where they heard our special programme on that day in order to map Radio Prague International’s broadcast reach today. Here are at least some of the many letters and photos which you have sent us. Thank you to all our loyal fans.

George Jolly, who was listening to our special programme over the internet, wrote from Houston, Texas:

“Thank you so much for the special program today celebrating your 100 years of radio. If I were not so far away, I would surely visit you on Saturday. It means a lot to me that you continue the tradition of the ‘radio magazine’. Hearing the opera excerpt and other recordings from the past was wonderful!

“I love old music and old technology like radio, and I love that you are keeping their spirit alive and new again for today’s world. I am so grateful to celebrate your centenary with you from afar.”

Another listener from the United States is Timothy Marecki, who wrote us from New Port Richey in Florida: Continue reading →

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Don Moore’s Photo Album: Western Venezuela

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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: Western Venezuela

by Don Moore

I started this series several months ago with pictures of Ecos del Torbes and other stations in San Cristóbal, Venezuela. This time I want to take you to the other places I visited on that trip to Andean Venezuela in January 1995.

When I started DXing in the early 1970s, Venezuelans were the most commonly heard Latin American shortwave stations. The 90- and 60-meter bands were full of them and there were more than a few to be heard in the 49- and even 31-meter bands. But the Venezuelans began abandoning shortwave before other countries in the region and by the late 1970s their numbers had been considerably thinned. Only a handful remained in the early 1990s.

This radio dial [click to enlarge] goes back to a time when Latin American stations were found all over the radio bands.

One of the last Venezuelan stations to leave shortwave in the 1990s was Radio Valera in the busy commercial city of Valera.

For decades, Radio Valera was one of the best heard and most consistent Venezuelan stations on 60 meters. Roque Torres Aguilar, waving on the left side, was station manager at the time of my visit.

I’ve found listings in DX publications for their 4840 kHz frequency as far back as 1946.

I was given this 59th anniversary key chain when I visited Radio Valera in January 1995. So the station must have begun around 1935.

Station studio in 1995.

A second shortwave station in the state of Trujillo was Radio Trujillo in the nearby town of the same name. Broadcasting on 3295 kHz, they were one of the easier catches in the 90-meter band in the early 1970s but were gone by the late 1970s. Continue reading →

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