The Mighty KBC just notified me that they will move from 7,375 kHz to 9,925 kHz on Sunday, May 5th–returning to 7,375 kHz on Sunday, September 1st.
So, starting Sunday, May 5th 2013, you can tune in the Mighty KBC from 00:00 – 02:00 UTC on 9,925 kHz.
The host of Switzerland in Sound, Bob Zanotti.
For any of you who listened to Swiss Radio International (SRI) on shortwave radio, you’ll no doubt know the name of long-time radio presenter Bob Zanotti. For me, his deep, rich voice was synonymous with SRI.
What you may not know is that Zanotti hosts his own website called Switzerland In Sound. It is chock-full of up-to-date Swiss information, news (Tina Turner became Swiss?), interviews, thoughts, musings and a wealth of vintage recordings from SRI.
If you were a fan of The Swiss Shortwave Merry-Go-Round, you’ll be pleased to discover the many recordings he has of The Two Bobs (Bob Zanotti and Bob Thomann).
Bob also manages a Facebook page for Switzerland in Sound. If you’re on Facebook, I encourage you to join his group.
Check out Switzerland In Sound:
http://www.switzerlandinsound.com
Victory Avenue (Calea Victoriei), a major avenue in central Bucharest (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Today at 20:30 UTC, Radio Romania International’s signal on 11,745 kHz was quite strong, as it so often is. RRI is one of the few broadcasters that still target Europe and the eastern US on shortwave.
RRI is a treasure of a station, too, with true local flavor–Romanian news, music, and mini cultural documentaries. This Sunday broadcast features the program Inside Romania, Romanian Without Tears (a language program which always reminds me of the similarities between French and Romanian), DX Mailbag, and Roots.
Click here to download the full broadcast as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below. This recording features their interval signal before and after the broadcast:
If you enjoy Radio Romania International, I encourage you to send an accurate and descriptive reception report to: rri@rri.ro Maybe your letter will be featured on their DX Mailbag!
Mount Tavurvur in Papua New Guinea (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Monday morning, I was up earlier than usual and caught Radio Australia’s Tok Pisin (Pacific Pidgin Language Service) on 9,475 kHz.
I doubt many English-speaking SWLing Post readers will understand Tok Pisin if you’re hearing it for the first time, but as with other Pidgin languages throughout the world, Tok Pisin is a mixture of several languages: English, German, Malay, Portuguese and Austronesian languages. It has a comparatively simple structure and you might be surprised what you can understand if the topic shifts to something familiar. I’ve certainly enjoyed listening to it in the background as I work on other projects.
I recorded a full 90 minutes of the Tok Pisin service; you can download it directly by clicking here, or simply listen via the embedded player below:
(Source: BBC News)
Uncertainty about the BBC World Service budget as the corporation prepares to take on full funding of the service is “unacceptable”, MPs have warned.
Foreign Office funding for the service will stop in April 2014 when it will be paid for out of the licence fee.
The Foreign Affairs Committee said the World Service could not “plan properly” because the BBC had yet to issue an operating licence to define its budget.
[…]A World Service spokesman said the change in funding next April, when it will be integrated with the BBC’s domestic news services, “provides certainty and stability”.
But the committee of MPs said it did not see how the World Service could prepare when it would not know “either the priorities, targets or characteristics which have been set for it, or its budget” until a few months before the change came into force.
[…]The committee also warned that, while it was logical to withdraw shortwave radio in dwindling markets where audiences had access to the internet and TV, such services still had a place.
“The World Service must continue to take into account significant audiences in certain parts of the world, such as rural India and Africa, who currently rely on shortwave radio,” it added.
The committee’s report, which also covers the work of the Foreign Office and the British Council, also warns that the UK risks losing credibility if more senior diplomats are not fluent in a range of languages.
Read the full article at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22208426
Thanks for the tip, Andy.
Tokyo, Japan (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
For you listening pleasure: thirty minutes of NHK Radio Japan’s English language service.
This broadcast was recorded an hour ago, at 10:00 UTC on 9,625 (April 19, 2013). Though NHK has dropped their English language services into North America, you can still receive their broadcasts targeting other regions quite easily.
Click here to download the full recording, or simply listen via the embedded player below. note that I include a full five minutes of their interval signal:
Enjoy!
(Source: Heritage Foundation)
U.S. international broadcasting strategy again landed under congressional scrutiny in Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.
Representative Brad Sherman (D–CA) wanted to know why the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) ignored the congressional mandate to keep broadcasting to Pakistan in several local languages. In spite of a specific $1.5 million appropriation for broadcasting to Pakistan, everything has been cut except programming in Urdu. “You would not dream of broadcasting to Los Angeles in only one language,” said Sherman.
While Secretary of State John Kerry did not offer an explanation, the problems at the BBG cry out for a solution. The agency leadership time and time again has angered and frustrated Congress by ignoring its mandates to keep radio broadcasting lines open to areas of the world where free and dependable media do not exist. Instead, the broadcasting governors and the BBG bureaucracy are grappling with their own agenda and the impact of technological advances, with the result that the core mission gets short shrift.
In the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget request, the BBG accounts for $731 million, a not insignificant amount of funding. Yet at the same time, deep cuts in language services positions and broadcasting hours are proposed in the budget following already announced cuts resulting from sequestration.
[…]There is no doubt, though, that the BBG structure itself stands in dire need of overhaul. The nine-member, part-time board (on which the Secretary of State or his designate sits) is a poor mechanism for executive oversight of a complex broadcasting system, and board member terms are routinely allowed to expire without timely replacement. The most recent board meeting on April 12 was attended by just two board members.
A composite map of the world at night produced by NASA shows the vast areas of the globe—mainly Asia and sub-Saharan Africa—where there is no power grid to light up cities at night. Many of those areas, where reliance on Internet or television is impossible, are precisely the beneficiaries of U.S. international broadcasting. Let us not lose sight of that fact.
Read the full article on the Heritage Foundation website.
For those of you not familiar, note that the The Heritage Foundation is a US conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. whose mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”
Thanks, Ted, for the tip!