Radio Pravda dlya Rossii: A new crowdfunded shortwave program aimed at Russia

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andrea Borgnino, who notes on Twitter that there’s a new “uncensored” shortwave program targeting Russia. Andrea links to this crowdfunding site which describes the initiative and asks for support:

We are going to broadcast an uncensored program in Russian for people in Russia. The technical possibilities have already been clarified.

The internet is becoming more and more restricted and sometimes at risk for the Russian people.

Right now, uncensored news in Russia is absolutely essential. We draw our motivation from these experiences and see it as a social responsibility to act. The programs will be broadcast on shortwave. Ir is possible to receive that programm with the simplest Radio and the listener is not exposed to the risk of being tracked.

Technically everything is ready for the start, and it could start immediately.

In addition we have some journalistic partners with us to create a daily program of around 60 minutes in length. The program will be broadcast twice a day. Everyone works for free and even the studios will not earn any fee. The only thing we have to pay is the powerful transmitter. every fund is welcome [sic]

It appears this crowdfunding campaign started a couple weeks ago. Chris Greenway added this helpful info on Twitter:

This new station is Radio Truth for Russia (Radio Pravda dlya Rossii). It is hiring airtime on SW transmitters in Germany & Austria:

    • 0500 GMT on 9670 kHz (Mon/Wed/Fri)
    • 1500 GMT on 13600 (Tue/Thu/Sat)
    • 1900 GMT on 6070 & 9670 (Tue/Thu/Sat/Sun)

Times/freqs probably subject to change

Many thanks Andrea and Chris for the information.

Please note that none of us are involved in this initiative. It’s for this reason I can’t vouch for the information being broadcast; indeed, I don’t believe I even know the organizers. I’m simply sharing what we’ve learned about the initiative and schedule. 

Please feel free to comment if you can provide further insight and background. Thank you!

Update: According to @Radio22_HFthis is the YouTUbe channel associated with this project. Perhaps the organizers of this project can comment with details.

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Free Radio Skybird flies again on Sunday, April 17, 2022 via WRMI

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, DJ Frederick, who shares the following announcement:

I just want to report that a new broadcast from Free Radio Skybird will be heard this Sunday (April 17, 2022) at 2200 UTC via WRMI 9395 kHz – playing mostly “oldies”.

Thank you for the tip!

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Sam searches for the Radio Prague Forward Left interval signal

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Sam Ward, who writes:

I am looking for a nice studio version of the old Radio Prague Forward Left interval signal that they used during their communist days. I just like that interval signal very much, and I’d really love to have a nice clean copy of that famous sixties and seventies interval signal.

I know Arthur Cushen had a really nice studio version of that interval signal and I should have asked him for a copy, but we lost touch with each other, and then he passed away. What a truly amazing fellow he was.

Post readers: If you have a nice studio copy of the Radio Prague Forward Left interval signal, please comment. I would be happy to amend this post with the audio, share it with the SRAA, and make sure Sam gets a copy. Thank you!

And, Sam, you’re right: Arthur was an amazing fellow.

UPDATE 19 April 2022: Check out this post and recordings by Mike Barraclough which contain the interval signal.

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Radio Waves: Insomnia-Fueled Pirate, Cold War & High-Tech Tactics for Russia, PL-660 Panadapter, Women-Run Radio in Somalia, and Building an SDR Transceiver

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!


Meet the 68-year-old ‘bad-boy nerd’ behind this North Side pirate radio station (WBEZ)

If you’re driving through the greater Ravenswood area and tune your radio dial to 87.9 FM, you might just enter a sort of radio twilight zone. On tap? Old timey, crime-thriller radio dramas, complete with sleuthy melodramatic music, damsels in distress and classic radio sound effects – footsteps, doors slamming, the gun going off.

There are no call letters or DJs, just “audio noir” floating out over a two-square-mile sweet spot on Chicago’s North Side.

It’s all broadcast illegally out of a nondescript two-flat on a residential block. There’s a spindly antenna on the roof, visible mainly from the alley, and a 50-watt transmitter in the upstairs apartment. And there’s Bill, a retired computer and audio engineer who’s been operating this illegal station for some 15 years. He asked us not to use his last name for fear of “FCC prison.”

“People on the lakefront up in the high rises can hear it,” said Bill. “And they used to listen at Lane Tech somewhere on an upper floor. So it gets out a little ways, but not that far.”

Bill got into noir not because it’s gripping radio, but rather because it’s not. He has insomnia, and the plot lines from Dragnet and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar help him fall asleep. [Continue reading and listen to this piece at WBEZ.]

U.S. and Ukrainian Groups Pierce Putin’s Propaganda Bubble (NY Times)

U.S.-backed news outlets and Ukrainian activists use Cold War techniques and high-tech tactics to get news about the war to Russians.

WASHINGTON — Using a mix of high-tech and Cold War tactics, Ukrainian activists and Western institutions have begun to pierce the propaganda bubble in Russia, circulating information about the Ukraine war among Russian citizens to sow doubt about the Kremlin’s accounts.

The efforts come at a particularly urgent moment: Moscow appears to be preparing for a new assault in eastern Ukraine that could prove devastatingly bloody to both sides, while mounting reports of atrocities make plain the brutality of the Kremlin’s tactics.

As Russia presents a sanitized version of the war, Ukrainian activists have been sending messages highlighting government corruption and incompetence in an effort to undermine faith in the Kremlin.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded but independent news organization founded decades ago, is trying to push its broadcasts deeper into Russia. Its Russian-language articles are published on copies of its websites called “mirrors,” which Russian censors seek out in a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole. Audience numbers have surged during the war despite the censorship. Continue reading

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Inches Per Second: Bob’s massive collection of archived reel to reel recordings

Very recently, Bob Purse reached out to me through the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive. Bob is the owner and curator of the excellent Inches Per Second audio archive and blog.

Bob’s archive is all about sharing what essentially amounts to lost and found sound: reel to reel recordings he’s discovered at thrift stores, estate sales, in junk piles, etc.

One of Bob’s shelves chock-full of reel to reel recordings

Bob describes his passion for collecting these recordings in this post on WFMU’s blog.  I can say that he’s truly a kindred spirit as we both love taking recordings that would otherwise be lost forever and making them freely available online for everyone to enjoy.

Bob has kindly offered up the off-air shortwave radio recordings he’s collected and digitized over the years. We’ll be slowly adding these to the SRAA.

Many thanks, Bob, for sharing your recordings with the Shortwave Radio Audio Archive.

Post readers: I would highly recommend checking out Bob’s numerous recordings and notes on Inches Per Second!

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Alan Roe’s A22 season guide to music on shortwave (version 1)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alan Roe, who shares his A-22 (version 1) season guide to music on shortwave. Alan provides this amazing resource as a free PDF download:

Click here to download Music on Shortwave A-22 v1 (PDF)

Thank you for sharing your excellent guide, Alan!

This dedicated page will always have the latest version of Alan’s guide available for download.

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Frans experiments with the MFJ-1026 Noise Canceling Signal Enhancer

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Frans Goddijn, who writes:

“Last week I purchased the MFJ-1026 ‘noise canceling signal enhancer’ and I posted two blogs with video about it. Initially the device seemed as useless as it is good looking but then I found a configuration where the device is not only pleasant to have but also useful for radio listening.”

Here are Frans’ reports which he kindly shares from these two posts originally published on his blog, Kostverlorenvaart:

Part 1: MFJ-1026 deluxe noise canceling signal enhancer

Using a GRAHN antenna, (a VENHORST wire antenna for noise reference), the iCOM R8600 radio and optional bhi DSP audio noise canceling, trying to see what’s the best way to cancel noise — on the antenna entry point of the radio or at the speaker output end.

In this case the MFJ-1026 seems ineffective. The DSP at the audio output end works well and easy.

I have also tried two GRAHN antennas on the MFJ-1026, one for MAIN and one for AUX but that was also not noticeably effective yet.

I will also try the little whip antenna that MFJ supplied with the box. Further tweaking may turn out to be helpful on some other frequencies / signals.

Before installing the MFJ i used the little TECSUN H-501x to scan the room for any devices producing radio noise. It turned out that the two Apple Homepods sit in a dense cloud of radio noise, the Macbook Pro also radiates noise, EVE smart plugs controlling lights also produce radio noise, two little label printers s well and the HP printer/scanner too. So I moved those to the other end of the toom or to another room. Continue reading

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